章 7: It is called freefall for a reason
I woke up feeling anxious. It was the kind of anxiety that made it hard to breathe, paralyzed you as if there was a danger around.
I stood up slowly from my bed. My gaze turned to the person with whom I had shared this ned. At my side, Akeno her naked form under the silk covers was still asleep. She looked like a piece of art, like something that should be exposed in a museum.
She looked as if she was something unreal, out of this world. When we came back from Shibuya, she asked me if she could have slept at my side. I accepted it.
Today was supposed to be the day where I was supposed to go back to the Kuoh Academy, back to high school.
Frankly, I wasn't happy with the idea but I knew that it was something that if I didn't do would only create problems. After all, the original Rias Gremory had loved school.
I hadn't inherited that love but too many drastic changes too quickly would only bring some unwanted attention.
So I left reluctantly the divine comfort of the bed to enter the bathroom. The bathroom looked less like one and more like a gigantic spa. With the golden chandeliers, the marble engraved with red rubies. The opulence was almost sickening. I stopped focusing on the way the bathroom looked and walked toward a mirror.
The mirror confirmed that my greatest fear was not real. All of those things had truly happened. Scarlet hair, green-blue eyes that looked like crystals, a gorgeous face in the shape of a heart without blemish, alabaster skin and a naked body that could only be called sinful.
I was truly Rias Gremory. I had truly died and reincarnated into a light novel. It's only now that it was hitting me.
I had died, died alone. All the sacrifices I've made, all the hardships I've been through, they've been in the end for nothing.
I watched how tears began to fall from the eyes of the redhead beauty in the mirror. I should be sad, I should be panicking yet why was I happy? I died and I was happy!
A broken laugh escaped from my lips. I wondered how they would have reacted if they saw me like that. This was so funny yet fucked up.
I felt arms embrace me from behind. I knew that it was Akeno. I vaporised my tears with the power of destruction. "Sorry if I've woke you up."
"You didn't," she answered. "Rias, are you okay?" she asked me.
"I am Akeno, don't worry," I told her.
"It's my role to worry," she whispered in my right ear. "I'm your queen."
"Please Rias, talk to me," she said to me.
"I've got everything I have ever wanted. I should be happy yet I don't know. I feel undeserving of all of this," I admitted to her.
I hadn't lied to her. What I told her was true. I loved this new life, opportunity that I was given. I was now literally a rich and more than beautiful immortal being capable of warping reality.
"Deserving?" she spoke. "One thing that life taught me is that no one whether they think they are deserving or undeserving. Those things don't matter. Worthiness doesn't matter. What matters is you, what you do with those boons or curses."
"Is it a way to tell me to stop worrying?" I asked her.
"Sometimes, you can be so naive Rias."
"I'm not," I answered in false outrage.
"Really? Do you want me to remind you of the day you sent more than a million dollars to a Nigerian prince after he asked you?" she spoke.
"How was I supposed to know it was false?". In the defence of the original me, the scammer had been very very convincing.
"Or that time you believed that making a chicken eat a dragon peach would turn him into one?" she said. Okay, I had been very sheltered. It was also the fault of Surtr Junior. He's the one that told me this and it's not like we were not leaving in a world of wonders and magic. Anyway, rest in peace, Lord Chickenavious Wu.
"Stop. I admit it, you're right," I told her.
"Rias, the only thing that matters is that you are here free to do whatever you want, unshackled from the machinations or desires of others," Akeno told me.
"And if anyone tries to take it from you, I promise that this time, I'll do everything so that it won't happen." I felt her grip on me tighten.
"Akeno," I said softly.
"Yes, Rias."
"Thank you for being there," I told her.
"Of course, I'll always be there at your side," she answered.
I let myself lean into her soft yet firm arms. "Can we stay like this for a moment please?" I asked her. I ignored the way my heart was beating, how it felt as if I had flying butterflies in my stomach. Akeno more than being my Queen was my family. It would be like incest.
