Hunt, Assassinations and Plots : Part 3

- Shin –

I watch as the Stray devil's face shows undisguised greed at the mention of the PoD. She is the kind who would definitely betray me the moment I turn my head from her, so she needs to die. Good thing this plan doesn't need her to live.

I teleport her near a warehouse in Kuoh. It is the same place where Rias hunts the stray devil in the first season of Dxd, visor? Visored? Whatever her name was.

I leave her with Meredith who has her on nail's point. A super-powered holy nail makes it just that intimidating. Believe me.

A few Shadow Walks get me to where I want. Hyuodou's residence. It is late at night and the wanker is sleeping peacefully. Don't worry I won't disturb your sleep for a lot. I cast a sleep spell on him just to make sure he doesn't resist as I carry him off to the warehouse. The Sacred Gear Extracting device is ready and charged all I need is to place it on his chest and let it work its magic.

This is exactly what I did. I try to keep the spell casting to minimum because I don't know if others can track me from stray mana.

After shouting and anticlimactic shaking around for a while Issei Hyudou, the future harem king dies a complete virgin. Not that having a harem did anything to that status. And that's one of the main reasons that he had to die among other reasons. I won't be a second fiddle to anyone so protagonists have to die.

Hidden Quest Completed

[All Hail the True Harem King]

Issei Hyoudou is a taint on the name of every self-respecting Harem King and such a taint won't be tolerated. Show the world what it means to be a True Harem King and remove the taint from the world.

Objective : Kill Issei Hyoudou.

Rewards : [True Harem King in Making] Perk, [Plot Armour Breaker] perk.

Perk Gained

[True Harem King in Making]

Unlike the wannabees, you are the true heir to the throne of the Harem King.

Girls above 50 Affection won't mind sharing you with others.

Note – Get 3 girls in your Harem to Upgrade the Perk.

*Any Girl with 75 Affection or more will be considered a part of your Harem if they are not currently in a different relationship.

Perk Gained

[Plot Armour Crusher]

Plot armour is the cornerstone of the survival of all dense protagonists and the bane of all villains. But when has such rules stopped you. You are the one who pierces through such armours with extreme ease.

Plot Armour won't activate if you take any action against the protagonist.

Both the perks were equally good.

By the way Game, why didn't the plot armour activate when I was killing the idiot just now. Was their some kind of interference?

The plot hadn't started for Issei Hyoudou when he died, so the plot armour was not activated.

…..oh. Seems fair.

Looking at the bright orb in the palm of my hand, I finally let out a smile grace my lips. One done, one more to go.

The Sacred Gear Locator shows multiple signs of sacred gears in the town. Avoiding the place where I can sense other devils, I isolate the place with individual sacred gears. One of the places is the Genshirou residence.

Diving into the Shadow I come out in the bedroom of the closet pervert.

…..the fuck is this place. Posters of Sona all around the room. Is this Serafall's secret hideout or something? This guy is an obsessive stalker. Putting him in sleep using the same spell, I teleport us to the same place, repeating the process again. Getting the second sacred gear and being done with my main objective, I get ready for the second phase of the plan.

I have kept their left hands in my inventory. The place where their sacred gears manifest as I don't know the extent of reincarnating power of the evil pieces. Hopefully it can't create a whole body and I might have a use for their dna's later.

I let Runa eat them, leaving most of their heads intact. When she is finished with her job, I take out a certain piece of paper from my pocket. This is something I had collected earlier after changing my appearance using Gaea Foundation, a truly useful tool to be honest. It even changes the scent of the user.

"Take this pamphlet, Runa. Use it to summon Rias Gremory. I will leave her to you. I hope that you don't disappoint me."

"Thank you. What can I call you? You have helped me so much and I don't even know your name." oh, want info on me. Fine I will give you the info, just not what you want though.

"My name is Cao Cao. Best of luck for your fight." With that I dive into a shadow and appear just outside the warehouse, where I change into a bat and fly upto the broken glass window in the corner of the warehouse.

