"The fuck…?"
Kousei stared up at the building, utterly flabbergasted. It wasn't just a club room or a different part of the school, but an entire manor just sitting on the edge of the normal school grounds.
His steps slowed, brows furrowed.
'An entire damn building just for a club?'
He'd noticed this place before, but for some reason his mind always just glazed over it. Partially because he really didn't care about what this building was being used for. And partially, he couldn't help but think that his disinterest was… due to some form of magic.
He shook off the paranoia and caught up to the blonde, falling into step behind him.
Yuuto Kiba was his name, apparently.
"Nice place," he commented flatly. "Your club won the lottery or somethin'?"
Kiba glanced back, his smile obviously practiced. "Ah, something like that. Buchou's family is very… supportive."
"Rich family, got it," Kousei muttered absentmindedly. Then he spoke up. "What's her name, anyway?"
Kiba paused at the door, hand hovering. He turned, a flicker of genuine surprise crossing his face. "You… really don't know?"
Kousei met his look with a blank, unwavering stare. The calm, slowly raised eyebrow said everything: Why the hell would I?
Kiba gave a soft, almost embarrassed cough, his mask of composure slipping for a moment. "Ah, my apologies. She's a third-year student. Crimson hair, sapphire eyes – Rias Gremory."
The name froze Kousei in place.
'Gremory?'
Suddenly, he was starting to see what dots Aika had been connecting in her mind.
"What, uh," he slowly looked over to Kiba, far more tense than moments before. "What did you say this club was again?"
Kiba raised an eyebrow of his own, looking confused. "I didn't. But it's the Occult Research Club."
A chill ran down Kousei's spine.
'That confirms it, then. This is definitely something to do with the supernatural, without a doubt.'
He kept his face a neutral mask, not gasping or stiffening. He simply gave a slow, thoughtful nod, as if filing away a mildly interesting piece of trivia.
Whether Kiba was watching him or not wasn't clear, but the boy didn't react negatively. He just shrugged, pushing open the heavy door with a soft creak.
"Right this way, Inoue-kun," he said politely, offering the open door. "I'll be waiting outside since Buchou wanted to speak with you privately."
Kousei stared at Kiba for a while, before nodding and walking in. The door closed behind him, with the blonde outside.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped inside fully.
-=[DxD]=-
The room was not what he expected of a school club. It was Victorian in design, and lit by the gentle glow of a candelabra. The air smelled of old paper, beeswax, and a faint, floral perfume.
His eyes darted around, cataloguing what could be used as cover or a makeshift weapon.
Behind the heavy oak desk, illuminated like a painting, sat the girl.
She had all the features Kiba had said, but he failed to note that she was breathtaking in a way that felt almost unfair. The sort of beauty that nations would go to war over.
"Inoue Kousei," she said warmly, her fingers interlocked in front of her. "Thank you for coming on such short notice." A small, polite smile graced her lips. "Please, have a seat. There's no need to be so nervous."
Her velvety smooth voice, her beautiful smile, her casual polite demeanor…
It only made him narrow his eyes further, the entire thing feeling like a carefully crafted trap.
"Somehow," he replied, voice low. "I doubt that."
Her smile didn't falter. If anything, it gained a hint of amusement. "I assure you, I am not your enemy. Not like that Stray Devil you dealt with in the park last night," she gestured towards the couch. "Please, sit. I feel we have much to speak about."
'Stray Devil? I suppose that's what that monster is classified as? Never heard of such a thing…'
Mentally cataloguing that for later, his eyes flickered to the offered couch, then back up to her.
He didn't move.
Instead, he let the silence stretch, his eyes locked on hers in the flickering candlelight. And when he spoke, his voice was clinical, as if reciting something he knew by heart.
"The fifty-sixth demon of Ars Goetia."
Her expression didn't crack, but he saw a minute stillness, as if she wasn't expecting that at all.
"A Great Duke of Hell," he continued. "Commanding twenty-six legions. Depicted as a beautiful woman astride a camel, though several texts contend it was a male demon choosing a female form. In other words, a shapeshifting trickster. One said to know the past, present, and future."
He took a step forward, staring her down.
"So you'll have to forgive me," he said quietly, "If I don't exactly trust your word… Gremory."
The room went silent.
As the silence stretched into a charged tension, Kousei held his ground. Every muscle was coiled, ready to spark with Ren at a moment's notice.
Then Rias sighed, dropping her face into her palm.
"Of course," she muttered, the sound muffled. "Kiba did say you were intense about this stuff. I should've known you'd assume something like that."
Kousei didn't move, but the sheer mundanity of her frustration threw him for a loop.
