Occult Research Club – Kuoh Academy (30 minutes ago)
Kuoh Academy is one of the most prestigious schools in the country. Since its foundation, this place has stood as the pinnacle of education and a reference throughout Japan.
With the change of times, Kuoh Academy, which was an all-girl school, was turned into a mixed school with many boys trying to join the student body, but not many succeeded. With more students enrolling every year and with the acceptance of boys, new buildings needed to be made, leaving the old buildings alone to be used as clubs for extracurricular activities or just reformed to serve new functions such as deposits and warehouses for the school's gear and materials.
The Occult Research Club is one of the many clubs of Kuoh Academy. Funded by Rias Gremory, it uses the old school building as a base for its activities. At a surface level, it seems just like a normal place with normal teens doing what the club is supposed to do: search and practice the occult arts. But once you dive deeper into it, you will learn that this club is anything but normal.
Rias Gremory, the club president, is not a normal high schooler, but a devil, literally. Devils are one of the three races that belong to the biblical faction. They originated from the Underworld created by the Original Lucifer using the body of his wife Lilith, to create a military force to destroy God and his Angels.
Rias created the Occult Research Club for a single objective: to obtain contracts from humans and expand her territory, power, and influence. As a member of House Gremory, one of the 72 pillars among the highest-ranking and famous families, she has a name and reputation to live up to, and so she needs to do her duty and make sure to continue her family's honorable legacy.
Due to the end of the great war between the three factions, all sides had their numbers greatly diminished, forcing them to a ceasefire to rebuild their power structure and avoid extinction, and attacks from other pantheons. They are all currently in a Cold War, just like the USA and the Soviet Union during the second half of the 20th century, meaning that invading each other's territory or killing a high-profile individual could reignite the war at any moment.
Another one of the many reasons Rias chose Kuoh as her base is that she is a true otaku at heart, loving everything anime-related and Japanese culture. After a tiresome and bothersome day at school, she is anxious to leave school and buy the new limited-edition statue of her favorite anime, a box collection with all the episodes of her favorite dorama, and finally get home to watch the final battle between Super Mega Usagi-chan and Ultra Hyper Kame-kun in a race for the fate of the universe.
Little does Rias know that fate will get in her way. As the door of the ORC opens, a bespectacled young woman with glasses, a slim figure, black hair styled in a short bob cut, and violet eyes, dressed in Kuoh's uniform, enters. This is Souna Shitori, an alias of Sona Sitri, the student council president of Kuoh Academy, heir of House Sitri, another house among the 72 pillars of the underworld, and someone who shares Rias' duties of bringing honor to her family's legacy.
Behind Sona, the entire student council stands, and Rias knows this means something important.
"Sona". Rias greets her childhood friend. "How are you?"
"Good". Sona answers with a smile and bows her head in respect. "Thank you for asking."
"It is nothing". Rias says. "What can I do for you?"
Sona adjusts her glasses and goes for the pocket in her shirt, taking out a picture from it. "Not too long ago, my familiar spotted a Stray Devil. Canis. She has been spotted on an abandoned building in the southwest part of the city".
Rias furrows her brows at the information. The last thing she needed today was dealing with a Stray. Stray Devils are reincarnated Devils who have diverted away from their masters for their own selfish desires, and without their masters to keep their powers in check, they become a great threat if their powers go beyond their control. The Devils take this case very seriously, and any Devil who becomes a Stray is usually killed on the spot.
"Is she the one who uses human bones to create furniture, and their skin to sew clothes?" Rias asks, already knowing the answer but hoping to be wrong.
"Indeed". Sona nods and crosses her arms. "I was supposed to go after her, but unfortunately, I got called to the Underworld and can't postpone it. Yet Canis must be dealt with. I don't like to ask, but could you do it for me?"
Rias couldn't refuse even if she wanted, and if the rumors were right, Canis was just an E-Rank Stray, the lowest and weakest class of stray there is. She would be no problem for a High-Class Devil like Rias.
"No problem". Rias says with a smile. "I'll deal with her."
