Kuoh Academy's Kendo Club was currently home to quite the spectacle. Despite it being a Sunday, the girls who made up the club currently formed a circle around the mats in the center of the room. All of their eyes were focused on a pair of young men, both of whom were clutching a shinai in both of their hands. Both were dressed in a kendo uniform with padding on their shoulders, and a helmet obscured their features.
Around the room, the excited cries of the spectators could be heard.
"You can do it, Kiba!"
"Beat him, Wagner!"
"Kyaaa! They look so handsome in their uniforms."
That last comment got a chorus of agreements from the girls in the room. The two subjects of their comments still had yet to make a move; instead, they both let out a resigned sigh as they listened to the peanut gallery.
"You would think they'd have calmed down a bit after the first few times we did this," Kurt Wagner commented. He was the taller of the two and stood at 5 feet 11 inches. His voice had a slight German accent to it, although his Japanese was fluent.
Across from him, Yuuto Kiba stood at 5 feet 8 inches. He let out an amused chuckle and glanced around the room. "Well, I can't blame them. I find myself getting quite excited every time we cross swords. My whole body aches afterwards."
Underneath the helmet, Kurt made a face. "Dude, you really need to work on your phrasing."
Kiba tilted his head in confusion, and Kurt grumbled under his breath about idiot blondes. Their banter out of the way, the two focused back on the sparring match and readied their shinai.
Murayama, one of the captains of the Kendo Club, stood to the side with her long brown hair tied back into a ponytail, and had loose bangs framing her face. She glanced between both of the young men and got nods in return before she raised her hand and dropped it.
"Hajime."
The two burst into motion, and Kurt began with an overhead swing. Kiba raised his shinai and blocked the swing, only shaking slightly under the weight of Kurt's swing. He lowered his sword, allowing Kurt's swing to continue downward, while bringing his shinai around for a strike to Kurt's side. Kurt stepped to the side, moving his body out of the reach of Kiba's shinai.
From there, the two continued to exchange quick blows, the clacking of their shinai striking against each other echoed in the club room, while the spectators stayed respectfully quiet while appreciating the spectacle. Their exchange continued until finally Kurt managed to land a blow to Kiba's side.
"Point Wagner."
The two stopped and returned to their starting positions while readying their shinai again. Around them, the peanut gallery was excitedly calling out in support of both sides. Murayama stood, her face slightly flushed in excitement, and began the match again.
"Point Kiba."
This time, it was Kiba who managed to land the first blow, and they returned to their starting positions for the final point.
"Hajime."
Kiba was the one who took the initiative this time as he rushed forward in a burst of speed that bordered on inhuman. His shinai came swinging towards Kurt's side, who reacted quickly as he blocked it with his shinai, but Kiba didn't let up as he continued his attacks one after the other with no gap in between.
Kurt maintained his composure as he blocked and weaved around Kiba's blows while looking for an opening of his own. Under his helmet. Kurt's brow was slightly furrowed at the sheer speed Kiba was moving, as the young man had never moved that quickly in any of their previous matches.
Finally, he saw an opening after deflecting Kiba's shinai upwards, which left his stomach unguarded. Kurt thrust forward with his shinai, the bamboo sword closing in on Kiba's stomach when all of a sudden, he recovered, his arm almost a blur as he somehow managed to deflect the blow and land a tap on Kurt's side.
"Point Kiba. Game."
Kurt panted as he stepped back and looked at Kiba across from him in surprise. Kiba himself, for that matter, was standing and staring at his shinai before he composed himself and reached up to remove his helmet. Underneath, handsome features were revealed with short blonde hair that was tousled from being under a helmet and blue eyes. There was a noticeable mole under his left eye that served to complete the "princely" look the young man had.
Kurt also removed his helmet, revealing sharp features and black hair with dark blue eyes. His appearance gave him a more mature look, and he could pass for a year or two older than he was.
Both young men were foreigners, despite Kiba's Japanese-sounding name; he was European, and Kurt was half-German, half-Japanese.
"Thought I had you there at the end," Kurt said while handing the shinai he was holding to a kendo club member, who took it happily from him while muttering a compliment and then rushed off to a group of giggling girls.
Kiba was similarly stripped of his shinai and gave Kurt a wry smile. "Me too."
The two left the room to go to the locker room to change. Kuoh Academy had just switched from being a girls-only school, so there wasn't a boys' locker room yet, or even a male kendo team for that matter. The school, alongside the girls' kendo club, ended up compromising and allowed the two boys to use the same locker room as the girls at specific times.
There'd been some outcry from the other boys at the school because of that, especially since no one else was awarded the same privilege, but the complaints quickly died down when the Perverted Trio tried to apply, and it was obvious what would happen if the privilege was abused. In the end, the kendo club said they were only comfortable with Kurt and Kiba, and that was the end of it.