'Where's the hellfire and demonic transformation? Did I get it wrong?'
She looked up, shaking her head, a wry smile playing on her lips. "You're not… completely off base, at least. But this isn't what you think it is – you're missing a lot of context."
He crossed his arms. "Then summarize."
"Gladly," she agreed, leaning forward, elbows on the desk. "Firstly, yes, the House of Gremory does indeed hold the rank of Duke. But I am not the Gremory. That was my great-great-great-whatever ancestor from a long time ago. I am simply Rias Gremory, a High-Class descendent of that person. A Devil with my own goals and ambitions. And for the record," she shudders slightly. "I'm not fond of camels."
Kousei stared.
Her last statement was so absurd, so human and out of place with the image of a demon that it cracked his suspicious mask.
"You… the descendant of a great duke of hell… is afraid of camels?"
"It's a perfectly rational fear!" She blurted out.
Another beat passed as Kousei continued to stare. The tension in his shoulders eased, not from trust, but from sheer bewilderment.
'What kind of world was I reborn into…?'
Shaking his head, he decided to leave that thought for later.
"Fine, let's say I believe you," he said, his voice losing its edge. "You're not the Gremory. You're still a… Devil, you called it. And you classified that thing I killed as one, too. A 'Stray Devil'."
Rias winced, a look of discomfort on her face. "Okay, I know how that looks. But again – context."
Kousei uncrossed his arms to wave a hand, motioning for her to get on with it.
"Right, back to the basics," she settled back, organizing her thoughts. "The Devils, along with the Angels and the Fallen Angels, are usually called the Biblical Faction. We have been at constant odds with each other for millennia, and a catastrophic number of Devils were lost in the Great War from several hundred years ago. Nowadays, it's more of a cold war, thankfully."
He nodded slowly, absorbing the information. "I'm following."
"The problem is," she continued, "after that war, all three of our factions have critically low populations. And we, the Devils, have an extremely low fertility rate."
Kousei put a hand to his chin, deeply thinking about what she was saying.
"One of our leaders," Rias finished up with a smile. "Created a system to fix that. The Peerage system. It allows us to reincarnate other species into Devils. They become a part of a Peerage, serving a King, and can rise in power and rank to gain a Peerage of their own."
'Of course,' Kousei thought in silence, hand still on his chin. 'While the three factions likely hate each other, they don't want to go extinct themselves. So each of them is using this cold war as an excuse to strengthen their numbers once more.'
And with this information, he could extrapolate exactly what he'd fought the day before.
He looked up at her, a gleam of insight in his eyes. "That's why you called it a 'Stray' Devil. A reincarnated… creature, turned into a Devil, that rebelled against its King, I'm assuming?" His eyes narrowed. "And it was your job to hunt it down, wasn't it? Otherwise, you'd have to take responsibility for that monster being let loose on the human world."
Rias' smile brightened, nodding. "Ding, ding, ding!" she said playfully. "Those grades really aren't for show, huh? You catch on fast."
Kousei did not smile with her, his frown deepening. The playful glint in her eye dimmed under his stare.
"It was your job to keep us safe," he said, glaring. "And you failed. If I were anyone else, an innocent person would've been eaten. Or worse."
If he didn't attract it with his Ten, it likely would've targeted someone else.
He took another step forward, now standing in front of her desk, looking down at her. "Did you call me in here to thank me for doing your job for you? Compensation for letting your rabid monster run rampant?"
Rias didn't flinch, but a genuinely pained look crossed her face. "I… am sorry about that. Truly. We were tracking it, but…" She trailed off, shaking her head as if to dispel the excuse coming out of her mouth. "If you really want compensation for our mistakes, I won't refuse. But that's not why I asked to speak with you."
She looked up at him, sapphire eyes sincere. "I need to know how you did it. A Stray Devil, even a Low-Class one like the one you faced, is leagues beyond even trained humans. It made me think that you might have a Sacred Gear."
Kousei took a step back, his glare softening into confusion. "A Sacred what?"
"It's… an artifact," she explained quietly. "Created by God, bestowed upon certain humans. Most are trivial, designed solely for human day-to-day life. In fact, most influential humans in history and right now are merely holders of Sacred Gears."
Then her smile sharpened. "But a few of them are weapons. Powers that can harm beings far stronger than any normal human. And I suspect you have one of those, don't you?"
His eyes widened a fraction. 'My grimoire.'
Just like she said, it was only a power that could be useful in normal human society. A book that could write without needing to use a pen.
It must be a Sacred Gear.
Rias caught his eyes shifting, and all but lit up, leaning across the desk.