My brain chose that moment to remind me that incest wasn't criminalized by devilkind and unlike humans, marrying and having children with a relative wouldn't result in generic deformities or diseases. We were not humans even though we looked like them. We were beings made of sin, fire and brimstone, from the blood of the Archangel Lucifer and the First woman and demonic goddess Lilith.
Akeno also would never see me this way. It was better to forget, crush all those kinds of thoughts.
I felt her take a deep breath. "Of course Rias, of course."
*scene*
We had almost been late. We arrived just before the classes began. I had been wrong in thinking that it would be boring.
It was worse. Listening without really doing it the teacher drone about the one hundred war between France and Britain made me want to put a bullet in my skull.
Something that I realize would be counterproductive and useless because of my essence.
I looked through the window at the building of the occult research club. I had been able to take the chair of the protagonist. It would be cool if a death note could fall from the sky.
I would just have to write the names of all the antagonists of DxD and boom I would have been free of worries.
Wait, death was a tangible concept in this world. The existence of death gods proved it so wouldn't it be possible to create a death note?
Maybe if I killed one or asked one for a part of their essence, I could imbue it into a copybook.
Thinking about it, didn't Both Albion and Ddraig represent the modern United Kingdom?
King Arthur had been a myth in my past life but in this one, he had been real and his descendants were the ones ruling.
King Arthur was said to have in his veins the blood of the red dragon due to the shenanigans of Merlin who was also the bastard son of the Archdaemon and prince of lust Asmodeus my memories pointed at me. The same Merlin that also codified into reality a way for Humans to manipulate the cosmos like higher beings without their patronage.
Wasn't Vortigern, the uncle of Arthur supposed to be the white dragon or Albion? I should try to find a way to speak to Ddraig. Few beings reached the top by using only their strength. Wits allied with it was what made someone able to reach the pinnacle of strength or maybe I was wrong and Ddraig was just a dumb lizard in love with fighting against Albion.
Kuoh Academy was different from all other schools in Japan. Due to the fact that it had been funded by the Gremory and the Sitri clans, it had a near-unlimited amount of money, Kuoh Academy offered only the best possible to its students. Graduating from it made sure that you would be easily hired even in the most select careers.
Legally, Kuoh Academy was an international private school operating in Japan. If this hadn't been the case, our school would have had to follow the same rules that other Japanese schools did. Rules that had been created to enforce conformism and erase individuality the most possible.
What was the quote again? Yeah, I remember. It was The nail that stick out is hammered down.
This was why more than being a good school, what attracted people to it was the fact that they would not feel as if they were constricted in a box.
I looked at a clock over the still-talking teacher. Written on It was 11:40. Only twenty minutes left. 'You can do it Rias,' I tried to motivate myself.
Just twenty minutes of never-ending boredom, well twenty minutes for humans because when you're a supernatural being capable of moving faster than sound itself, twenty minutes looked more like a week than a quarter of an hour.
I was so fucking bored. What could I do to try to alleviate this boredom? My gaze lost itself in the cloud over Kuoh.
Maybe I had an idea. I turned my focus inward toward my demonic energy. It was mixed with my power of destruction. I knew that doing what I wanted to try without separating them would only create unnecessary complications.
I began slowly but surely to separate my demonic energy from my power of destruction. It was like rerooting a river. It felt weird.
Finally, my power of destruction and my demonic energy separated. That was good. I grabbed the demonic energy and I made a wish.
I wished for it to change the sky of Kuoh. I wished to change this boring and slow blue into something other and my demonic energy like an over-excited puppy granted my wish.
I watched how the sky began to rumble ominously, how dark clouds began to plunge into darkness in the city of Kuoh.
A big BOOM made everything shake. The world was illuminated by violet arcs of plasmas.
The wind was becoming faster, almost like an angry beast. It rattled against the asphalt, the ground and everything it could touch.
