Chapter 1

A/N: Although the story will take place in DxD, a lot of it will be original content. I don't have much interest in following the main plot. Many of the main characters will be here, but for all intents and purposes, this is a fully Alternate Universe with very mild crossover elements. Happy reading, I guess.

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Cold, gray, and desolate. Nothing else could describe the grayscale wasteland sprawling outward indefinitely in every direction. 

Amidst this dreary wasteland, a young man garbed in a loose-fitting blood-red robe creased his brows and turned his head back and forth. His pale eyes squinted in confusion as a desolate and stale breeze whistled around him. The red robe covering his body fluttered in the stale and sandy wind.

Looking down at his current attire, the young man frowned. He grabbed some of the silken cloth in one hand and rubbed the fabric between his forefinger and thumb as though unfamiliar with it. Then, he looked down at his bare feet and tilted his head in a somewhat confused manner.

"What is all this?" The young man wondered aloud. His voice sounded raspy and parched as the breeze carried particles of gray sand into his mouth. He briefly broke into a coughing fit because of it. In the end, only the whine of the wind carrying the sand responded to his query.

The young man finished coughing and covered his mouth with the loose fabric of his robe. Then, he narrowed his eyes. 

The last thing he remembered, he was driving on some back roads toward a campground to join his family's annual vacation there, but now he found himself standing in an unfamiliar place. No lapse in his memory between the two points in time gave him any understanding of his current predicament. 

Unable to make sense of anything, he pinched his arm hidden beneath the red cloth. Subtle pain grounded him in reality. Unfortunately, confirming his current state of consciousness made him grimace. He quietly glared at the surroundings as though expressing his dissatisfaction.

"They usually say to sit and wait for rescue when lost, but…"

The young man turned his head back and forth, yet he saw nothing except for rocky hills and sandy plains as far as the eye could see. Then, he patted his body down to see if he could find any belongings on his person. 

"Not even a hint of pocket lint, eh? And what's with this weird robe?" He commented to himself, partially to combat the growing unease from finding himself completely alone in a foreign environment.

"I don't recall dying, so what is even happening right now?" He asked nobody in particular, his voice muffled by red cloth. 

A sigh slipped from his lips, he shut his eyelids tight, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Grains of sand brushed against his exposed face and closed eyelids. The scratchy grains brought about an irritating itch.

After a few seconds of quiet pondering, he lowered his hand and opened his eyes once more to the wasteland surrounding him on all sides.

"I'd rather not die, but I don't want to wait here like a sitting duck, either."

The young man looked around for a few more seconds before steeling his resolve to step forward into the barren wasteland. He pulled his robe's hood tightly around his head to prevent sandy winds from scratching his face.

On and on he sauntered. Step he step, he trudged across sand-covered plains and rocky outcroppings. The drab shades of white, gray, and black that filled his view lended to a suffocating atmosphere, yet still he forced himself onward.

The young man did not know how much time had passed now. It could have been five minutes, or it could have been five hours, yet he would not have known the difference in this dreary and unforgiving climate.

Eventually, he heard another sound aside from the desolate winds. Although similar to the wind, something about it sounded different. He recognized that sound. It was the gentle ebb and flow of ocean waves upon a beach. Since following water was common survival advice, he followed his ears toward the sound.

A short trek later, he reached a plethora of gray sand dunes and halted atop a particularly tall dune. Peeking out between the cracks of fabric he left open for himself to see, he perceived foamy waves crashing on a distant shore. 

For a few moments, he stood still and stared at the ocean waters that looked as gray as the sand beneath his feet. The clear waters he hoped to see were nowhere to be found. 

Shaking his head, the young man descended the sand tune toward the shore. He sighed at the disappointing sight of grayscale waters while refusing to look away from it. 

"Maybe I'll find something if I follow the shore," He mumbled to himself, though the growing winds drowned out his voice.

Robe flapping wildly in the wind, he trudged onward. Cold and coarse sand tickled his toes with each step, but he ignored it. 

Once again, time passed in a strange manner. He glanced upward at the sky but saw nothing except thick gray fog. Then, he looked down at his shadow which had not changed from being directly beneath him since he started walking. Although the lack of change unnerved him, he only faltered a step or two before shaking his head and continuing his beachside trek.

A long while later, or perhaps a short while later, he noticed a large and unnaturally shaped rock formation in the distance that rose up from the sea and into the gray sands on the shore. Fog and airborn sand partially obscured a clear view of it, but due to the unnatural shape, he hoped to find something of interest there and sped up his pace.

