Prologue

*Chapter 1*: Prologue

Prologue: This story, and frequently sex, begins the same way they end: with lots of screaming.

I don't own Highschool DxD, any of its characters, or any references in this story. If I did, horrible things would happen. Neither do I own any other anime that I reference. I do own all OC's and new abilities in the story as well as every ounce of pure awesome spawned by this.

o. o. o.

Outside the realm of all realities and universes:

The Multiverse was a big place.

Obviously.

Infinite worlds. Infinite possibilities. Infinite species, abilities, languages, people…

No. Infinite was the wrong word to use. Infinite was more applicable to the endless variables that a single universe could recognize.

Unregisterable was a more accurate term. Not exact either, but closer to the mark.

Infinite was generally used more often than not for those unfamiliar with the intricacies of the expansive beyond though. It was a catchier word that needed less thought to get.

Gods. Rules. Powers. Most of these were thrown into a perpetual loop once outside the realms that kept them stable since they were conceived. What worked in one universe did not work as well in another. To assume otherwise would either lead to death or endless humiliation.

However, that did not mean that there were powers that did not encompass all worlds and realities.

"Booooooored."

Nor did that mean that all these powers were reasonable, mature, or rational.

Floating in an abyss that had no color, and all colors, was what appeared to be a human. An oddity already, seeing as he was not being torn apart by the endless forces about him.

He was relatively tall and fit, but on the skinny side of things, as though something would be wrong if he ever put on serious weight of any kind. He had long brown hair in a lazy ponytail, with a few bangs to cover his relatively handsome face. Sunglasses that covered his eyes. Tan cargo pants. A white t-shirt with black tribal designs on it, a black trench coat, and tan boots.

Appearing to be in his mid-twenties, the oddity didn't seem to be at all perturbed with being in the middle of nowhere. Rather, he didn't seem interested in it at all.

He had no real home to go to. He had family, but they were busy with their own chores and projects, managing worlds, organizations, or ensuring that the other major multiversal powers that be stay in their place.

The man was known as Ghost. In many circles he was reviled as The God of None, The End, an absolute function designed to wipe out the entire Multiverse if he so chose.

In others, he was considered an annoying asshole. The kind of guy that just wouldn't shut up for a good laugh unless you beat him unconscious, which admittedly wasn't that hard to do if you could land a blow on him.

In other circles, he was known as that poor fool that had been desperately looking for a way to off himself for who knows how long now. A mortal cursed with an extreme form of immortality that no mortal, god, demon, or unknown eldritch abomination had yet to find a way around as of yet.

They were all true to one degree or another. The stories varied from place to place. But the things that they could agree on though was that…

Click-Click Zoom-Zoom Iyaaan.

"… Eh?"

… He was equal parts colossal jackass, and unrestrained pervert.

There is a breast-loving Dragon living in the edge of a certain country.

The Dragon goes for a walk when the weather is good.

Dragon Dragon Oppai Dragon.

Grope-Grope Suck-Suck Pafu-Pafu.

The man looked around, turning his head all around to try and find the source. It wasn't unheard of to get messages and errant signals in the space between all realms accidentally, but even so this one was… new.

There are so many types of breasts.

But he likes the big ones best.

The Oppai Dragon also flies today.

In an edge of a certain town, the Oppai Dragon was laughing.

Even on a stormy day, the Oppai Dragon becomes happy by pressing breasts.

"… Snk. Pffft. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! THE FUCK!? WAHAHAHAHA! IT'S SO STUPID! IT'S HILARIOUS! BUT IT'S STILL SO FUCKING STUPID! AHAHAHAHAHA!" The man burst out laughing at the lyrics. The tune. The lyrics. The singer. It was as if someone had decided to cross a bad preschool television show's intro music with the deranged ramblings of a drunk Dungeons and Dragons Master.

Dragon Dragon Oppai Dragon.

Click-Click Zoom-Zoom Iyaan.

He has seen lots of breasts, but he likes big ones the best.

The Oppai Dragon also pushes today.

"Ahahahaha! Eheheh. Aha. Ah. Woo." It took a good while for the immortal man to calm down from his bout of hysteria. He didn't expect to be bombarded with something that outlandish in the middle of literally nowhere.

