The year went by quickly, and Sora couldn't really complain. He managed to make only two teachers quit, which was a new record for him. Clearly, his game was slipping; only two were rookie numbers. He would have to do pump those numbers up once he's at Kuoh Academy.
Sora was confident he would be accepted. He was an isekai protagonist, after all. He also kept up with his training, and his overall power had improved dramatically, but he still doubted he could even scratch that crazy magical girl.
The town of Kuoh had changed over the past year. Almost every friendly Yokai was gone. Apparently, the ownership had changed hands, and the new management wasn't cool with unaffiliated Yokai running around.
Sora had no idea what that meant, but it severely limited his options for figuring out where he was. Yokai, magical masters, and magical girls were his only solid clues, and he felt embarrassingly short on answers.
He sensed new people with powerful life forces moving in, but they were all concentrated around Kuoh Academy. That was his second reason for transferring there; he needed to see those people. If the name "Kuoh" meant something to him, then the magically inclined individuals associated with it should be familiar too.
At least nobody had come to attack him again since the magical girl incident.
So here was Sora, trying not to fall asleep as some girl gave a speech about excellence in academics, reminding everyone that boys would be joining this year. Sora scoffed; there were still about ten girls for every single guy. As far as he was concerned, this was a perfect setting for a low-effort harem anime.
The saddest part was that he wasn't allowed to wear his trusty Adidas tracksuit. Instead, they were issued uniforms, just like everywhere else in Japan. These uniforms looked like some bootleg Olive Garden uniforms, though.
Even then, he was sure he would have fun here, and it all started on the first day. As people mingled and explored the school grounds, the building itself was empty enough for him to start off slowly.
One of his favorite school pranks was in put in motion, made easy with the help of his bubbles.
After a few short minutes of unsighted shenanigans, he had swapped the doors to several classrooms with doors leading to bathrooms or supply closets. Just a little fun to kick off the year. If anyone asked, the doors had always been this way.
Soon, he hoped to have enough accomplices to pull off a properly Slavic prank;in both execution and spirit. Sora giggled like a kid high on amphetamine-infused chocolate as he sneaked out, pretending to be in awe of the undoubtedly expensive school grounds.
He decided he would wait to see which teachers and classmates he liked first before starting any personal pranks.
"Maybe I'll start a fermentation club, convince people it's all about making cheese..." he mumbled to himself, already planning to teach his peers about the wonders of getting drunk on a Tuesday morning. "Proper homemade mead would be nice... I haven't had that in a lifetime." But his daydreaming about alcohol was soon interrupted by a group of girls yelling something about perverts.
That piqued his interest. He was all for fun and jokes, but there was a line that should not be crossed. He rounded a corner and spotted three guys surrounded by a small mob of very angry schoolgirls. Sora stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what in the world was going on, only catching the latter part of what was clearly a heated debate.
"—read that FILTH at school?!" It was the first somewhat complete sentence Sora was able to hear, coming from one of the girls.
"Oi! I'll have you know that it's high-class material!" yelled the tallest boy of the bunch, defending his taste in adult magazines.
"How socially inept do you have to be to bring a porn mag to school?" Sora questioned, drawing some attention to himself.
"We're expressing ourselves," another boy shrugged. He was the most normal-looking person Sora had seen in this anime world so far—spiky brown hair, brown eyes, and about average height.
"You are comparing us to porn actresses!" accused one of the girls while swinging a shinai above her head. Those three were already earning a rather unfortunate reputation, it seemed.
"Yeah, not touching that... Anyway, you guys should invest in a shovel," Sora sighed, turning to leave before he got dragged further into the stupidity. He had a feeling those three would only keep digging their graves deeper.
But there was something about that average-looking guy he couldn't quite place. Something dormant, yet familiar. He would have to keep an eye on that little pervert and maybe try to steal something with a bubble.
It might help him figure things out at last, and it wasn't like the guy was using it. Not yet, at least. Not to mention, his bubbles stole things only temporarily; he would get it back.
But that wasn't the only thing Sora figured out.
The old school building was crawling with powerful life forces, none as strong as Sora's, but they were much stronger than humans. Most were even stronger than the Yokai that used to live in the area.
The fact that they were nowhere near as strong as that crazy Magical Girl was the only saving grace for what was left of Sora's mental health.
—
Over the next week, Sora's attempts to steal whatever it was that the brown-haired pervert had were stagnating. Trying to steal magic didn't work; stealing an ability only gave him an encyclopedic knowledge of this world's porn actresses.
He had to create multiple distractions to try to steal it, eventually figuring out that it was an artifact. Apparently, humans could be born with an artifact attached to their souls. Sora had a feeling that his bootleg Soft and Wet was made into the same thing when he transmigrated.
Stealing every single chair in the school building overnight and building a massive chair pyramid on the football field was absolutely worth it.
