Chapter: 8

Chapter 8:

"So let me get this straight," Rias asked, "you're all claiming to be members of an interdimensional chat group, and you're all on this mission to stop an evil transmigrator who has taken over the body of someone we know?"

"That's pretty much it," I said.

"Yep." "Uh huh." "Indeed." "Hn."

The others affirmed. We were all currently sitting in the famed occult research room along with Rias's peerage. That included herself, Akeno, Issei, Koneko, and Kiba. I assumed Gasper was still locked away in his room as a shut-in.

"Ok then!" Rias nodded happily. "Are you sure you don't want to join my peerage, Akane?" Rias gave me the puppy-dog eyes as she begged.

"While you look adorable like that, Rias, the answer is still no. We won't be staying in this world after we finish our mission. I still have the dream of being my world's next symbol of peace," I said. Not that being an immortal devil wasn't tempting, but I wasn't becoming anyone's servant for that to happen.

"Would any of you like to join?" Rias asked hopefully to everyone else. "I can promise unlimited snacks and I'll always treat you as family!"

"I might consider staying here, but I'd honestly prefer just to move to Akane's world as a first choice," Emma said. Rias looked excited when Emma first spoke up then pouted when she heard Emma would prefer my world over this one.

I turned to her to ask Emma why she said that, but she shook her head at me from across the room.

'I will tell you later,' I heard a voice speak out in my own head! I forgot she was a telepath! Had she been reading everyone's minds this whole time? 'Yes, I have, and no one here is the imposter. All of these teens have some severe mental traumas though, especially the blond boy and the cat girl,' Emma spoke again in my head.

'You probably shouldn't let them know you're reading their minds. Rias is currently being nice enough to let us stay here.' I thought in my own head. I didn;t want that jeopardized. Emma nodded to me silently from across the room.

"I'm not staying here longer than I have to. I've got my other team to get back to!" Robin exclaimed. I thought it was a bit funny that he and I were in superhero costumes and everyone else was dressed normally… except Sasuke, who looks edgy even for a ninja.

"Could you please give me a list of every person you know along with their daily schedules so I can look for discrepancies? A radical change in behavior is always one of the first signs of possession. I have a chart of all of my friends from home's behavioral patterns on me if you want an example." Robin stated.

"I hate to break it to you, but I don't know anyone's schedules…nor do I keep a chart." Rias replied to Robin, who looked shocked to hear that. Most people don't keep a spy chart of their friends' activities. Batman really needs to let this kid out more to socialize because Robin should know that…

"But aren't they your servants?" Robin asked Rias. "Shouldn't you know what they get up to all day?"

Rias looked mildly offended. "Maybe other Devil Kings will micromanage their peerages, but my peerage is my family, and I won't ever force them to do anything against their wills!" Rias declared proudly. I figured she probably should have forced them to go to therapy though, at least according to Emma.

"And that's why we love the president so much." Kiba stated calmly.

The loli cat girl, Koneko, nodded also. "Rias is the best!"

"Ufufu… That's right. Rias is the best King and friend I could ever ask for!" Akeno added.

"Hell yeah! Buchou is the best. And so are her Oppa–oof"

SMACK!

Issei was interrupted as Koneko slapped him upside the head. "There is a child present."

"Hey, I'm not a child!" Robin exclaimed. "And you're the same age as me!"

"I'm 15," Koneko said smugly.

"Oh, so you're just short then?" Robin chided and the cat girl hissed at him.

"Hey, what's wrong with being short!? I'm only 5 ft tall myself!" Alice exclaimed.

"Yeah, but that's because you're a vampire who was obviously turned when she was younger."

"WHAT!?" Alice exclaimed fearfully. "How did you know I was a vampire!? I never told any of you, and the sun hasn't even been out since we've been in this world!"