He had to see where the hell the song came from, and hopefully meet this Oppai Dragon in person, if only to see what in all the realities out there had spawned something as absurdly stupid as an "Oppai Dragon"…

And then maybe dress up his boss, Zuzushi, the creator of this Multiverse, the all-powerful Sky Mother, the Demon Dragon Goddess… Thing, as one when her guard was down just to fuck with her.

That'll show that walking purse to snitch right after they pulled a mass prank spree on the rest of his family so they could get their hands on the weed and booze that was confiscated earlier that year.

What? Being a Multiversal force of existence was taxing at times. God level ganja and booze was good stuff. Trans-reality was better, but the stuff didn't store well, so that was normally first come first served.

With just the smallest bit of focus, he managed to isolate the general chain of realities and timelines that spawned the ridiculous song. He wasn't looking for any one of them in particular, just so long as the "Oppai Dragon" existed in it. Being overly specific was pointless for something like this. What point was there in complaining what quarter you found on the street when the vending machine nearby would accept it all the same?

Traversing an immeasurable distance was the equivalent to floating a few meters to the side for the man. Dimension travelling was less a means of moving through the standard three dimensions and more through the fifth and above.

"Dragon Dragon Oppai Dragon." He hummed to himself as he made his way to his general target…

A skewed perception of reality here. A twist of timespace there…

"Click-Click Zoom-Zoooooou don't look like an Oppai Dragon."

And he was stopped on the edge of the Universe he guessed he was going for by a very big, very red, and very irritated western style Dragon.

Great Red, the Dragon of Dragons, Dream itself, growled menacingly, though to most mortals, the sound would be the rough equivalent to an avalanche.

At one point, it had been the Oroboros Dragon, the Dragon God, Infinite and Nothing's, Ophis' job to dwell in the realm between worlds and the beyond. To serve as the buffer and filter to prevent the outside from interfering with the world. However at some point, Ophis abandoned her position. Be it for a moment or an eternity, it did not matter. The realm had been left defenseless, and so be it from convenience or instinct, the Great Red took over the territory and assumed the role as protector.

Not that anyone else in the lesser lands below knew of it.

"Hey hey. Calm down. I'm not here to wreck anything. You guys are good. I'm just here on my own time." Despite the disgusting size difference between the two, the human male didn't seem to be intimidated by his roadblock in the slightest.

"███████!"

"Oi! Language asshole! This might be your territory but I'll still kick your ass if you keep that shit up!" The human snapped, not blown away by the titan's rumbling. Really, the size difference between the two was comical. The fact that they were having a conversation at all in the first place was in the same realm of fantasy as the actual sight of the two in the kaleidoscopic realms. It simply did not make sense if witnessed from the perspective of a mortal.

"████-"

"I said be mindful of your tongue, Guardian."

They were on the edge of reality and everything, and yet Great Redhad never felt so confined in its entire existence. The limitations of the seemingly endless Dimensional Gap that they were in seemed to be on full display, outlined and bending to the orders of the thing that had dared to cross through its realm.

He could feel it. Something would come to pass that even he was powerless to halt should things persist.

The End of a Dream.

The faint scent of something ancient beyond time met its nostrils. Something familiar, nostalgic, and yet terrifying all the same triggered his instincts.

"███████." A normal human would not have been able to tell the difference between this growl and the last, but that was to be expected, and the human in front of the Great Red was not normal.

"Yes. I'm one of Zuzushi's current attendants. You have nothing to worry about. I'm not here to carry out any jobs. Just fulfilling a minor curiosity that led me here by chance." Ghost eased up on his power. He personally didn't like strong arming others to listen to him or throwing his weight around. It was too much work as far as he was concerned.

Ever since he started working for his boss, he carried about the scent of a Dragon. All his family did to one degree or another, but his was the strongest. Most of the beasts across reality knew their progenitor's scent by pure instinct, even if her name and existence were forgotten across the ages.

"▄▄▄▄▄." Great Red was not among the masses though. He was definition turned corporal, existing since the beginning of his time. He remembered the fleeting dregs of Zuzushi's power and the immeasurable importance that she had to all realms.

"Don't tell her that. Despite being an old hag that's supposed to be above all that shit, Zuzushi's head is like a fucking balloon. Thing inflates and deflates more than a set of hyperventilating lungs. There's a Dragon's Pride and then there's being that attention whore." The man crossed his arms and sulked.

He long since gave up the number of times he's had to hold back his boss whenever someone spoke her name without her permission. A dragon's hoard and den was almost everything to them, but to hoard her own name was taking it to new levels.