The important part was that he now had a bubble with a red gauntlet floating in his palm to study. Even this information severely limited the anime worlds he could explore: artifacts, yokai, magical girls... he still came up empty.
Today, the little pervert somehow got himself a date; the entire school was talking about it. Sora, on the other hand, couldn't care less; he had what he wanted. He looked at the gauntlet, noticing a prominent green gem.
The design was definitely familiar, but no matter what Sora did, the gauntlet stayed dormant, not giving him more information beyond its appearance. As evening drew close, Sora left the bubble hovering above his table and went to make himself dinner.
He was gone for almost three hours, a proper goulash takes time to make. But when he returned, the gauntlet was no longer in its bubble; it was lying on the table.
"Bullshit! The only way you're out of my bubble and not returned to the pervert is—" He trailed off. Did the pervert manage to die on his first date? "Maybe he couldn't handle a real pair of tits and died from a heart attack..." Sora pondered, but then stopped, finally connecting the dots.
He slammed his head repeatedly against the table.
I really tunnel-visioned on that magical girl... I'm in fucking DxD." He groaned. What he now was sure was that the Boosted Gear sat on his table, still completely dormant.
"God fucking damn it. Couldn't I have met literally any other devil than Serafall?" He smashed his head into the table again. "She fucking derailed me for over a year!" The complaining continued, and Sora's skill issue became apparent even to himself.
"At least I now know what to expect..." He sighed after a while of abusing his table and picked up the Boosted Gear, staring into nothingness for a moment.
"Wait a fucking moment? Am I an edgelord protagonist that stole the Boosted Gear?! No fucking way... I'm nowhere near those levels of retardation!" He yelled to the heavens, uncertain if he could even return the Boosted Gear if he tried.
"Not to mention I may have severely fucked Rias over..." He sighed at the thought of catching the red-headed devil in the crossfire of his obsessive need for answers. Sora seriously needed a drink now.
"Wait a minute... the devils will wipe everyone's memory of Issei's girlfriend, right?" He paused for a moment, finding a possible chance to actually talk to them.
Sora quickly hid the Boosted Gear in another bubble and stashed it behind a thick wall, making sure it wouldn't be seen until he could determine if these devils were the canon-compliant kind or the worst kind of fanon creations.
He honestly couldn't be sure at this point.
True to Sora's guess, he sensed a life force enter his house a few short hours later, close to midnight.
He let the devil invade his home unopposed, feeling that he would rather scare them only a little, not terrify them completely.
"Probably shouldn't use my Sacred Gear... or should I not use Touki?" he questioned silently as the presence approached, almost reaching the armchair he was sitting on.
—
"You know, guests usually knock instead of just entering," he said, making the presence behind him stop for a moment.
"You noticed," a flat voice stated the obvious.
"Who is she, fucking Tails? Master of stating the obvious, clearly..." Sora thought with a dumbfounded expression. He stood up and quickly dodged what he recognized as low-level sleep magic.
"Since when are little underclassmen trying to put their seniors to sleep?" he asked, causing the truly undersized girl to frown.
"You're supernatural," she stated, her golden eyes gleaming dangerously.
"Fully human, I'm afraid. But I know a little bit about the supernatural," Sora shrugged, deciding to show off his bubbles. Without revealing their ability, they looked harmless enough, making them a preferable display of skills over Touki.
"What? Kitty doesn't like bath time?" he asked with a grin as she jumped back for a moment, most likely expecting an attack.
"Who are you?" she asked, barely restraining her frustration.
"I'm your senior at Kuoh Academy. My name's Sora; you probably should know at least that much before you go around hypnotizing someone, little devil." Sora grinned and conjured more bubbles to float around him.
His paranoia was at an all-time high; he'd rather be safe.
"You know about us... How?" she asked, completely ignoring Sora's little joke.
"One can only run into so many Yokai and one actual Magical Girl before figuring some things out," Sora shrugged, talking out of his ass.
"President will want to talk," she told Sora, slowly backing away.
"Tomorrow morning, before classes. I hope she'll at least have the decency to introduce herself before trying to throw a spell my way." Sora grinned, dispelling his bubbles, and watched her leave.
"Tojou Koneko. Don't act like you didn't know..." she mumbled before closing the door behind her. The immediate crisis was averted.
Sora groaned after Koneko left. It seemed her personality was as expected. It would have been a massive pain for him to deal with a cartoonishly evil Rias or the entire Devil race.
"I better take some good stuff with me tomorrow... Rias will definitely need a drink." Sora cackled madly and walked off, finally heading to sleep. "I should also come up with a name for my Sacred Gear... can't really call it Soft and Wet," he muttered as he lay down, and sleep took him quickly.
—
The next day, Sora pocketed a few of his homemade spirit bottles, packing his bag with four of them just to be safe. He needed one to get through the day unless he was planning some prank anyway. Rias would have to make do with three.