Hand outstretched to block some of the sand-filled wind, he trudged forward step by step toward the strange rock formation. As he got closer, the fog obscuring his view lessened, allowing him to see the formation more clearly. 

At that point, he stopped in his tracks. He lowered his hand, and his jaw dropped a little. He could barely believe his own eyes, for what he initially thought to be a rock formation suddenly became a massive skeleton now that he could see it clearly.

Speechless, he slowly approached the giant collection of humanoid bones. The closer he got, the more it blocked out the horizon. The sheer size of the skeleton defied the laws of physics he knew. The bones themselves looked old and dusty, yet they defied the natural order of decay and maintained their original positions as a whole skeleton. 

While approaching the bones, the young man looked toward where the legs would have been if not submerged under the ocean waves. The torso extended far enough into the sea that he imagined swimming to the end of the ribcage might even prove difficult, not that he had any interest in making the attempt. 

Eventually, he stopped in front of the massive jawbone that was halfway buried in the sand. Wide-eyed, he raised his head to look at the few teeth still attached to the skull. Just a single tooth dwarfed his body by several times. He felt like an amoeba standing before this titan of a skeleton.

Filled with wonder and curiosity, the young man reached toward the bones. However, he hesitated. Not knowing how old the bones were led him to wonder if they would crumble under his touch. 

The young man raised his head and quietly observed the giant skull towering above him. Near the top, he saw a caved-in hole, but it otherwise looked sturdy enough. Thus, he lowered his gaze and gently pressed his fingers against the jaw. Cold hard bone remained firm under his touch. 

Running his fingers along the surface, he felt the smooth surface of bone marked by miniscule imperfections. However, blue lines subtly glowed behind where his fingertips traced the bone. A static current arced into his hand and down his arm.

His eyes widened. He tried to pull his hand back, but his fingers remained plastered to the bone. Drawing in a sharp breath, he winced as the static current spread throughout his body. Another breath later, it reached his eyes. There, it stopped. Then, it burgeoned.

Sharp pain like an electric shock rattled his eyes and brain. It hurt so much so quickly that he couldn't even scream. A few breaths later, he lost consciousness.

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Earth and stone trembled beneath his steps. Trees cracked and crumbled in his wake. Storms racked throughout the skies, and tempests raged upon the seas. Everything slowly died and decayed in perilous hopelessness, yet he walked forward undaunted.

He was the biggest and the tallest of his kinfolk. He was their king. No matter what stood in his path, he stood tall and strong to face it.

Unknown creatures with hideous forms, both smaller and larger than himself, attacked him on sight. He fought back. Blue symbols and lines filled his view at will to relay forms of reality to him. 

A war for survival ensued for a very long time, yet it felt very short. Sometimes he allied with others of his kind, but they all inevitably met a bitter end. By the time an amphibious king of beasts caved in his skull, his long life felt like it had been naught but a dream.

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When the young man awoke, his eyes beheld a strange sight. Carpet.

And blue lines that made his head throb when he tried to focus on them.

Either way, both things were not the pearly gates he expected to find on the other side of an unjust death by skull electrocution. 

"That felt like a dream, but maybe those were the final memories of that skeleton?" He reasoned in a contemplative tone.

Although the conclusion would have been unreasonable under normal circumstances, he figured it could be accurate considering the supernatural event he just experienced in that gray world of death.

Still thinking about the dream-like visions, he focused on the glowing blue lines that intersected in front of him. Part of his brain vaguely interpreted the meaning behind what the symbols meant.

{This is carpet. It is floor.}

Information about the material composition, fabrication methods, and potential uses of carpet, and the history of the carpet since its inception filled his vision and channeled into his brain. Despite all of that, the first concept was the clearest one. 

"..."

He groaned and closed his eyes. Even that small amount of information overloaded his brain and strained his eyes. Blood pounded through the veins around his temples. The pain felt like somebody pressing their fingers directly into his eyes. 

Some part of him understood that it was not the information flooding his mind that caused him pain, but rather the actual act of reading into and comprehending the symbols and intersecting lines. 

He was not the giant king who wandered a world full of monsters. Whatever this supernatural ability was, he did not think he would be able to use it willfully, at least for the time being.

'At least like that giant king did, I should try to only read into what I want to read into. That's the only thing I fully understood from that hazy dream.'

And so he did. 

When he opened his eyes again, the blue lines dimmed. They were still there, but they did not shout out their existence to him as they did before. It felt like he had been looking at the sun before and now it was covered by thick clouds. 

"That's more bearable," He groaned.

Rolling onto his back, the young man blinked a few times. Above him was a ceiling. A modern one. Compared to everything else, the ceiling could be considered ordinary. However, he had been driving a car before finding himself in that gray world. Yet again, he inexplicably found himself in an unfamiliar place.