"▄▄▄██."

"All right. All right. I got it. Calm down already. I'll let her know to visit when I get back. Can I go now?" He groaned. All of the older sentient and rational Dragon always acted the same around him. They all wanted to meet Zuzushi. They all wanted to speak with the great mother. They all wanted to bask in the existence that their images were based off of.

"▄▄."

"Thank you." The human floated through the kaleidoscope of the Dimensional Gap and looked around. It was only now that he realized that he was in fact inside one of the universes he had aimed for, and around him were several dimensions that combined made up this realm. "Heaven. Hell. Mortal. Eldritch. Norse. Greek… geez, talk about hating your neighbors. Not much originality. They don't even bother sharing the same world. Hey Red! Quick question! You know of any Oppai Dragon?"

His question went unanswered. The Guardian of this universe had already left to another part, already losing interest in the visitor.

"Dragon of Dragons, feh. Well he's meeting the title at least. Dragon's pride. Dragon's temper. Dragon's attention span." The immortal deadpanned.

Well. He'd have to just look the old fashioned way then. Oh well, he'd have to start with the tried and true method of finding odd things in the multiverse: When in doubt, start in Japan, if there was a Japan at least.

Plus, the gratuitous and crude mix of English and Japanese in "Oppai Dragon" kinda gave it away to begin with.

o. o. o.

The Caucasian man walked out of an alleyway onto one of the busy sidewalks of Tokyo Japan as if nothing was wrong. His short sleeved coat was slightly out of the ordinary, but not too peculiar.

"Ok. Tokyo. Same old. Same old. Now how to find this Oppai Dragon." Ghost breathed in the polluted city air deeply and took in the sights. Half of him partially expected Godzilla to show up, or at least Great Red to follow him here. Tokyo was frequently nicknamed a matchstick city after all. Place was a magnet for cosmic horrors.

Exhibit A, himself.

He felt a tug on his pants.

"Can't just ask people randomly. Don't know how well known the mystical is around here. That and just saying Oppai Dragon makes me feel retarded, and that in itself is impressive. Hearing it must make me really look crazy. Don't want to get arrested for sexual harassment right out of the gates again. That just makes everything a pain in the ass later."

Another tug on his clothes was made.

"Probably should start with the local mystical races. Hopefully they're conversational. I sense a good number nearby. If they're this concentrated in an urban area, they should be pretty organized…" He paused as his clothes were tugged again. Come to think of it, there shouldn't have been anyone near him last he checked.

He looked down to see a black haired gothic Lolita girl that barely looked older than thirteen with black tape crosses covering her nipples tugging at his clothes.

Exhibit B. Ophis.

"Grandpa. Help me make Baka-Red get out of my home."

It took the immortal man a few moments for his mind to process what exactly just happened.

"Sorry. I'm more than willing to do roleplay, but I'm not into Lolis." He intelligently replied, his mouth working before his brain did.

In his defense, he had sworn off Lolis after that one incident involving a great deal of alcohol, some false identification, and a good deal of police.

You just couldn't tell with those little blighters. It was like they wanted you to guess their age wrong.

"Make Baka-Red go away please Grandpa." The girl asked again, her tone dead even, as though she didn't hear what he had said earlier.

Infinite and Nothing. That was what he felt from the human shaped dragon next to him. Absurdly powerful as far as the locals went. Right up there with that Great Red he had just met. He probably replaced her at some point, which explains a few things.

"I'm not your Grandpa." He lamely retorted.

"But you smell like Grandma." She countered factually.

His eyebrow twitched as several people walked past him, whispering unkind things that they thought he couldn't hear. He had been accused of many things, but smelling like half-dressed gothic Lolita's Grandma was a new one. "I work with and for your Grandma. You don't really have much practice with conversation, do you?"

The girl didn't move for several moments, as though contemplating his question, before continuing to tug on his pants again. "It doesn't matter. You're as strong and important as Grandma. Grandpa, make Baka-Red go away."

"… Yep. Nope. Not doing this." Ghost turned around, quickly dislodged himself from Ophis' grasp, and walked into the alleyway he had just come from, instantly vanishing the moment he was out of the public eye.

o. o. o.

In Kyoto, the immortal appeared on top of a random building without a sound, flash, or pulse of power. It was though he was just there after a point in time.

"Ok. Let's try this again. Kyoto. Less combustible than Tokyo, but a bit higher on the mysticism scale due to the history. Good natural energy flowing around the place. Lots of otherworldy powers being sensed aaaaaaaa…"

"Grandpa."

