X_
Kai
Lying in my bed, with Konan clinging to me like a koala, her sad, tear-stained face was enough to jolt my brain back to normal frequency.
I always knew I was dumb, and I was okay with that. I just didn't know I was the kind of dumb one would write cautionary stories about.
Really, what came over me so suddenly that I decided to consciously and seriously think I wanted to stay a weak glass cannon when I could just make a deal with Konan and have all my problems solved?
Was I suddenly so assured of having unlimited potential that I made an effort not to gain easy power?
I only hoped no one from my old world found out. I was a disgrace to men of culture everywhere. Everyone knows that if you're not cheating, you're not trying hard enough.
'Fuck stupid pride,' I thought seriously. 'What use is that if I'm dead?'
Sniffles~
I looked down when I heard Konan sniffle. She was really shaken up by today's events. I was too, but not in the same way.
"Hey, Konan…" I called out softly.
She didn't reply. She just hugged me more tightly.
"How about we make a deal?" I asked, and that got her attention.
She shifted slightly, her chin now on my chest as she looked at me with an expression that said, Go on…
"How about I get a copy of all your powers and abilities in exchange for me giving you more power in the future?"
"I don't want powers," she said.
"Okay… what do you want?"
"I want you to be safe," she said, her breath hitching mid-sentence.
"Of course I will be," I said seriously. "The more powers you have, the more I get, and then we're both safe, right?"
I saw the light return to her eyes. I may have underestimated how much my injury affected her.
"Okay then! Deal!" she exclaimed, suddenly sitting on my stomach and extending her hand for a handshake.
We shook hands, and I smiled at her before pulling her back into my embrace.
My eyelids were feeling heavy as I felt something click in my head. Like something was broken but now was fixed, followed by a new kind of rush.
'I might get addicted to cheating if it feels this good,' I thought blearily as I yawned and the lights went out for me.
---
Konan
She smiled happily as she watched Kai fall right asleep after he made the deal.
At least now he would be as strong as her, and she wouldn't have to worry about him being a stationary target again.
She knew he was weak, and she was okay with that. It wasn't like she had always been this strong.
She just didn't notice he was that much of a dummy.
Everyone knows to get out of a fight zone as quickly as possible. Amegakure taught that to everyone… it was the basic requirement known to all.
'Sometimes, it's like he's not even thinking.'
She put her head to the side, listening to his heartbeat as she closed her eyes.
There was no point in staying awake right now, so she might as well sleep.
---
Next day
Kai
I woke up feeling like I had been reborn.
A great feeling, to be honest.
The alertness. Awareness. The feeling of strength and bolstered amount of chakra in my body.
I slipped out of bed and started walking. My steps felt light, and everything around me felt more vivid.
I stepped on the wall and started walking up, then just stopped and stayed hanging from the ceiling. I instinctively moved my chakra in a way that stopped my blood from rushing into my head.
I changed my position, and now I was hanging with one arm sticking to the ceiling. The theme song of Spider-Man suddenly played in my head.
"This is great," I muttered as I let go, landing on the floor without making a sound.
All that stealth training I now knew was useful. I could feel how my body was getting used to having awareness of my surroundings, strength, speed, coordination—in real time.
'Okay. Past me had eyes but didn't see Mt. Tai,' I thought with a snicker.
I moved toward the door and opened it, coming face to face with a hotel worker pushing the food cart that had our breakfast.
I felt him coming. I felt how much wasted movement he had with every step, how he was pushing the cart wrong.
I sensed his danger level—which was pretty low—and smelled how he was covering his stink with cheap cologne.
"Thank you," I smiled at him, making him nod and wish us a great morning before moving away.
I dragged the cart in and closed the door, turned around, and saw Konan walk into the living room while rubbing her eyes.
I smiled fondly and moved. One second I was by the door; the next, I was next to her.
I scooped her up into my arms, making her yelp in surprise, and we went back to the bathroom to wash our faces, brush our teeth, and get ready.
…
After breakfast, we sat on the sofa, chatting about what to do today.
"You promised to take me somewhere new," Konan pointed out, reminding me of a promise I had carelessly given her yesterday morning.
"And I will, after I summon the devil here to start getting things rolling," I replied, which was the truth.
"Fine," she pouted, but then gave me a serious look and said, "Are they dangerous?"
It was cute. No one can see a ten-year-old give a serious face and actually take it seriously. The cuter the kid, the more adorable they look.