Robin just looked smug. "It's because Batman has trained me to be an amazing detective! You can always spot a vampire because their breathing is never consistent, and in tense situations, such as when Akane fought that devil, you totally forgot to breathe altogether for like 3 minutes straight." Robin explained. Wow, I was genuinely impressed with his deductive skills. For a 12-year-old with no supernatural abilities or senses, that was really impressive. Even Sasuke looked impressed, if not a bit miffed. Was it because he had the 'almighty sharingan' and failed to see that Alice wasn't human?

'That's exactly correct. Sasuke is upset that he missed such a detail as a shinobi.' Emma's voice spoke out in my head again. I'm surprised vampires even existed in the Narutoverse. There was a bunch of cool shit in that world and it only ever focused on the ninjas.

…

Wait a minute… A short vampire named Alice? Was she from Twilight!? Now that I really looked at her, Alice did resemble the character a bit.

I guess I can also understand her chat group handle being Miss-Know-It-All since she's supposed to be able to see the future. Although, our query has most likely hijacked the body of a devil. So her foresight would be completely useless in this mission, since she can only see the futures of vampires and humans…

She glanced around the room. She looked afraid that we were going to automatically hate her for being a vampire. There was no reason for us to. Her eyes weren't red, and even if they were I wouldn't care if she just fed on blood packs. They were gold though, so clearly she was feeding on animals.

"Alice, no one here cares that you're a vampire," I said calmly. "And you don't have to be so nervous about being judged as one. We're in a different world, remember?" Alice looked relieved when I spoke and everyone else nodded. Robin apologized to Alice for outing her to everyone.

"You're a vampire too?" Rias asked. She looked excited. "I have a dhampir in my peerage actually, and he hasn't met another of his kind in years. Maybe you could talk to him a bit later? He gets a bit lonely, locked away by himself. Just a heads up… he's really shy." Rias rambled off as she asked Alice. Alice nodded and actually looked enthusiastic at meeting a mythical dhampir. According to her, those didn't exist in her world. Well, they did, but she wouldn't know that until the end of Twilight's canon…

After that, the conversations in the room petered out. It was getting late and even the devils, as creatures of the night, were looking tired. Rias offered to let us stay in her guest rooms and offered spare clothes to those who didn't bring any. That was pretty much everyone except Alice, who brought multiple designer outfits… Alice also did not look like she was willing to share them with me or Emma.

XXX

The next morning I woke up as early as the sun rose and headed outside. To my surprise, Emma was already outside the occult school building and sitting in the sun. She looked blissful soaking in the sunlight. I didn't want to interrupt her so I just sat down next to her.

"You're not interrupting me." Emma spoke out loud as she opened her eyes. She had obviously been reading my mind. Honestly, I'd be a lot madder if she wasn't looking so sad. And if she wasn't such a beautiful girl… can't forget that.

"Flippant flattery won't get you anywhere with me right now Akane…" Emma said as she gave me the stink eye. I suppose she could tell I was thinking about her like that on purpose.

"So, I wanted to talk to you for a while now," I said to Emma. "From what I've gathered from your posts and what you've been hinting at. Your world isn't exactly pleasant." It was a hero's job to help people, and Emma desperately looked like she needed help. Although, she did look much better than she did the night before. Yesterday she looked like she hadn't slept in months!

Emma just laughed with a far off look on her face. "I did look atrocious, didn't I? Me! The great Emma Frost. The CEO of the multi-billion dollar Frost International, reduced to living in squalor."

"Living in squalor?"

"I've been living in shacks and caves. I've been constantly on the move, avoiding…them." Emma said.

"Who are them?" I asked? Marvel had so many bad guys and more often than not, the mutants really drew the short end of the stick. There was even one universe where Captain America basically became evil and started murdering mutant children with the rest of the avengers… That was a dark comic.