"…aaand this is going to be a thing, isn't it?"

o. o. o.

Kuoh:

Issei Hyoudou wasn't happy.

The seven year old boy was sulking on the park swing by himself, alone. His best and really only friend Irena had moved away just a few days ago, and he was feeling lonely, as any child his age would feel.

Unlike other children his age, he had an unnatural fixation with breasts. Shortly before Irena left, a strange old man had appeared in front of him and other children at the park when their parents weren't around and started telling them all about the marvels and beauty of breasts. Oddly, he couldn't seem to remember the stories themselves in detail, but they did trigger something deep inside of him. A respect and borderline zealot like worship of the female body part that seemed odd, even for him at times.

Still, even the revelation that he had received did nothing to hide the pain that came from Irena's departure, and the loneliness that accompanied it.

"Hah. What's the point of enjoying oppai if you don't have people to share them with?" The boy lamented to himself, not at all aware of just how badly his words could be misinterpreted. True he had never seen real breasts in person, but that didn't prevent them from enjoying their existence.

"Gotta hide. Gotta hide. Gotta hide. Gotta hide. Gotta hide. Gotta hide."

The boy blinked as the endless mantra of a strange man that hadn't been at the park just moments earlier caught his ears. The weird guy was looking around frantically for something, and…

"Whoa. You're really fast." The boy's eyes widened as the man seemed to teleport and move at fast forward speeds all around the area.

"That candy can only stall that annoying trap for so long. Damn it. I'm not getting arrested for pedophilia again!" The stranger didn't seem to hear him as he continued to scour the park for something.

Due to being born from the universe itself, and being the embodiment of nothing and infinite, Ophis was essentially tapped into reality itself, meaning that so long as he was in the universe, she'd be able to track him as easily as thinking about him. It didn't help that as an outside entity, Ghost naturally stuck out more to her than anything else in the Universe. Literally.

That didn't mean that Ghost didn't know ways to get away or around her abilities. He knew a few dozen actually. The problem was that some of them involved actually tearing apart the local timespace, which was rude, in bad form, and would piss off more than a few of the locals. Others required him to use a bit of extra juice to use, which was also in bad form since it would trigger a few alarms in the process and again piss off the locals. And the few that he did know that wouldn't cause a huge stir among the populace either needed a few moments to prepare, or required him to not be the focus of anyone's attention in the first place.

Jumping dimensions wouldn't work either, since she'd easily be able to follow him through the chaotic realms that pretty much entailed everything and nothing at once.

As for fighting her? Yeah, he'd easily be able to pull that off. Only problem is that doing so would probably wreck half the universe in the process from the aftershock of it all and make him start the search all over again! Plus he didn't want to fight her. He wasn't the sort of incompetent asshat that couldn't get anywhere without throwing his weight around, starting fights left and right and killing everyone that looked at him funny.

Great Red was an exception. That guy wasn't the type to back down once stirred up unless he was made to back down.

He just needed her to look the other way for two… bloody… seconds!

"Pedo-what?" Issei tilted his head to the side in confusion, unfamiliar with the word.

"I know I sensed a small spatial gap around here somewhere." The man ignored the boy, continuing with his search at clearly inhuman speeds. "Just gotta stow away for a little bit, wait for the runt to lose interest in the area, then slip out. Easy. Just. Gotta. Find. The fucking…"

The two paused as they faced one another, as if the elder had just noticed the younger's existence.

"… You said a bad word." Issei intelligently accused, pointing at him with his left hand.

A left hand that held a dormant Sacred Gear. One that housed the spirit of the Crimson Welsh Heavenly Dragon Ddraig.

The immortal paused.

On the one hand, he wasn't going to hurt the kid, and it was to get rid of that annoying Dragon that was stalking him.

On the other, his siblings would never let him hear the end of it if they found out he had decided to hide from a little girl by hiding in a little boy.

Ever.

All the way in Hokkaido, Ophis finished the giant ice cream cone that she had been snacking on for the past three minutes.

It was at that moment that Ghost uttered two words that frequently preceded many major and significant moments in human history across many and all realities.

"Fuck it."

Before Issei could react, the man charged at him and dove headfirst right at him… and somehow twisting himself and space around him to vanish into his left hand.

