Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.
Kuoh, Japan
–Akeno Himejima–
Mind Magics were one of the first magics taught to any Devil worth their salt. Even before she had been taken in by Rias, she knew multiple ways to make sure that humans’ attention was diverted away from a certain area. The repertoire of spells she could use to mess with the human mind only grew when she was taken in as the Queen of Rias Gremory. The vast Gremory library was suddenly opened up to her, with the Gremory House sparing no expense as they got both her and Rias some of the best teachers the Underworld had to offer.
She was taught anything she wanted to learn. Understandably, the traumatic experience of having to live on her own, hunted down by the people who should have been the ones to take her in and care for her, while having to survive, led her to focus heavily on offensive and defensive magic.
Her role as Queen in Rias’ peerage meant her magic aptitude was only increased. That, combined with her natural affinity to lightning, courtesy of him, meant she quickly reached a level of power that not even Rias could reach. Not with the laziness that seemed inherent to her. She refused to do anything beyond the mandatory, sometimes not even that, if something else caught her fancy.
Her King was like that, she thought fondly, as she reached the Occult Research Club, and knocked softly on the door, knowing that the only ones left in the office building was her King, the eternally late devil, who was only on time in her classes by virtue of magic, and her Queen. More than once, she had had to use her special curse gift to shock Rias into waking up on time. She giggled to herself as the memory of Rias glaring at her, her hair standing up on its own, flashed in her mind.
After waiting a moment, she opened the door herself, wondering if she would get to witness that magnificent sight today as well, only to blink as she found herself staring at an empty office. Well, empty office and shower. Rias and her exhibition tendencies meant she had a special shower installed in her office, specifically to flash any would be guest or intruder.
The fact that Rias was not here would mean…
She forgot that Rias was not the only one left in the building.
She sighed as she turned around and placed her hand on the wall right next to the painting of a vampire holding a fork that was stabbed into a giant garlic, the wall being pushed inside, as a door shaped magic circle appeared in front of her.
She walked in, her vision darkening for a moment before a series of stairs, along with oil maps installed in the walls, appeared in front of her. Once more, she sighed at her King’s antics as she, in her own words, vehemently defended installing a teleportation matrix here that led straight to Gasper’s seal.
Nooo~! It has to be like this! Don’t you understand? We will be entering a Dhampir’s lair, after all! It has to be cinematic!
Rias’ voice echoed in her mind as she walked down the stairs, and reached a stone door that looked incredibly heavy, and as if it was operated by some ancient mechanical mechanism that required someone to find the clues for, in the many, many figures drawn on the stones that made up the walls of this place.
It was all done so meticulously by Rias, that no wonder she did not have the time or the energy to delve into magic that is not point at target & Destroy target. Fortunately, the door itself was not made of stone.
She just pushed it open, revealing a lobby, with modern tiling and lighting, thankfully. Rias was fine with the destination being modern. She just wanted that dungeon vibe for the entrance.
As the sound of two people laughing and some buttons being pressed reached her ears, she shook her head fondly and called out loud, “Rias! I have some news for you.”
Predictably, a moment later, there was a squeaking sound, followed by a huge magical disturbance that had goosebumps arising on her arms, followed by a disappointed, “Aww!” from Rias as the door next to the lobby was opened from the inside.
“You know I was just about to win against him today?” Rias glared at her as she looked at the disheveled appearance of Rias with amusement. Her eyes had heavy bags under them, there were chunks of something in her hair and on her clothing, which was just baggy clothing that she wore whenever she went to meet Gasper, and she had a game controller in her hand.
So, it was safe to say that Rias Gremory had not had a wink of sleep the entire night and had spent it trying to beat Gasper, a Dhampir who spent his entire waking life, which was a lot since he was a Dhampir, terminally online, doing Lucifer knows what. She knew that gaming was one of the things Gasper was terribly fond of, and it would be a holy day in Hell, when Rias or anyone else in her peerage would beat Gasper at his own craft.
Unfortunately, he was still too shy to meet anyone else, save for Rias, so there was no chance of anyone playing against him, because the poor Dhampir froze up and closed the game whenever it was revealed who was on the other side.
His Sacred Gear certainly didn’t make things easier. Every time she was even in the vicinity of Gasper and felt his Sacred Gear activate, involuntarily as it was, she felt the difference between her power and Gasper’s. If he was not as socially crippled as he was, he probably would have been far more powerful than anyone in the entire Peerage, Rias included.
Last time they checked, Gasper could stop Rias’ Power of Destruction entirely. He couldn’t quite stop someone on the level of Lady Gremory, simply because of the difference in Demonic Energy reserves, but that was bound to change with age, not to mention training.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, based on who and how they looked at it, Rias was not the kind to push members of her peerage into something they were not comfortable with. That made her a one of a kind King in the entire underworld, and she would forever be thankful that Rias was the one who reincarnated her, but that also meant that their peerage lacked someone with strong leadership.
