Events In Motion

It took a moment for my mind to register exactly what I had been told. My eyes blinking in surprise as I looked across the table towards Issei. Even Ingrid seemed just as surprised as me, both of us unsure whether he was telling the truth or making it up.

"What?" I questioned, still trying to wrap my head around the sudden reveal he had dropped upon us as we sat down to eat tea.

He frowned, glaring at me. "I have a girlfriend."

"Bullshit." My response was short and snappy, Issei's frustrated gaze deepening.

"Mikoto!" Ingrid chastised, I ignoring her entirely. She wasn't my mother and I didn't take orders from her. Even if she was helping me learn magic, it didn't mean she could tell me what to do with my life. "Congratulations, Issei, what's her name?"

"Yuuma," Issei replied proudly, chest-puffing out.

I shook my head. "Is she real?" The looks both gave me made me raise my hands in surrender. "It's an honest question, I have the right to know whether she's real or not."

Issei rolled his eyes. "Yes, she's real, asshole."

"Oh, well congratulations, Issei, perhaps you might lose your virginity tomorrow." Now that I think on it though, while I didn't watch much of High School DxD, nor did I pay much attention to what took place within the episodes themselves. But one thing I do distinctly remember is Issei getting a girlfriend that turned out to be a Fallen Angel, who then killed him. Which then led to Rias turning him into a Devil and kicking off the whole story.

Was that what was happening right now?

Personally, I don't want it to be the case. During my time here I had gained a pretty good understanding of just where I stacked up in terms of the other supernatural beings here in Kouh. Saeko had already explained that she was the most experienced fighter out of all those here, besides me. She would wager that besides Rias and her Power of Destruction, she would have a pretty strong chance of winning against every supernatural being here.

I doubt that she know entirely what Ingrid was capable of, I wasn't either. But that certainly meant that Saeko was top tier as far as things went so far. Even though I suffered plenty of injuries facing off against her, ultimately I won our duel. Now that I knew the basics of what she could do, the fights between us should be much easier on my part.

There were certain techniques that at the moment I had been completely unprepared for and had no clue how to handle. But I had gone away from that duel, thinking over it all and I knew what techniques to use, what plans to execute and how to move in order to best counter them. That's what had allowed me to rise up to one of the top members of the Kengan Association. I may not like school or learning, but when motivated, I can do some quite impressive stuff and one of them was adapting to my opponents.

Adapting the way I fought to better combat against a certain type of opponent. Consider my mind a filing cabinet, inside of which were dozens of files. Then inside each file was a list of the strengths and weaknesses of said opponent. Those files contained all those secrets, plus my, I guess you could call formula to best combat them.

If an opponent was a grappler like Imai, keep distance and keep the fight on our feet. The kid was no slouch as a boxer, but he wasn't called the King of Stranglers without good reason. I had the strongest advantage and the best chance of winning when it was purely a striking game.

However, against someone like Kaolan Wongsawat, taking the fight to the ground would be my best bet at winning. Getting up close would certainly be dangerous, but if I could simply take the fight to the ground and stop him from keeping distance and raining down strikes on my body, then victory was going to be mine.

That's how I managed to get to where I am today and now amongst the many files I had stored within my mind, Saeko Busujima was now apart of it. However, I was getting off-track, with my victory over Saeko, I knew that even without magic, I had an equally strong chance of emerging victorious against the other supernatural beings. Not a definite chance of victory, I knew from experience that the outcome of a fight can be determined by many factors, luck being important.

A lucky strike, or having the bad luck to step on some uneven ground, things like that can change the outcome of a fight drastically. Sometimes powerful fighters can be defeated by weaker fighters through trickery like Kaburagi Koji the Medicine Man.

So saying for definite that I could win was impossible.

The only two people I was wary of was Ingrid and Rias Gremory. The former because I had no clue what she was capable of. All I knew from what little she had revealed was that she used to hunt supernatural beings for a living and then my inference that she just bit of more than she could chew and got turned into a vampire. As for Rias Gremory, there wasn't much that worried me about her, except for her unique magical capabilities.

Not only did she have more magic than even Ingrid, but her Power of Destruction was something that concerned me. If I got hit with that then that was it, I was done.

But I also wanted to know how strong the Fallen Angels were. I knew that in canon that they weren't anything special compared to the Devils, but this would be a good chance for me to fight against a foe that can fly. It would also give me another chance to experience fighting against a magic user, something I desperately needed more practice in.