"Eh? EH? EEEEEEHHHHHHHHHH?!" The boy shouted in progressively increasing confusion and alarm, staring at his left hand all the while. "I'm magic?!"

While the incredibly confused and freaked out child was staring at his arm as if it had suddenly grown a new head, Ophis appeared a short distance away, looking around curiously. "… Grandpa was here… but now he's not. He's not in this dimension. Maybe he's fighting Baka-Red."

Issei, completely unaware of the Oroboros Dragon's brief presence, was too preoccupied with flailing his left arm about wildly. "What the heck!? This is weird! Get out! Get out of me!"

"Oi oi! Calm down kid! I'm gonna leave soon so cool your jets. I just gotta wait for that annoying infinite dragon chick to look away for a bit longer before I can leave without being noticed." An annoyed voice echoed in the child's mind. "I don't like this anymore than you so just relax already."

"How can I relax when I have a creepy old guy inside of me?! How did you even jump in me in the first place?" The boy yelled out frantically, which was understandable since he was scared and confused as to what just happened.

"Creepy old… eh screw it. You're technically right about that. This is pretty freaky for someone that has no idea what's happening. As for how I did it… well you're not that normal either kid. I'm not the only one here in you."

Issei paused. "Not the only one? You mean there's more freaky old people in me?! When did that happen?! Get him out!"

The voice laughed. "Freaky old people? Hah. Well, I guess you can call this guy freaky and old. But from what I can tell, he's been here way longer than me. Probably been here since you were born actually. He's part of this… how do I describe this so a kid can understand? Ok! You were born with a magic box in you. And this dude I was talking about comes with the box. I just jumped inside of it as well earlier and am sharing it for a bit so someone can't find me for a few minutes. Don't ask why you have the box or what it is, 'cause I don't know and I don't care. Does that make sense to you kid?"

The boy started to calm down, looking at his hand nervously. "I… guess so. So you're just going to leave in a few minutes? It's not going to hurt? Can you get the other guy out too?"

"In order? Yes. It shouldn't. And I can, but you wouldn't want that. This guy is part of the box and if I take the box out, well… taking out the box is like taking out your heart. You kinda need it in order to live for some reason."

"How did you even jump into me in the first place? Are you magic?" The boy asked, becoming less scared and more genuinely curious.

"Kid, we'd be here all week if I tried to explain that to you. It involves a lot of big complicated words and stuff that would confuse most adults. Let's just say I'm really good at impro… at making things up as I go along." Ghost mentally groaned, knowing that he had to use really dumbed down words so he wouldn't confuse his ride. "As for magic? I… ok. You know how there are lots of books and stories and some have magic work one way or another? Well I do a bit of all of that. A little here. A little there. Some work for me. Others don't. I don't know about the magic here exactly, but I know enough in general to play with the rules a bit."

Issei opened his mouth to ask another question.

"Meaning I can't teach you magic until I know how things work here. And that's if I wanted to teach you in the first place."

The boy closed his mouth.

"Kid, fair warning. Learning magic and doing cool things like throwing fireballs and etc. etc. might not be the best idea for you. I haven't been here for a while, but I can already tell that there are some really powerful guys out there, and you're… not."

"I'm not?" He blinked.

"You have Pokemon here?"

"Yes?" That was a weird question from the boy's perspective. Everyone knew about Pokemon. Why wouldn't he have it?

"You're a level 3 ratata. At best. The guy I was just hiding from? Arceus, easy. Or at the very least Giratina. Not only that, but he's a character that was plain cheating and at level fifty million, with impossible stats, abilities, and moves that no one else has. You would have been wasted just by being looked at. It's best just to leave them alone and not attract their attention."

He didn't bother telling Issei what he was. He doubted that the boy would understand the analogy of him being part of the rules of the actual game itself.

The boy suddenly felt nauseous and sat back down on the swing. "I don't like this anymore. Please go away."

"Yeah yeah. Don't worry. I was about to leave anyways. Just gimme a sec…"

Click.

"Click?"

"Uh. That wasn't supposed to happen."

"Nggh."

"Ossan. Was that you?"

"… Noooo. That was actually the other creepy old guy in you waking up. He looks like the cranky sort that doesn't like getting up early, so I'm just going to…"

Issei didn't know how to describe it, but he felt an uncomfortable lurch in his body. It didn't have any real source, like when his stomach sometimes hurt from eating too much, but it didn't feel like when he was sick a few weeks ago either. "Ow. What was that?"

