Disclaimer - I don't own any of the characters appearing in High School DXD or the Anime or the manga whatsoever.
Kuoh, Japan
–Motohama Kenji–
He was grounded.
Mom was angry, concerned, and horrified. All of those emotions culminated in him getting a slap to the back of his head, her fussing over his feet, her surprise at finding no injury, and then her insistence on staying home from work tomorrow to take him to the doctor, all so she could make sure that nothing had happened.
Apparently, the fact that the floor broke beneath his feet but not a scratch appeared on his legs hadn’t meant anything to her. Unfortunately, he knew that the moment he went to a doctor, the gig would be up. He had no mind magic to manipulate the doctor's mind, and no matter what he did, his mother wouldn’t give up on the doctor.
In fact, he barely managed to stop her from marching down to the doctor right now, showing her his healthy ankle as proof, but even then, he had to sleep downstairs, so they could go to the doctor right away if needed, and so she could keep an eye on him for the entire night.
Sigh. He knew she wouldn’t be able to do that. Already, the adrenaline of seeing her son sink into the floor had begun to wear off, resulting in a haggard expression on her face and her eyes drooping.
He caught her straightening herself, as sleep threatened to consume her.
“Just go to sleep, Mom,” He told her exasperatedly, and she whipped her head around to glare at him, as if everything was his fault, including her need to sleep.
“Don’t tell me what to do, young man!” He shook his head, and settled in his futon, realising for the first time that his weight had increased to the point that he made a giant depression in the futon, only covered by the weighted blanket on his body. Come tomorrow, there will definitely be a him shaped depression in the Futon.
It was looking more and more tempting to just approach the Devils proactively, just to get a way to conceal or justify his extracurricular activities to his mother, freeing up a ton of time to actually get stronger.
He just had to figure out what he could offer to the Two Devil Heiresses to give up that knowledge, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to become a Devil.
Mama ain’t raise no quitter!
And becoming a Devil definitely felt like bypassing many important steps, even though it was really convenient. Since he wasn’t in an active crisis, he could think like that. Maybe his thoughts would change when he faced one of the stronger rogue exorcists and was—
He froze, resisting the urge to sit upright, as a metaphorical light bulb lit up over his head.
He could trade the information on the Fallen’s activities to the Devil in exchange for some human compatible magic.
As he relaxed in his bed, all he had to do now was to wait for Issei to run his mouth to the entire school about the first girl who would go with him for a date.
That would be his time to shine.
Ah! He couldn’t wait!
__xx__
Fortunately for him, his mother got multiple priority calls right after she woke up, resulting in her getting completely distracted and somehow, she forgot all about the doctor’s visit, and got ready as if it was going to be a regular day,, even gave him extra money for breakfast, and then some when he asked for some extra, though not without giving him a stern look, and then walked out of the house, phone still attached to her ear.
He was left standing at the entrance of the house, waving her off, fighting to keep the grin off his face as he considered the immediate issue resolved. Well, there was the issue of there being a hole in the floor, but that was for later. Right now, he had the entire day to himself.
No school, and while a part of him did feel a little guilty about abusing his mother's trust like this, because she trusted him not to disobey her, there was a far bigger part of him that was excited about having an entire day to experiment with his powers.
This was quite literally unprecedented territory for him!
Quickly getting ready, he stuffed all his usual clothes and tools in his backpack, along with raiding his savings to make sure he would have enough food for anything he might do today. Sure, there were always trees, but he was a human with a human taste palette and, as such, appreciated a small break from eating coarse, tasteless food. He was also wary of eating so much that his power decided that taste itself was not useful to him and just adapted the need away.
That would be a big tragedy, which is why he made sure to eat at least some normal food in between his bouts of devouring wood.
…That came out wrong.
He closed the door behind him, locked it properly, and began whistling a tune, as he all but skipped to the hill on the other end of the town. His mom’s decision to buy a house in the more affluent part of the town was a smart one, but that wasn’t helping him right now.