'And Konan is just outright fatally cute.'
"Of course they are dangerous," I shrugged. "They're devils."
"Then we should prepare in advance first."
"Don't worry, I can now do everything you can do," I reassured her. "It will be fine."
She gave me a skeptical look, but I just laughed.
She might think I was getting ahead of myself, but I was not. I could now do the paper release too. I instinctively knew that I could imbue the paper with any effect I wanted, and I could just spam holy papers at devils, or holy paper bombs, or holy radiation bombs…
Yeah. Things were looking up.
We still talked it out at length. Konan didn't seem reassured even then, but I did show her how I would defend myself if necessary, and she picked up how to make holy papers too.
It was only by nine o'clock in the morning that she finally allowed me to summon the devil. After we had pretty much loaded the entire living room with papers of varying effects.
Containment, restriction, displacement, holy combustion, holy shine, etc.
"Alright then, let's do this," I said, holding Konan in a side-arm hug as we sat on the sofa.
I held the parchment and just thought about using it.
I felt the magic—the energy I took from Gasper—flow through my right hand, the paper lighting up as I threw it, and a crimson magic circle appeared on the coffee table.
The coffee table was made of glass…
Soon enough, a girl was standing on the wreckage of the table, the glass under her feet almost dust. She looked at us, nodded, and started to introduce herself.
"Akeno Himejima, Queen Devil in the service of House Gremory. What is your wish?"
Silence followed as I tried to process the amount of misleading information in that introduction. Then my eyes found her form, and suddenly I forgot about them.
Kidding. I was young and horny, but I had an image to protect in front of Konan, so I didn't drool or focus on her sinful devil features much.
Even if I felt like gravity was going wacky and trying to pull my eyes towards the two enormous objects in front of me.
I had infinite willpower, and I felt like I was using it to its full potential.
Akeno was gorgeous. She looked young, maybe my age or slightly older, with black silky hair tied in a ponytail, and gorgeous violet eyes.
"You're a devil queen?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"In a manner of speaking."
"If you are a queen, how can you be in service to others?" She wanted to play? Let's play.
"House Gremory is a powerful Duke-rank house in the Underworld, and I serve their heir."
"Oh," I nodded in understanding. "So the Underworld is still in a feudal system? Interesting." I rubbed my chin. "Do they also have slavery? No real freedom? Arranged marriages for the sake of keeping pure bloodlines, etc.?"
My slightly sarcastic tone seemed to clue her in.
Her left eye twitched slightly as she gave me a once-over. Her eyes slid to Konan before she smiled softly and sat on the armchair across from us.
"So you know about the Underworld, then?"
"In a manner of speaking."
She rolled her eyes at me and started looking around the room, her eyes stopping for a split second every time she noticed a paper.
"Those are some powerful ofuda you have there," she pointed out. "They feel strange, though. So I'm guessing one of you veered off the usual practice or has some kind of mutation, and the clan kicked you out?"
I stared at her, slightly baffled by what she said. I could see how she arrived at that conclusion, and I was not going to correct it.
"Let's make a deal first," I said, making a serious face. "You cannot share this information or use it to harm us in any way, and I don't detonate all those holy talismans I have." I lifted a finger, making the papers glow softly.
Her eyes widened—more surprised that she had missed them than anything else—before she turned her head toward me and sighed.
"It's nice to see the Five Principal Clans' education is still as skewed as ever," she said disdainfully. "That's not how our deals work, but if it will make you feel safe, then fine. Deal." She agreed while looking at Konan.
The feeling was instantaneous. And Akeno also felt it, if the way her body flinched for a second was any indication.
"What was that?" she asked, now more alert.
"That was the deal taking hold," I explained. "You see, I am a merchant. I came here when I heard about the Gremory heir being assigned overseer of the town."
She snarled. "What do you want with Rias?"
"Easy," I moved my hand placatingly. "Didn't I say I was a merchant? I meant what I said. As for why I came for her specifically? Well, she has a unique position to help me, and I am also pretty much her ticket to freedom."
Akeno just sighed. "Not even three months in town and we already attracted craziness."
"Hey!" I was offended. "Don't insult us just because your pitiful brain can't comprehend our power."
"Ara ara," she said, and I stopped feeling whatever offended feelings I was feeling or hearing whatever she said afterwards.
'She said the thing!' I shouted in my head. 'She actually ara ara'd me!'
Of course, my willpower was showing its worth by stopping me from making an idiot out of myself.