"Ah! Damn it! What the hell?! Why is this thing warping around my being?! I haven't even touched anything in here! Get. The fuck! OFF!"

"Mmm. What? This voice is coming from… inside?"

Had he been standing, Issei would have fallen down. All of his senses felt like they were being crossed. His vision was getting blurry and twisted. Colors, sounds, smells, and tastes were all in places that they shouldn't be, mixing and spinning all over the place. He couldn't even really control his body anymore as he tried to keep himself together, barely managing to let a whimper of pain and fear leak out from his lungs.

"Wait. Wait. This thing in the kid was actually a dormant shapeless tool with this guy's soul as the core… but if me being here accidentally jumpstarted it so it triggered and is starting to take actual form now, then that means… oh shit I fucked up. Crap crap crap move move move!"

[Dragon Booster!]

Issei's twisted mind and body suddenly seemed to shift all of its focus into his left arm. All at once, the limb was burning, red, power, fire, hunger, rage, pride, potential, fury, and a whole assortment of other sensations that he couldn't even begin to describe…

… But at the same time, something was wrong. How he knew it was wrong in the first place he didn't know, but he could tell that something was trying to push itself out of the chaos in his left arm as everything was coming together.

Up. Out. In. Down. Folding. Shrinking. Expanding. Issei felt like his entire body was a piece of silly putty or chewed up gum being played with as something desperately tried to get out, yet at the same time was obviously making sure that he didn't break or fall apart in the process.

Every passing instant he felt something inside of him solidify. As though he was being baked and the slop that he started off as was turning hard. His head. His feet. His heart. Everything was pushed up against to their limits until he seemed to snap back together like a rubberband and his body lurched to the right to his other hand.

Issei didn't know when he collapsed, falling off of his swing. All he was aware of was that when he finally woke up, his everything hurt, but didn't at the same time.

"Owwww." The boy grabbed his head in pain, only to flinch as several sharp things stabbed the top of his skull. "Owww! What was… that?"

His left hand had changed. It was encased in weird red metal, like the armor of those western knights he saw on tv, only this one was covered in large green jewels. Gems bigger than he had ever seen. Even bigger than the ones he had seen at the jewelry stores that he occasionally walked past when he and his mother went shopping.

"Oh? So you called me out. Partner. I'm surprised." A new voice echoed in his head, this one deeper and older sounding. The giant green jewel on his hand that reminded him of a cat's eye glowed as it did so. "You're incredibly weak compared to my previous users, but then again, I don't think I've been woken up when they were this young either."

"… Eh?" The boy's brain was about to shut down. He was reaching the end of his limits on what he could take.

"Hey, you might want to take the ambiguity down a notch. I've already confused the poor kid enough in the span of ten minutes."

"… Eh?" Issei turned his head to his right arm…

It was almost identical to his left, only the colors and the gems were different. Instead of crimson and emerald, his right arm was ebony and silver.

The only other real difference was that the gems were designed slightly off and creeped him out. They looked like a milky white cat's eyes in general, as though they were all blind. The middle parts, the iris, were even creepier, as they were literally stitched shut by thin black threads up their entire lengths. The stitching was uneven and erratic at that. A sloppy job, even by Issei's inexperienced standards.

"Sorry kid. I kinda screwed up. Didn't know what that "magic box" in you actually did and well… I'm stuck here too now. Learn from this. This is what happens when you look before you leap." The first strange old guy laughed embarrassed.

"You… You're stuck? You can't go away?" The boy hesitantly asked his right hand, shaking all over by this point.

"When I activated this armor of yours by accident, it molded itself around me and my power as well as the other guy. It's like getting stuck in cement that's hardened. I don't know about my new roommate here, but I can technically leave when I want. It's not hard at all for me. I'd just have to… well… break the magic box. And like I said earlier, you kinda need it to keep on living."

"But the boy does not need you." The older voice growled menacingly. "I do not know who or what you are, but you will suffer for trespassing into my host human. My flames will burn your soul to ash for your transgressions and… and…"

The boy shivered at the cold and murderous voice that reverberated from his left hand. It was really scary. He didn't like it at all.

"… Great Grandfather?"

"Oh come on! Again?! For the last time I'm not your bloody ancestor! I just got adopted into the damn metaphysical gene line! That's all! I'm more like a step-grand-uncle at best! I'm not even close enough to warrant showing up at family reunions!"

"Eh?"