He reached another clearing, full of tree branches, ripe to be eaten by someone whose body converted any calorie into fuel.
Cracking his neck, he whipped out the knife from his backpack and, with full force, slammed it into his forearm, smiling in glee as the knife bent, instead of stabbing right through. This was becoming a ritual of sorts. He would come to the hill and then do the action that caused him the most pain in the previous session, both to get over the fear of that pain and also to check if his powers had worked correctly or not.
Carefully stashing the bent knife as well as the small pieces that had fallen off into his backpack for safe disposal, he stood up and got to work.
___xx__
He looked at the overhead sun and sighed. It was barely noon, and he was already all out of ways to adapt to something. He had no sharp stuff to stab himself with, no high place he could jump from and break his body, nothing to punch repeatedly until his knuckles split, nothing to test his might against.
It was with sadness in his mind that he realised he was done with the forest. There really was nothing in this place anymore that he could do to advance his power level. He needed more powerful things to damage himself, and the only thing close by that came to mind was Akeno, and her lightning, coupled with her sinful–
Ahem.
What came to his mind was lightning. Akeno might have the ability to make Holy Lightning, which was definitely rare to come by, but regular lightning and electricity were definitely available in many places. Alas, all the sources of electricity nearby were either too weak to be of any use to him, like portable batteries or power banks or AAA cells, or just too strong for him to risk currently, like entire electric grids, large generators that powered entire complexes in case of a blackout, and of course, nature’s very own lightning.
There was the added risk of paralysing himself that came with playing with electricity, which is why he was doubly wary of trying high voltage electricity immediately. What if he was half burned to death and wanted to eat food to heal himself, only to discover that he had burned away half his nervous system and most of his muscles, getting struck by a strong source of lightning? That would kill him, and he was most definitely more mindful of what he did to get his power working, especially after the fall from the tree that damaged not just his legs, but his internal organs as well as his spine.
He was absurdly lucky to have enough of his nervous system active for him to reach with his hands and feed himself.
Shaking his head, he looked at the stripped off trees and realised that it was for the better that he moved on from this hill. He had already drawn the attention of the devils. Any more, and he might just become an urban legend for normal people as well, and his mom definitely didn’t need more reasons to ground him or impose an even stricter curfew, which was useless in the past since he didn't have any friends he could hang out with till late at night anyway.
Quickly packing everything up, including the little bit of mud that had a few drops of his blood, he slung the backpack on his back and began walking down the hill.
___xx___
It was a week later, when his curfew was lifted, where he spent most of his time indoors to make sure his mom didn’t suspect anything, where he got really restless, that he heard the rumours.
Issei had been approached by a girl from outside the school, and he had screamed to the high heavens yesterday that he was going to take her to a date today. Unfortunately, his curfew meant he had to head home immediately after classes and couldn’t roam around the school or the town for the club sessions that were at the end of the day, so he didn't hear about it yesterday.
He might have made more preparations, but either way, this was the moment. Issei might be a pervert, but he definitely didn’t deserve to die. In fact, there was an argument to be made that his perverted nature was the result of someone else interfering with his life. That was a popular theory from the forums back in his previous universe, but it remained to be seen if that was true in this universe or not.
His serious talk to Issei and Matsuda had really weirded out both of them, to the point that they hadn’t spoken to him properly since then, outside of casual greetings and small talk. He was surprised that his talk had such a profound effect on them that they stopped peeking through every hole they found.
The girls in the Kendo Club continued to eye him suspiciously, though, so there was very little progress on that front. Hopefully, they could see his continued good behavior as a plus, and even if they did not, who cared?
He had moved up the ladder now, from mundane to supernatural. Well, it remains to be seen how he fared with the lowest rung of the Three Factions, but that was what his upcoming confrontation with a Two Winged Fallen was for.
Time to face the music.
Time to see if all his self mutilation was worth something, because he saw no other way of improving after this.
If only he had found a far more calorie dense food than just sugar and junk food, that didn’t cost an arm and a leg.