No matter how much time had passed since, he would still remember that day with unsettling clarity. The moment when he stepped outside, exiting a marketplace with his mother and youngest brother after a brief shopping trip, when suddenly everything had just simply felt wrong.
There was no great disaster, the skies did not split in twain nor did the ground tremor and crack as if something unspeakable had awoken beneath the earth. No, it was as if something had brought the entire world to a sudden halt without any prior warning.
Not a single soul could move nor make a sound in the face of a mounting, monumental dread. Not one of them had the time or wherewithal to even begin to understand why exactly they felt something important be inexplicably thrown off its axis. No last words could be exchanged when darkness settled, existence itself being swathed in a deep, fathomless burial shroud.
The last thing he saw was his mother's trembling eyes before oblivion claimed him.
The end of the universe was a cold, noiseless, merciless thing.
With a mere blink, he found himself standing in front of a forest. The night sky was dark yet clear in contrast to the oppressive pall that had permeated the bright, midday sky of his own world.
He knew for certain his world was gone, although he couldn't even begin to fathom a reason why, or even better how. He knew that this wasn't some nightmare, but a waking reality and that was far worse. He knew with such an impossible certainty that it only made the stark realization he had lost everything imaginable in one single, silent instant even more horrific.
There was a pause... before a wail of pure anguish tore from the depths of his being and shattered the tranquil quiet of the forest around him such that entire flocks of birds hastily flew away. Grief unlike anything he had felt before came crashing down, becoming an almost physical weight that dragged him to his hands and knees. The grass beneath his fingers twisted and bent when he desperately clutched blades of green by the fistful as if it was the last thing holding him together. Dirt packed beneath his nails and he nearly ground his teeth into meal, yet it was totally ignored when overwhelming heartbreak took up the entirety of his consciousness.
He didn't know how long he stayed like that, laying in a pathetic heap and screaming his heart out as if trying desperately to purge the sheer pain of this monumental loss from within him. Or in the vain hope that his cries would reach out to forces beyond so that he could beg them to bring his home back from nothing until either they obliged or he lost his voice and the stars died out all over again, whichever came first. But, by the damning lack of response, no such forces could or would hear him.
Whether it was minutes or hours, it still felt like an eternity before his overwhelming emotions had finally let up for the moment and he was allowed to move. He pushed himself up from the near-ruined grass and stood, yet there was still enough weight along his shoulders that he couldn't stand quite as tall as he'd prefer. He still struggled to think clearly, memories of familiar faces now gone threatened to consume all remaining thought and make him fall apart all over again, but he regained enough presence of mind to take in his new surroundings.
He felt a shiver force its way up his spine, his eyes – left bloodshot from an abundance of tears – darted over his shoulder only to meet dilapidated stone. He blinked as they took in the sight of what appeared to be the back of an old church, broken and seemingly abandoned, but nonetheless standing tall, as if in defiance to the unstoppable march of time. The walls were cracked, worn to near crumbling, and covered in moss. Broken shards of glass which used to be windows had long since calcified. It made for an altogether haunting sight.
Heart still thundering in his chest and knees a little weak, simple running shoes slightly dragged along the ground as he trundled around the old church in search of its entrance. The thick mire of grief that had threatened to drown him momentarily – mercifully – given way to a newfound wariness.
When he found the front doors of the ruined church, the wood also rotted and brass door handles covered in a film of patina from years of oxidation, he hesitated for a minute or two. He had zero clue what lay within and there was every likelihood that a potential threat was just on the other side… but all the same he took hold of the doorknobs, grimacing at the feeling of the patina rubbing uncomfortably beneath his palms and fingers, and pushed the doors open. It took some amount of effort to do, the old hinges practically shrieking in clear protest as they were finally forced to turn after years, perhaps even decades of disuse and the bottoms of the doors scrapped against the decrepit flooring, but he still managed to open the doors wide in a grunt of effort.
He trudged inside, the church's interior being predictably in as much disrepair as it was without and beams of moonlight shining through the broken windows while the fetid air caused him to wrinkle his nose. Many of the pews were still upright, but a number of them were overturned or merely shoved out of place, statues of either saints or angels were cracked and crumbling, and a weathered monument in the shape of a cross stood almost centerstage among the mess. Shards of glass were scattered along the floor, forcing him to watch his footing, alongside a number of trinkets long abandoned. He wondered where their owners were now, if they were even alive.
That thought caused him to screw his eyes shut and take a shuddering, fortifying breath. No, don't think about that now, not yet, he urged himself.
The nightly cold, deathly silence, and the sheer lack of life beyond himself certainly didn't help, but he powered on all the same.
Walking among the pews and shattered glass, he took in the poor state of this old house of worship when he spotted a full-body mirror. Its reflective surface was cracked, a stone having apparently once impacted it, but it remained surprisingly intact. Approaching the mirror, he stared deep into his reflection and took in his own sorry state.
A tall young man with tired green eyes stared back at him behind the lenses of perfectly round glasses and his shoulder-length hair, a smooth and healthy brown like tree bark, was pulled back and tied by a cord of leather into a short ponytail that settled against the nape of his neck. The pale skin of his youthful face was bathed in moonlight in a way that made him appear almost as a ghost, a comparison that only served to remind him of his current predicament and worsen his already horrible mood.
His eyes turned down, the paleness of his face offset by the deep black of the cashmere trench coat he still wore over a dark blue polo shirt and gray pants. He choked up and rapidly blinked fresh tears from his eyes as he wrapped his own arms around himself.
