Chapter 21: Ranking
(Your POV)
"Hey (Y/N), what is your biggest fear?"
"Being forgotten by those I love."
"Damn, that's deep, I'm honestly afraid of a world without breasts but now I feel stupid."
All of us were walking towards the school since today was a school day. I decided to pick up Issei on our way to school since it was on our way, despite the fact that Rias doesn't like him because of the rumors and Asia sees him as a third wheel. Still, Issei was one of my only guy friends (the other ones being Kiba and Jormungandr), and I was walking to school with him because he would have been alone if I didn't. I was currently going through my spellbook to memorize more spells, despite the fact I have only memorized 10 out of the hundreds in this spell book, Rias still praised me and gave me headpats whenever I completely memorized a spell. She did have to use a stool if I was standing up, but they felt nice.
As we approached the gates, I noticed a lack of people at the entrance. I would have assumed another picture of Kiba shirtless was being put on display, but he wasn't here for the last couple days, making obtaining the picture close to impossible. I did see someone standing outside the gates, but he wasn't wearing a uniform to the academy, it didn't take a genius to realize this was an enemy.
"Well hello there, Red Dragon Emperor." His voice was familiar, and I realized this was the white dragon emperor. "I never have introduced myself have I? My name is Vali, the white dragon emperor."
In response to this, Xenovia, Kiba, and I wasted no time and ensured Vali was not a threat. Kiba and Xenovia summoned their blades and pointed them at Vali's throat as I stood defensively in front of everyone with my desert eagle in one hand and a Kazekami knuckle on my other hand. I aimed my gun at Vali, who barely reacted to us.
"Your blades are trembling." Vali looked at the swords before focusing on me, then he raised an eyebrow. "You, the selkie, you're not showing a hint of being scared, consider me impressed."
"State your business and leave." I demanded, and I wasn't scared because nothing could kill me, much less some overdramatic guy. "I will not hesitate to kill you."
"You wouldn't hesitate, but I don't think you could kill me." Vali smirked and out of nowhere, my left eye was pulled out of its socket in an instant, and I had no idea what it was.
"(Y/N)!" Rias rushed over to me as I put a hand over my injury, despite the fact Rias had one hand on my shoulder, my healing factor wasn't kicking in, it was moving way too slow. "Kiba, Xenovia, stand down, I don't want either of you to get hurt."
"A wise decision." Vali then moved onto the original subject of conversation. "Issei, where do you think you stand in terms of ranking. I'd say you'd rank somewhere between 1,000 or 1,500, possibly even lower. Your selkie friend outranks you, I'd guess he's placed anywhere between 950-1,200, and ranks in the top hundred in terms of defense alone."
"Did you come here just to mock us?" Issei asked as he began to panic whilst looking at my injury. "Also, he's not just 'my selkie friend', he's (Y/N) (L/N), the greatest rook in the world. Protector of the harem king!"
"He's still going on about that?" Akeno asked herself in disbeleif, I thought he dropped that dream of his long ago.
"Whatever you say, Red Dragon Emperor." Vali turned away as I could feel my healing factor finally kick in, but it was moving incredibly slowly. "I expect good things from you in the future."
"Don't just run away after blinding my friend in one eye!" Issei was about to cause Vali, who was now walking off, but I stopped Issei by placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Don't try to fight him, he clearly surpasses us." I warned my friend as I pulled a small towel from my bag to take care of the blood. "Still, he did give us an idea of what his power is."
"Huh?"
"He divided my healing factor's speed to a mere crawl, which means his power could be division." I placed the towel against my missing eye. "So his power is the complete opposite of yours, Issei, his is the power to divide."
"Still, I am mad he had to gouge your eyes out." Issei crossed his arms in a bad mood as Xenovia walked past my eye. "By the way, you could still use your arms after they got cut off, so does that mean you can still see out of your eye?"
"Yep, and I already know what you're implying, so no." I already predicted that Issei was going to ask what color panties Xenovia was wearing, and I kind of had no choice but to look because I can't close that eye or move it.
"Darnit, I was so curious." Issei was kind of disappointed as I crouched down the grab my eye, which was looking up Xenovia's skirt since I really can't control it and that's just how it fell.
