The hospital smelled of antiseptic, floor wax, and the stale, recycled air common to institutions that never truly slept. Riku had been sitting in the same molded vinyl chair near the far wall for four hours.
He didn't mind. In his previous life, time had been a commodity to be spent or killed; now, it was a resource to be utilized. Waiting was a skill like any other—something to be practiced and refined rather than simply endured. He kept his breathing even, matching the slow, rhythmic cadence of a resting adult, and kept his posture relaxed enough to pass for a bored five-year-old. His attention moved through the room like a slow-motion camera, never settling on one person long enough to draw notice. The nurses, busy with the afternoon shift change, smiled at him when they entered and then forgot he existed within seconds.
That suited him perfectly. Transparency was his greatest asset.
Before leaving the manor that morning, he'd pulled up his status screen out of a lingering habit from his first few months of life. Five years of consistent, grueling training under Hiroshi and Yuki had moved the numbers considerably from those embarrassingly small starting values.
[STATUS]
Name: Riku Snow
Age: 5 years (1988)
Level: 7 (340/500 XP)
HP: 95/95
MP: 120/120
STA: 110/110
STR: 18 | DEX: 22 | CON: 17 | INT: 24 | WIS: 21
SP: 0/0 (Sealed — Level 25 required)
[SKILLS ACTIVE]
Gamer's Mind Lv2 | Gamer's Body Lv2
Beginner Swordsmanship Lv4 | Mana Control Lv3
Footwork Fundamentals Lv3 | Observation Lv2
Breath Synchronization Lv2 | Mana Awareness Lv2
[ACTIVE QUEST]
Lay the Foundation — COMPLETE
[NEW QUEST ASSIGNED]
Sharpen the Edge
Objective: Reach Level 10
Reward: +3 to STR, DEX, INT, 500 XP
The foundation is set. Now build something on it.
He had closed the screen with a mental flick and followed his parents to the car without a word. The quest could wait. Today was a rare deviation from his schedule; today had nothing to do with training.
--DxD--
His mother lay in the bed across the room, the center of a controlled storm of medical activity.
Yuki had been in labor since the early hours of the morning. She hadn't panicked once. She breathed through each rolling contraction with the same focused, terrifying discipline she brought to his magic lessons—measured, controlled, and entirely present in the struggle. The pain was real; Riku could see the physiological toll in the way her pulse thrummed in her neck and the white-knuckle grip she had on the bedrails, but she wasn't fighting the sensation. She was working with it, moving through the agony the same way she moved through a high-stakes sparring match. Methodically. Without a single ounce of wasted energy.
Watching her, Riku felt a genuine surge of respect move through him. It wasn't the shallow, performative affection a child is expected to feel for a parent. It was the recognition of a peer acknowledging a master.
Hiroshi stood at her side, his hand wrapped around hers like an anchor. The sharpness he carried everywhere—that predatory readiness that lived just beneath his skin like a clean blade—had softened into something Riku had rarely seen. It wasn't weakness; it was a different application of strength entirely. It was the kind of strength that didn't need to prove itself because it was pointed completely outward, shielding someone else with total devotion.
Riku tracked the room. The nurses moved in the coordinated, silent rhythms of people who had worked together long enough to communicate through glances and half-gestures. A monitor beeped in a steady, hypnotic cadence beside the bed. Outside the window, the 1988 skyline of Kuoh moved through a mundane afternoon. The city was currently in the fever dream of the economic bubble—vibrant, neon-soaked, and wealthy—yet it remained indifferent to the individual lives shifting inside these walls.
He'd known this was coming. He'd been counting the months since Yuki's pregnancy had become visible, running the numbers against the fragmented memories of the High School DxD story he'd read in 2125. He knew the era. He knew that 1988 was a quiet window, a decade of relative peace before the "canon" events would begin to tear through the status quo.
But he hadn't known her. In the stories he remembered, there was no mention of a Snow family, and certainly no mention of a sister. For the first time since his rebirth, he wasn't looking at a piece of a puzzle he already understood. He was looking at a variable. A new life that existed outside the "script" he carried in his head.
Knowing the timeline was a tactical advantage. Sitting three feet from a brand-new life was a reality that hit much harder.
He closed his eyes.
And he felt it.
It wasn't spiritual pressure—his SP was still a locked door behind the Level 25 requirement—but his own "Heavy Soul" was too dense to ignore the proximity of another. This was a pulse just slightly out of sync with his own, like two instruments playing in the same key from different rooms.
Small. Fragile. Completely unaware of the world outside the warmth of the womb.
But it was undeniably there, and it was anchored to him in a way he hadn't anticipated. He didn't reach for it aggressively; he simply opened his awareness the way Yuki had taught him to approach faint energy signatures. He made space. The presence flickered in response—the tiniest reaction, like a candle flame bowing to a shift in the air.
So that's you, he thought quietly. You're almost here.
A notification appeared at the edge of his vision, pale blue and silent.
[QUEST ASSIGNED — AUTOMATIC]
Soul Thread
Objective: Maintain the connection.
Reward: Ongoing passive — Soul Thread strengthens over time.
Something has anchored itself to you. Whether you chose it or not, it is yours now.
He didn't dismiss the window. He let it sit in the periphery of his mind and turned his attention back to the physical world.
--DxD--
The hours dragged, marked by the smell of sweat and the mounting tension in the room. There was an incredible amount of effort being expended, and at one point, Hiroshi's jaw went tight in a way that had nothing to do with physical pain. It was the specific agony of a man watching someone he loves suffer through a burden he cannot carry for them.
Yuki never wavered. Whatever the cost, she paid it in silence. Riku filed the observation away, adding it to the long list of things his mother had taught him about the nature of will.