The coat used to belong to his mother, who gifted it to him one night on his birthday. It still smelled like her, tangerine and vanilla orchid, and it kept him wonderfully warm even in the coldest weather. Combined with its weight, to him it felt like she was hugging him.
"Happy birthday, hun."
When thinking of his mother, he slowly slipped a trembling hand into an outside pocket. He choked up again when his fingers curled over polished metal and he pulled out a gleaming, silver pocket watch that fit comfortably in the palm of his hand, having taken it with him when he had to leave his phone behind to charge. The hands still moved and the surface, bearing Roman numerals, was empty in the center, allowing its holder to see the gears and mechanisms that lay within turning in a satisfying display of synchronicity. Curiously, the hands were positioned to show that it was nine thirty-seven instead of twelve twenty-eight as it had originally been... before the world ended. He realized then that his pocket watch was somehow set to show the time for this world instead of the time for his homeworld.
But that realization was secondary compared to the knowledge that the pocket watch used to belong to his father, who gave it to him one Christmas morning and even went so far as to make a new chain himself when the old one went missing. It was practical and purely analogue, something that would always help him keep track of things when all else fell apart. Holding it in his hands, still ticking away, and even the fact that it now told this world's time instead made him feel like dear old dad was still looking out for him.
"Merry Christmas, son."
He clutched the pristine timepiece close, the handmade chain coiled around his fingers as he fell to his knees again. His sobs echoed off ruined walls and crumbling steeples in a way that sounded haunting, as if the ghost fettered to this lonely place was himself. Yet, as alone as he was physically, he took solace in that he still had these gifts among the countless others lost to the void. One to keep him warm and one to keep him focused.
Gifts that were in turn tangible, undeniable proof that the parents of one Amity Alexander Arkwright existed. Proof that his mother and father were still there for their lost, grieving son.
Proof that, even beyond the literal end of the universe, they loved him.
After another few minutes of breaking down in an abandoned church, Amity took the time to look around again in order to discern why exactly this place felt so damn familiar to him.
He was finally clued in when a glint of dull silver had caught his eye among the other discarded belongings that littered the floor. Gingerly plucking the object from the ground, Amity turned what appeared to be a kind of coin over and around, examining its dirtied surfaces.
Judging by the number 100 and what looked like kanji, Amity had guessed that between his fingers was a single one hundred yen coin. Which meant that Amity had been thrown into not only another world, but another version of Earth. Specifically, another version of Japan if the other yen coins and banknotes scattered about the spot was any indication.
Ruined church, yen lying around... he needed more clues.
Amity's eyes scanned each piece of litter in the hopes of finding something that might indicate where exactly in Japan he was, something like a passport or...
A ticket! Amity snatched up what appeared to be a train ticket, tattered and waterlogged, and immediately took in its contents. From a sea of kanji, a single name stood out in English:
KUOH
...
... what?
That... that's not possible. That shouldn't be possible. Kuoh wasn't real.
Suspicion mounting, Amity dropped the old ticket back onto the ground and ventured over to the broken cross monument, clear intent in his eyes. If this place was what he thought it was...
Amity pressed a pretty obvious button on the monument's pedestal and watched incredulously as the monument slid over to the sound of grinding stone, revealing a set of old stairs leading down to what he assumed was the secret room hidden beneath the church. He thought about walking down the stairs, just to be certain that this wasn't some joke, but he didn't. As far as Amity was concerned, this was more than enough proof of where he truly was.
"I'm in Kuoh..." Amity muttered in abject disbelief.
Which meant that, for some inexplicable reason, Amity had been thrown into the world of Highschool DxD. His home universe had literally ended, he had lost everything and everyone he'd ever known and loved, and the powers that be decided to toss him into an anime world for it all.
Honestly, that kind of pissed him off.
"Is this a joke?" Amity hissed to himself before it turned into a roar. "Lose everything and everyone I love and then get shunted into a fucking anime?! What a load of shit!"
Everything and everyone... he pushed the memories away for now. Amity would properly mourn for them later once he regained his bearings, though he hoped that they at least got a second chance like he did. He hoped they all did.
His youngest brother especially. He wasn't even ten years old yet.
"God, sink me," Amity gritted out as he dusted off a spot in one of the pews before sitting down.
However, the subject of God in particular reminded Amity that, in DxD, He was the one that created the Sacred Gear System as a means for humanity to defend itself from the supernatural forces of this world before He'd kicked the bucket near the tail end of the Great War between the Three Factions. Which then resulted in the System going haywire, various restrictions to fail, and for Sacred Gears to evolve beyond their set functions to the point where a handful would grow into godslaying superweapons.
"I wonder..." Amity mused as a thought struck him.
Amity was curious, but he seriously doubted God's System would even notice him regardless of its current state. He was an outsider in every sense of the word, he wasn't born here and he had absolutely no native point of origin beyond spontaneous appearance through means that had once seemed impossible even by the frankly absurd standards of this world's supernatural elements. That and Amity didn't think himself particularly lucky but he tried anyway, he didn't have much to lose.
"How did they do it again?" Amity mumbled to himself. "Have a strong enough desire?"
Amity closed his eyes and focused as best he could. It was never quite stated what shape the desire had to take, just that it had to exist and that it was strong enough.
But what exactly did Amity desire most?
Amity's brow creased as he pondered this. He... he wanted to be an author. He grew up on works of incredible fiction from Tolkien to Paolini, Rowling to Doyle. He grew up on many mythological tales from Greek to Norse and even Egyptian. Grew up playing games rich with their own lore, like The Elder Scrolls, Dungeons and Dragons, Dark Souls, and Cyberpunk. To say nothing of the amount of anime he watched since his teens.
