DXD SI : Chapter 19 : Doomscrolling without Reels & Wise Ten Year Olds....

Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.

Kuoh Town, Japan

–Magdaran Bael–

His eyes snapped open as he felt it. The tiniest whiff of Demonic Energy passing by. His eyes moved to the side, seeing that it was 3 AM here. He couldn’t really sleep much, owing to this being an unfamiliar place and his overall need to be exhausted before he could sleep, but he’d managed to get a little bit of shut eye.

Apparently, a little bit of Demonic Energy in a town ruled by a Devil was enough to disturb his sleep. He supposed that the abrupt transition from Underworld, a place full of Demonic Energy, to Kuoh Town, a place with very little in terms of Demonic Energy, had him jumping at even the slightest hint of Demonic Energy or any energy in particular.

So far, there was nothing wrong with the hotel or the food itself. The staff, the owner, and the residents all around the hotel were all normal, run-of-the-mill humans. They might know of Devils, but he wasn’t sure of that; they were all completely mundane.

Which is why he was out of his bed, and looking out of the window, to search for the trace, and as he found it, he sighed, exasperated as he realised what it was. A flyer, likely from the local Devil overseer.

Realising that it was nothing interesting, he went back inside and out into the living room portion of the hotel. Despite the building itself being pretty small and average looking, the stay was anything but. There were only three units in the entire three-storey building, with the staff and kitchen being on the ground floor.

There was a living room, a kitchen, larger bathrooms, and a large bedroom as well. It was nothing compared to the indulgence in the Underworld, but it was nice, especially since it had a large TV and unfettered access to local as well as international channels.

He sprawled himself on the couch, and turned the TV on. Being a devil, he could speak and understand any human language so he moved through some Japanese channels, but since it was so late at night, there was nothing interesting going on there, so he switched to the English ones.

And so began the game. He just lay there, watching something appear on the TV, hearing them speak for a few seconds before moving to the next channel, hearing for a bit before changing the channel once more, and so on and so forth.

It was neither entertaining nor boring. It was just somewhere in the middle, enough for him to continue doing it well into the morning. He was snapped out of it as the sun rose in the background. Sunshine fell on his skin, and perhaps because this was Japan, the stomping grounds of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess, but he felt something from the sunlight. Not enough to be of a concern whatsoever, but the sunlight felt more potent than it should be.

Putting that out of his mind, he snapped his fingers, retrieved some clean clothing, and hopped into the shower. If he was in the human world, he might as well do what the humans do, even if it was grossly inefficient.

Even when dialed to the max, the water felt lukewarm at best, so he had to use magic to heat it up to boiling, and then it felt nice, which is probably why it took him so long to get out of the shower. After that rare indulgence, he got ready to head out. Like he told Cleria yesterday, he had a lot of pastries to try, and surprisingly, Kuoh, for being such a small city, had a lot of them.

Yesterday, while they were flying around, Cleria had deliberately steered him away from a certain section of the city, the opposite end of the hill they had ended the tour on, and he knew why. There was a church there, a small one, but it was there. 

Now, he was not one to provoke the Church faction needlessly, especially since it would serve no purpose right now, but he was kind of curious. About the forbidden relationship that would culminate in the deaths of both Cleria and her boyfriend. He wanted to satisfy his idle curiosity, especially since it wouldn’t cost him anything and he was in a rare mood to relax a bit, but alas, his hopes were vanquished by the presence of a Devil, likely waiting for him in the lobby.

It was not Cleria, but it was a strong one. One more High Class Devil. Made sense, though. In canon, Kuoh Town had atleast three High Class Devils to secure it. It wouldn’t make sense for Cleria to be the sole High Class devil, meaning the entire place, especially with the active presence of a church nearby, atleast in terms of strength.

Taking the stairs, he reached down and saw her. Cleria never got around to introducing her peerage, but going by her strength, he assumed the devil in front of him was the holder of the Queen's Piece.

As soon as she saw him, she bowed stiffly, “Greetings, Heir Bael. I am Eleanor Hartmann, Queen of Cleria Belial. I am to be your chaperone for the day.”

Realising that Cleria did not trust him alone and would rather have a tail on him at all times, he shrugged and replied, “I do not need a chaperone as such, but I can see why your king might think that. You can follow me from a distance. I will explore on my own.”

Saying so, he moved on, getting out of the hotel. He felt her follow suit a moment later.

He could have been a bit more tactful, but why should he? Shaking his head, he banished those thoughts and went about his day, moving from shop to shop, eating food, and acting the role of a tourist.

It was…fun. 

After years of being terrified of not being strong enough, he finally felt like he had enough personal strength as well as some modicum of political shielding as the Bael Heir. With all of that, he could certainly afford to spend a few days lazing around, with no training whatsoever. 

Plus, this was a trial run to find Peerage members so this was not entirely wasted.

As was his motive, after running crisscross across the town, he reached the other end of the city, the one with the church. 

