A Nascent Kaleidoscope.

Chapter 4: Chapter 4

contemporary romance

Finding where Issei Hyoudou lived was easy enough. I saw him and his two 'friends' running home together screaming about a porn game they were going to play. Just like me, the people on the street didn't even bat an eye at their behavior.

I never had any meaningful interaction with him, especially with his reputation at school. Him and his two friends, whose names I couldn't care to remember, they were known as the perverted trio. They often did things like peeping on the kendo club changing clothes.

Bold as hell on their part. Maybe the lack of true disciplinary action emboldened their efforts further? I really am curious how to the two devil heiresses stopped any outsiders from meddling. I mean, it would only take one of the girls there to complain to the right person, their parent or something for shit to hit the fan. A large portion of the school came from wealthy and powerful backgrounds, there was only so much mental manipulations could do before something slips through the cracks.

But I digress.

I think most people were well aware of this trio's tastes at this point. It's not that I'm a prude or anything, I'm a healthy young man, and like most my age, girls probably take up at least half my thoughts on average, I just don't go around shouting about my proclivities in public. It's not even that I have an issue with their tastes or 'dreams'. Issei for example wants a harem, good for him I wish him all the luck. Hell, he isn't even objectively ugly, if anything he would be in the upper percentile of looks, but the way he acts just makes people disgusted.

Is there really a need to act like a creep?

Maybe I'm just still a bit angry that he never gets in trouble or has to face the consequences of his actions. I can take a few guesses why everything was turning up for his benefit. No doubt the two devil heirs at the school had been either turning a blind eye or actively dissuading any form of punishment. Of course, potentially recruiting an idiot with a powerful dragon in his soul was more important.

I briefly wondered how many 'pieces' it would take to reincarnate Issei without his sacred gear.

I didn't know how to feel about the whole system that Devils use to reincarnate other species into their own. I've always been an advocate for humanity, even if my previous life I stood on humanities side against what went bump in the night.

Literal chess pieces that turn other species into Devils, aptly named 'Evil Pieces'. It was comical to think about, only made funnier by the fact that they were a masterwork of magical engineering.

A king and their 'peerage' of chess pieces.

My thoughts briefly drifted towards Sona then to the other Devil heir at the school. I never had any contact with her, not that I'm complaining.

Rias Gremory, my.....aunt. I'm curious why she never bothered to even meet me, I guess she didn't want to get involved in whatever issues sprang up because of my presence. I can more or less understand the situation she was in; my existence was probably a sore point between several parties and involved some political fallout if things escalated. And if my perception of this world-line was correct, she had her own worries to deal with.

Now that I think about it, I think I caught some of her 'peerage' watching me sometimes. Not that I knew about them previously, but hindsight and all that. I guess she was responsible for 'babysitting' me, along with the Sitri Heiress.

Speaking of babysitting, I noticed a small bat-like creature hiding under a corner of Issei's roof. I guess he's already being scouted, do they know about his 'dragon'? I could roughly guess that was one of their familiars.

Well, first come first serve.

I held a hand on my sword for a moment before letting go, I decided against killing the familiar. It didn't have any combat power and I'm not heartless.

Reaching into my hat, I pulled out the stack of talismans. I only had a bit of knowledge, barely more than a novice so I couldn't create but a few different types. Looking through the stack, I withdrew the one I wanted and with quick toss, I supplied the required mana and the paper glowed, flying towards the little creature.

A simple binding, more like a paralysis. I don't know how this will affect something being fed a stream of magical energy from a Devil, at best I probably had only a few minutes before someone came to investigate.

It may seem obvious to do something like this at night but.....I would rather do it with 'witnesses' so to speak. Also, I don't think anyone will question some strange noises with these three in one room together.

Oh gods, I hope they don't subscribe to the philosophy of giving each other a 'hand'.

***

"Dude right there, if you make your way through her route, you can unlock the harem ending."

"No way, I've done her route like a hundred times. She always gets pissed and breaks up with me when I get more girls."

"You need to fill her H-meter before the second act."

"That's impossible!"

"I'll show you; you need to seduce her mom first."

"Y-you genius!"

Okay, a lot milder than I thought. To be honest I thought they were going to have their backs together and wanking it. Well, I still don't want to stay in here any longer than I have to, I feel icky just thinking about what's happened in this room.

They don't even notice me open the window, I guess one doesn't expect someone to enter through a second-story window. On a side note, wings are amazing.

I thought about making a comment or grabbing their attention....but fuck it. I just threw three more talismans, sealing their movements.

Of course they couldn't speak while paralyzed.....and they just fell over, looking at me in confusion

"I'm here for your porn." Yeah.... I couldn't help it.

The looks of utter horror had me inwardly cackling.

Alright, lets do this. I tapped the two mooks on the head, knocking them out with a small bit of hypnosis and slightly altering their perception. Despite what most people may think, hypnosis isn't some catch-all mind altering. It's best used to confuse and lead the mind to making certain decisions or filling in blanks as opposed to controlling someone.

They were going to wake up in a few minutes thinking they fell back in their chairs and hit their heads.