Then he got into fanfiction, wanting to create his own unique spin on these wonderful worlds and their memorable characters. When Amity developed his writing skills throughout his high school years, he hoped to make his very own world, his own characters that lived and struggled as any real human, and he hoped that his own works would inspire others to do the same. Just as he had been by those before him.
Amity also wanted to be an artist. When he wasn't writing, Amity was drawing and sketching whenever he fancied. He was always greatly impressed by the things other people could bring to life on a simple canvas and he endeavored to try it himself. Characters of repute, artifacts of significance, majestic locales whose grandeur couldn't quite be contained even within a set frame. He was particularly fond of drawing exotic monsters, dragons to sphinxes, chimera to manticores...
Amity had found his calling. He desired, above all, to create.
Amity's eyes shot open when he felt an unmistakable tug deep within himself and he shivered when a rush of energy washed over him, although leaving him feeling particularly drained. The image of a specific monster from his musings had suddenly become impossibly clear and movement in his peripheral vision compelled Amity to turn his gaze to his right.
His own shadow, cast from moonlight, began to shimmer in a way that Amity could only describe as unnatural. His shadow lengthened, joining a myriad of other shadows near his vicinity and coalescing into an undulating river of liquid darkness.
Amity, already in sheer disbelief at what was happening, nearly jumped out of his skin when something emerged from the deep.
Smooth, golden scales upon a distinctly hooded, serpentine head glimmered in the moonlight as slitted eyes like drops of amber peered deep into Amity's own evergreen ones, forked tongue flitting out as the creature regarded him. It crept across the floor on cloven hooves attached to the golden, spotted upper torso of a leopard, though it was jarringly silent where Amity expected clacking sounds to resound throughout the empty church. The spots on its leopard's torso faded as it transitioned into the haunches of a lion yet still carried on hooved hind legs, a long tail with thick black fur at its end swished about lazily.
Amity stared in abject wonder at the creature before him, knowing exactly what it was and also somehow knowing intuitively that it wasn't about to eat him. Instead, it stalked closer and eyed him curiously as Amity began to lay on his side along the pew, the drain he felt from earlier becoming stronger and his eyes growing heavier by the second. He was... so tired all of a sudden, yet Amity couldn't help the amazed smile that crept along his face while the creature lowered its serpentine head to get a closer look at the human before it.
Amity could only let out a single awed whisper before sleep claimed him.
"A Questing Beast..."
When the first rays of sunlight pierced through the many gaps in the church's structure, Amity woke with a start before the glare forced him to screw his eyes shut. Taking a few deep breaths and regaining his bearings after being momentarily disoriented, he shifted his head to one side in order to avoid the glare and opened his eyes again to take in his surroundings. Amity noted the crumbling steeples and cracked pillars that loomed high above him... and he realized with great sorrow that what he had experienced the night before wasn't a nightmare or fever dream. He was in Kuoh and his homeworld no longer existed.
He was alone, well and truly.
Amity was pulled from this sobering realization when a serpentine head entered his sight, each golden scale shining brilliantly when the sunlight hit them at an angle. Slitted amber eyes peered down at Amity while its head cocked to the side.
Amity blinked lamely back at the Questing Beast that had apparently decided to stay with him for the night, perhaps even guarding the young man as he slept rather than simply having him as a midnight snack.
But when he remembered how exactly the Questing Beast had made its appearance, Amity's eyes widened and he hastily sat up from the pew he slept on. The Beast easily shifted its head out of his way while Amity winced, his body aching from having slept on a hard surface for a long time. Pulling out his pocket watch, he checked the time.
Nine in the morning.
Nodding absently to himself, Amity stuffed the timepiece back in his pocket.
"Alright, let's review," Amity said to himself as he regarded the Questing Beast that lay just next to him. "I imagine a distinctively supernatural creature, followed by a spectacular drain on my energy, and then the imagined creature spawning from my own shadow."
Amity tentatively reached a hand out, and his fingers slid along the Questing Beast's scales. It didn't pull back or bare its fangs in warning and in fact leaned into his touch, letting out a content if oddly distorted rumbling sound that rattled Amity's bones.
Amity couldn't help but smile fondly, a strong and majestic monster of yore that could probably tear him apart in an instant and yet here he was petting the damn thing like it was an oversized house cat. And it let him. Yet Amity couldn't help but doubt that the Beast had simply decided to humor him after deeming him perfectly harmless.
Mental image, energy drain, emerging from shadows, far too friendly with him...
Amity's eyes narrowed as a hypothesis formed in his mind. But there was no way, right?
Standing resolutely from his seat, Amity let his hand fall away from the Questing Beast's head and looked it in the eyes. The Questing Beast regarded him before instantly hauling itself onto its hooves in such a smooth manner despite its ungainly appearance that it threw Amity off for a bit.
Blinking once and deciding on something simple, Amity nodded to the beast. "Sit."
To Amity's astonishment, combined with a mounting suspicion and no small amount of disbelief, the Questing Beast followed his order immediately. Planting its leonine haunches on the ground while its tail swept across the floor and kicked up dust, the Questing Beast peered down and stared unquestioningly back into the human's eyes.
Amity silently gaped back at it for a second, his hypothesis already becoming a conclusion faster than he could keep up, but he regained his bearings and tried something else.
Stand, Amity deliberately thought without speaking.