"The white dragon's dividing power is pretty well known." Rias informed me, causing a gloomy aura to appear around me because I just wasted everyone's time. "But you still did a good job on figuring that out without anyone telling you!"
"But I'm still ranked pretty low, that means there's much more people that I can't protect you all against." I prayed we didn't have to fight anyone of those kinds of people, but we'll have to eventually.
"Still, being ranked between 950-1,500 is amazing on it's own, because that applies to everyone." Rias informed me as I stood up, with my eyeball in my hand. "Fallen angels, angels, devils, gods, that's nothing to shrug at."
"Still, for the red dragon emperor to get surpassed by a seal is kind of embarrassing." Koneko walked towards us, and I could physically hear Issei's pride shatter.
"I must find a way to become stronger." I sighed, I would have gotten my book out to study spells, but I didn't want to get blood on it.
"(Y/N), let's wait for your eye to heal before focusing on anything else."
(Timeskip, brought to you by a serpent slithering past the camera)
After three hours of Rias and Asia hugging me (to see if it speeds up my healing factor, since it speeds up the closer I am to people I wish to protect), my eye finally went back to normal and I was able to go to class. Due to it being parent's day, everyone was doing something. I heard Issei and Asia's classes are making things out of clay, and Issei made a naked model of Aika almost entirely on instinct. The specialized course classes were doing something somewhat different, we were working on our individual talents to impress our guardians. Kenshiro was sparing against the Madarai brothers, not sure what their talent was though. Mukuro was quickly assembling and disassembling an akog, and Ryota was animating something. I wasn't able to do anything because my talent was officially classified as 'the Ultimate Immortal', so I can't really do anything without being seen as a psychopath, a masochist, or both. The teacher understood that my skill set can't really be shown off, so I wasn't really doing anything.
I would show off some magic, but my specialized course classmates may seem supernatural because of their skills, but they're all 100% human. I was walking through the halls, looking for something to do to cure my boredom when I saw a crowd of people blocking the hallway. I walked over to see what the issue was, and saw that the rest of ORC was there too. I greeted them and looked over the crowd with my superior height and saw Saji ordering everyone to calm down.
"Hey guys." I greeted my friends, who greeted me back. "Might I ask what the commotion is about?"
"Apparently some magical girl showed up." Issei answered, and I had no idea why that was an issue, all the girls I've met could qualify as magical girls, they all wield magic except for Koneko and Xenovia.
"Are they causing a ruckus, I can take them out if you ask." I was about to pull my desert eagle out, but Issei stopped me, then he explained to me what he meant.
"I can already tell you're confused, but to oversimplify it, a magical girl is a girl who dresses overdramatically, does weird poses, and somehow remains cute while doing it." Issei informed me, which did make sense. "Say, I think that's the same uniform of that one otaku I had to deal with on a job..."
"You had to put up with an otaku?" I asked with my arms crossed, I usually dealt with more labor intensive tasks, such as construction thanks to my herculean strength. "I don't know what that is, but I still feel sorry for you."
"For your innocence, I will not explain what it is." Issei sweatdropped as Sona showed up with Sirzechs and Zeoticus close behind. "Hey Sona, Tsubaki."
"Hey (Y/N), Rias, Issei, what's going on here?" Sona asked as she looked up the stairs. "By the way, Sirzechs and Zeoticus came by today."
"Hello (Y/N), you don't have to kneel before us." Zeoticus commented on my dogeza stance, which Issei and Rias had no idea how I ended up in or when I started bowing. "Besides, we find you interesting."
"Sona!" The magical girl jumped from the stairs towards Sona, who looked at the scene in shock. "I missed you!"
"Excuse me." I caught the leaping girl by the waist, preventing her from hitting Sona, much to the latter's gratitude, and the magical girl was surprised I was holding her midair. "Please don't jump over crowds of people like that, you could hurt someone."
"(Y/N), that's one of the Four Great Satans." Rias whispered into my ear, I looked up to see the girl winking and smiling at me. "Serafall Leviathan, Sona's older sister."
"My humblest apologies." I apologized profusely whilst setting Serafall down and bowed before her. "Please forgive me, I had no idea you were such an important person."
"Alright everybody, get back to class!" Saji demanded the other students to go away so we could speak more openly on devil business, once they left, we spoke up again.