"Thank you, Rias. I owe you one". Sona smiles and bows to her friend, then turns around to leave, but stops when she reaches the door. "One more thing, my servant saw a human in the area, someone never seen before in the city. It may not be anything, but should they engage Canis and not die, we must put them under surveillance.
Rias just nods in response, and Sona leaves. Putting a finger under her chin, the ORC president wonders what is going through the mentioned human's mind that made them decide to engage a dangerous Stray Devil in combat.
'A priest? No, Sona would've mentioned it. Magician is also ruled out since she didn't mention her familiar sensing magic from them. An unaware civilian is also out of question since they are knowingly walking in that area and would not fall for Canis's tricks. So only two options are the most likely: someone with a way to kill Stray Devils, or someone who thinks they have a way to kill Strays, since I doubt anyone is just unlucky enough to be there at the wrong time.' Rias's thoughts are cut short when the door to the ORC opens again.
Akeno, Koneno, and Kiba enter the room, and Rias greets them with a smile.
"Ohayo". Rias says. "You are just in time".
"Ara, did something happen?" Akeno asks.
"Nothing urgent, but I'll need your three for a very serious task". Rias says.
"What is it buchou?" Koneko asks with an emotionless tone.
"I need you, Kiba". Rias says, pointing at Kiba with a serious tone as if the world depended on it. "To go to the Game Shop and buy the limited-edition statue for me". Then she points at Akeno. "Akeno! You are going to the manga store to buy the complete box collection of my favorite Dorama". Lastly, she points at Koneko. "Koneko, you are to go to my house and set my TV to record the newest Super Mega Usagi-chan episode."
The others' reactions are variable. Akeno just closes her eyes and laughs in amusement at her president's antics. Koneko just nods without showing any reaction. Kiba just smiles and closes his eyes, nodding in acceptance at the assignment.
"Dare I ask why can't you do it yourself, buchou?" Kiba asks, raising his hand. "You seemed so eager to do it in the morning."
Rias just sighs in disappointment. "Unfortunately, an unexpected event happened. A Stray has been spotted."
At the mention of the stray, all eyes turned serious.
"It is an E-Rank, but it must be dealt with nonetheless," Rias says as she gets off her chair and walks towards her companions until she is in front of them. "I'll deal with it myself, so you may go complete your assignments and meet me there when you're finished."
"Are you sure you won't need us?" Kiba asks.
Rias just nods with confidence and smiles at them.
"It will be a walk in the park."
They all bow to Rias and proceed to leave. Rias looks at the window next to her and sighs. Easy or not, dealing with Canis will still be a tedious chore, and the only thing Rias can do is wish for something that could make this job interesting to happen. She doesn't know it, but her wish is about to come true.
A magic circle appears above Rias's head and descends upon her, making her disappear. Immediately, the same seal appears on the ground in the southwest park of the city, right in front of the abandoned building where Canis was spotted.
Quietly, the High-Class Devil approaches without making a single noise. Once she reaches the entrance, Rias notices the door is open, and there are footprints on the floor, sneakers, masculine, by the size of them.
'Maybe they belong to the human Sona's familiar saw.' Rias tells herself.
"AHHH".
Rias hears a scream followed by a loud noise and immediately runs inside. If the human is still alive, erasing their memory is easier than dealing with the aftermath when they end up dying.
Entering the building, Rias sees a boy in the main hall. He is at least a year younger than her, has white hair, red eyes, and a pretty face, wearing a red leather jacket, a black shirt underneath, and blue jeans.
The boy gets on his feet and starts whispering. Rias can't hear, but it appears Canis didn't like it as it roars towards the boy. Rias is about to intervene, but the boy's actions make her stop in her tracks.
"Didn't like it?! Too bad, then you're gonna hate this!" The boy says, his voice and expression full of determination as he takes two ninja stars from his belt, one is a strange-looking device that has the appearance of large four-pointed star with a hole in the middle, the other has the kanji 赤 written on it, a red figure in it with a helmet whose visor is in the shape of a ninja star too. "IT'S MORPHIN TIME!"
"Power Star, lock in!" The boy locks the smaller star into the hole of the large one and holds the device forward.
"Ready! NINJA SPIN!"