If only one could see the utterly poleaxed expression on Amity's face when the Questing Beast stood on its hooves just as quickly, still staring down at him and apparently entirely unbothered with the rather odd orders given to it by a creature that it should've deemed as, for all intents and purposes, far lesser than itself.
"There's no fucking way," Amity muttered to himself, the Questing Beast cocking its head in response.
Strong mental image, drain on his energy, emerging from shadows, and a supernatural creature both friendly and obedient where (as far as Amity was concerned) it otherwise should've eaten him alive...
One more test.
Amity turned to look at his own shadow and concentrated, bringing the image of a creature much simpler than a Questing Beast to the forefront of his mind. He focused as best he could, hoping to draw upon those same feelings from the night before that, if Amity was right, brought the Questing Beast to life in the first place.
To his surprise, Amity felt a much weaker tug and a much smaller rush of energy as his shadow rippled like a pool of ink along the floor. A lupine monster emerged, covered in course black fur and spurs of bone jutting out from within, an ivory mask shaped like the beast's skull and bearing red markings was set over its head while its eyes burned with an infernal light. A black smoke permeated the monster and it let out a loud, hellish bark that bounced off the walls of the old church, resulting in flocks of birds to desperately fly away.
The Questing Beast regarded this new creation before seemingly dismissing it and turning its attention back to the human, which Amity didn't find surprising at all.
After all, how could a single Beowolf possibly be a threat it?
Amity could only stare slack-jawed at the monster that he now knew with certainty he brought into existence, one that was based off the Creature of Grimm from the animated series RWBY. But there was only one thing in the world of Highschool DxD that could possibly allow him to spontaneously create monsters born of his imagination and the shadows around him.
"Annihilation Maker," Amity whispered incredulously.
Annihilation Maker was a very special Sacred Gear that granted its wielders the unprecedented ability to instantly create and control living monsters based entirely off their imagination, molding them into any shape and size while fitting them with just about any attribute or proficiency they could think of, even if it might not otherwise be physical possible. The fact that he somehow even had a Sacred Gear of any sort to begin with was absurd enough because, as far as he was concerned, Amity shouldn't have even been a blip on the System's radar.
But this... this was ludicrous! Annihilation Maker wasn't just any Sacred Gear, it was one of the esteemed and highly-coveted Longinus, a small collection of Sacred Gears that were particularly unique and incredibly powerful. More than that, Annihilation Maker was considered special even among the Longinus and widely regarded as one of the strongest Gears period.
But to Amity, who had spent hours brainstorming its potential with his friends back home, it may as well be the single most devastating, versatile, and convenient weapon to possibly exist.
After all, this was the Sacred Gear that could do just about anything. Combat? Summon a hoard to overwhelm the opposition. Utility? Make living tools for any situation. Survival? A creature with a wide body that could also produce heat could keep you warm and sheltered in the wilderness while another hunted for food. Transportation? Ride on a creature's back that can sprint on land, fly through the air, or swim underwater. Communication? Create a creature with telepathic capabilities, real-time translation, or could decipher written languages. Quality of life? Have a number of smaller creatures to help do chores at virtually zero cost.
This was the Sacred Gear that could do it all... and everyone else knew it too.
Which made wielders like Amity either far too valuable or far too much of a potential threat to be left alone.
Amity's expression went blank as he rolled that particular slice of information pie around in his head while only now remembering that he was in a world where various supernatural factions existed.
Supernatural factions that each had their own political agendas and would stop at pretty much nothing to get their hands on him for the near-unstoppable superweapon he now possessed.
...
"Son of a bitch!"
Amity held his head in his hands and paced back and forth while cursing a blue streak at the dawning realization that he could essentially kiss any opportunities at a relatively normal life, even in this new world, goodbye. Though, to the credit of both the Questing Beast and the Beowolf, they merely patiently observed their creator having his meltdown and swearing up a hurricane in the middle of an abandoned church like a lunatic.
Thankfully no one sapient was there to witness this moment of madness for themselves. That would've been embarrassing.
"Fucking... fine," Amity conceded, though he continued to pace while trying to get his thoughts in order. "Fine! I can work with this. Just gotta... play my cards right, is all."
If Amity was to be frank with himself, if he wanted to stand even a semblance of a chance at surviving in this world, then he had to be very smart and very careful moving forward. He couldn't exactly afford to be a simpleton when he'd been tossed unceremoniously into a world positively teeming with beings that could potentially sink countries all while having one of said world's most prized weapons of mass destruction dumped onto his lap and essentially just being told "good luck" by a system that should've ignored him.
And there was just no way the factions will ignore him either. Amity knew for absolute certain that it was only a matter of time before the factions would be clued into his existence and they would immediately begin making moves to seek him out, whether to bring him into their fold or kill him off if he proved too bothersome to deal with. Either way, they'd at least try and make sure to deny other factions a chance to get their hands on him.
"'Cuz if there's one thing pretty much all the factions have in common," Amity ranted bitterly to himself, "it's that they're a bunch of fucking magpies that can't say no to anything shiny."
Amity, having managed to take off some of the edge, approached his Questing Beast and softly stroked its scales in the hope that would help to calm himself. The Beast let out another contented yet distorted rumble, tilting its serpentine head this way and that beneath Amity's hands.
Thankfully it did help to an extent as Amity's body let go of some of the tension and his thoughts became a little less frantic. With the existence of the factions and their want for powerful people to have among their ranks in mind, Amity weighed his options as to his next courses of action.