Munching on a sweet treat, he looked at the rather sparsely populated area around the church. The only thing of note nearby was the water tower and a small warehouse. Everything else was just empty, large plots of land.

The church area was clean. It had a small tasteful fence around it, with a large space between the gate and the actual church itself. The air felt different here, wrong in a way that was ingrained in the very DNA of Devils. He knew that he and his kind were not welcome here.

He stayed rooted in the same spot, curious to see which side would respond first. Would Cleria, after being informed by her queen, come here, or would someone from the Church come to greet him? But when, even after he was on his third sweet treat, no one came, he moved on, walking past the church, to loop right back into the city, on his way back to the hotel.

Realising that he was heading back to the hotel, his tail disappeared as well. He wondered what the reactions of the Satans back home was or if they even thought of him at all. He was clearly a person of interest when he visited his aunt, and the freaking Satan himself told him to stay away from his stepbrother, not that he had the authority to do so beyond, you know, being the strongest Devil alive, but things at the Coming of Age ceremony had been much more subtle and scaled back.

He supposed that Serafall finally utilised all the diplomacy chops available to her and realised that pushing him was more likely to alienate him, which was probably why Cleria was sent with a soft push.

And he had just walked into it, because he had a night of sadness and felt like going to the human world to poach some humans into his Peerage would set things right.

Shaking his head, he debated going back to the Underworld, but there was nothing there for him, beyond his Garden.

Entering the hotel, he smiled at the receptionist and, after entering his arms and laying down some anti-scrying wards, began taking stock of his own situation and what he wanted to do in the future.

It was very clear to him early on that he could just slink out of the Devil race and live out the rest of his days in peace in a garden of his own making, if he had no idea what was coming and how the entire supernatural world coming together was going to fracture itself, all in time for the big bads to come and pick everyone off, or at least try to.

It had taken cooperation on an unheard-of level to push back the ExE gods or something ridiculous like that. He didn’t remember most of it, but he knew for a fact that Devils, Angels, Fallen Angels, Gods, and more had to come together to deal with them, and that was not all without his existence throwing a wrench in the timeline.

So, fucking off to live in a peaceful garden utopia was no longer an option, especially if he wanted to take advantage of the biological immortality that was afforded to most devils.

Secondly, creating a faction was an option. Now, that would have been tempting had he not had the charm of a wet sock. 

His strength alone might have devils flock to his cause, but there was no shortage of scheming devils and other supernaturals who could easily trick him, if he wanted the hassle and headache of creating and maintaining a faction without needless cruelty like Rizevim or Benevolence like the New Satans or the Political chops like Zekram. 

Plus, Devil kind was already in a three way silent battle. Did he really want to pile on that? Especially since the Devils were going to be the best shield he could ever have in the face of the incoming war?

No, the best way to get past the age of 100, in his humble opinion, was to work on his personal strength and surround himself with loyal people who were also strong. The second best option was to work on his personal strength, gather a peerage, and grow strong together, solving the loneliness issue as well. 

He smirked at the naive thoughts of his ten year old self actually being the obvious option, even after 8 years. 

With that line of thinking, he decided to wrap up his visit here and move to other areas of Japan. If he had some downtime, might as well make the most of it.

__-xx___

–Touji Shidou–

He sighed in relief as the Devil moved on. It was perhaps the single most stressful day in his career as an exorcist. He was right there, standing in front of a window, light sword in hand and God’s name in his heart, ready to leap into battle, knowing full well that it was going to be completely pointless.

But by God’s grace, the devil left. The extremely strong devil left. It was as if he were standing in front of Father Vasco when he was fighting Pagans and Devils. No, it was somehow worse than that, because Father Vasco had never aimed his fighting intent at him.

He sighed, looking at his phone. He had sent a phone to HQ as soon as he saw the Devil standing in front of the Church, but even now, after the devil was gone, there was no reply.

He was going to file a report with the overseer of the town, but he knew that even she would be helpless in the face of such a mighty Devil.

The phone pinged in his hand as he looked down, his brows furrowed, reading through the report.

“Heir of the Bael House?” his eyes widened as he realised just who the devil was. The importance was clearly established as the next command came in all Caps.

DO NOT APPROACH! 

He sighed, his hopes of retiring in his hometown diminishing swiftly. He had hoped that he could give Irina the childhood he had, and the news of the town being handed to the Devils did dim the possibility of that happening a little, but once he had interacted with the Devil responsible for this, he was mollified a bit.

She did not seem like the worst of her kind, which was saying something since the bar was pretty low down in the Underworld.

But this? No, this was different. A devil of that calibre could forcibly recruit him or Irina and get away scot free, or even worse…..

….

..

That job offer to teach Exorcists in England was looking more and more attractive every day.

Masaomi was capable enough to handle stuff here anyway. 

A/N - His memories were mostly erased by the void, some were sealed by his mind. He knows some stuff, but not all.