"Do the devils even drink? Can they even get drunk on regular alcohol?" he questioned silently as he leisurely walked to school.
"To be honest, I probably would have figured it all out sooner if I hadn't been so tunnel-visioned on whatever I sensed inside Issei. If only I had bothered to learn the names of my classmates..." He sighed heavily, knowing that Issei's name would likely have given him all he needed to connect the dots.
"Guess it wouldn't be me without a major fuck-up. At least nobody died this time..." he muttered, his usual smirk fading for a moment before he collected himself.
The fact that Issei had indeed died was irrelevant. He would have been killed with or without Sora's intervention. Not to mention, the pervert had been revived anyway. Sora's parents, on the other hand, were gone forever.
He shook his head and quickly took a sip of the pear liquor he brought with him, putting his grin back on.
"At least the booze still tastes the same." His smile widened; this batch was good.
He spotted Koneko waiting for him at the entrance to the school grounds as he approached. No words were needed; he simply nodded in her direction and followed her towards the old school building, noticing two strong life-force signatures inside. "Must be Rias and Akeno..." he thought as Koneko led him inside.
The old school building resembled a rural school; once upon a time, this academy had been just that. Devils' investments truly transformed this place.
They eventually arrived at the main entrance and knocked. A few moments later, they were invited in, and Sora looked around in wonder.
"Made an old school building into a small manor... impressive," he commented, locking eyes with Rias for a moment.
She looked a lot like her anime self, though comparing a drawing to a living person was honestly difficult. Her hair was just as red as he expected, and her blue eyes seemed to pierce through his soul. The school uniform she wore was either a size too small or the designer failed to account for girls with hentai-sized tits.
"Knowing this world... probably a deliberate choice," Sora thought, maintaining eye contact.
"Did you want me here for a staring match, or do you actually have something to say?" Sora eventually asked, causing the other girl in the room to giggle.
"Ufufu... we have a naughty one, president," she said playfully. Sora turned to look at her, noting that she had the same issue with her uniform as Rias, except hers was somehow even worse.
"What in the fuck are these devil women being fed? And does it all go to their boobs?" Shaking his head, he redirected his focus back to Rias.
"Actually, I was curious," Rias said, casting a glance at Akeno. "About an undocumented Sacred Gear wielder in my territory. What are you doing here?" She gestured for Sora to sit down, and he easily plopped onto the couch, feeling completely unthreatened.
"Living here. You guys came here after me," he shrugged, answering honestly.
"Did Serafall not tell anyone about meeting a very handsome and completely normal human?" he questioned silently, trying to decipher Rias's intentions.
"Anyway, I'm Sora, Inoue Sora. It's nice to meet the local devil club." He grinned and pulled out three bottles he'd reserved for Rias. "I'll be causing you guys some mild annoyance, so you might need a drink every now and then." He slid the bottles across the small coffee table.
"Is that alcohol, Sora-san?" Rias asked, her curious expression revealing her uncertainty about this unusual human.
"Homemade alcohol," Sora corrected, raising a finger to emphasize his point.
Rias chose to ignore that correction. Homebrewing alcohol might be illegal in Japan, but it really wasn't her place to police non-supernatural matters.
"Such as?" she sighed heavily, bracing herself for what to expect.
"A few pranks here and there, maybe a door suddenly appearing in the middle of the indoor pool. Toilet glued to the ceiling… stuff like that. I'm not really the type to start some serious shit," Sora said, lounging on the couch as if he owned the place.
This made Akeno giggle again, though it sounded slightly forced. Sora may not have noticed, but Rias definitely did.
"Oh, so it was you who moved every chair from the school to the football field and stacked them on top of each other yesterday?" she asked, attempting to maintain a sultry demeanor.
"You have no evidence to accuse me of such heinous crimes, Akeno-san," Sora waved her off, a mischievous grin still on his face.
"I won't do anything, Inoue-san; I simply want to know what's going on in my territory," Rias stated, trying to get Sora to talk. "Eh? Just call me Sora... and that's fair, I guess," he shrugged. It seemed to him that he wasn't dealing with a fanon abomination but rather a relatively normal version of Rias.
"But why don't you ask that crazy Magical Girl about me? I'm pretty sure she's a devil too," he suggested, hoping they would inquire about Serafall instead of questioning him further.
"C-Crazy Magical Girl?" Rias stammered, having a pretty good idea who Sora was talking about.
"Yeah, she almost blew me up with ice and called herself Levia-tan," Sora confirmed, causing the devils to pause. There really was only one devil that fit the description.
"Welp, good talk. But classes are about to start, and I'd hate to be late," Sora said, bouncing up from the couch and using their momentary stunned silence as an opportunity to leave.
He gathered a lot of information while revealing very little, but he doubted this would be his last conversation with the devils.