Flying under the radar and living life among the mundane simply wasn't feasible, what with having such a powerful Sacred Gear in his possession yet having absolutely nothing in the way of official records that could trace him back to a point of origin. He wasn't born in this world, so he didn't have a birth certificate to his name and, while Amity did have his wallet on him, neither his California state ID nor his medical card were native to this world. Amity had also never been to any foreign country before in his life, so he didn't even have any passports and that presented its own list of problems when the place he had been dumped into was fucking Japan.
Amity's hands fell away from the Questing Beast and he moved onto the Beowolf, running his fingers through rough, tar-like fur that seemed to absorb the sunlight while the Beowolf panted and wagged its tail in response. It was a strange sight, all things considered.
From a legal standpoint, Amity simply didn't exist (which to be fair was at least partially true up until last night), yet that only served to make his presence far more obvious than it didn't. An empty search history was more suspicious than a full one, as the joke went. And despite being a good storyteller and a somewhat decent liar on top of having a good poker face, Amity didn't have any of the resources or connections that would be needed to fabricate a background that could be reasonably maintained while also holding up against any amount of scrutiny (supernatural or otherwise).
So, with all that said, going underground or blending in with the crowd wasn't on the table for him. Not now, at least.
At the same time, Amity wasn't quite comfortable with the idea of admitting to anyone he was from another universe that had just recently been snuffed out of existence without any clear explanation and that he was, in just about every sense of the word, an outsider. At best they might try to prod him for knowledge that, with how completely normal his homeworld was in comparison to theirs, would probably be next to useless to them. At worst they'd turn Amity into their experiment since, as far as they were concerned, he might just be the key to unlocking interdimensional travel and that presented far too many opportunities for anyone to simply dismiss offhand. But if it meant that they would use their own resources to help him account for his glaring lack of a native history, then he'll tell them so long as they kept their probes to themselves.
Regardless, the way he saw it, if Amity wanted to begin consolidating his power (and goodness knows he has to with what's out there) while being relatively secure then he would have to join up with someone sooner or later no matter how he felt about it. The supernatural factions would never leave him alone, he couldn't possibly hide from them forever, and he really had nowhere else to go. But if any one of them wanted Amity in their corner then he'd at least try and have it be on his own terms.
So, who to choose-
An audible gurgling from his gut derailed Amity's train of thought, his brows furrowing and lips pressed into a thin line.
He'd figure things out as soon as he had something to eat.
But... where would he go to find food?
Not for the first time, Amity found himself a bit out of his depth. He remembered the idea of having one of his creations go out and hunt food for him... but Amity didn't quite know how to prepare whatever game they brought to him.
"Fuck, I really should've committed those survival videos to memory."
Thankfully, he wasn't far from the town proper so Amity could head down to Kuoh and take a look in a convenience store for some breakfast, although he wasn't entirely sure if the loose yen lying around would be enough to buy anything.
But it also wouldn't be a good idea to go around town entirely penniless, so Amity immediately began to pick up as much yen as he could find in his immediate vicinity.
As for any other yen he couldn't see that might be lying around.
Amity turned to his shadow and concentrated on an image inspired from his childhood. An internal tug, a wave of energy, and the sudden rippling of his shadow heralded the emergence of his third ever creation.
It was a rodent-like creature that seemed positively tiny in comparison to the Questing Beast and the Beowolf, who both stared at their newest companion curiously. It had sleek black fur and a long, somewhat beaked snout reminiscent of a platypus while its stubby tail was covered in feathers.
He had created a Niffler, a magical creature featured in the Harry Potter series that was well known for their uncanny, if annoying, ability to somehow get their little paws on just about anything shiny, no matter how well secured or hidden they were. They also had pouches on their bellies that were much bigger on the inside and allowed them to safely store any number of the pretty baubles they tended to pilfer.
But this one would follow his commands and not steal anything if he didn't want it to.
Amity smiled fondly at the critter as he approached it. Crouching down, he scooped up his newest creation in his right hand while the Niffler's beady little eyes stared back at him.
"Hey little buddy," Amity greeted before holding up a yen coin and yen note. "I need you to scour this church for as many of these and others like them as you can find, then bring them to me. Can you do that?"
To Amity's surprise, the Niffler took one look at the coin and note held in Amity's fingers and sniffed at it a couple times before nodding at him. Springing from his palm and landing on the floor with a surprising amount of grace, the Niffler scampered about the ruined church much faster than Amity had thought its little legs could carry it while the Questing Beast and the Beowolf watched it go.
Amity blinked as the Niffler squeezed itself through a sizable crack in a nearby wall before letting out an amazed huff and taking a seat on a nearby pew to wait.
It took less than a minute and a half for the Niffler to return and Amity was pleasantly surprised to see how much it had turned up with after it had dumped a pile of yen coins and notes of varying values from its pouch.
Only the second day and Amity could already tell Annihilation Maker was going to pay dividends in the future.
Added up with the yen he had found on the floor, Amity counted the combined total to about four thousand and fifty yen. If he remembered correctly, this amount would be around twenty-five to twenty-six US dollars, at least back in his home world. If that were the case here as well, then it wasn't a bad sum, all things considered. Hopefully it was, Amity really didn't want to resort to stealing.
It'd be terribly easy, too, what with the fun-sized master thief in his possession.
But regardless, Amity pocketed the yen and stood from the pew before turning his attention to the Niffler in his palm. "Thank you, you did great," Amity praised with a grin while gently petting the Niffler on its lightly feathered head, earning him a pleased and absolutely adorable warbling sound from the creature.
Money in hand and ready to get moving, Amity turned to his other creations.