The teacher had finally stopped talking. I thanked mentally the probably desecrated corpse of Lucifer.
The other students and Him were looking at the sky in fright. They looked as if they were awaiting, fearing for a god to smite them.
I could feel the fear, their terror and it was intoxicating, invigorating as if I had just come back from a day of relaxation. Since I had been reincarnated, I had noticed negative emotions, it felt good to be surrounded by them.
Devils could grow in many different ways. We could do nothing, letting time pass. Our demonic energy after all grew with time so a lot of devils thought this way.
The other way was by contracts. Originally, what we were taking in exchange for those contracts were the souls of our contractors.
Souls gave power through worship, they gave power through fear. The soul was what allowed any living being to distinguish itself from another one. The soul more precisely human souls was said to have been an incomplete project of higher deities.
Some said that it was a project of the Abrahamic god, others said that it had been the project of even older gods.
What mattered was the fact that eating one, consuming one was said to be akin to consuming a golden apple of Idun.
It gave the person who consumed it a gigantic boost of power. More than that, the thoughts, the knowledge, the strengths, the special abilities of the soul consumed became the ones of the supernatural being that had consumed it.
It was said to reincarnate devils that the reason why was because we devils as a race wanted to be different. It was a fucking lie.
Most devils and by that I meant the majority of devils didn't care about morals. They only cared about strength. The demon kings were only listened to and obeyed because they were strong.
The reason why eating souls had been criminalized, why this criminalization had been accepted by most had been because of the possible negative consequence of eating souls.
Who would have thought that devouring everything a person had been, was and could be could have consequences?
Eating souls could induce madness if the devil wasn't strong enough mentally. If devils in the past had been smart in eating souls, it wouldn't have become a crime but because a devil's existence revolved around seeking power, idiots went on Earth and ate more souls than they could handle.
A lot of devils had to be put down because they became mad. Because of that, eating soul was banned. It was what had been written in the books destined for pure-blood devils that the original Rias had learnt when she was younger.
Fortunately, Ajuka Beelzebub found a way to create a system so that devils could still continue to grow through contracts.
Sure, the growth in strength was way more limited and slow than the original one but at least, this one was safe. No more devils going on rampages and needed to be put down. We already had a bad if the worst reputation amongst all the different supernatural races. Doing everything to not worsen it would be wise.
The third way for a devil to grow in strength was by training but most didn't because firstly, they thought it would be too much work and secondly, because the results of training for a devil took too much time to appear.
Saiororg didn't count. He was a freak of nature, physically at least. It made me wonder if maybe his easy growth in strength through physical training wasn't because of his lack of demonic energy like something like a heavenly restriction like Toji or Maki that made him grow stronger physically in exchange for his demonic energy.
If my memories about canon are exact, Saiororg fought against his little brother Magdaran who had the power of destruction just with his fists and won.
It would be this same physical strength that would make him one of the new Satans in ExE, the future where Issei and all the members of his harem forgot the concepts of condoms and being present for your children.
I should really stop going on tangents. Anyway, it was to say that I found myself in a situation that could only be called relaxing, very relaxing.
Unfortunately as if to prove that this world was wrong and that both God and Lucifer were indeed dead, the bell significating the end of the class rang.
How was that fair?! It was only when my boredom had subsided and I was beginning to enjoy myself that the clock rang. 'Fuck high school' I mentally swore.
I watched how little by little, other students and the teacher began to leave their chairs either to leave the classroom or go talk to their friends.
"Are you alright Rias?" Akeno asked me. "You look disappointed. I didn't know that you enjoyed this class so much."
"Yep, totally enjoyed it. I'm just trying to act wiser and all that stuff, like a king, should," I told her.
"You never were so focused when it was only the two of us studying whether it was in the underworld or here," Akeno spoke.
"Maybe it's because I didn't Have the right motivation," I told her.
"Right motivation?" she spoke looking confused.