"Captain America is dead. So is Iron Man, so is the entire Avengers roster actually. Along with the vast majority of mutants." Emma said. She then started giving me a run down of her world. She and all the people in her world were being hunted and purged by the Sentinels. Androids that were designed by the US government specifically to hunt down mutants. The bots were designed to be able to identify whether or not a person possessed the mutant gene at a single glance. If they did, they would be purged. No exceptions. It wasn't just a few million people that possessed the gene either. It was billions. If left to its natural evolution, Emma's world would have become like mine in a few hundred years. Mutants would have inherited the Earth. Obviously, the powers that be in her world couldn't accept that, and so they started a genocide on a global scale!

Emma looked on the verge of crying after recounting her world's history to me. "So how long have you been running and hiding?" I asked her.

"Two years…" Emma told me. "It's been hell for two years! The global population went from 8 billion to 4 billion in that time! And those bastard Androids are still not even close to done! Just like your world, it was speculated that 80% of the population possessed the mutant gene!"

"Holy fuck!" I exclaimed. That was beyond horrible! "I really don't want you to go back there Emma." I knew the chat group system told us that each of our worlds were heading towards ruin, but it sounds like Emma's world was already there. I don't even know how I'd go about helping if we traveled there right now. I could defeat a sentinel, I could probably defeat 10 of them… but hundreds… thousands? No chance.

"It's alright Akane," Emma said. "I wasn't expecting immediate help anyway. It's nice enough that I'm just temporarily off my world for now."

"...Do you want to drag out this mission a bit?" I asked hesitantly. I know it would be a shitty thing to do for the other members who had people to get back to, but I didn't want Emma to only get a single day of relief here, before being thrown right back into her hell. This mission was pretty much banking on Emma's abilities as well. Without her, our only other option would be to kill the transmigrator. Depending on who it is, that could severely fuck up this worlds plot, and next thing you know, a butterfly effect happens and the Chaos Brigade ends up winning and killing everyone…

"Maybe the me of the past would have said yes, I wasn't exactly a good person. In fact, I'm pretty sure I would have qualified as a villain. But now, after seeing so much violence and death, I wouldn't want to possibly condemn this world to a fate similar to my own." Emma replied. Maybe she was a villain in the past, but I believe that kind of mindset made her a hero now. It's obvious why she was chosen for the chat group.

I scooted closer to Emma and gave her a conforming hug. "We'll work something out Emma." She didn't say anything after that, but she at least smiled a bit.

After that, I left Emma on her own and headed back to the occult research building. It was time to strategize with the other members and find our transmigrator. They clearly weren't part of Rias's peerage, so maybe they were part of Sona's? I felt like there was someone else I was missing as well–

"Done with your heart to heart. We've got a target to track down." As I entered the building, Sasuke was standing just inside the doorway… Still wearing the same outfit as yesterday. He'd been offered some spare clothes but turned them down. One unfortunate thing people tend to forget about in the ninja world is that shinobi don't get a lot of time to bathe while out on their missions.

"We're you eavesdropping on us?" I accused him. He scoffed at me in response.

"I'm a shinobi, of course I was." He answered completely unashamed. "Besides, I wasn't the only one. You've got a bug."

"I've got a what?" I questioned.

Sasuke walked over to me and reached his arm out. I tensed for a moment but he just smirked as he reached around and put his hand on my back. When he withdrew it, there sitting in his palm was a bug. An electronic one… used for spying on people.

"Robin, you little shit!" I exclaimed as I immediately knew who slipped that on me!

"It wasn't just him, either. The vampire girl was eavesdropping as well. After observing her closely just like the kid did, I speculate that she has super senses. That includes super hearing. I'm almost certain she was listening in from the second floor, just by the window facing you and the other blond."

For fucks sake, is everyone in this chat group besides me absolutely paranoid!? Emma reads people's minds without permission! Robin and Alice have no problems eavesdropping on others! And Sasuke is just a ninja…

I heard some footsteps on the stares and there were the two other offenders.