While he could mostly get away with having the Niffler by hiding it in his pockets, Amity knew he couldn't just strut about the place with a mythological monster and some kind of wolf from Hell at his back, so he'd have to "recall" them if he didn't want to draw attention to himself.
Amity looked to the Questing Beast and the Beowolf while they stared back, ready and waiting to follow their creator's will. Amity concentrated on them while he envisioned the "doors" to what he was going to refer to as Annihilation Maker's "inner realm" opening to bring them back in.
"To me," Amity intoned.
Immediately, Amity's shadow rippled as a pool of liquid black, this time almost seeming to sink into itself. The Questing Beast and the Beowolf rapidly dissolved into masses of inky mist that snaked through the air and dove into the whirlpool of darkness within his shadow, leaving a fading trail of smoke in their wake.
All at once, as the whirlpool settled and his shadow turned to normal, Amity suddenly felt an incredible surge of energy welling up within him. His heart rate picked up a bit and he had to take a few breaths to steady himself.
"Ooh, wow!" Amity exclaimed before letting out a shaky laugh. "What a rush!"
But these fluctuations in energy from whenever he used the Sacred Gear got him thinking. When Amity had created the monsters, he felt something like a drain from within him and he grew more tired. Yet when he recalled his creations it filled him with a newfound energy.
Or, perhaps, it returned energy.
Amity also remembered the Questing Beast's creation from last night had resulted in him being substantially drained and then promptly passing out. That wasn't too surprising, considering that it was his first time using Annihilation Maker, the Beast's chimeric nature, and the slew of powers that he had likely given it without meaning to. Conversely, the Beowolf and the Niffler were much simpler and thus weren't nearly as taxing. Of course, him passing out could also have been the result of his Sacred Gear activating for the first time and then further compounding the inherently costly nature of the Questing Beast's creation.
"If that's the case, then it costs a resource like my stamina in order to create a monster, but when I recall it, the spent stamina is refunded back to me," Amity remarked. "That and the more complex the creation, the more I have to spend in order to make it. So it's not as limitless as it seemed in the anime."
Still, that didn't defeat the fact that Annihilation Maker was the most busted thing to exist in Amity's humble opinion, but at least there were some clear limitations that Amity could work towards overcoming or working around in new and exciting ways-
Amity was abruptly pulled from his thoughts when his stomach growled again.
"Right, breakfast," Amity said to no one in particular. "I'll dick around with my Gear later."
The trek from the abandoned church to the town proper was a tad long, but nothing terribly time-consuming.
It was around nine thirty in the morning on a Friday, which meant that most citizens were either in school or at work, so Amity found less people walking the streets as he was. The few he did see only offered him a curious glance before moving on and he didn't quite blame them, he was a relatively tall foreigner they'd never seen before wearing a black trench coat. Of course he'd be the odd one out.
That aside, it didn't take much time at all to find a nearby convenience store, or konbini as they were called if Amity remembered correctly. He was honestly rather excited to see what he might find, given Amity had never actually been to Japan before, nor had he even left America for that matter. Travelling to distant lands beyond the States had seemed like a pipe dream, so for it to actually happen felt pretty surreal.
And it only came at the cost of literally everything he ever known and loved...
Amity took another breath and worked desperately to keep his facial expression at least neutral. He really didn't want to start tearing up in front of a damn convenience store.
When he finally did pull himself together, Amity soldiered on and was about to head inside before he stopped himself when he remembered something vitally important.
The language barrier.
Amity knew a couple of vocal phrases at best, but he'd never actually dedicated himself to learning Japanese, which meant that he wouldn't be able to read any signs or labels nor would he even remotely understand what the locals would say to him.
Thankfully, he had a handy dandy Sacred Gear that should be able to solve this problem.
The first thing Amity did was recall the Niffler back into Annihilation Maker's inner realm through the shadow of his pocket, feeling a slight amount of his energy returning. He needed to make sure he had enough energy to make two separate creations that should both account for three layers of the language barrier.
Amity discreetly pulled out his first creation from his pocket, which appeared to be a small dollop of liquified glass that undulated of its own accord within his palm and refracted whatever light that passed through it. He brought the creature up to his face and mentally issued an order, resulting in the creation dividing its amorphous body into two halves that then settled against the lenses of his glasses. With a shimmer, the two halves of the creature became entirely invisible.
This creature would automatically translate the written word within Amity's line of sight, allowing him to read just about any language so long as he wore his glasses. Potentially even dead ones, but he'd try that out another time.
The second creation Amity pulled out of his pocket took the form of a tiny serpent, scales like pearls and staring at him with bright yellow eyes. Another mental order and the serpent slithered from his hand and coiled around the right arm of his glasses. It lightly pressed the tip of its tail against his temple while its mouth opened perpendicular to his line of sight before also turning invisible.
The snake served a similar yet greater function to the Babel fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It passively "consumed" words spoken to Amity and then automatically translated them into English before filtering them into his brain. Unlike the Babel fish, however, it would also automatically translate his own English words into the listener's first language.
In this instance, with the two creatures active, Amity could now functionally read, speak, and understand Japanese.
At least, he should. Only one way to find out, though.
He finally walked through the automatic sliding doors of the convenience store, immediately taking a hard look at the labels of each food item along with their price tags.
To Amity's relief and satisfaction, he saw the Japanese lettering immediately shimmer into English. Now he could finally start looking for something to eat and not flounder about making an idiot of himself.
And yet... Amity ended up spending a good ten or so minutes browsing and generally being indecisive as to what he should have. There were just so many things that looked really good, from the onigiri and furutsu sando to the anpan and gyudon, but he didn't want to blow what money he and his Niffler had managed to scrounge up just to sate his curiosity along with his hunger.