Someone with a firm hold on it, and honestly, she would like it if Rias became somewhat strict with some members of their short family, at least in regards to training. Kiba trained too much, but it was useless unless he overcame his trauma. Koneko trained the bare minimum but avoided using the biggest weapon she had in her arsenal out of fear of going mad. Gasper had the highest potential out of all of them, but due to both his own anxiety and Rias’ insistence that he would come out on his own, his potential was left unfulfilled, and then there was herself…
She was not delusional enough to think that she did not have hangups of her own. There were many, and perhaps, Rias was right. That everyone worked on their own timeline and even Rias, as their King, could not force things, but sometimes, she wondered if Rias cared more about them than her own life and freedom. Because with the whole engagement thing coming up…
“What is it?” She was snapped out of her deep thoughts by Rias as she began dragging her ass back up the stone stairs that practically exuded an air of mystery. Upon opening the door, Rias practically whined as she dragged the comfy blanket with her, the fabric trailing behind her as if it were her cape.
Rias couldn’t even complain as she was forced to do something to get to her office, as she was the one who insisted on making sure that no one teleported past the stairs without a genuine emergency, and since she expected her peerage to follow the rule, she imposed it on herself as well, even though no one asked her to.
She was just that type of Devil, and Akeno loved her for it.
As she sat in the chair in front of Rias’ giant desk, she rolled her eyes as Rias seemed to be taking her time, forcing her to flick a finger in the shower’s direction, her ears being rewarded with a yelping sound as her lightning did the trick.
“Akeno!” A muffled sound reached her, but all she did in response was flick the finger a second time, her message clear.
“Fine!” Rias huffed and puffed as she got ready in record time. Well, not really, record time would have meant her using magic to get ready within seconds, not the minutes she took to put on her uniform.
“What is it?” Rias pouted as she snuggled into her Bond! James Bond! chair that she seemed so fond of.
“It’s about Kenji. I approached him today.”
“What? Why would you do that? I thought we were going to leave him alone.”
“All so you could avoid the work of filing the paperwork for that? He could be something, Rias, and you know we need people with good powers on our side. I couldn’t just let him be snatched up by Sona or worse, by someone else, right from under our noses.”
Rias seemed to bury herself even deeper into her chair, to the point that only her eyes were visible to her now, a mumbled, “Fine,” escaping her lips.
She quirked her lips at the sight as she told her King about the way she cast a mild hypnotic charm on her voice, and asked Kenji something. He seemed to be on his way to the cafeteria, which was sparsely populated at the time, so she accompanied him. There, she asked for a large meal because she was going to take her time, and Kenji seemed very hungry, so she supposed she could treat him as an apology for using mind magics on him.
As it turned out, Kenji was resistant to mind magic, and that resistance seemed to be increasing. Over the course of that single meal, she cast no less than five different mind magic spells on him, all escalating in terms of their potency, and the only thing it seemed to do was make him hungry.
All the signs were there. His eyes were dilated, glazed over. His face was blank and relaxed. His body was relaxed. He was practically slumping on himself, stuttering as he tried to reply to her.
But that’s where the good signs ended. Every time she asked him a question with a powerful spell, he seemed to open his mouth to reply, only for something else to take control and shut his mouth forcefully, and make him eat the food. The same happened all three times she asked him the question.
Towards the end, she cast the spell that was not advisable to be used on humans without training, as that could lead to long term mental damage, and even then, he had refused to budge. Still, she got the closet with that spell. He said he had gained something, but what?
A Sacred Gear? Most likely. But of what type?
As she reported her findings to Rias, the redhead began emerging from under the table in proportion to her excitement at the report.
“You think he has a Mental type Sacred Gear?”
“Potentially.”
“You think I should give him the Bishop piece.”
“No.”
“No?” Rias blinked owlishly at her, tilting her head as if a confused dog. She snorted at the mental image before continuing,
“We don’t have any confirmation. As is the law you and Sona both agreed to, we have done the first confirmatory approach. Now, it is her turn. After that, we can see if he has something useful or not. Then, we can see if he is worth the negotiation with Sona. You will do the paperwork for that, right?”
“Ugh,” She took great pride in seeing her King slither down the chair in frustration, as the reality of the situation took hold in her mind.
She had long since suspected that Sona, knowing what her friend was, had deliberately devised a way to make sure that the maximum amount of paperwork was created for approaching and reincarnating any humans with Sacred Gears, doubly so for any students in the academy.
Too bad that Akeno was here for that. She was not going to let her King slack away and let good pieces slip from her grasp just because of paperwork.
If it had the double benefit of seeing Rias squirm at the sight of the stacks of paperwork, then no one could blame her for having a little fun.