chapter ¹

Chapter 1: ...Change you, like a Remix...

There was no way.

"Would you look at that Ruru, Rev? That's your little brother. He is one of us, a precious gift and heavy responsibility. Make sure to always be good to him, okay?"

There was just no possible, conceivable, sensible way this was happening.

"You can't just do something like THAT Rye! Are you trying to get yourself killed? You would have probably wiped half of the estate off the map! Promise me, don't do something like that again. Please don't make your mother and I worry."

I know I died and whoever thought it was a good idea to leave the defenseless crazy with a more unstable of frighteningly violent one should have been getting an earful right about now. The thought of some random orderly having trouble cleaning up the bloody mess that was my body was amusing but that didn't take away the pain of that particular experience.

"Onii-chama! Look what Rae made for Onii-chama! Do you like it?"

Multiple stabbings that is, ending with one straight through the eye and out the back of my skull. Simply put, I felt every single moment of it: It hurt -more than enough for one lifetime thank you very much- but more than that, I know I felt every excruciating moment of that bloody torture.

"Hey, don't cry anymore Rye. You're a big boy now, you're not even supposed to be this much of a baby anymore. I know, your best onii-sama will show you a trick. Just hold out your hand for me and I'll make all the pain go away just like that!"

I'm repeating myself, I know, but I felt it: I felt it all happen.

Look at your brothers, son. One is a rising star in every sense of the word, a fire burning hotter than any other. The other holds the heart of the masses in his palms, a man loved by all. Work hard, and I am certain you will be just as great in time.

Which means that it definitely happened. I'm insane, an idiot savant some may say and very proud of it, but I know it happened.

Rye, my sweet little bird, look at me. Mommy will always love you no matter what happens, alright? Your father and brothers might be a little bit too tough on the outside, but they love you too. Though the heavens may fall upon us, we will always love you.

I was dead.

You two idiots listen up. The fire is the heart and soul of our family, while the wind is the shield that protects us and allows us to grow. Apart they are powerful but brought together there is almost nothing that can stand against us. You two will learn that I'm not as gentle as Father is; You will learn even if I have to carve the lessons into your bodies with a blunt spoon. Let us begin.

I am dead.

You're at that stage, already? I'm so proud, our little Rye is all grown up! Alright, the way to any woman's heart is though her ears. Whisper sweet nothings to her, convince her that you are THE ONE and she'll be eating out of your hands in no time. You're our cute little brother after all, I'm sure we'll have to be beating your suitors' other prospects back with a stick after you steal the heart of every lady in there!

So what the hell are all these voices coming from? Are these memories of someone? Don't look at me, they're definitely not mine. Who the hell is Rye anyway, and what kind of parents named their kids after bread of all things?

Ignoring the strangeness of the situation for a moment -damn audio-only memories- I opened my eyes and took a look around to verify that, yes, I was indeed looking into the deep abyss that was supposed to be life after death. Or at least, strangely enough, I hoped this was the deep nothingness that awaited all those who did nothing with their lives.

Maybe the Void for those who were mentally ill? I could always blame the former on the latter anyway.

True, it would be boring, but at the very least it wasn't the eternal damnation many were afraid of. It also wouldn't be the type of reincarnation that people feared, turning into insects, animals, maybe even inanimate objects and stuff like that.

Both options seemed to be less and less viable as I found that the memories wouldn't stop flowing in, the noisy things. They didn't even come dream cycle style, but in clipped audio only, like some radio on the fritz, and everything that did manage to go through was some useless piece of a much larger puzzle.

Things were repeated, Rye, Mommy, Brother, Father, some other names I didn't bother thinking about, fire, wind, and family, but as a whole they were quite useless and definitely unconnected. It was like hearing, not even watching, someone's life playing out, through in sentences and cuts and quite frankly, it was starting to get annoying.

I never liked not knowing things, kind of a peeve of mine, so I was starting to get more than a little hysterical that I was stuck in some void who knows where awaiting a fate I wasn't even sure of anymore.

It took an eternity, well not really, but finally a change happened. In the middle of the infinite inky blackness there was something: a white dot.

I stared expectantly at the single speck of light, a mote of a glow not even as bright as a firefly, slowly and painfully grew to erase the darkness. It was a long drawn out change, but as days, weeks, months, and years past, not a single sliver of darkness was left and...

Finally the voices stopped.