All set time for show to start.

- Rias –

Rias Gremory had been having a tensed day today. Things had finally started to look good for her when her engagement with Riser Phenex was said to have been canceled and Shin Kageyami was chosen as her new fiancé.

Shin was much, much better than Riser and although she would have liked to choose her own husband, she could see things working out between her and Shin.

His decision to get to know her better was something she could never expect from Riser or most of the other young devils for that matter. Most would throw themselves at any chance to have any relationship with her let alone marry her, lust clouding their mind and her thoughts being completely irrelevant on the matter. But he showed great self-control.

He was also a good friend of Siaraorg and her mother approved of him which was a huge positive point. She was not completely against arranged marriages, just loveless marriages. Like her parents, like she would have had to suffer under Riser. She has seen the relationship between Sona's parents and she was actually quite envious for her regarding her family, not that she would ever accept it.

Also he was an otaku. His british accent and his name said a whole lot about it, which was only confirmed with his comment about Akeno's change in persona. She was actually quite relieved that he was not like the old devils, all high on formalities but just the right amount of respectful. This will make her peerage feel comfortable with him.

But now all this was in danger. Riser challenged Shin to a rating game. She was aware that such a thing was inevitable but she thought that he at least had some time before it happened. How would he face Riser in just 10 days? He didn't even have a peerage of his own. She at least had 3 members ready to fight for her and one she would recruit soon. She had taken somewhat of a liking to the Black Haired boy and did not want to see this ending up in a disaster.

While having these thoughts, she was notified about the activation of a summoning pamphlet that her peerage members use for contracts.

She shoved her worries to the back of her mind for a while and teleported to the place which turned out to be an empty warehouse.

The smell of blood assaulting her nose as she became combat ready immediately dodging a burst of demonic energy from behind her. She saw a devil, deformed from half of her face walking out of the shadows. The dim light of the warehouse making her look even more horrifying than her corrupted look.

A Stray Devil.

"I expected as much of the spawn of the Gremory. You will make a good meal." She says while getting ready for her next move.

Putting all her frustration back to the forefront of her mind, she finally snapped. "You have some gall to attack me in my territory, Stray. This will be your last mistake, I will make sure of it." With that she summoned her PoD and attacked the stray who dodged to the side while sending a blast of Demonic energy in front of her. She quickly put up a barrier blocking the attack as she prepared for her next attack. The stray was not very powerful but she was fast enough to dodge her attacks which was annoying to cope up with. Maybe she had been skipping too much on her training for a while.

After a while she feels her vision fading as she falls on one knee. Poison? Had she spread poison in the warehouse before summoning? This is bad. She didn't call her peerage for backup thinking that she could handle the stray devil of this level on her own. This is turning out to be pretty risky.

Was she really so weak that she would fall to the likes of this stray who couldn't even be a mid-class judging by her demonic energy.

For the first time she felt weak, something that she was never allowed to feel before. Even the engagement with Riser was something she always somewhere in the back of her mind thought she could escape. Shin coming in at the right time made almost sure that it was as she had thought. But this situation made her realize that in the end it was her own weakness that will lead to her downfall. No matter how much she wanted to be her own person, she didn't have the strength for that. Yes, ultimately even if she had won against Riser in a rating game, it would have been with her peerage, not on her own.

And this realization hit her hard. Rage boiled inside of her, at the stray who was making her feel helpless, at her ownself for not training like she should have, at this entire situation and with that rage she summoned every last bit of her demonic power into a big blast of the PoD. The stray froze from the sheer power of the attack and was erased. With the last bit of her consciousness she send a message for Akeno before her vision faded into darkness as unconsciousness claimed her in its embrace.

- Shin –

It seems that she got some sort of conviction in the end. Good for her. Binding Runa was a bit of help I granted her due to that alone.