Once the two finished changing into their school uniforms, they made their way back into the club room and mingled with the club for a bit before they were interrupted by the arrival of someone else. The eyes of everyone in the room were drawn to a beautiful young woman standing in the entrance way. She was wearing the Kuoh Academy uniform and had long black hair tied up in a ponytail by an orange ribbon. Her appearance, accented by her well-developed figure and violet eyes, led to Akeno Himejima being dubbed one of the "Two Great Ladies" of Kuoh Academy.
"Hey Akeno, Rias looking for me?" Kurt asked as he made his way over to her, with Kiba trailing slightly behind him.
"And why couldn't I be the one looking for you?" Her teasing tone was quiet, only audible to the two of them, as she walked close to him and looked up into his eyes. "Does Buchou have a monopoly on your time?"
Kurt looked down at her with some amusement. "No, I'd be happy to spend some more time with you." He leaned closer to her, to the point his lips were right beside her ear. "One on one."
"Oh, then why don't we ditch Buchou and head off on our own?"
"I'd be happy to." Kurt inched closer and closer to Akeno. "Unfortunately, your president happens to be a rather jealous person."
"Ahem, guys."
Kiba's interruption brought the two of them out of their reverie as they glanced around and noticed the entire room staring at them with flushed faces. Kurt just grinned and leaned back, and while Akeno mostly maintained her composure, if you looked closely, you'd see that her face was somewhat flushed.
"Yuuto, buddy, you need to learn about atmosphere. Every time I almost get her to break, you end up interrupting."
Kurt wrapped an arm around Kiba's shoulder and dragged him out of the club room with Akeno trailing behind them.
"Maybe you shouldn't do it in public then."
"But that's half the fun."
The group of three made their way across the campus towards the Old School Building that was home to the Occult Research Club.
"So, who won today?" Akeno's question hung in the air for a moment as Kurt rolled his eyes. Surprisingly, despite winning, Kiba's brow was furrowed.
"Yuuto over there, you should've seen the way he moved. My eyes couldn't even keep track of him."
Akeno looked over at Kiba, her brows slightly raised. "Oh, really, that must have been a close match."
Kiba's brow unfurrowed as he formed a polite smile. "I'm sure you'll have better luck next time, Kurt."
"Yeah, yeah, enjoy the win while you can. Our record is pretty even right now."
Eventually, they reached the Old School Building and made their way up the stairs to the door to the club room. Kurt knocked lightly on the door and said, "Rias, it's me."
"Come in."
He pushed the door open while glancing behind him at his two stationary companions. Kiba and Akeno shared a look before waving him off.
"You go ahead, we'll come in a few, give you and Buchou some alone time."
"Suit yourselves."
Kurt walked into the club room and shut the door behind him, leaving Akeno and Kiba in the hallway by themselves. Akeno looked sharply at Kiba, who had a resigned look on his face.
"How fast did you go?"
Kiba sighed and brought his hand to palm the center of his chest. "Definitely faster than a human should go, I just reacted on instinct. I've been able to keep our spars to human levels, but he completely surprised me. I couldn't help but react."
"Alright, I'll modify the memories of the club members." Akeno paused and glanced at the closed door. "There's no helping the fact he saw, is there? He didn't seem to think anything of it."
"Buchou would never allow it. She shut it down when I suggested he join the peerage, too. She doesn't want to get him involved in the supernatural."
"Yeah, she's enamored with him, likes that he's human and uninvolved with anything to do with the supernatural. He doesn't seem to possess a Sacred Gear, nor any particular magical talent, so she likes being able to hang out with him and just forget the problems with her family, and Riser."
"He'd make a great knight, I'd like to spar with him on a level playing field." Kiba paused as he seemed to give the idea some more thought. "I'm quite enamored with him myself; a human has never gotten my blood pumping like that before."
Akeno chuckled, a polite smile on her face while she hid her mouth behind her hand. "Oh wow, is that a confession I hear. Buchou will be so sad you beat her to the punch."
Kiba sighed before letting out a good-natured laugh. "Maybe Kurt's right, I do need to work on my phrasing."
----
Kurt's eyes were immediately drawn to the lone figure in the room, sitting behind a desk with a mountain of paperwork in front of her. Her long crimson hair reached down past the seat of the chair she was sitting in, and her blue eyes shone through a pair of glasses she wore while her gaze flitted along the paper in front of her.