Alright, everything was white, no more voices, that should mean preparations are complete, right?

I don't have to stay stuck in this boring purgatory anymore and I'll be whisked away to whatever fate that awaits right?

Please don't tell me I have to stay...

You know what? Fuck it, I'm way to tired for this. All this crazy -more crazy than I'm used to mind you- was giving me a headache.

Now just rub it away...

Yeah, that's the stuff: Fingers on temples, an ample amount of pressure, and smooth circular motions.

You know, if I wasn't crazy I would have probably gotten work as a masseur for hot models or something.

My fingers have always had this special magic and after no time at all I began to... feel... better...

...

...

...

God, I'm such an idiot sometimes.

Alright, here's what I have so far.

It's about ten in the evening, on account of a super fancy and old grandfather clock in the far corner.

I'm in some room, or maybe calling it a first class suite would be better considering the sheer class of the decor that definitely does not compare to my old room in the hospital.

Finally, I've been reincarnated though not in the, dare I say it, normal way.

I got up with a jolt in a bed much too big for a single person after realizing my idiocy, but instead of looking around first like any normal boring person would, the first thing I did was touch myself.

Yes, there first to make sure I still had it -FYI, castration the word really does sound as painful as the actual process- but I also made sure to explore other areas like my torso, neck, shoulders, and of course my eye.

They were all fine, never better I would say since there was absolutely no evidence of my previous injuries. It's almost as if they never happened in the first place, and if that wasn't enough I was even better than before. After a more thorough examination was surprised to feel a bit more muscle around my bones, as well as a bit more strength in my hands, and an altogether lack of tubes attached to my arms.

That was when I started to get worried, though fact that I could even reach my... unmentionables without any noticeable effort on my part should have been the first warning bell.

I was stick thin once, useful for nothing more than keeping a bed occupied and idling the time away. This sudden change, though apparently good, was bad because that implied that something happened.

Something must have changed.

An that fact couldn't be even more underlined as it was when I looked up to see the chandelier in all it's glory.

A beautiful piece it was, though it was hard to enjoy the elegance of each dipping curve and flowing bend when I realized that I could see perfectly clear while not a single mounted candle was lit.

That was when I truly humored the thought of reincarnation, even if it looked to be classified as one of the stranger cases.

Newsflash, I wasn't a baby, but a fully grown man.

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea how to feel about this.

I mean, sure, on one side I don't have to be trained in the ways of growing up and I don't have to be watched all the time, but being a baby has its advantages. Being unassuming is the best one, the right to say anything and everything you want and the worst that could happen is being labeled overly curious or genius, was a close second. Another and easily more important one would be the lack of personality, where I could be anyone I wanted to be without fear of drawing suspicion. I mean, this looks like the body of a man, and thank goodness gender-bending didn't occur, but whoever he is, or was, he must have had people who knew him and people who would notice that he is no longer him but me.

I may just have committed identity theft, except I'm not even just pretending to be someone but actually am someone entirely different.

On the other hand, the body was great; topnotch even.

I felt none of the fatigue I usually felt all the time and my head was clearer than it has even been my entire life. In the dark I could see as if the lights were all on, and if I was honest with myself, something told me that I could take on the world and still come out on top. I did fell a bit warm though -very strange when I was entirely naked and all- but there was some sort of heat ebbing and rising around me like a pulse that carried fire instead of blood.

Come to think of it, there was something off about me, something that didn't really fell right but not exactly foreign either. I can't really describe it but it was like having a second heart, pumping something that wasn't blood all around me.

It felt wonderful.

That Not-Blood was in the air too, it couldn't be seen, or heard, or sniffed, or tasted, but it was there and I could feel it. It was everywhere, and as overwhelming as this new sense was, it provided me some comfort, some familiarity and warmth that just seemed right no matter how off it was. It was almost like the Air wanted me to breathe it, like it was embracing me as a mother would a precious child. I would have stayed there, standing naked and enjoying whatever this feeling was if I didn't remember that this body wasn't mine.

And really It wasn't.

I wasn't some toned guy who excluded confidence, I was some shriveled husk of a person who couldn't even function properly in society. I wasn't some rich millionaire who could afford a room jam packed with furnishings that seemed to date back to the baroque period, I could barely keep my room in the hospital with how low my funds were dropping as that bullshit treatment just kept getting more expensive. I didn't even grow into whatever, or whoever, this was, I just died and whoever controls the afterlife part of reality thought it was a good idea to drop me into someone who has obviously lived, probably two decades by that point.