Out of curiosity, he grasped his clothes. The same silky fabric of the red robe fell into his grasp. Motes of gray sand still clung to the fabric as well.

Brows furrowing together, he forced himself to sit up. He looked around and raised a brow upon seeing a living room with simple furnishings. None of it looked familiar to him, though. Throughout the living room, he could see dim pathways and symbols that brightened slightly when he focused on them. For the time being, however, he focused on the decorations in the house, especially the picture frames on a nearby storage desk.

Unable to see the faces clearly from across the room, he frowned and wondered, 'Whose house is this?'

In order to get a better look at the pictures, he tried to stand. Strangely, though, his balance failed him, causing him to briefly stumble. He barely stabilized himself by slamming a palm onto the carpet. His whole body felt uncomfortable and unsteady. He squinted and patted down his own body. Now, he knew something was wrong. Nothing about his body felt the same as before. His current body felt smaller and scrawnier which made him wonder if he somehow starved while in that other world despite not feeling the sensation of hunger there. He quickly set that conclusion aside, though. Instead, he searched for a mirror.

Breaking into a brief search, he slowly adjusted to the changes in his body while cautiously wandering around the house in case there were any residents in the house. Before long, he found a bathroom down the hall. Inside the bathroom, he raised a brow at the construction style. The bathing area was separated from everything else on the opposite side of a clouded glass door. 

For the time being, he set aside that discovery and turned toward the mirror. There, he met the eyes of a stranger, yet not a stranger. A weird sense of familiarity swept over him as his hands subconsciously rose and touched the young acne-riddled face he saw in the mirror. 

Forehead creased with small wrinkles, he pulled back the red hood covering his head. The somewhat unfamiliar reflection followed suit. His facial structure looked vaguely Oriental in nature, but at the same time, he saw hints of his own Western descent. His eyes were still a pale gray color like before whereas his hair turned a slightly darker shade of brown and lost the waviness he had become accustomed to. 

'It's like a teenage me fused with an Asian kid? I don't really care that much what I look like, but this is completely bizarre. It's like me but not me at the same time.'

Perhaps a few minutes passed while he turned his head in every direction to fully take in his current appearance. Although he still had not fully adjusted to recognizing this face as his own, he temporarily accepted it. He also determined to rid himself of the acne as soon as possible if he was forced to keep this body for the foreseeable future.

From there, he walked back out into the living room and beelined for the desk that had picture frames on top of it. The first one he looked at was a family picture with three people in it. His eyes latched onto it due to seeing a familiar face.

"Mom?" He couldn't help blurting out in a confused tone. 

Face scrunched up in a puzzled manner, he looked at the child version of his current self as well as the Asian man standing behind him and the mother he originally knew. He stood there in silence for a while with gears turning in his head.

'Is this some sort of parallel universe or something?' He wondered.

While keeping that in mind, he looked at all the other pictures. He recognized some of the people from his mother's side but none of the ones from the other side of the family pictures. All of this made him feel out of place, but for what it was worth, it seemed to be his own home, or at least the home of a parallel version of him.

Suddenly, the buzzing vibration of a smartphone on a hard surface jolted him from his reverie. Since the phone was sitting on a nearby countertop, he stepped over to it and checked the caller ID. Upon seeing the symbols there, however, he raised a brow. The language of the caller ID was Japanese. Luckily, it was one of the handful of languages he knew fluently enough to converse in. 

'Naru nee-san? Who is that?'

He briefly debated whether or not to answer, but in the end, a desire to figure out more about his current situation won out. 

"Hello?"

"Eh? Hello? Ken-kun? You actually picked up the phone for once," A youthful feminine voice responded.

Recognizing that his current self might be more of an introverted type, he opted for a quiet response of, "Mhmm."

At the same time, he realized that his name seemed to be the same here, albeit with slightly different pronunciation.

"Ah, well, I was going to just leave a message again, but since it's Saturday, I'll head over in the afternoon to help you go grocery shopping again, okay?"

"Uh, sure."

"Make sure you're wearing clothes this time, okay?"

"...Okay?"

"Alright. Good. See you later, then."

"See you later."

With that, 'Naru nee-san' hung up. Ken pulled the phone down and looked at the screen with slightly narrowed eyes. He initially planned to lead the conversation to something that could let him know more about his current situation, but if the girl was coming to visit, he could just do it then. Thinking such, he set down the phone and looked at the pictures again. 

"Before then, I guess I should at least familiarize myself with the place in case I need to stay here for a while."