Meredith's sacred gear can control humans not devils or other supernatural beings. Their magical resistance to such things is just too high. They would at best be turned into puppets like those with Imperious cast on them. But he didn't need to control her. A few well-placed suggestions in her magically exhausted state when her mental resistance was low, to show her the situation she was truly in was all he needed. This was the least I could do for her.

She was going to become my wife after all and I would NOT have a weak-minded woman for my wife. Rias as good as she might be in her looks and talent was not completely unrivalled. There were others in this world much better than her. Strength doesn't matter to him as I can always make her stronger one way or the other. But the conviction needed to back up that strength is something she would never have if she didn't realize her flaws. This was something I had planned when I was hunting sacred gears.

My marriage with Rias was all but set in stone with so many high powered assholes behind it. I will have to mold her into someone with not just baseless pride but rather someone like Vali who worked every bit for that pride. I don't mind pride at all, I have enough of it myself to blame others for it.

If this doesn't help then there is always the fallen, Kokabiel and other idiots. She won't have Issei in her peerage to carry her anymore. So it is better if she understands it sooner when she still has time rather than when all shit hits the fan. I use the antidote to the poison on her before picking up the summoning circle she was using to summon Akeno probably, I put some mana into it and leave the after storing the summoning circle in my inventory. Have to destroy anything that has my mark on it. I am not taking any risks with anything.

Today was truly productive in more than one way.

- Serafall –

A rating game between Shin Kageyami and Riser Phenex. This was the top piece of gossip in the high class devil society. A week ago no one even knew of a person known as Shin Kageyami not that he existed before that. yes She found out everything about the boy called Shin Kageyami or rather Harry James Peverell-Slytherin-Black. The goblins are greedy creatures and some gold to help them speak and she got all the information about him.

His life was interesting to say the least. She personally conducted the investigation because the matter was of utter importance. She couldn't find anyone in his ancestry who was a devil. They were wizards at best. Wizard noble houses mean nothing to Devils. For them Wizards are just failed experiments. Sure sometimes an exceptional one rises but they are normally too old or too rare for that to matter.

Harry or rather Shin was different. He was born with the PoD. A complete mystery of how such a thing was possible. She put up some theories about it but most of it was riddled with numerous flaws to be viable. It was only by sheer coincidence that she came across a book of children fairy tales. What caught her eye about the book was the name of one of Shin's lordship. Peverell. The tale of three brothers was enlightening to say the least. There was only so much you could believe in children's fairy tales but the mention of Death rang alarm bells in her head. If she had learned something in her long life, it was that she should never ignore these alarms.

Death is an entity which is more like a law of the world. Some can manipulate the phenomenon to some degree but in the end all things must die. She was not a stranger to the concepts of such higher beings. She as the Foreign Affairs of the Devils had many contacts with the other pantheons to know that such entities existed and if they did, they are not to be messed with.

So why would such an entity take an interest in Shin and what would this mean for the devils as a whole race. Not something bad because if it did Zekram wouldn't be so accommodating to him. Letting Zekram have him was not possible anymore after this information and antagonizing Shin was out of question.

She would have to think of an approach in his life and a way to keep him away from Zekram very soon.

Looking at his file in front of her, a thought hits her mind as a smile forms on her face. Shin was not going to return to Hogwarts. That place was not a school. Honestly she had half a mid to freeze half the Scotland just to end that abomination that is named school there. Devils teach their children magic too but not like that. Most of the knowledge is half baked. Any good thing that they could learn was blocked by claiming and she had to recheck it twice 'as dark'. What in Lucifer's name did that mean? Wizards themselves were a creation of devils. How could they go any darker?

Shin would need to continue his studies somewhere and Sona-tan could use a new chess enthusiast friend. Rias being there would just give her another excuse to push this matter and get it passed.