I spoke intending to tease my queen. I came closer to her left ear so that she would hear without a fault my words "Maybe if you, my queen had been more severe, more right with me," I said speaking as if I was almost out of breath "I would have memorized it all."
I was just teasing her. I had expected her to do something similar in return or be speechless and shocked.
Instead, I felt how her body tensed, how it began to release something I wasn't sure of it. Was this anticipation, vindication?
I retreated away from her. I felt like a prey that had provoked without knowing a predator and now, it was bearing menacingly his teeth at me.
"Is that so?" she said sweetly, too sweetly. Her eyes, were as if they were burning from the inside. "It's never too late to correct an error," Akeno spoke with a glint in her eyes I really didn't like.
"Akeno, I was joking," I told her trying to get back in control of the situation.
She put her palm on the right cheek of my face "Akeno, there are people around," I told her.
Rumours grew and flew through all of Kuoh much more quickly than a deep cut could bleed. "It doesn't matter Rias. We'll handle it later."
"Bu-". Her gaze cut from talking more. "Good girl," she spoke looking satisfied. What the fuck was happening? Why did everything feel so hot? It was as if I was fighting Riser again. I felt a feeling bubbling in me and I didn't like the implications of its existence.
"Isn't it delightful," she spoke looking like a cat that had caught the canary. She stood, her hand retreating away from my face leaving a cold sensation behind.
"Time to go eat," she said.
I couldn't restrain the thought that burst out loud "What?" I said dumbfounded.
"I said that it was the Time to eat Rias. It seems that focusing too much on the class has made your thinking a little bit slow," she spoke.
That was false. That wasn't the reason at all. I also couldn't tell her that this was because I had to admit reluctantly that it was kinda hot. I needed to burn this thought out of my head.
I watched how she began to walk toward the door of the classroom and was it me or was she swaying her hips? Akeno didn't usually walk like that. I was sure of that.
She stopped at the door and turned to look at me, one eyebrow raised. I left my chair and went to follow her. I wasn't sure why but I felt as if the next days and maybe weeks with Akeno would be all but relaxing.
*scene*
I had decided to skip the classes in the afternoon. Sona would probably try to scold me later but I didn't care.
Being around Akeno had been unbearable in a good way which was bad so I had to retreat to the occult research club.
If this was an anime, that day would have probably counted as filler I think or maybe I was wrong.
So, there was now a big problem. Sure I was now away from Akeno and skipping class but now, I was bored. All my peerage members were also in class so it's not like I could go be with them.
Hold up, it wasn't true. All my peerage members weren't non-disponible. I walked toward a closed door, a door that was rarely if never opened.
It was the door of the room of Gasper. Thinking about him only made guilt bloom in my heart. Even if it wasn't technically my fault, I felt as if I had abandoned him, leaving him, never even trying to visit him because of his sacred gear.
The original Rias solution had been to seal her bishop, one of her family's members. I knew why she had done it yet I hated it.
With a burst of my power of destruction, I destroyed the seals on the door of Gasper. Slowly but surely, I opened it.
I stepped into the room and automatically I felt a wave of something I wouldn't be able to accurately describe surge toward me.
It tried to affect me and was unable to. It felt like when my brother had come to see me just after I'd woken up.
Forbidden Balor view, the sacred gear of Gasper capable of stopping time and holding in itself the king of the Fomorians and grandfather of the god of the light Lugh.
"Interesting," I mused out loud.
"I'm sorry," I heard a voice say. Another wave stronger rushed toward me. Like its predecessor, it wasn't able to affect me. It only made me understand more of its mechanism.
"I can't stop it!" the voice of my bishop, of Gasper said full of despair. The despair in his voice made hatred bloom in my heart. My bishop was on his knees trying to cover his eyes as if to stop his sacred gear. I looked at him and then at how fragile, young and vulnerable, he looked.
When the next wave came, instead of feeling it, I saw it, I saw the distortion, how it travelled from the soul of my bishop to his eyes to the surge in reality.