-X- Line Break -X-

Leaning back against the wall, I watched as the pen twirled around above the palm of my hand, floating within the air, held up only by magic. The knowledge that I wasn't entirely human was equal parts worrying, but also quite exhilarating. It certainly made my life much easier as I didn't have to spend ages learning magic how the rest of humanity did.

I was able to just think and channel magic then boom, instant telekinesis.

Ingrid had warned me about experimentation, she detailing how exciting it is to simply imagine something and then bring it to life with magic, but also how dangerous it could be. To be entirely honest, I kind of wanted to ignore her warnings and just do something fun and exciting. At the same time though, I also understood what she was hinting at.

Just using telekinesis like this required constant concentration.

I had to keep imagining the pen floating within the air, the moment my attention turned elsewhere the magic disappeared and the pen dropped in my hand. One time it completely exploded, flinging ink and bits of plastic all across my room. Luckily, Ingrid knew a spell that could clean the mess up instantly, which explained why the house always looked spotless and here I thought she was just a very good housewife?

Wait, wouldn't she technically still be a good housewife. She may not be cleaning it manually, but she still has to use the spell so wouldn't she by extension be cleaning the house? Wait, why the fuck do I care?

But, as I had learned with that moment, spells even though I may be able to imagine whatever I want and just throw magic at it. I also had to keep that connection up and keep my mind focused on it. I'm lucky that the worst that's happened is just a pen exploding, imagine a fire spell exploding upon me.

Yeah, no thanks.

Besides, why rush to gain huge amounts of spells, telekinesis in itself could be very useful if used in the correct way. I knew from my knowledge of anime that there were plenty of powerful telekinetic users who I could attempt to emulate. That seemed like a very good place to start, though I did really want to use lightning. Some of the best and most awesome anime characters were lightning users. My God this is frustrating!

Catching the pen as it fell into my hand, I frowned slightly. "Can we try something else now?" I asked, looking towards Ingrid who was stood, looking out the window. She was dressed quite conservatively, but that did little to detract from her beauty. In fact, I took a moment to admire her curvaceous form, her dark skin and long flowing hair all bathed in moonlight.

I really wanted to fuck her.

I also wouldn't feel guilty about it either, sure I'd be taking her from Gorou, but I intended to bring Miki back from the dead. So, things would even themselves out quite nicely.

"Like what?" I shrugged in response.

"Maybe using this more as an attack or defensive measure," I suggested.

Magic was certainly an interesting thing, but I wasn't a researcher nor a simpleton who was just fascinated with every facet of it. I wanted magic purely because it would make me stronger. Anything and everything that could make me stronger, I wanted and that's a simple fact of the matter.

That's who I am.

"Learning to move the pen is an easy way to expand your magical core and circuits, as well as increasing your control" Ingrid explained, but I already knew that, she had said this many times.

A magical core was in layman's terms, the storage area for your magic. Once emptied, you had to wait for it to recharge. Though one had to be wary because the moment it emptied you felt a wave of extreme fatigue fall over you, I knew, I was speaking from experience. The larger one's core, the more magic they had available to them.

Magic circuits were the channels that allowed magic to travel throughout your body and be expelled from certain parts of it. Effectively, it was another circulatory system. The better one's circuits, the more magic could travel throughout your body at a much quicker rate.

"I know that," I replied frustratedly. "And I can do that pen trick for hours on end at this point. It's not exactly difficult for me." Though that was mostly down to my inhuman heritage, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "All I'm asking is can we try and expand the horizons a little bit. Because I'm pretty sure Issei's girlfriend is a Fallen Angel."

That earned a reaction, Ingrid tensing up, her head turning just slightly to look at me out of the corner of her eye. They now slit and glowing lightly, a slightly murderous undertone displayed within them.

Despite this, I withheld the urge to smile, my suspicions confirmed with that reaction alone. The events of cannon were about to begin through a lot of things seemed to be falling into place within the next week.

Issei and his Fallen girlfriend.

A fight in the Kengan Tournament.

A meeting with Rino.

A meeting with Saeko and the other human heads.

Four very important things and for the first time I wondered if maybe it was I who had bitten off more than I could chew. I could barely keep up with the things going on in my life and now I had cannon events to worry about. Events that I didn't remember properly.

Oh well, I guess I would have to deal with it all one at a time. I had been brought to this world for a reason, it was not like I was going to die here.