It'd been six months since he'd recovered memories from his past life, and he still couldn't quite believe how anyone could be as attractive as the people he knew in his new life. In this new life, he was a half-German, half-Japanese exchange student at Kuoh Academy, who'd transferred after his parents passed away. He'd grown up in Germany, but was fluent in German, English, and Japanese, and had wanted to see his mother's roots after she passed.
It was only on the first day of school that he'd regained his memories of a past life, one where he'd died young. Fortunately, he somewhat recognized a couple of people at his new school as characters from an anime in his first life; unfortunately, it was an anime he'd never watched and only seen some random promotional art from. Based on the character designs and school setting, he figured it was another one of those slice-of-life romantic comedies he could never really get into.
After realizing that fact, he figured it was best to just go on with his new life and enjoy it. He'd ended up befriending the girl in front of him, Rias Gremory, by accident when he'd ended up in an anime store way too late at night and found her creeping around trying to look inconspicuous. It turned out she always went late enough that any high school students wouldn't be there anymore in an attempt to hide her obsession with anime, and the two had ended up talking for a while.
Over the last six months, he had thoroughly enjoyed his new life. Whether it was practicing the swordsmanship he'd learned from his parents by sparring with Kiba, although he preferred fencing to kendo, or spending time with Rias or Akeno, it felt like he'd been slotted right into the role of the main character of a slice-of-life.
The one thing he'd resolved to do was not be like the main characters he hated so much, who were never willing to progress their relationships and spent their time in perpetual limbo with the female leads, which was why Kurt had been looking forward to meeting with Rias today.
"I still don't believe you that the glasses make you work better." Kurt collapsed onto one of the couches in the room and lay his entire body across it with his legs dangling over the side. "I do think they suit you, though."
"Don't let Sona hear you say that. Glasses have always been her thing." Rias looked up from her paperwork and graced Kurt with a smile before she reached up and took their fake glasses off her face. "We're on the last three episodes today, right?"
"Yep, so if you're done with all of that dreary paperwork, I'm ready to find out how the grail war ends." Kurt got up, walked over to Rias, and slid her paperwork to the side to leave a gap on the desk where he hopped and sat facing Rias, whose chair was scooted back to make room. "I think that's a much more productive use of your time."
"Oh, you do, do you?" Rias asked, a fond smile on her face as she stared up at him. She tapped her chin lightly with the pen she'd been writing with. "Hmm, now do I be the responsible club president, or listen to the devil on my shoulder telling me to abandon work and spend the rest of the afternoon watching anime?"
Kurt grinned and grabbed Rias' hands in his and pulled her to her feet so that she was standing right in front of him. "Oh, so you think I'm a devil?"
Something about that statement deeply amused Rias as her smile grew all the more pronounced. "You're the most devilish thing in this room."
"Well, as the devil on your shoulder, I'll be dragging you to the media room this ridiculously sized club building has for some reason, to waste your time properly." Kurt stood up from the desk and leaned close to Rias, who could feel his breath on her face. The smile never left her face as she looked up at him before she noticed his eyes trail down and stare at her lips.
Her cheeks turned a little red as Kurt leaned down towards her, before he stopped an inch from her face. "And I'll make sure not to mention the pen marks from where you were tapping that pen to your chin."
He pulled back and sprinted off towards the door that led to the media room while Rias stood there for a moment before she yelled, "Dammit, Kurt, why didn't you tell me?"
"Ha, I bet you were trying to look all sophisticated and adult, like some secretary or something. Maybe use the cap-side next time."
"Get back here and help me wipe this off."
"I think it looks quite distinguished."
Rias caught up to him quickly and tackled him onto the sofa that sat in front of a giant TV screen in the media room. Kurt ended up on his back with Rias straddling him, slapping his chest lightly.
"You enjoy riling me up too much. Now, seriously, I can't see where the pen is, so help me."
Kurt waved his hands in surrender and brought his hand to his mouth, licked his finger, and brought it to her chin as he gently wiped the pen mark from her face. Rias started to turn the same color as her hair as she took in the intimate way he was brushing his finger against her face.
"There, good as new. I take full responsibility for my behavior."
"You better," Rias said as she calmed down her beating heart and got off of Kurt, allowing him to sit up as she sat down close beside him. He quickly fiddled with the remote and started the episode of Fate they were on. It was odd, but compared to his old world, where the Unlimited Blade Works route got the Ufotable adaptation, here it was the Fate route that got it, while Ufotable was also making the Oath Under Snow movie next.
The episode began playing, but Kurt was aware that Rias wasn't paying all that much attention. Instead, she kept glancing to her side at him, while muttering things under her breath.
"...take responsibility."
"You say something?"
Rias quickly turned her head the other way as she quickly replied, "No, nothing."
Kurt looked at her for a moment before he tapped her on the shoulder and waited as Rias slowly turned back around to find herself face to face with him again.
