Chapter 1 - Rias Gremory is a teenage devil with a perfectly healthy imagination​

Rias Gremory POV -

"Haaum!"

I allowed an inelegant yawn to escape my throat as I set aside the stack of the accursed paperwork which I finally managed to finish. Huffing, I stretched my upper body, causing my bones to produce massive popping noises. Nodding in satisfaction, I let my head rest on the surface of my work desk, my lips curling up momentarily as I felt the coldness of the wood upon my face. Only, as I gazed upon the work that I had accomplished in a day, all I felt was bitterness at its size.

Honestly, the pile seemed to get bigger every time I laid my eyes on it, even though I cleared out the previous ones on a regular basis!

Okay, semi-regularly.

Fine! You win, imaginary adversary! I admit that I end up procrastinating until the very last moment, preferring to drown my sinful body completely in the sins of humanity instead!

'What do you mean sweets, snacks, and anime don't count?!'

"Hah~! I must be bored out of my mind to even create a fictional person to argue with. Ah, what to do now? The others won't be back from their contracts until much later. Gasper-chan is still too painfully shy to bond with her big sis… and regrettably, I don't feel like watching anime at the moment. So that leaves – training."

I did not audibly groan at the thought of having to train. Nope. Not at all. Whoever insinuated as such is a lying liar, and as per time-honored traditions will have his pants catch fire.

...

It was at that moment when I was just about to get up that my device's notification tone for a new potential contract rang out.

'Oh my! Such unfortunate timing!~'

"Hmm, I should be training. But… but… there could be an emergency on the other side. Ah, what a dilemma~ What to do?~ Think Rias, what if you were the only hope of the person on the other side?~"

...

"Hmm, I've decided." I nodded to myself firmly. "Solve the poor contractor's problems first. Training… uh, I'll do it at night. Yeah. That's it! Yosh! Let's go then~"

Then, having made my decision… first things first, I almost ritually took a moment to fantasize about who the new, potentially recurring, contractor could be as I stood up from my chair, went over my appearance once, tidied up my school uniform a bit, and walked toward the center of the room.

Statistically speaking, it was most likely to be a normal person with a mundane problem. After all, out of the populace of Kuoh who regularly called upon my peerage, almost none were even tangentially related to the supernatural world. So, most of the free time of my peerage members was spent doing mundane tasks like helping a burdened housewife with the housework, babysitting someone's kids, watching TV shows or playing video games with lonely people, and so on. 

I, myself, mostly handled requests and contracts related to business and administration.

The small number of people with supernatural problems almost always ended up needing the services of my dear Queen, Akeno, because of her skills in purification and exorcism. 

Of course, the fact that we had to use a tiny bit of mental nudging on the mundane contractors was obvious, to make our existence seem normal to them, and to not speak of us to other humans, so that these humans didn't end up breaking the masquerade by any chance.

...

All in all, the experience was, if expressed in one word, normal. A very human-like, homely experience. Something that I realized that my peerage sorely needed, considering they did their contracts with gusto. 

The fact that it would help them climb higher in devil society was a bonus as well; not that anyone in my peerage cared about it. After all, none of them, bar Akeno, had been trained to become territory administrators just yet, considering that promotion didn't come easily from doing such 'menial' contracts, maybe after a century or two of continuous effort.

And the other aspect of the promotion… well, if they ended up wanting to take someone in their peerage, a set of evil pieces being given beforehand wasn't that rare of an occurrence.

Still, homely or not, it felt boring at times… like right now, and hence, I craved a little bit of excitement and adventure. 

…

It definitely wasn't because I had ended up spending the entirety of Saturday marathoning one of my favorite shōnen anime, and then watching an endless amount of AMVs on Devil-tube, for inspirational purposes regarding my training, no sir, not at all. You can't prove anything, hypothetical adversary of mine!

My right eye twitched as I once again realized the fearsomeness of paperwork, to have made me argue against an imaginary entity for this long; and how much of a lunatic Sona was, with the piles upon piles of sheets that were always present in the Student Council Room.

'Was it a fetish, maybe? Leave it to Sona to make even fetishes boring.'

'No Rias, remember the cardinal rule. No kink-shaming.'