"Sorry." Alice apologized. "I didn't really mean to eavesdrop. "Here I was thinking my situation was bad and Emma's was so much worse! I feel shitty!" She exclaimed.

"I'm also sorry but also not sorry." Robin added. "Batman told me to never trust anyone, and even once I do, don't trust them anyway! That's how us ordinary people stay alive in a world of gods and monsters!" Robin explained. I guess that made sense from his perspective. It was a pretty hard core world view to throw on a 12 year old kid though. No wonder he's going to run off on his own and become NightWing in the future. "Also can I have my bug back? I only brought a few of them, and I can't restock them in this world." Sasuke tossed the bug over to Robin who caught it and thanked him.

I heard a door open and close on the second floor. "Good morning everyone." Rias called out from the top of the stairs by Robin and Alice. She let out a cute yawn and looked a bit tired. Devil's don't like morning's. "I've spoken to my fellow King, Sona, about your group's situation. I didn't tell her about the whole interdimensional thing because she would never believe it though. I just told her you all were exorcists tracking down an evil body snatching spirit. She was somewhat suspicious but didn't question further. You all have free reign to roam the school grounds and investigate all the students and teachers. We'd like to find this imposter quickly."

"Thank you Rias, I hope we can find our target quickly." I replied.

"Sure thing, I've unfortunately got to get to class now. See you all later." She gave us a wave as she left the building.

Once she was gone, Robin turned towards me. "So Akane. Do you have any potential suspects? You're the only one who knows this world after all."

"Yeah I guess, but it was an anime I watched a long time ago. My details are kind of fuzzy." I explained. It had been over 18 years after all. If my quirk didn't grant me enhanced everything, including memory retention I would have forgotten pretty much everything after so long. "Also the entire 'main cast' isn't even fully assembled yet." I said using finger quotes when I said 'main cast.'

"What do you mean by that?" Alice asked.

"Well gasper is still buried in his room. Have you talked to him yet, Alice?" I asked and she shook her head in the negative.

"He wouldn't open the door, yelled out that other vampires are scary, and told me to go away… I'll have to try again later." She explained. Well that sounded like canon Gasper, so that probably rules him out as well.

I continued, "We're missing Asia, one of Issei's… love interests." I said with a gag, "She is currently being imprisoned in the church just outside of town… I think."

"A girl is being imprisoned!?" Robin exclaimed. "Why didn't you mention that sooner!? We have to go save her!"

"I'm mentioning it now, because I only just remembered!" I snapped back. "And yes, I suppose since we've probably screwed up the plot with our mere existence, that we should go save her. I don't think all of us need to go though. The bad guys there are pretty weak, all they have are a few dozen exorcists with guns and 4 trash rank fallen angels."

"A few dozen with guns…" Robin said with some trepidation. Oh right, out of all of our group, he and Emma had the lowest combat capabilities. I haven't seen Emma's diamond form yet, but I'd still rank her above Robin due to the age difference and the fact that she's been hardened by her brutal world.

"Guns are the useless toys of weak civilians." I'll handle them and rescue the girl. Sasuke said cockily. With that he headed towards the door himself and left without giving anyone time to argue.

"I'm sure he'll be fine…" I said to Robin and Alice. They didn't look quite as sure, but then again they didn't know what he was capable of yet. I still probably should have warned Sasuke that the exorcist guns shoot lasers and not bullets…but it's too late now.

"Well time for the rest of us to go out and investigate that school." Robin announced.

"Um…Robin. You're still wearing your costume…" I pointed out.

"Of course I am! What if we run into our target and I get into a fight!?" He said.

"Yeah but… a 12 year kid walking around in Japan in the middle of the day and in 'cosplay' is going to draw some eyes."

"Your costume is also extremely recognizable." Alice pointed out. "Even my world was a bunch of Batman and Robin movies, shows and comics."

Robin looked dejected before he headed upstairs to change into a Kuoh uniform to blend in. A few minutes we headed to the school.

XXX

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