"So you want me to take responsibility?"
Rias looked into his eyes before slowly nodding her head. In place of answering, Kurt leaned in again. Rias watched as he did so, a large part of her sure it was another fake out and he'd pull back. That thought stayed right up until she felt his lip softly press against hers, and her eyes widened in shock for a moment before she closed them and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
The show played forgotten as the two kissed for some time before Kurt finally pulled away, and Rias met his.
"How's that for taking responsibility?"
"Just turn the damn show off, I don't want to miss everything," Rias said as she wrapped her arms back around his neck and pulled him back in for another kiss. Kurt fumbled around with his hand to find the remote and shut the TV off before throwing it off to the side as the two sat making out.
Neither noticed that the door to the media room opened for a moment, Kiba and Akeno peaking in to see what they were up to before they promptly closed the door again, although Akeno lingered for a lot longer than Kiba did, to the point he had to pull her back through the doorway.
Kurt and Rias enjoyed their first kiss, and Kurt couldn't help but think he'd never be one of those dense protagonists who couldn't catch a hint to save their life. Now was when his slice-of-life comedy truly began.
----
The walk back home was an enjoyable one. There was a skip in his step as he walked through the park that he had to pass through on his way home. Rias had offered to walk home with him, but he'd told her he was fine, and she'd relented when he mentioned he was still carrying the lucky charm she'd given him: a paper with a red symbol drawn on it. He'd promised her when she gave it to him that he'd always keep it on him, and he'd stood by that to this day.
It was while he was walking through the park that he came upon a sight that left him frozen in surprise. Two figures were the only ones present, one of whom he recognized as Issei Hyoudou, a member of the perverted trio at Kuoh Academy. Across from him was a beautiful young woman with long black hair, violet eyes, dressed in a very revealing latex outfit with a pair of black, feathered wings protruding from his back. She had a spear of what looked to be light in her hand, and had been rearing her hand back to throw it before she noticed Kurt.
"What's another damn human doing here?" She shrugged, the movement doing interesting things to her outfit, but Kurt didn't give it a moment of thought as the woman reared her hand back. "Sucks for you, but no witnesses."
Kurt was moving before he even realized what was happening, and he jumped out of the way as the light spear crashed into the ground where he'd just been. "What the fuck are you?"
"Pretty spry for a human, but the next one won't miss."
Kurt tried to run, but the woman threw a flurry of light spears at him. He managed to dodge a few, but they moved faster than humanly possible and clipped him in the side, sending a searing pain shooting through his ribcage. He tried to keep moving, but the injury slowed him down, and two more spears pierced through his legs, sending him tumbling to the ground on his stomach.
"It would've been less painful if you'd just let the first one hit you," the woman said as she strode over to him with a final spear in hand. "Blame your own misfortune for ending up like this."
She threw the final spear clean through Kurt's back, eliciting a loud cry of pain from him as he struggled to turn himself over.
The woman turned around to look for Issei, but he'd taken the chance while she was distracted to sprint off into the distance. The woman clucked her tongue in frustration while muttering, "Why can't you idiots just keel over and die? Now I've got to chase that idiotic pervert down."
Kurt could vaguely hear her words, but the pain had flooded his senses to the point that it was almost all he could think about. Sardonically, he couldn't help but wonder how bad his luck was. He went from kissing his beautiful friend to dying from some monster in the span of a few hours. In his delirium, his mind fixated on Rias, her crimson hair flooding his vision as the good luck charm she'd given him began to glow with light from its place in his pocket.
The ground next to him lit up with red light as a sigil formed on the ground, one that the woman recognized. "Dammit, he had a Gremory summoning paper on him. I don't have time to chase after that idiot." She took off flying in the direction of the outskirts of town as the sigil lit up slowly, and from the light emerged Rias Gremory.
"Who summ-" she began to speak, before she saw Kurt lying on the ground, bleeding out. She said something, but Kurt couldn't hear it clearly as his vision began to blur; her panicked expression was one of the last things he saw before she seemed to make a decision and pulled out a set of glowing red chess pieces. From them, she picked the knight piece and held it over his body. That was the last thing he saw before his vision faded to black, and he knew no more.
----
Author's Note:
If it wasn't obvious by the title, he's obviously going to stray. I think the most important thing about this type of story is to make it very clear that there will be zero Rias bashing, and she will be a main character, just not in the way she usually is used in DXD fanfics. There's only one group he can really go to as a stray. I wonder if anyone can guess which group that is.
Rias and Akeno are the two main focal points of the typical DXD story, so I wonder, of the two, which do you guys prefer? Vote below, it might influence something down the line, it might not.
1. Rias
2. Akeno