Nevertheless, as my demonic energy finally filled the magical circle meant for teleportation, and the entire room lit up with the blue light of the activation of the magic, I momentarily hoped that just even once, the one on the other side would be someone with an exciting request from the supernatural side, maybe even a human magician!

The thought of forming a contract with a magician had me giddy for a moment, considering that no one in my generation had managed to do that yet. But then, as I remembered how arrogant human magicians were in general, sometimes even more than us Pillar Devils, my mood plummeted and a sigh escaped my mouth as I disappeared from the room.

…

Of course, life had to throw a basket of lemons my way as I appeared at the destination of the teleportation magic, and whatever fanciful dreams I had been entertaining died an immediate death as I gazed upon the sight on the other side.

The location, as I knew beforehand, was a small, less visited park in Kuoh. I found myself standing by the water fountain upon arrival, and the romance-starved part of my brain immediately noted the orange rays of the sunset dyeing the scene and supplied that it was quite a decent location for a love confession.

Of course, the rational part of my brain immediately shoved that unnecessary thought into the deepest recesses of my mind, along with the conviction to reduce the time spent reading shōjo manga. Mind clear, I focused on the supernatural part – the ward over the location, and the three people in it.

The barrier, well it was a simple one, it just kept mundane people away through a subtle mental compulsion, and hid the ones inside with illusion magic.

The thought of not having tripped an ambush made me release a breath that I didn't realize I had been holding, and I sheepishly dispelled the sphere of Power of Destruction that I had involuntarily conjured.

Then came the people occupying the location. The most glaring sight was, of course, the unconscious female fallen angel, lying in a small crater.

'In the Yamcha pose', my addicted mind supplied unhelpfully.

~Moving on!

The others… were two people who were almost as famous in Kuoh Academy as The two Great Onee-Sama of Kuoh.

…

Yeah, I still die a little bit inside whenever I listen to someone refer to me by that title.

Or, it was more correct to say, infamous, in the case of the one lying on the ground, unconscious and bleeding–

'Oh, not bleeding anymore, only unconscious.'

Anyway, Hyoudou Isane, a cute little junior in the 2nd year of the high school division, a sort of social pariah at school, mostly due to her infamous declaration of her love of the female form – their breasts more precisely, and unfortunately shunned quite hardly by those same females, had apparently been shanked by the fallen angel, evident from the traces of light magic around her now healed wound. 

Then there was the last person who was kneeling by Isane's side, someone I had known for the entirety of the two-plus years I had spent in the human world. The most popular male teacher at Kuoh Academy, who taught the College division mostly.

Not that his popularity came as a surprise. A young, kind, soft-spoken yet strict, clearly foreign teacher, who was quite ruggedly handsome, well, at least by human standards… it was no surprise that, well, to borrow Koneko-chan's commonly used, and slightly vulgar phrase, those bitches were in heat yet again. 

I was aware of the doujins that some girls had drawn… not that I had read them… and had heard some frankly disturbing fantasies from the mouths of those girls when they thought that nobody else was around, some of them coming from Akeno herself, especially when she saw the wedding band on Sensei's finger. 

Of all things, that girl had to pick up the homewrecker fetish. Well, not that she'd ever actually do anything… probably. Hopefully. So then, why am I feeling uneasy?!

Anyway, it turns out the super popular Sensei had a healing sacred gear, and he seemed at ease with its usage. Which means that it didn't awaken right now.

…

Two years. He had quite possibly, flown under the radar for two years. Even when I took classes under him for two years, I never noticed. Hence, I only had a single thought in my mind at the moment.

'Someone please kill me.'

…

'Still, what a terrible cliche. What is this, a manga?! What now, is he the main character living a hermit life after a personal tragedy, only to be healed by the main heroine's tender love and care?'

My thoughts, which were running at full speed, hit the emergency brakes as I realized that yes, Sensei did indeed fit the cliche. That meant–

'Am I the main heroine, then?! Or is it Isane? But then Sensei fits the mentor character trope too. But that means he'll die… Hmm, I can revive him then. NO! Bad Rias! You can't always be recruiting dying people.' 

The dubious circumstances behind me reincarnating my beloved friends were already a point of malicious gossip against me, no matter how much I tried to explain to others.