Alright, enough of that depressing stuff, too much time being wasted whining over split milk and all that.

My current problem would be, first probably hiding my identity. A guy with this much stuff reeked of wealth and power, and being caught in the act of impersonating someone like that would be... well let's not go there. To avoid that at all costs, first I must find out who this person is... and what do you know there is a full body mirror right there!

Ripping the sheets off the bed and securing my waist, I walked over to examine my refl- OH FUCK NO!

The toned physique was all well and good, even better than I expected really with not a hint of fat visible on either my arms or my chest and stomach. My, or his, body was spotless, not a wound or any mark to be seen, just hard lean muscle that better suited a seasoned runner rather than a bulky body builder. The body was tall, or at least about a foot taller than my old one, and with the muscle on this guy, I wouldn't be surprised if he could throw the old me around like a rag doll.

No, again, the guy's body was great: perfect for an athlete even, but the face. Oh that fucking face.

He was handsome, I have to admit, roguishly good looking with eyes that seemed to pierce they very soul. I could imagine the face I saw in the mirror smirking devilishly at a woman, charming her with a look and just a few careful words. His features were elegant yet striking with hair that almost seemed to shine even with the lack of light. This was a face of a man who had to know he was good looking, the mug of a playboy who could get anyone he laid his eyes on save the one he truly wanted.

It was a face I recognized, and a face I laughed at once upon a time.

Ruru, Rav, Rye, they were fucking nicknames given by a doting mother and father. His siblings were an eldest brother who was a top class fighter, and a second one who practically owned the media beside a strangely dressed girl, while his single younger sister had more tactical prowess than he ever dream of. Fire and wind were tools they used to fight, powers that ran within the family as they stood upon their high place, their leader given the title of Marquess by the Fallen Morning Star himself.

I had to stop myself from screaming as I stared into the face of Riser Phenex, one of the most pathetic characters from a show that had a protagonist basically powered by tits.

Oh yeah, I'm in DXD, Highschool not Shinjuki and I was FUCKING LOSING IT.

One would think being a High-Class Devil would curb the terror that was assaulting me with its ugly deformed claws. I mean, I was a guy who could recover from just about anything, right? A mean, kill it with fire kind of guy who slept with, maybe, an entire chessboard -minus one I guess- worth of women whenever he gets the chance to, who went around seducing women of every type, including his sister -hopefully not.

But this is Riser Fucking Phenex.

There was literally only one knee-jerk reaction to being the soon-to-be-ex-fiance of the sister of Lucifer.

"I'm so fucked." And not even in the good way!

This guy is idiot ball personified, well not really, but he is kind of stupid and that's taking the idiot villain persona into account. He goes from instant WIN to give the good guys a chance and let them have a training montage. Yes at that time, he was still stronger than all of them but then our boob-obsessed hero somehow unlocks some super power that allows him, the lesser pervert, to overcome the greater pervert, which was now me.

After that, he's thrown under the bus, only to be heard from again when his sister comes to the now badass dragon to ask for mercy. Seriously? A kickass seduction master that you can't help but hate and be jealous of at the same time gets so traumatized that he becomes the devil equivalent of a NEET. Not just that, the little sister in his pseudo-harem gets sucked into this perverted idiot's own harem, a harem he doesn't even know exists because reasons so of course he can't take even advantage of it.

And that's just the story part, the supposed canon, the bright, humorous, and happy part of a world on fire.

There are too many possibilities, so much darkness hidden in the world of sunshine and boobs. The implications of some of the story elements, of the world building are dark, almost grim-dark with how deep the abyss descends, and we're not even talking three novels in yet. If this world was a book then the pages would be gushing, dripping black while the letters would be etched in white, there were too many things unsaid, too many issues swept under the rug to keep the story's happy tone. There were too many deaths left untouched, too much hurt ignored that the reader, ie. me, could be allowed to laugh at the antics of the idiot protagonist or stand in awe of the power he had accumulated.

Power that in the end solved nothing but his own problems.

What utter Bullshit.

Oh, make no mistake, I fully intend to walk the same path.