In the end, Amity chose an egg salad sandwich – he didn't have the mundane equipment to heat up certain products – and a can of sweetened milk coffee, costing three hundred yen and one hundred and thirty yen respectively. Amity vowed to himself that he'd come back to try the other food once he had the funds and the time.
Now, to buy his breakfast for the day and make sure the audio translator worked as well.
Walking up to the store clerk, Amity placed the sandwich and coffee onto the counter and dug into his pockets for the money.
"Good morning," the clerk said with a small bow, though Amity actually couldn't tell if he had been greeted in Japanese or English.
Just to be sure...
"Morning," Amity greeted back as he fished out a handful of yen and carefully counted the needed amount. "Took me a bit to decide, there was a lot of other food I wanted to try but I only have so much to spend."
The store clerk's brows raised while his polite smile became a bit more genuine. "I understand, my wife was the same way when we visited the Americas on vacation," the clerk responded. "And I have to say, your Japanese is flawless!"
On one hand, Amity wanted to preen at the praise, sucker for it as he was. But on the other hand, it felt unearned to him since he never actually committed to learning the language, instead resorting to letting what was essentially a pair of autotranslators do all the work for him.
Still, it wasn't like he could just admit that, given the autotranslators in question were decidedly unnatural. So Amity settled for trying to smile as genuinely as he could in response while keeping his conflicting thoughts and slight guilt to himself.
"I just thought it was a good idea to become as fluent as I could get before coming here," Amity lied through his teeth before presenting what he hoped was four hundred and thirty yen. "This should be enough, right?"
The clerk nodded in confirmation. "That's the right amount."
This time, Amity did sigh in relief. "Awesome, just wanna make sure."
Money exchanged and his breakfast in hand, Amity ventured through Kuoh's winding streets while what remained of the morning chill vanished and the warmth of the sun at his back became more apparent, eventually arriving at a small yet empty park.
Seated at a bench, Amity took his first bite of the egg salad sandwich... and found himself eagerly taking more bites. For the price, it tasted amazing and the texture was unlike anything he'd felt before, he could see why Anthony Bourdain had praised it as much as he did. Amity wasted no time in cracking open his canned coffee then, excited to see how it compared to what he typically had back home.
A single, eager swig and it was only Amity's past experiences with coffee that prevented him from downing half the can in one go. A second gulp and he almost had to physically restrain himself.
These things were probably a very simple and normal thing for Kuoh's citizens, but to Amity it was just so new and incredible and unique and...
And he wished his family was there to appreciate this moment alongside him.
Amity took another bite from his sandwich, continuing to savor his breakfast even as fresh tears tumbled down his cheeks and his body trembled. He couldn't help these turbulent emotions, nor could Amity help imagining what it might have been like, to sit in the grass with his father to his right taking sizable bites from a korokke while his mother sat to his left partaking in a small tray of dorayaki. Couldn't help imagining his siblings eagerly digging into their own meals of choice, sometimes sharing between themselves.
He couldn't help imagining himself talking, laughing, just enjoying a novel experience while surrounded by his kin.
He couldn't help imagining all that he had lost and would never have again.
It took Amity far longer than he would've liked to pull himself together, his eyes red and rubbed raw after drying an excess amount of tears, but he did eventually. He tossed his trash in the garbage and threw his empty can in the recycling before returning to that bench. With his thoughts in some semblance of order and stomach full, Amity could finally ask himself the big questions.
Namely, which supernatural faction to ally himself with, at least for the time being.
First ones that came to mind were the Big Three. The Angels of Heaven, the Devils of the Underworld, and the Fallen Angels of the Grigori.
"Heaven... seems decent enough on the surface," Amity mused to himself, elbows to his knees and chin resting on his clasped hands. "But unless I can get into contact with an Angel I don't think I'd have the patience to put up with the Church's bullshit. And I'm not a Christian or religious at all for that matter, so that'd be awkward as fuck."
As much as Heaven itself might be decent enough company, it would mean having to join up with the Church, most likely as an exorcist, and then try to climb the ranks. But Amity knew himself well enough to know that, if Xenovia's initial behavior in canon was any indication, he'd chafe horribly under the Church's jurisdiction, which would in turn make receiving those promotions more difficult. Although, Amity wondered if he could leverage the power of his Sacred Gear, coupled with his performance and potential accomplishments out in the field, to expedite the process...
"No," Amity frowned. "That's a stupid idea."
After all, just as Amity could leverage the power of Annihilation Maker, the Church could in turn leverage the fact that they were his only method of reaching out to Heaven unless he was lucky enough for an Angel to grant him audience of their own volition. Amity could also threaten to join up with another faction if they didn't give him what he wanted, but that would leave a horrible first impression if he was trying to join up to begin with and the threat of going rogue after the fact would only make things tense if not outright hostile between them. Not ideal.
That and the thought of going rogue at all put a bad taste in Amity's mouth, he didn't want to be lumped in the same category as Freed or Valper. And when they came to mind, he grimaced at the idea of also ending up in Kokabiel's crosshairs, even as collateral. The damn warmonger would come looking to filch a couple of the Excalibur pieces and, regardless of having a Top-Tier Longinus, that was not a fight Amity was at all confident in surviving, much less winning.