"How about you try this before you decide whatever it is you want to know?" I steered the conversation back to where I wanted it, because Akeno was already trying to get Konan to like her by complimenting her hair and stuff.
"Oh," she was intrigued. "And how do you suppose we do that?"
"We make a deal," I told her. "I will give you power for a week, and in return, you promise to tell your King about this and keep it discreet."
"Tempting," she leaned forward, and gravity was trying harder to pull my eyes towards the new orbits. "And what's the penalty for being naughty and breaking the deal?"
"Nothing serious. Just you losing half of your power for a month."
"Hmm," she hummed thoughtfully before shrugging. "Sure. You have yourself a deal. Impress me."
I summoned my case, making it appear in my lap, then opened it, showing ten pills.
The world greyed out before I could say anything, and I looked down and saw the pills glow.
'Oh.'
I realized what was happening. I needed to make the powers beforehand, and she could choose one of those. She didn't get the Konan treatment, then, huh.
I didn't really care and went ahead and made the pill a physical power multiplier. Double strength to ten times the strength.
The duration was set to seven days, and the side effect was making the pill taker feel the best orgasm they had ever experienced before.
I didn't set anything else.
The grey world bled away, and I returned to the present.
"Choose one," I announced.
"And what are those?"
"Ten pills that will give you anything from double physical strength to ten times that. Depending on which pill you take, of course. Now choose one."
She looked at the case and picked the fifth pill on the first row. The pill color turned violet in her hand. She looked at me and started casting spells on the pill, but with each circle she conjured, her face scrunched a little more.
She gave up after five minutes and just popped the thing into her mouth.
Konan and I, on the other hand, were just sitting there, enjoying the show.
As soon as she ate the pill, she let out a long, deep moan.
"Uuuuuuhhhh~"
'Fuck, I forgot about that.' I quickly moved my hands to cover Konan's ears and yelled, "Dude! We have a kid here!"
She wasn't listening. Her eyes were slightly glazed, her body shaking and spasming. Sweat started to appear on her forehead, and she had her hands curled into fists.
It took her a minute to get back to the present, but as soon as she did, a magic circle appeared under her, and she was suddenly in a presentable state again.
"Sorry about that," she said, her ears red. "Someone forgot to tell me about this…"
"Don't try to pin this on me!" I looked her dead in the eye. "That was all you." I said, my hand vaguely gesturing all over her body.
She had the good sense to look slightly abashed as she looked at Konan before shaking her head.
"I should get going first," she said. "I need to test out my new strength."
I nodded, and a magic circle appeared under her before she left.
Looking over the now-ruined armchair, I sighed.
Sacrifices were necessary for progress.
'Step one complete.'
…
Rias Gremory
Rias wasn't used to feeling envious of her peerage. Never really did, if she was being honest. They were her precious peerage; she didn't need to feel jealous of them.
There was only one person she envied, and that was Satan Leviathan. Even then, she envied her freedom and power more than anything else.
So now, standing in the training ground, looking heatedly at Akeno—her Queen—as she made deep craters in the ground with casual kicks and punches, she didn't know what to do.
"Ara ara," Akeno looked at her teasingly. "Are you jealous of my amazing strength, Rias?"
"No," she did not pout. She just refused to look at her smug queen.
"Oh, don't be jealous, my King," Akeno was suddenly next to her. "I can just punch your enemies for you now."
"That's not the point," Rias rolled her eyes. "There's a guy in my town handing out power pills, and I just heard about it now."
"Well, you would have heard about it eventually. He said he came here specifically for you."
"And that's why this is concerning," she doubled down. "The guy seemed to know more about us than we do about him. That's an advantage for him."
"We can just ask Grayfia or your brother for help."
"No!" Rias instantly refused. "That might constitute danger to him, and then who knows what he could do to you?"
"I don't think he can do anything you're imagining…"
"It doesn't matter. We need to prepare for this first, and then after meeting him, we can see what to do."
"Is his power to enforce deals really that scary?" Akeno asked a stupid question.
She just gave her a flat stare and waited for her brain to start working again.
"Right. Sorry," Akeno said sheepishly.
"Be glad Grayfia is not here to hear you say that."
"Yeah…"
"Okay, now shoo," Rias made a playful expression and a shooing gesture with her hand. "Go get your power under control first while I start thinking of a plan."
"Send Koneko and Kiba my way," Akeno said. "I need pressure if I want to get this under control as soon as possible."
"Sure!"
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