"Not this time," I snarled. With a push of my heel, I reappeared before my bishop, his hands in mine. I seized the power of destruction lying in me and gave him only one order, to destroy the times-altering waves from the eyes of my bishop to reach the world.
It exploded from my back like a cascade of ebony before flooding the room. I knew that nothing else would be touched, that only what I ordained him to destroy would face its wrath and viciousness.
"It is Okay Gasper," I said softly to him. "It's okay. I'll make things okay."
"I'm sorry Rias-sama, I'm sorry. I can not control it," he spoke. I saw tears falling from his eyes and running down his face. Gasper, he was just a child, one who had only known neglect and abuse since his birth, he was a child who had died only because of his nature before I reincarnated him.
I hugged him trying to ignore his tears and his sobs. I cursed the world, the god that made such a world where innocent children like him suffered. I cursed his father and the other vampires who neglected and abused him.
My gaze turned toward his soul, his sacred gear, the miracle that god had bestowed on him before his birth, the miracle that was the reason for all of his misfortunes. If Gasper hadn't been born with it, his mother wouldn't have died, he wouldn't have been feared and neglected, he would have been happy.
I could see with my gaze the soul trapped in the sacred gear, the soul that had such synergy with my bishop that it looked more like a part of him than something bestowed in his soul by the system of a dead god. I could see cracks in the prison. I saw how they were slowly but surely widening. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have known that it was just a question of time before Balor tried to possess my bishop.
I could see his goal as if information was being poured into my brain. Gasper being a dampir and a reincarnated devil was immortal. It would just have been a question of time before the crack that Balor had made would be big enough to allow him to possess my Bishop.
As if I would fucking let him realize his plot. What truly fuelled the sacred gear wasn't Balor himself. What fuelled it was the inherent power of his soul. A savage grin split my face. The sacred gear to work didn't his consciousness.
"Gasper, I'm sorry for what I'm about to do," and with those words, my power of destruction surged in the form of my bishop. The power of destruction bypassed his skin, his flesh to go directly where his target was, in the soul of Gasper.
I felt panic begin to emit from my bishop yet it didn't feel like him. It was old, it was cruel and it screamed in pain and hatred as my power of destruction reduced his consciousness to nothing slowly. Here's how ended the existence of the God-king Balor, not with a bang, of a great feat worthy of epics but in the same way nuisibles like flies were dealt with, swiftly, quickly and without mercy.
My power of destruction retreated from Gasper into my soul having done the task that I gave it to execute.
"It's finished Gasper, it's finished," I whispered softly to him. "You won't ever have to deal with that problem again."
The young boy said nothing. He just reciprocated the hug I had given him grabbing me as if I was his lifeline, something that I technically was.
I began to hum a melody. It was one I had completely forgotten the origin of and the words yet, it had remained engraved in my soul and had been what had helped me in many of the dark spirals I fell in my life.
Maybe we stayed like that for minutes or hours. Gasper had fallen asleep in my arms. I carried him softly with my arms doing everything to not wake him up.
With a flick of my will, a teleportation circle that would lead me to my mansion appeared. There wasn't a chance alone that I would let Gasper alone or wake up alone.
My family had so many issues and Gasped made me realize that I had to deal with them as soon as possible before they warped my family too much.
I wished to protect my family from the horrors of the world, make sure that they would never have to go through things similar to what had broken them. I wanted them to be able to welcome each day with sincere happiness and hope for the future. I wished to be able to protect them from suffering.
I disappeared from the club to reappear in my room. I placed Gasper softly on the bed and laid at his side hugging him from behind.
Closing my eyes, I did something that I never thought I would do again, that I hadn't done for more than ten years. I prayed to whoever would listen. I asked, no begged for a world my peerage members, my family would be happy in. I would learn when I woke up the day after that the Vatican had been bombed and we devils were blamed.
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