I will get stronger, I will one day stand on top of this world but I'm not going to make the mistake of being a hero. No, power will be accumulated, power will be gained but not for them; not for some faceless masses, not for the race I was not a part of, nothing that heroic. Power will be for me, and those I cherish. It will be so, that I will have power, that the Great Red: DXD itself, Ophis, and the Trihexa combined would not be able to stop me.

I will ascend, that is a promise, a new undisputed fact of this world, even if none of the current inhabitants knew about it.

The question would be how though... Well I'll think about that after a good night's sleep.

It was half past ten after all, no need to be wasting moonlight.

Insomnia is a bitch.

It seemed that for all my excitement I must have forgotten about the fact that I had trouble sleeping. Hey, don't blame me; the emotional roller-coaster of Dying, Reincarnating into a Full Grown Body, Discovering that said Body was once one of the most Pathetic Antagonists in all of Anime History, and Resolving that I will change said Weakness into such Gary Stu Level OP-ness that even Issei's Progression would seem slow by comparison, had my mind running ragged. Really, it wasn't every day that this sequence of events happened... well not really.

In fact, I'd actually be surprised if it did happen exactly the same somewhere else in this wide multiverse, but I digress.

I couldn't sleep, so I did what I always did when I needed to occupy myself.

I plotted.

I'm evil and conniving, yes, I get that a lot, having nothing to do but wait for death and watch other crazies do their things every day did that to you. Or it broke you, but I wasn't one to really care about that.

Anyway, in line with my newest resolution my musings turned to one being who would soon be the target of most if not all my opening machinations.

The Current Red Dragon Emperor. For all his idiocy, Hyoudou Issei is a being worthy of respect: this much I have to admit.

I may not like the guy very much even if he wouldn't be handing Riser, again now me, a can full of whoop-ass, but I have to admit that he had his strengths. His demonic power in itself is nothing to scoff at, or it won't be anything to scoff at when he reaches around Volume 12 with the Young Devil Gathering, and coupled with his Gear, he really is a monster in his own right. His endurance is frighting and in physical strength he is no slouch either since he did force Sairaog to use his own Gear during their duel. He would learn to breath fire, to mask his presence, to survive in the wilderness and of course, master his own Boosted Gear.

This is all truly impressive especially since he began with less combat potential that a newborn devil baby.

His Sacred Gear aside, I'm most impressed with his three skills, Dragon Shot, Dress Break, and Bilingual, though we can get to them later.

All these pieces seemed to naturally come together to form what looked to be one of the fastest rising combatants in the current world, and the funniest thing was that in the end it was all justified. Most of his strength came from the Boosted Gear after all, and as one of the Godslaying weapons of this world, it was kind of broken. Twice the power for every ten seconds, and that's just base form. Push the damn thing to the limit and you have an unlimited number of boosts given any time frame, limited only by the body's capability to hold the power... which could also be increased via boosting. In a perfect scenario, you basically wielded unlimited power given enough time; if that wasn't bloody broken I have no idea what is.

Here's an example: Lets say, Baal has a power value of one million and Issei is at a measly one hundred, these hypothetical power values being all inclusive and accurate as a measure of combat potential of course. Given the Boosted Gear's boosting power, if Sairaog's power does not change during the duration of the battle, Issei will surpass him in exactly fourteen boosts. If the boosted gear increases its power every ten seconds and not the rapid-fire version when Issei first seriously fought Vali, then that's in excess of two minutes. In this hypothetical situation then, even if Sairaog is stronger than Issei by five orders of magnitude, Issei will win after one hundred forty seconds, or fourteen boosts, whatever comes first.

I can only thank whoever did this to me that the timeline isn't that far ahead yet; if I'm not wrong, I don't think that I've even made my appearance yet.

I'm not exactly too sure where, or is it when, I am in the current timeline, but I knew for a fact that I wasn't defeated by the pervert just yet.

The room was still nice, well kept, and clean. It was altogether impossible to be the den of a recluse suffering from some sort of trauma. I've been there, and if someone of my new station was brought to his knees then I'm pretty sure there would be more scorch marks lying around, sheets would be torn, and whatever else lay around would be broken. If this was before or after this idiot issued the ten day leeway, I would have to find out when I get in contact with the rest of my new peerage...

A peerage I know very little about even if I have some knowledge of this topsyturvy universe.

Damn it all, this may end up being harder than I thought.

Hey, they never said that the road to omnipotence was easy.