And all this unnecessary trouble just to be part of a system that was, at present, falling apart at the seams since God's death with seemingly no solution in sight. They had to keep His death a state secret too because Heaven's ability to keep things afloat hinged almost entirely on the steady belief of their mortal faithful, something which was already experiencing a pretty steep decline as far as Amity knew. The fallout in the wake of their Lord and Savior's demise becoming common knowledge would be catastrophic.
Amity already knew, of course, thanks to meta-knowledge but he'd be keeping his mouth shut.
"Either way, there's too many complications and too little benefits to speak of, so Heaven's out," Amity concluded. "At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Underworld."
The first thing Amity noted was that Kuoh Town was Devil-owned territory under the joint jurisdiction of Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri, both of whom were the heiresses to their respective Pillars looking for new peerage members, as well as being the younger sisters of two of the current ruling Satans.
"And since I'm in Kuoh already, that makes the Underworld the most accessible option right now."
The Underworld was possibly the largest and most secure of the Three, being mostly self-sufficient and having greater resources at their disposal while also currently being headed by individuals who were both extremely powerful and friendly enough that they wouldn't kill him on sight... hopefully.
Joining them also meant being reincarnated into a Devil himself, which included having a massively increased lifespan by default and gaining a good handful of other supernatural powers which could be used to further compliment Annihilation Maker. More than that, depending on whose peerage he joined, Amity could have his identity issues and financial stability squared away in no time at all and thus be able to work on improving himself all the sooner.
"But that's the rub, isn't it?" Amity pondered. "It depends on whose peerage I join up with."
When you joined a peerage, you weren't simply being hired like some office worker. It was a literal life-changing decision that meant being irrevocably tied to a master who could decide your entire future on a whim and you would just have to pray that they found it within themselves to not be a total ass to you. It was such a monumentally important choice that Amity would have to carefully gauge which King would be best to serve so as to not have his freedom seriously infringed upon or worse.
"If Kuroka's situation is anything to go by, some Devil nobles really are just kinda shite," Amity remarked. "They really should test these people before handing them that kind of authority over sapient beings."
Thankfully, Amity knew already that Rias and Sona treated their peerages with some amount of decency so if he could safely approach either of them and offer to join up then he'd be just fine.
It still didn't defeat the fact that Amity was pretty much giving up his personal freedom, something that bothered him something fierce (might just be the American in him), but he'd at least be secure and have the illusion of freedom if he entered Rias or Sona's peerages. And he knew a long time ago that there was a difference between what he personally wanted and what was practical.
"The Underworld offers a considerable amount of benefits, but if I choose them then I'm in for the long haul to say the least," Amity concluded. "Decent candidate, but not perfect."
And then there were the Fallen Angels of the Grigori.
"They're probably the smallest of the three, suffered the most losses during the war if I remember right, and seems to have the fewest number of resources to work with," Amity counted as he got up from the bench and paced along the grass.
However, based on past discussions with his friends back home and despite certain points made in the series proper, the Grigori was actually in the best position to make a pretty massive comeback. Out of the Three Factions, the Grigori could procreate at the same rate as humans and were also the general net all Angels landed in if they Fell, as such they could repopulate far faster and far easier in contrast to the Underworld and Heaven with their own lopsided birth rates.
Furthermore, the Grigori was much more open to working with outside parties than the Underworld or Heaven, who both were more exclusive clubhouses demanding a greater level of loyalty. This meant that Amity could come to them with the offer to collaborate and not have to worry too much on any lifelong commitments to the faction unless he had reason to stick around.
"And I'm willing to bet my left nut that they won't turn me away," Amity joked to himself.
The Grigori was also headed by Azazel, who was friendly enough to not kill him on sight, resourceful enough to help with his identity problems, and was the premier expert on Sacred Gears besides maybe the Seraphs who managed the system in God's absence. Experimenting with Annihilation Maker on his own was one thing, but Amity couldn't help but imagine the headway he'd make with it if he was mentored by someone as learned and experienced as the Governor General.
Now, this wasn't to say the Grigori didn't have their own issues. For one, there was a possibility that Azazel might just turn Amity into another test subject if the Governor General learned of his otherworldly origins combined with having a Top-Tier Longinus that really shouldn't belong to him. The second and third issues came in the form of Kokabiel and Vali Lucifer, the former being a warmonger and a massive racist and the latter being a weirdo itching for a fight Amity didn't think he was ready for.
"And there really isn't any way to hide the fact that I wield Annihilation Maker," Amity lamented. "Best I can do is avoid them as much as I feasibly can."
There was also the fact that the Fallen Angels had something of an unfavorable reputation among the supernatural in general and it certainly didn't help that bad actors like Kokabiel, Raynare, and Raynare's coterie of chuckleheads worsened that reputation with their own acts of bullshittery. That could make interacting with other factions somewhat painful due to his association with them. Hopefully, all Amity had to do was not be a dick to people and he should be golden.
"All those problems aside, the Grigori is possibly the best off out of the three in the long term," Amity mused. "They're in the best position to regain their strength and I can expedite the process immensely, can receive better mentoring for my Sacred Gear, and I can come to them as a freelancer without immediately being beholden to them for the rest of my life with no way out."
Heaven was falling apart, the Underworld was clinging to a caste system, and Amity didn't know or remember much of anything about the other factions beyond the Big Three. The only other factions he did know some things about were the Youkai and the Norse, and even then all he knew was that the Youkai were led by a hot fox lady and DxD's version of Odin made him uncomfy. So those two were out as well.
"Well then, it looks like I'll be sliding into the Grigori's DMs," Amity rose from his seat, dusting his palms against his pants before placing them on his hips. "Now, where the hell do I find them?"