The boy spins the star of his morpher with all his strength, making it rotate at high speed, which only increases by the second, and once it reaches the necessary velocity, he launches it. Doing so, the Power Ninja Star flies out of the bigger ninja star with a bright light, almost blinding Rias, but she manages to keep seeing what's happening as the star circles around the boy, and forms a suit from the bottom to the head. Then, a helmet with a black ninja star visor, just like the one in the Ninja Power Star she saw, comes down over his face.
Where the boy was standing, now, there is a ninja clad in red and black, with a sash across its front with the design of a four-pointed ninja star in his place.
"Ninja Steel! Red Ranger!" The boy yells and strikes a pose, and for some reason, an explosion with red smoke appears behind him.
Rias feels like time has stopped while watching the scene. The world has gone silent, and the only sound is the beating of her heart. All her life, she has been a fanatic about Japan and its culture, and right in front of her, a ninja, an actual ninja, is standing and fighting against a monster, just like the tokusatsus she watches at home.
The High-Class devil's cheeks start to turn red, more so than her crimson hair. She is supposed to stop this, but she can only stand there and watch the fight that is happening. Her instincts are screaming that if she interferes, she would regret it for the rest of her life, and miss the opportunity of seeing a real-life ninja in action, probably for the first and last time in her life.
"Round two!" The boy says.
Stuck between interfering and doing nothing, Rias can only gaze as the fight proceeds without any of them noticing her.
The ninja's movements are precise and calculated, but something about them feels off, and Rias finds out why when she hears him comment about it.
"I'm not used to these abilities, and haven't trained with them yet. I'm basically a master swordsman fighting with a nunchaku."
Taking note of what the boy said, Rias's mind concludes that the boy's power is new to him, and given the fact that he is fighting against a devil, despite being a weak one, it can only mean one thing.
'He has a sacred gear, but I have never seen anything like it in the books my family has.' Rias thinks. 'That means I could be the first one witnessing its power… I need him in my peerage.'
There is no doubt in Rias's mind. Not only is the boy a ninja, but he also possesses a sacred gear never seen before. His value can't be measured, and after mentioning he just awoke this power means he still hasn't unlocked Balance Breaker nor Juggernaut Drive. Yet despite no training with it, he is still managing to make good use of his power and stand his ground.
'He hasn't just a powerful sacred gear. He has immense potential. A rough diamond just waiting to be polished.'
Rias just continues observing the fight. The ninja summons a sword from thin air, and soon after, a gun. Rias's mouth is left open in shock, as the fight in front of her becomes more and more similar to her tokusatsus. Not only are her cheeks red, but now drooling threatens to come out of her mouth, and her thighs can't stop rubbing against each other.
"Time to finish this!" The boy says, taking the Ninja Power Star from his sword and putting it on his blaster. "Ninja Blaster Finishing Mode!"
"Fire!" The boy says as a huge energy wave comes out of the blaster's barrel, engulfing Canis's whole body when it hits, and breaking the wall behind it.
Rias shields her eyes and waits. When the smoke dissipates, she watches the boy kneeling where Canis was standing, now back to his former outfit. Rias can't stop herself from pouting as she wanted to see more of the ninja.
Deciding that she has seen enough, she starts her approach.
Occult Research Club (Present Time)
Back at their club, Koneko gently puts the unconscious boy on the couch in the center of the room.
All the ORC members stare at the boy in silence, wondering why their president decided to bring him there.
Seeing no one will dare to speak, Akeno looks at Rias and asks the question that is on everyone's mind.
"What are you planning, buchou?"
Rias just stares at the boy for a few more seconds before turning to her friend. "I want him in my peerage as my second knight."
That raises some eyebrows, even Koneko's. They know Rias might have some motive behind such a decision, but to choose the boy as a knight of all things means that he has proved himself to her, and they can't stop thinking about how he did it.
"Why recruit him? And why a knight?" Akeno asks, looking at the boy as she imagines the things he could've done to attract Rias's attention.
"I saw him fight Canis!" Rias states, arms crossed, and her tone serious.