Now though, I looked at Issei Hyoudou. A part of me did feel a 'little' bad about taking this from him, he could potentially awaken his power and go on to lead an interesting life. Though, that wasn't a one-hundred percent probability. Even I didn't know exactly how this world would turn out even after seeing the world-line's probabilities. I basically knew how things would 'most likely' play out not anything with certainty and that didn't consider my own interference. It was basically a complex form of modeling, my previous self had 'peered' into this world's progression to predict future events.

Even with this, I wasn't omnipotent or all knowing by any means. My information may be faulty, or fate might be overturned and events that could seem predetermined are possibly halted. On top of that, my past memories were a little....vague.

It's like I'm doing him a favor, I'd give it even odds that he would die in a few weeks without my help.

Anyways, let's get started.

I placed my hand on his chest, even as he tried his best to squirm, I ignored him. I pulsed mana into his body and was immediately met with resistance. Even without awakening his 'power' he had certain passive traits that were starting to seep into his body.

But it was no use, he had no idea what I was doing and couldn't fight me. I found what I was looking for after a few moments. A red gauntlet that was basically wrapped around his soul. Poking someone's soul was dangerous, I didn't want to kill him I had more pride than that. But the more I looked at this the more I didn't like what I saw. If I had to create a mental image, it's like someone took some wire and wrapped a red gauntlet all around his soul in an attempt to combine the two.

I could only hope this was unintentional, and knowing some secrets of the world, I could guess that this wasn't as thorough as the 'system' that distributed these powers was supposed to be. A certain side-effect one the system not operating efficiently, perhaps?

No wonder most hosts die when someone tries to extract such a thing, I'm sure they just yank away the outside power and the soul gets mutilated in response. Then again, when has anyone tried to 'nicely' steal one of these things? They probably intentionally did the equivalent of a smash and grab.

Whatever, I'm better than them. I started to unravel the 'wires' that were binding the gauntlet to the pervert's soul. It wasn't difficult just a bit tedious, and I had a lot of experience messing with people's souls, the previously me wasn't a psycho but he also didn't have qualms about using any resources, such as idiots who try to mess with him, in his research.

Issei's body started to shine as I pulled the object and materialized it into the physical plane of existence.

Beautiful.

Well..... I just quickly shoved it into my own chest. No point in pussy footing around.

Better skedaddle before any unwanted guests arrive.

Well, Issei, lets make sure you have a good dream at least. I flicked his forehead and gave him something to distract him from a few gaps in his memories. He'll wake up fine in a few minutes, in fact, he'll probably be better than fine. I think this thing probably left behind a dragon aspect that would start to awaken.

With a shrug I started destroying any evidence and removing my talismans I quickly left the scene.

***

Sneaking back home was a bit of rush, I didn't think anyone was following me, but it was fun to pretend regardless.

I also felt my confidence soar after getting this little trinket.

A Sacred Gear.

An item of power created by the God from the bible to give humanity a form of protection from the supernatural. They usually seal powerful entities inside so the host can make use of their abilites. Honestly, their strength was comparable to that of Noble Phantasms. They are part of a 'system' that follows newly born souls and reincarnates with them.

This one in particular, the Boosted Gear. It was one of several 'Longinus' series, meaning they were potential god killers. A powerful item that could be devastating in the right hands. It housed the soul of Y Ddraig Goch, the Welsh Dragon.

[Hello.]

I paused, hearing the foreign voice in my head.

"Hello."

[This is new.]

"For me as well." I realized who the voice belonged to immediately.

[You got some interesting things in here.]

"Thanks?" I cleared my throat. "So, uh...didn't expect you to wake up already thought I would have to do something about that later?"

[Taking me out of my host was enough of a shock to wake me up prematurely.]

"Ah, you saw that." I hope he isn't angry....

[I haven't decided yet.]

Oh, you can hear me. Of course you can, you're in my soul.

[Well, you are interesting. Though, I don't particularly like being stolen from my rightful host.]

"That's...understandable. But there was a good chance you would have been nicked by a fallen angel with abandonment issues if I hadn't come along."

I could sense him doing the equivalent of narrowing his eyes. [Do you think I didn't look through your memories? There was also a fairly high chance my host would have gone on to become someone powerful and even defeat my rival.]

"Oppai Dragon." I countered.

I could physically hear him wince.

[Touché]

"Do you dislike me as your host?" I asked, I didn't really know his preferences.

[You wouldn't be the worst one I've had. The opposite actually, you have a lot of potential.] He conceded. After a few moments of silence, he spoke up again. [I am curious about what you're going to do from here, if nothing else your life will be a fun drama.]

I couldn't help but frown, I was about to retort but he cut me off. [Don't get all mopey on me, let me finish. Whatever you did, you jiggled me around enough that some restraints are a bit loosened].

That doesn't sound good, all I got was a snort in response as he continued. [I'm unsealed from my fake Twice-critical state, but I can force myself back down to those restrictions. I'll give you a trial period.]

Well, this is going better than I was expecting, I'll take it. "Okay, I can work with that."

I felt a bit of reassurance, even if I wasn't as strong as I would like right now, being able to double my abilities at a moments notice was a huge boon.

[I'm going to sleep, you didn't awaken me correctly so I'm still tired. Do something impressive and I'll undo the seals]

I could feel him give me the 'shoo' motion in my soul as his voice disappeared. Once a dragon always a dragon, not much I could do about his attitude. The fact that he didn't just go 'fuck you' and shut himself away was a big enough deal.

Well, it still had more work to do, better get going.