Author's note: Two chapters today to celebrate my return, so enjoy.
—
Alpha did not know how much time had passed since her father was banished from the world of High School DxD.
Maybe a minute?
A day?
Or even a decade?
It didn't matter.
From now on, she had to focus on the future.
For that, her analytical mind pushed her to focus on a familiar sensation.
At first, she didn't understand what it was, but she quickly realized she was perceiving her surroundings again.
Alpha was gradually regaining her five senses.
Dull sounds reached her ears.
A nauseating smell assaulted her nose while her body rested on a cold, hard floor.
Children's cries also echoed around her.
Alpha struggled to move.
It felt like slowly rising from the depths of an ocean, her body gradually stabilizing under the effect of an unknown force.
Finally, she opened her abyss-black eyes.
The first thing she saw were bars.
"A prison?" she thought while observing her surroundings.
Flickering shadows surrounded her, while a few rays of sunlight filtered through the gaps in the structure.
She slowly lowered her gaze.
The former powerful sorceress then saw two small, dirty hands, with black mud under the nails.
A hemp rope was tied around her wrists, scraping her pale skin.
She could even see crusts of dried blood stuck to the rough fibers.
Alpha knew it.
These were not her hands.
More precisely, they were not the hands she possessed in her original body.
The sorceress stared at these foreign limbs with a blank gaze.
"Have I become a slave? Is this the punishment for failing your expectations…?" she thought inwardly.
Alpha was inside a cage.
It measured about three square meters and contained a dozen children.
The youngest were five or six years old; the oldest, at most eleven or twelve.
All of them were dirty, thin, and dressed in the same hemp rags as her.
"…Alright. I need to analyze the situation, develop a plan, and escape," she muttered, opening her hand.
She tried to use a simple light magic spell, a necessary gesture since she knew nothing of the laws governing this world.
Did magic even exist here?
Or was she in a universe where it was merely a myth?
However, the result of her attempt was disappointing.
Magical energy did exist within her body, but its amount was ridiculously low.
Alpha could only produce a faint flickering glow, with no real effect.
"Is it because of this body?" she thought, gritting her teeth in frustration.
At that moment, Alpha truly understood the value of the body her master had once given her at birth.
She had been born a prodigy.
"Too bad about magic, but I'm still a trained scientist even without it," she told herself inwardly.
For the first time in a long while, she felt the limits imposed by a normal physical vessel.
However, her mind remained intact.
Her intelligence, experience, and knowledge had not disappeared with her old body.
Alpha intended to rise back to the top.
"Huh… was that magic? Are you a mage like old man Roy?!" asked a little girl with scarlet hair, her eyes sparkling with interest.
Alpha gave her a neutral look before turning away.
She had no time to act as a babysitter or comfort the other children trapped there.
The former sorceress preferred to think about designing a weapon powerful enough to give her a chance of escaping her captors.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't introduce myself before talking to you," the girl apologized after noticing her mistake.
This surprised Alpha. Despite her young age, the child showed unexpected maturity.
So she decided to give her minimal attention and listened.
"My name is Erza… Erza Scarlet. Are you new?" the girl asked, offering her hand.
(Image)
…
City: Kamigoe, season: Spring.
A young high school student was walking casually toward his school, his mind elsewhere.
He had blood-red hair, and golden eyes that resembled those of a solitary predator.
At first glance, anyone would take him for a delinquent due to his intimidating appearance.
Yet his eyes carried a faint trace of melancholy.
Indeed, this teenager was Rei Hyoudou.
(Image)
"Strange… I used to watch this kind of school from afar, and now I can attend one myself," he thought while observing the building.
The Kami high.
This institution had over a century of history and was said to have been founded during the Meiji era.
However, many rumors about supernatural phenomena circulated around it and the city of Kamigoe.
"Tch… even in another world, the supernatural sticks to me," he muttered in a complaining tone.
Yet there was no real hatred toward Gorou in his words.
On the contrary, Rei was satisfied with his new identity.
Aside from the bullying his new body had suffered in elementary school, he was finally living the life of an ordinary high school student.
With one exception.
Gorou was no longer by his side.
He was an orphan.
"Yeah… I'm becoming almost as greedy as you, master. I should learn to be satisfied with what I have," he said while entering the building.
The world Rei had reincarnated into was anything but ordinary: the supernatural existed.
Over the past two years, he had already dealt with yokai and wandering spirits.
The only constants he had observed were the general weakness of supernatural entities in his city, but also the unusually high rate of lewd incidents around him.
For example, it was not uncommon to witness scenes of sexual harassment on the subway.
Yet no one seemed to react.
Worse, Rei had noticed that some victims seemed to start enjoying it far too quickly.
An abnormal reaction.
Sometimes, the young Bael wondered if this world was simply built around perversion.
"Hmm… it's already 7:30?"
As he crossed the school gate, the atmosphere of a traditional-style campus welcomed him.
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed behind him.
It sounded like someone was about to be late.
Rei turned around and saw a beautiful young girl passing near him.
Normally, he ignored women out of loyalty to Gorou and Asia.
However, he was unconsciously starting to take more interest in this new world.
The only reason behind his reluctance to have a girlfriend was simply a matter of standards.
Rei had spent too much time surrounded by top-tier beauties in the High School DxD universe.
Thus, the striking appearance of the girl caught his attention.
(Image)
As he watched her, his demonic senses allowed him to hear several girls whispering behind him about the student:
"Did you hear the rumor? Apparently Haruta broke up with Momo Ayase," said the first girl quietly.
"Oh really? They looked good together," replied the second, sounding sad.
But her expression quickly changed after her friend's words.
"Not really," she added, shaking her head.
A little confused, the first let her continue.
"There's a rumor that Momo cheated on Haruta, but I'm not sure it's true given that delinquent's personality," she added, slightly blushing.
Rei listened for a moment, then smiled self-deprecatingly.
"A judgment based on rumors? High school really is a ruthless world," he thought while walking again.
Unlike Alpha, the young devil had no concrete plan to return to the High School DxD universe.
That was why he continued to hunt problematic supernatural entities under the identity of Hunter.
He had neither the technology to create a dimensional portal, nor the intelligence to exploit the faint knowledge contained in his creator's journal.
Thus, Rei was gradually developing a more carefree mindset through routine.
Gorou would come back to him eventually.
Why rush?
"Momo Ayase… is that her name? Why not… But for now, I need to get stronger for the master," he muttered while walking toward his classroom.
As he crossed the hallway of Kami High, Rei's steps stopped near the music room.
An spirit was haunting this place.