Capítulo 23: DxD : A New Hero : Chapter 23
Sometimes I really hated myself.
"It's really bothering you, isn't it?" a voice jolted me out of my thoughts.
I looked up to find Sona seated in a chair that she had pulled up next to me. She was watching me with worried eyes over the frames of her glasses.
I gave her wane smile, "Is it that obvious?"
...
"Yes," she immediately replied, "but that's only because you were lost in thought. You're a trained liar Shirou, not a natural one.
"There is a difference?"
"A trained liar is obviously one who had to learn how to lie. If they were taught well enough, they can lie through their teeth and you wouldn't be able to tell. However if you wait until they think alone, they tend to drop the act and reveal what their thinking in their face. And you Shirou had your feelings written all over yours."
I let out a tired sigh as I felt the stress of the situation catch up with me. I looked up at the ceiling and said, "It's just that…" I drifted off as I couldn't think of what to say.
"If it helps," Sona spoke up after seeing I wasn't going to continue, "I personally thought the entire thing was a stupid idea."
"You do?"
"It's far too risky." She answered to with a nod, "Leaving the question of ethics out of it, the plan is flawed in a fundamental level. There are too many variables, to many forces in play that are beyond Rias's control to justify the risk.
Even if everything goes according to plan, which is unlikely, there still leaves the issue of what would happen if Issei ever found out that Rias left him to die.
No matter how close he becomes to the rest of the Peerage by that time I doubt it would end up pleasant. If it were me I would have handled the situation in a completely different manner."
"How would you have done it then?"
"Simple, I would have recruited him into the Student Council. It wouldn't have been too hard to convince him seeing most of our members are girls, and I would have forced him to behave by threating to expel him.
Considering how many rules he broke over the year by peeping at all the girls," a distasteful frown crossed her face as she said this, though whether it was at the peeping or rule breaking was anyone's guess.
"It would have been easy to persuade him it was well within my power to expel him not from this school but every other school in the country.
That I actually do have enough genuine reasons to justify expelling just made it easier. Rias is the only reason why he hasn't already been expelled.
"I would have observed him for a period of six months or so while keeping our identity as Devils as a secret. During that time I would judge him to see if he could be safely integrated into my Peerage.
It would all depend of course on how well he got along with the rest of the Council and how the strong the bonds between them are.
"If he failed I would have simply kicked him out, Boosted gear or no Boosted gear. No matter how great the prize it is not worth recklessly risking the lives of my Peerage over, particularly when it involves something as dangerous as an out of control Dragon.
If on the other hand he had passed, then I would have informed him about Devils, bribed him with knowledge that Devils can legally obtain harems, then spent the rest of the year whipping his weak body into shape using the promise of sending him to one of the Underworlds many brothels as a reward.
"All in all it will be a long-term investment with a low-risk and high-return. In other words, my preferred method of operating."
"If it was that easy why hasn't Gremory done the same?" I asked.
She grimaced at that, "You have to understand Shirou, Rias has always been lucky when it comes to her Peerage, and I mean insanely so.
I would have understood it if she had done some work and had spent time and effort looking for Peerage but she never had to. It was as if the hand of some god guided them to her.
"Each and every one of her Peerage just seemed to fall onto her lap with her barely having to lift a finger. To make matter even more unbelievable, every one of them either has a powerful Sacred Gears or a powerful bloodline."
She started to count them off, lifting a finger for each example.
"Kiba has the Sacred Gear Sword Rebirth, Koneko is a Nekoshou, Akeno has the blood of a powerful Fallen Angel as well as that of the Himejima Clan and then there is Gasper a Dhamphir with rare ability Daywalker and the Sacred Gear that is one step short from being a Longinus, the Forbidden Balor View.
"Rias has never actually had to work at convening any one of them to join her. Half of them were either dead or dying when she found them and the other half had no place to return to and were more or less homeless orphans. So she ended up making them into her peerage the very day she met them.
"The reason why she's so stumped with Issei is because she has no idea how to go about recruiting him. It wouldn't surprise me if she spent the better part of the year waiting for a perfect moment to jump in and rescue him." She shrugged at the way I stared at her.
"Now don't give me that look. It may sound foolish to us but to Rias, she simply knows no other way. It probably never even occurred to her to simply approach him and try to become friends first."
"Plus Rias is very much aware of her luck, so she probably expected it to kick in some way and give her some opportunity to rescue then recruit him like she usually does.
Then what happens? lo and behold, a Fallen Angel appears threatening Issei and now she has the perfect chance to swoop in and rescue him." She shook her head at disbelief at the situation.
"Then why doesn't she save him just before he dies, she can still become the hero," I didn't even bother hiding my sarcasm as I spoke that word, "that she wants to be that way and still get to recruit Issei."
"You already know the answer to that question Shirou." She was right, I did.
"The Elder Council." I answered which she nodded in agreement.
"Right after the Valantime incident, no one can bring a Longinus user into the Underworld without both their and a Maou's explicit permission.
Rias is unwilling to cross them, not when she has been trying to gather as much political support she can muster to get out of marriage with Riser.
If she tries to recruit Issei without their permission she will lose whatever influence she has gathered over the last few years. As you can see it's a completely convoluted mess."
"Then what I don't get is why the Council and Sirzechs are even approving the plan to begin with. Don't they realize what would happen if Issei ever figures all this out? There would hell to pay."
Sona let out a sigh and put down her almost untouched mug, "The Elder Council Shirou, as their name implies, are old.
Despite not being a part of the Old Devil Faction they were grown and raised under there rule. Consequently they have many outdated views of the world.
"Now as far as I can tell, there are two reasons why they approved the plan. The first is that they do not believe that Issei will ever discover that he's been tricked. That even if Rias or a member of her Peerage slip up in some way he will not be smart enough to put the pieces together."
"That has to be the most ridicules thing I've ever heard!" I exclaimed, "They can't be so stupid as to believe that he will never figure things out."
"No, Shirou the Council may be many things but they aren't stupid by any means. Stubborn and old fashioned yes, but never make the blunder of underestimating them and calling them stupid.
That would be a mistake, one they won't let you live long enough to learn from.
"The Elder Council is a viper den and despite the civilized appearance the Council tries to project, is as bloody and deadly as any battlefield. Every member is as vicious as they come and none of them would have survived there for long if they were in anyway stupid.
They may not match the Maous in strength but in cunning they are more than equal. Every single one of the Maous are wary when dealing with them…well.
Except for my sister but that's because they're horrified of her after she somehow, during the course of a single two-hour meeting, was able to convince three among their eldest members to become Magic Girl fanatics.
"From what I heard one of them, an old man with a beard that reaches down to his toes, had begun carrying around a pink wand and now winks whenever he introduces himself or casts a spell."
…That is the women who I had sold my soul to.
"Returning back to the topic of discussion, the reason why they believe Issei will never figure it out is because they think that humans are little more than stupid semi-intelligent animals and I can't blame them for thinking so." Sona quickly raised a hand to forestall my response and continued to speak.
"Remember Shirou that these people are old. When they were our age most of Europe was too afraid to take a bath because they believed too much water would make them sick and eventually kill them.
They grew up around humans that would bleed themselves out with leaches because they believed having too much blood was unhealthy or they would whip themselves in the back because they thought that it would make them closer to god.
And that only applies to the youngest members of the Council, who know how humans behaved when the oldest members were teens.
"That is the kind of humans they grew up with and it is also the image they have of them inside of their minds. While intellectually they know that is no longer the case, emotionally the still believe humans to be little more than intelligent apes.
I also discovered that they have received reports on Issei, and well, let's just say it didn't do much to dissuade that impression."
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