"You do have one!" she breathed, her voice a mixture of triumph and delight. "Which one is it? Oh, please show me!"
Kousei stared at her, his earlier suspicion now thoroughly tangled with the camel-fearing Devil teenager in front of him.
She called herself a High-Class Devil, while that stray was only a Low-Class. Following that logic, she was far stronger than him.
But… staring at the girl practically bouncing in her seat, begging to see his grimoire…
His fear almost felt ridiculous now.
With a sigh, he raised a hand. As a soft shhh of displaced air escaped, his grimoire materialized in a shimmer of golden motes, hovering above his palm. The aged leather cover, lacking any title, gave it an unassuming blankness.
As mundane as a magical artifact could get.
Rias blinked. She leaned closer, her excitement cooling into polite confusion. Then she tilted her head. "Oh. It's just that one."
Her tone was deflated, as if disappointed.
Yeah, he felt that way too.
"This is one of those common ones, ain't it?" he asked, pretty much knowing the answer. "What's its name?"
Rias sat back, more confused than disappointed. "Yes, it's not especially powerful. Its official name is [Erudite Scholar], if I recall correctly."
"Some call it 'The Studying Gear' because…" She continued, shrugging. "That's essentially what it is. The more you write about a topic within it, the greater your intuitive understanding of said topic. If you filled it with notes about math, then you'd eventually thrive when learning new math subjects, like a fish learning different ways to swim."
Kousei's eyes slowly widened, looking at the book with newfound appreciation.
'[Erudite Scholar], she called it? It might not have direct combat applications, but… it's far stronger than she's giving it credit for.'
It was at that moment that he understood why his Ten suddenly became easier after that first day. It wasn't Dual Cultivation like Aika suggested, but his Sacred Gear. Just by writing down those magic principles, he was able to apply them much easier later on.
'Essentially, whatever I write about, I become… talented in. The more I write, the greater the talent.'
Perhaps this was why he unlocked his energy in the first place? With the mass amount of supernatural notes he wrote in it, perhaps he was subtly boosting his talent for any supernatural energies.
And the constant physical training exacerbated that talent to a level he could unlock life energy with just a single push.
Granted, the boosting effect was clearly lessened since the topic of 'supernatural' is far broader than something specific like 'chi'.
Otherwise, he would've unlocked life energy years ago.
'I spent all those years thinking this book was virtually useless… but it was really my biggest advantage…'
His hand came up to his chin as his mind swirled with thoughts of how to exploit the newfound power of his Sacred Gear.
"Inoue-kun," she spoke up, pulling him back from his thoughts. "If you didn't use your Sacred Gear… then how did you kill it?"
Kousei blinked, opening his mouth to answer. But then he closed it.
His magic… that much he wasn't comfortable sharing quite yet. He didn't think she had any nefarious purposes, but he simply didn't know Rias, and revealing it to a potential future enemy felt like a foolish mistake.
So instead, he shrugged.
"Luck, I suppose. It was blind and had terrible senses, so I could exploit that," He said carefully. "Plus, I suppose my natural strength helped. I do lift a lot."
It was the truth, technically. Just not the whole truth.
Her expression dimmed.
Then she let out a soft, disappointed sigh. "I see."
Leaning back in her chair, the club president seemed to lose a lot of the steam she once started with. As if this entire conversation was a failure.
"Well," she began once more. "I suppose that brings us to the other reason I asked you here. I had hoped you had a powerful Sacred Gear, considering your feat. I thought perhaps…" She trailed off, shaking her head. "I was considering offering you a place in my peerage. To become a Devil, yourself."
His eyes narrowed, but he sensed she wasn't finished.
"Given the circumstances, however," Rias continued, a wry twist to her lips, "that seems like a bad idea. My peerage has a few personal problems of our own, and inviting you, considering your lack of knowledge and raw power would be… irresponsible, at best."
Then she fell silent.
Truth be told, Kousei didn't feel particularly slighted by her pulling back her invitation.
If the Biblical God truly existed and even blessed Kousei directly with a power of his own, then becoming a Devil felt like a slap in the face to Him. He was never particularly religious, but even if the Bible was exaggerated, then that deity wasn't someone he wanted to slight.
It wouldn't surprise him if He was the reason Kousei was reborn in this world.
The Biblical God was just that powerful.
"Well, sorry to disappoint," Kousei eventually said, shrugging once more. "But since what you wanted has fallen through, perhaps it's time we discuss what I want."
He met her sapphire gaze across the dim, candlelit space, grinning at her sudden deer in headlights look.
"Let's talk compensation."