For now she has to think what to do with the information she has on Shin. He has had a difficult life. Even Siaraorg who has had the most difficult childhood was better than him by a large margin. Devils treated their children with extreme love and care, one of the reasons she was so pissed off at Lord Bael, not that he didn't have enough other reasons. But a gem like Shin was thrown away on the words of a manipulative old coot. Yes, she knew all about what had happened to him. A wizard might be stronger compared to regular humans but in front of a Satan, they were almost the same. A simple mind control spell on some of the involved people and she got all the information she needed. Information that he himself might not know and then she wiped off any and all trails that could be tracked back to him. Her knowing about this was enough, she doesn't need others enquiring about Shin and finding these.

Now how to use it to get close to him? Serafall was not in-charge of the foreign affairs for no reason. Collecting dirt on others and making full use of them to gain advantage was a basic skill for those of her position.

She would wait for Shin to take action against the wizards, if he did then she would help him. If he didn't then this information will be given him as a good will help. Either way she gets favour from him.

She stops her movements as she sees some movement on a monitor in her office. Well other things can wait. It's time for her daily Sona-tan watch right now.

- Ley Fay –

She missed her friend. Watching her brother and Vali plan about their next move, she couldn't help but let out a sigh. They were always like this, fighting strong people, attacking some God or monster. Kuroka was different but not in a way that she could join her….. yet. Always flirty and lewd. Some of the things she said makes her ears red just by thinking about it. If anything Lady Ophis was her closest friend here. She liked to play her games without complaining about any of them. Her expressionless face was a bit unsettling at first but then she got used to it. Still it was not the same as playing with her best friend Meredith.

They were both magicians and great friends during their time in Golden Dawn. She had to leave Golden Dawn when her brother left the house and she left with him. She didn't regret her decision about leaving even now. It is something she would do again if she had a chance but she still missed her friend. They used to talk about all kinds of stuff before she left.

What would she be doing right now? Maybe she will contact her when she gets to leave the base for shopping.

_x_x_

So many things happened. Shin got the boosted gear and no he won't be using it himself. I have no plans of him having any other sacred gears. Mirror Alice with the gamer system is already insanely op and with the magics and powers he already has, it would be harder to juggle everything if I dump everything on him. That's also one of the reasons he didn't use the skill orb earlier.

I wanted to summon the companion gems in this chapter but it was not enough for it to be properly concluded. This chapter was more about getting a peek at Shin's true personality when he is not being hounded by op devils.

He is someone who will use everything in his hand to grind out the best out of them. Like with Rias. I have seen this in most fics that Rias is mostly bashed and that's it. People are done with it and get on with whatever they were doing.

I am not going to keep that trend. People say that she didn't train hard and wasted all her time. True. But comparing her to Siaraorg or Vali for that matter would not be fair. Both of them had completely different lives. Here Sirzechs made her rely on him too much. That was the way she was raised. You can't change that right off the bat. A good hit to her ego was needed and that is what I tried to do here. If she who was lauded among the young devils was defeated by a low class stray devil then that would make her think.

Taking Issei out of the equation will also help her grow as a person without having a crutch to rely on. In my fic Rias will become someone worthy of standing by the mc. That decision is final and it won't change.

Before anyone starts saying that Shin is getting too op, please remember that Vali was an 8-Winged half devil and wielder of the Divine dividing who kicked Kokabiel's a 10-Winged Fallen Angel's ass effortlessly. Even if Shin becomes a 10-winged Devil, he would still be crushed like a bug against the strong enemies. Mind you Azazel, a 12-Winged Fallen Angel had to use Downfall Dragon Another Armour to fight against an Ophis' snake powered Katerea and still lost an arm in the battle.

The power levels that I have set are very reasonable.

Serafall did some investigation on Shin and found things about him. What things exactly and how will this change his plans in the wizarding world.

And finally the most important part of this chapter. Meredith Ordinton became the first member of Shin's peerage. I have to say that even I was not expecting this. But I read about her on Dxd wiki and knew that it had to be her.

I haven't read the true volumes so the Meredith here might act like an OC but honestly who doesn't in fics.

I will try to keep things interesting so don't beat me up too much on slip ups.

Good Day, Peace Out.