"Is he a magic swordsman?" Kiba asks, being a swordsman himself, he is curious about what style the white-haired boy used to fight against the stray.
"No". Rias says, shaking her head.
"Does he have a sacred gear?" Koneko asks.
"It's what I want to find". Rias says, her tone a bit more serious.
"What do you mean?" Akeno asks.
"When he was fighting Canis, he used some strange device and transformed himself; whatever that device did, it allowed him to fight Canis and win". Rias.
"He is the one who defeated her?" Kiba asks.
Rias nods. "Yes".
"I thought buchou did that". Koneko stays, looking at her master.
"I was going to." Rias starts. "But when I arrived, he already engaged her in combat. Seeing that he was holding his ground, I wanted to see how long he would last and how far he would go."
"Ara, that is impressive". Akeno says, looking at Rias, then at the boy, smiling mischievously at him. "And how did he do it? It was probably something really amazing if it managed to convince you to turn him into a knight instead of a pawn."
"The device". Rias says quickly, since the device is the only thing that she can think of that can be used as an excuse to hide her true motives about why she wants him to join her. "If it is a sacred gear, it is one I've never seen; it doesn't even appear in my family's books about them."
The statement makes eyebrows rise once more. The supernatural world has known about sacred gears since their creation. They are items with powerful abilities bestowed upon Humans and Human hybrids by the God of the Bible, their creator, who made them as a way to give strength and future possibilities to Humans that interact amongst the supernatural beings, Gods, and Buddhas. They vary in appearance and abilities throughout human history, publicly divided between Longinus Sacred Gears, Artificial Sacred Gears, Sub-Species Sacred Gears, and Common Sacred Gears.
"A lost sacred gear?!" Akeno exclaims in genuine surprise. "No wonder you want him, if true, he may be the most valuable peerage candidate in the world."
"Yet we know nothing about him or his sacred gear". Rias states as she takes a step closer to the boy.
From inside her pocket, Rias takes a chess piece, a knight, one of the fifteen evil pieces, magic objects used by demons to resurrect humans as their servants.
Rias kneels before the boy and puts the knight piece over the boy's chest, and starts the resurrection process.
"If you are going to die, I'll take you". Rias says putting her magic on the evil piece, making it shine as red as her hair. "Your life. Live it for me. Rise as a knight of Gremory."
As Rias's incantation finishes, an unexpected result occurs. The boy's body rejects the evil piece; not only that, his body acts against it. As the piece tries to merge with his body, a strange energy surrounds him, stopping the bond from being formed, resulting in crackling noises as if an unstoppable force has met an immovable object. Energy clashes against energy, sparks of energy shaped like lightning erupt, and the tension between the two powers only increases as neither gives a single breach to the other.
Rias gets on her feet and takes a step back, with her peerage doing the same. No one can explain what is happening, nor when it's going to stop. Their only option is to wait and see, a task getting harder by the minute as the increased energy starts to create shockwaves, which are affecting everything around.
Suddenly, the clashing energies stop, yet it is not over. What happens next is a soundwave, one so strong that the whole Kuoh feels it as the windows of the entire city break from its power.
The evil piece seems to have lost the battle. Once the energy clash stops, the piece falls on the ground like a simple wood carving instead of standing with its 'head' high with honor as a magic object should have. Rias and the others can't react with anything but widened eyes and open mouths.
"Wha… What just happened?" Rias asks.
No answer came, at least, not immediately. "I can explain it."
From inside the boy's body, a person made of light emerges. At first, the Devils believe it is an angel, already getting ready for combat, but the figure that appears before them looks nothing like one. The air it emanates, despite being pure and full of light, doesn't seem to reflect the same one used by the Devil's eternal enemies.
The figure is female. Her hair is crimson just like Rias's, but shorter, barely reaching her ears, and her eyes share the same color; she has light skin and a fit body, but her most prominent trait is her clothes. Only Rias notices since only she has seen it, but her costume looks exactly like the ninja's she saw during the battle with Canis.
"Greetings". The woman says with a polite tone. "My name is Rhian, but you may call me the Red Emisary. And the boy Takamiya Tatsuya is under my protection."