"Grandpa. I found you."

"Eh?" Issei blinked in even more confusion as a strangely dressed girl with tape over her very small oppai somehow appeared next to him and was poking at his right arm.

"Ophis?!"

"Son of a Bitch!"

"Eh?"

"Hello Ddraig. You woke up early." The new girl briefly looked at his left hand before resuming at poking at the right. "Grandpa. Hurry up. Beat up Baka-Red."

It was at that point that Issei finally surpassed his limit on what he was willing to deal with, and did what any scared and confused seven year old boy would do.

He screamed, cried, and ran home as fast as his short legs could, calling for his mother the entire way.

o. o. o.

"And that's the story of how I got two Sacred Gears, met Ophis, became aware of the mystic world, and spawned my abnormal trauma and aversion to masturbating with either of my hands out of fear that doing so would prompt one of the eldritch abominations in them to do horrible things to my mind, body, and or soul."

The Occult Research Club and the Kuoh Highschool Student Council didn't say anything. Instead, they just settled for sitting and standing in their respective places, staring at Issei like braindead fish.

With a straight face that even Sona would approve of, Issei held up his cell phone and took a picture for later amusement.

o. o. o.

Issei's Room ten years ago:

"Hey kid."

"Go away. You're not real." The poor child was crying in his room. The weird armor on his arms had vanished at some point during his run back home, so his parents didn't believe him about what had happened.

"It's messed up and crazy, but real all the same. Both me and this giant red grump in your other arm."

"Don't bring me into this." Ddraig snorted from what felt like a deeper part of the boy's body. "The boy is weak and too young to fight the white bastard, and his mind is in shock. He's of no use as he is and he will not listen to us either. Call me when he proves otherwise…"

"Why are you still here?" The boy sniffed as he felt the scarier voice go away. He didn't know what to do anymore. He thought that he felt alone when Irena left, but now was worse. No one could help him and the world felt bigger than anything else he could have imagined, and it terrified him.

"Well, like it or not. We're stuck with each other. Unless of course you don't mind dying so I can leave. I'm known to be a bit of a jerk at times, but I still have standards. Killing kids because I screwed up is just poor form." Ghost reasoned. "Anyways. We might as well get introductions done with since they're overdue. My name is Ghost. The guy that just left that speaks as though he has perpetual flaming hemorrhoids is Ddraig, or at least that's what he told me. If it makes you feel better, he's a really big red dragon, and dragons are always awesome."

"My name is Issei. Issei Hyoudou." The boy sniffed, too tired to process that apparently he had a really big red dragon inside of him. "Yeah. Dragons are pretty cool. But they're not as great as oppai."

"… Eh? Oppai? You serious? What are you, like, six? Can you even hit puberty this early?" Even a renowned pervert like Ghost was surprised by the sudden change of topic to his field of preference.

"I'm seven. Yeah. Oppai. They're great. So soft and warm. They're the greatest thing ever." Fire started to burn within Issei as he focused on his calling in life.

"I… have you even… this, really is a new one for me. Ok. I'm going to hope that your folks gave you the talk and move on. Against my better judgement, what do you want to be when you grow up kid? Ddraig and I are stuck in you so we might as well set some long term-"

"Harem King."

"- goals say again?"

"I gonna be a Harem King. I want a harem, no, the ultimate harem of women. The best harem with the best oppai. All mine to take care of and enjoy."

"I just, well ok then. You apparently want a harem."

"I will have a harem."

"I stand corrected."

The immortal was caught flat footed. He was known for his own questionable tastes and choices over the eons, but he had yet to encounter a child of all things so dead set on having a harem. True some royal idiots over the years made similar claims, but that was simply out of expectation and entitlement. This kid, Issei Hyoudou, had the harem as his actual life's goal, and there was a damn fire behind that drive too.

Not much focus for the fire other than directed at "women and oppai" at the moment, but a fire nonetheless.

But there was something in the way the kid made his declaration. Something that indicated that there was another reason why the kid wanted a harem that even he didn't get yet.

Something more, instinctual.

This kid might be more interesting than he first thought.

Oh well, it's not like he was going anywhere anytime soon. Should be fun to see what kind of chaos he can stir up this time.

Plus, pleasing women in all sorts of ways was a bit of a hobby of his. It might be nice to pass down some of the torch's flames.

"Say, Issei. What exactly do you know about making and maintaining a harem?"

o. o. o.