Ethan learned something quickly about Japan: people minded their own business. He could walk through a park at midnight with smoke curling off his knuckles, and no one so much as glanced twice. That suited him fine—one less thing to explain to himself, let alone a stranger.
He'd found a place to sleep: an old church at the edge of town, abandoned long enough that the pews had gone soft with mildew. He'd cleared a corner of the debris, sat cross-legged beneath a cracked crucifix, and let the fire curl lazy over his knuckles while he tried not to think too hard about what he'd woken up as.
In a shard of broken glass propped against the wall, his reflection showed —just a tired face that hadn't slept properly in what felt like days, eyes flickering orange every time he blinked. He didn't know if that was better or worse than the version from the game.
This wasn't the Ghost Rider he remembered from the screen. He shouldn't have been able to call fire without the change taking him first.
Then again, the biggest problem wasn't the powers.
It was that this wasn't Marvel. This was DxD. Kuoh Town—ground zero for every catastrophe he half-remembered from a wiki page he'd skimmed once. Devils, angels, probably things with more teeth than either.
"Great," he muttered, watching the flame gutter out against his palm. "Hope my level's high enough for this, because I've got nothing else going for me."
---
**Morning**
He'd barely cleared the church gate when trouble found him. Red hair, blue eyes, more confidence than the situation called for.
She crashed into him at a dead run and didn't apologize so much as recover instantly, like falling into strangers was routine for her. He could smell it—perfume laid over something colder underneath.
"Oh! Sorry about that," she said, already studying him.
He didn't answer right away. Whatever she smelled like, it wasn't a threat—not yet. That bought her a few seconds before he decided whether to bother being civil.
"You're not from around here," she said, half to herself.
"Neither are you, probably. Not originally."
Her eyebrow lifted. "Do you know who I am?"
"Should I?"
"Rias Gremory. President of the Occult Research Club." She held out a hand.
Ethan didn't take it. "Ethan." He left it at that. Names were currency here, apparently, and he wasn't in the mood to overpay.
She didn't push the handshake, just filed the refusal away—he could see her doing it, the small recalibration behind her eyes. "You're staying at the church."
"Yeah. Got a problem with squatters?"
"No. It's just—usually people avoid it." She tilted her head. "I can't figure you."
"Good. Keep it that way." He wasn't trying to be cryptic for the sake of it; he genuinely didn't have a better answer yet, and admitting that felt worse than dodging the question.
Something flickered behind his eyes for half a second—enough that her posture shifted, just slightly, into the kind of alert she probably didn't let people see.
---
**Later — Occult Research Club Room**
"So there's a guy living in the town church now," Issei said, working through a cream bun like it owed him money. "That's not weird at all."
"I'm being cautious." Rias didn't uncross her arms. "He's not a devil, but something in him reacts like one. I was thinking to let sona's check on him before I decide anything."
"And if he's trouble?" Issei asked.
"Then it stops being my problem to decide." Her tone closed the subject, though the crease between her brows didn't smooth out until well after the others had moved on.
---
**Nightfall**
Ethan sat on the church roof, boots hanging over the gutter, watching a moon that looked one shade too red to be normal even for this world.
He felt her before he heard her—another devil, making no effort to hide the approach. Calm steps, no wasted motion.
A young woman in a Kuoh Academy uniform stepped into view, glasses catching what little moonlight made it through the clouds. Odd, wearing the uniform this late. Everything about her posture said she'd chosen to.
"You're not hiding your presence very well," she said.
"Didn't know I was supposed to."
"It's my responsibility to keep this town's balance intact." Each word landed exact, like she'd rehearsed the sentence before saying it out loud. "Sona Sitri. I share oversight of this area with Rias Gremory."
"Might change soon." He said it without much weight behind it—more tired than confrontational, though he could tell by the set of her jaw that she'd heard it as a threat anyway.
"It won't."
She studied the flame idling in his palm longer than she needed to. "Whatever that is, it doesn't match any devil bloodline so would you be some Fallen angel hybrid"
"Not even close." He let the fire die out rather than answer properly—partly because he didn't have a clean answer.
The silence that followed wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't hostile either. Sona adjusted her glasses, filing something away behind her expression.
"If you're planning trouble, reconsider now. This town has rules."
"So that's a warning." He almost smiled. "Lucky you, I'm not looking for a fight tonight."
"Good. Then we understand each other."
She left the way she'd come—no wasted steps, no goodbye. Ethan watched the flame gutter back to life over his knuckles and wondered, not for the first time since waking up in that park, exactly how much trouble he'd bought himself.