A nurse crouched beside Riku at one point. She had kind eyes and the practiced, patient warmth of someone used to dealing with siblings in waiting rooms. "Excited to meet your sister, little guy?"
"Yes," Riku said. It was the most honest, uncalculated word he'd spoken since being reborn.
The nurse smiled and moved on. Riku went back to the pulse at the edge of his mind. It was closer now, stronger, the signal gaining clarity as the distance closed.
The cry came without warning.
It was sharp, clear, and absolutely furious—the sound of someone registering a full and immediate objection to the entire concept of being born. Riku stood before he'd consciously decided to move, his body responding to an instinct that bypassed his analytical mind.
A nurse carried the newborn across the room in careful, swaddled hands and placed her in Yuki's arms. Hiroshi made a sound Riku had never heard from him—a jagged mix of a laugh and a long, shuddering exhale. He pressed his forehead gently to Yuki's, and for a moment, the two of them existed in a private world where nothing else mattered.
"She's perfect," Hiroshi said, his voice rough with an emotion he usually kept under lock and key.
Yuki looked physically spent, her skin pale and damp with sweat, but her focus on the bundle in her arms was absolute. She looked up and found Riku across the room immediately, as if she'd known his exact coordinates the entire time. Of course she had.
"Riku," she said softly. "Come meet your sister."
He crossed the room, his small feet making no sound on the linoleum.
Kairi was red-faced, screaming, and impossibly small. Her hands were curled into tight fists that had no idea what they were supposed to do with the world yet. Her eyes roved without landing—unfocused, watery, and taking in a reality that was entirely too bright and loud. She was still crying, her small lungs working with the full conviction of someone who had opinions and intended to share them with the universe.
Not fear, Riku decided, observing her with clinical curiosity. Just the sheer indignity of existing somewhere she didn't agree to enter.
He understood that feeling better than most. He reached out slowly, moving with the same deliberate care he used when practicing his footwork, and let one finger brush the back of her hand.
The crying stopped.
It wasn't a gradual wind-down or a soothing lull. It simply ceased, as if a switch had been found and gently pressed by a hand that knew exactly where it was. Kairi's unfocused eyes drifted toward him, orienting in his direction like a compass needle finding north.
The pulse he'd been tracking all day flared once—sudden, warm, and startlingly clear—then settled into a constant, quiet hum. A thread. Woven between them with the clinical permanence of a suture.
Not chosen. Just true.
Behind him, Hiroshi had gone completely silent.
"Hiroshi," Yuki said softly.
"I see it," his father replied, his voice measured in the way it got when he was processing something significant. "The connection."
"Is it—"
"No." A long pause. "It's not dangerous. It's just... stronger than I expected."
Kairi's hand moved. Clumsy and uncoordinated, operating on pure instinct, her tiny fingers found his and closed around them. She held on with a grip that had absolutely no business being that firm on someone less than an hour old.
Something settled inside Riku's chest that hadn't been settled before. He had someone now. Not just parents who trained him or a world he had to navigate, but someone who was his in the irreducible way siblings belong to each other before they've done a single thing to deserve it.
I've got you, he thought, not as a decision, but as an acknowledgment of a fact. Whatever is out there. Whatever is coming. I've got you.
The system responded with a silent chime.
[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED]
Big Brother
Some bonds form before either person is ready for them. This one already has.
Reward: +1 WIS, +1 CON, 100 XP
[TITLE UNLOCKED]
Big Brother
Passive Effect: +2 WIS when Kairi is within range. The thread between you sharpens your awareness of everything around her.
Equip this title? Y/N
Riku dismissed the equip prompt for the moment. There would be time for menus later. Right now, he just stood there and held on.
--DxD--
That night, after Yuki had finally fallen into a deep sleep and Kairi had been placed in the bassinet beside her bed, Hiroshi found Riku at the window of the small waiting room at the end of the hall.
The neon glow of 1988 Kuoh was softer from this height. The lights of the city moved in slow, golden patterns—ordinary people living ordinary lives, completely unaware of the factions, ancient agreements, and blood-soaked history that divided the ground beneath their feet.
Hiroshi pulled a chair close and sat without preamble. This was how his father gave important things—sideways, without ceremony, trusting the other person to be ready to receive them. They sat in silence for a long time.
"There are things in this city," Hiroshi said eventually. His voice was even, the tone he used for things that mattered. "Things that pay attention to energy signatures. To unusual connections between people. To anything that stands out from what is ordinary." He paused, looking out at the city. "You understand what I'm telling you."
It wasn't a question.
"Don't stand out," Riku said, his voice small but steady. "Not yet."
Hiroshi looked at him—that long, measuring look he used when Riku said something that didn't fit a five-year-old's mouth. "You say 'not yet' like a man who already has a plan written out."
Riku said nothing. He kept his eyes on the golden lights below.
His father held the look for another moment, then he nodded—once, slowly. He stood and rested one hand briefly on Riku's shoulder—a heavy, grounding weight—and left the room.
Riku stayed at the window. He opened the titles screen and equipped Big Brother.
Immediately, the thread in his chest warmed. It wasn't louder, but it was more defined, like a signal sharpening into high definition. Down the hall, barely audible, Kairi made a small, indignant sound in her sleep—some private complaint about the nature of existence—and then went quiet again.
Riku smiled in the dark. He opened his quest screen one last time.
[ACTIVE QUESTS]
Sharpen the Edge — Reach Level 10 (Current: Lv 7)
Soul Thread — Maintain the connection (Progress: 1%)
The road ahead was longer than anything he'd faced in his first life. The stakes were higher. But as he turned from the window to find a place to sleep, he carried the thread in his chest like a compass that had finally, after twenty-nine years of pointing at nothing, found its direction.