Hence I made a vow.

'Don't worry, Sensei! If nothing works, I'll change your genre to NTR bastard or something. You're tanned already. Just got to dye your hair blonde.'

'Wait, I've never seen his wife before. Maybe Akeno will NTR his wife after all?! What is even happening? I need answers!!!!'

…

I think I had been bluescreened for a long time, just staring at Sensei who had finished healing Isane and was looking at me thoughtfully, initially, but overall didn't really seem to be surprised by my appearance here.

Who now had an amused smile on his face.

'Come on now, Rias! Forget the past. It is of no consequence. Instead, bring your A-game, right here, right now, and negotiate with Sensei to enter your peerage! Come on! You can do it! Deliver two slaps to the face and pitch your proposal!'

"Sensei~"

'Which harlot made that singsong noise?!!'

"No."

…

I most definitely did not whine. No sir, not at all. After all, I'm a well-bred, proper lady, the Heir of the Ducal House of Gremory. Would I make such shameless sounds?

Nein. Absolutely not.

"Whose dog just died?"

See, even Sensei agrees. That weird sound was just the noise of a mutt dying. Nothing to do with this sophisticated lady here, not at all. 

"Mou! Why~? Say, why Sensei?! You didn't even let me say anything!~"

'Ei! Who is this coquettish tramp?! Cease! Right this moment! I have to negotiate with Sensei about joining my peerage!'

I didn't pout petulantly as well, nuh-uh. You can't prove it, adversary of mine!

"I'll have to decline… uh what was her name again… I think it rhymed with ghamori… ah yes, Gamory-kun."

My right eye twitched as his words confirmed that yes, Sensei knew exactly who I was… what I was. I forced a polite smile, even though both of us knew that I understood exactly what he said, and gritted out.

"Sensei… we go by Gremory now, not Gamory, and we most definitely do not go by Heat Rash." A sigh then escaped my mouth as I asked him. "How long did you know?"

He shrugged. "From the very beginning."

I probably made an unbelieving face, as he explained further. 

"After all, you weren't hiding either, were you? Considering how all of you were practically broadcasting to the world that you're a devil, with the way none of you bothered to hide your demonic aura. Plus, in your case, you use your surname openly. From there it was just a matter of putting two plus two together… Also, who was Sitri-kun even trying to fool with such a half-assed, silly name?"

Huh. He was… not wrong… and I blinked slowly as I realized that he also knew how to distinguish between auras. 

I need to go back and have a serious team meeting with the others to decide how to entice Sensei into joining us. Also, how to keep Sensei a secret from Sona?

"Now then," saying such, he rose from his kneeling position on the ground, then lifted Isane in a princess carry… meanwhile, I did not feel jealous of the unconscious girl at the moment, no sir, not at all… and asked me as he looked toward the unconscious fallen angel.

"You're the Night-king of Kuoh, no? Take care of this intruder into your territory." Sensei said with a teasing smile. Unfortunately for him, such a low-level Chunni title does no damage to my psyche. Instead, I saw a small chance and took it, as I smiled sweetly and asked.

"Hmm… yes, but how do you know of this, Sensei?" Pausing, I let out a faux frightened gasp. "Are you a stalker, perhaps?!"

I had to suppress a joyous squeal as I finally saw his smile falter, though I still celebrated inwardly as I finally scored a hit back against Sensei for the first time this evening.

…

"Hmm… extra homework for your peerage members this semester."

I almost staggered. Hey Sensei, that's cheating, and I let him know that fact. "Why?! That's unfair!"

"Life's unfair, brat. Also, Sensei privileges." Saying such nonsense, he gave me a smug smile and started walking away, albeit not without saying goodbye.

"See you in class tomorrow, pufferfish-kun."

…

"SENSEI!!!!!!" I shouted not-petulantly after him, not realizing that I probably looked like a heartbroken, scorned lover shouting after her now ex-boyfriend. If only you'd ignore the words I shouted.

…

I definitely did not blush when I realized as such...

...

"Ah, I forgot to ask him why was Isane stabbed by the fallen angel." I realized as he disappeared from my sight.

"Meh." I looked insipidly toward the sleeping beauty and thought, 'Well at least Akeno will have fun tonight.'