"I missed you such much, Sister!" Serafall hugged her sister, making Sona go somewhat red faced. "You haven't contacted me in forever!"
"I called you last week." Sona adjusted her glasses whilst looking pleadingly at me, like she expected me to do something, does she perhaps wish for me to get Serafall off her?
"So anyways, Lord Sirzechs, Lord Zeoticus, is there anything I could get either of you?" I went into 'full butler mode' as Akeno liked to call it, but these two were high class devils and I must impress them.
"No thanks (Y/N), but even if I did, I wouldn't want to bother you, you're a student after all." Zeoticus brushed off my offer, and I understood his stance, but I was still a rook before all else. "Say, there is something you could do, is there somewhere private so Rias and I can discuss something, it's an important matter."
"Of course, there's an empty classroom not too far from here." I bowed like a butler and led Zeoticus, Sirzechs, Rias, and Akeno to an empty classroom. "If you need anything else, do not hesitate to let me know."
"Thank you, and this will only be for a short while." Sirzechs thanked me as the four of them went inside.
I closed the door behind them and began reading the spellbook, trying a training method of dropping the temperature around me. Thanks to Mukuro's training, I was able to hear parts about their conversation, something about some kid named 'Gasper', 'letting him out', and 'Rias can control Gasper's power with (Y/N)'s help'. I didn't get what I had to do with anything, but that's pretty much what their entire conversation was about. I was reading until a familiar maid greeted me.
"Hello (Y/N)." Grayfia stood in front of me, causing me to stand up and bowed in a show of respect. "No need to bow, I take it my husband is in there?"
"He is, I didn't mean to eavesdrop or intrude, but who is Gasper?" I asked the woman, who agreed to tell me who Gasper was.
"Gasper is the first bishop piece in Rias' possession, with a powerful sacred gear that can stop time." Grayfia informed me, and even with that explanation, I don't see how I was able to fit into this. "I theorized that you might be able help control Gasper's sacred gear."
"Gasper can't control it himself?" I asked in slight disbelief, but then again, I suppose not everyone can control their sacred gears. "How can I help him?"
"I theorized you could help him because you might be immune to time altering abilities." Grayfia informed me, and I had my doubts. "Your blessing from Huitzilopochtli seems to be focused on keeping you in the fight, healing you and enhancing your body depending on the strength behind your injury. You also appear to be immune to status effects, like burning, poison, being frozen, so you being able to move in frozen time might not be out of the question."
"I understand." I caught onto what Grayfia was saying, then I remembered what Vali said earlier. "By the way, is there any way you can recommend to me in order to get stronger as fast as possible?"
"What brought this on all of a sudden?" Grayfia asked, and I will agree that this question does seem out of character for me.
"Issei and I encountered the White Dragon Emperor earlier this morning, and he told me I was ranked somewhere between 900-1,200, and in the top hundred in terms of defense alone." I informed Grayfia, who looked surprised. "That means there's anywhere between 899-1,499 people I can't protect everyone against, so I want to change that so I could protect them better."
"For starters, I don't recommend selling yourself short like that, being ranked in the top Thousand is very impressive, even my husband is only ranked around 200, so you're not that far behind considering this accounts for everyone." Grayfia tried comforting me, but it wasn't working. "Still, if it helps, I recommend learning as many skills as possible, even seemingly mundane skills could help."
"I see what you mean." I began wondering where I would learn these skills, but then we noticed a girl on a motorcycle just soared past the window.
"Are they with you?" Grayfia was caught off guard by the girl riding the bike, who landed on a ramp like a professional, where the ramp came from nobody knows. "There's no way a human would have been crazy enough to do that."
"That was most certainly Onihime, the Ultimate Daredevil." I answered as the two of us walked towards the window to see Onihime was performing in front of a crowd. "She's human, and a classmate of mine in the talented course."
"Talented course?" Grayfia asked, I didn't expect her not to know what this course was, so I decided to explain to her what the course was for.
"The talented course hosts students that are incredibly talented in a certain field, and focuses on enhancing those talents to superhuman levels." I explained catching Grayfia's interest. "Like how Onihime's known as the Ultimate Daredevil, that means she's one of the best daredevils out there, if not the best."
"Are you on good terms with these classmates of yours?" Grayfia asked, and I nodded to show that they didn't hate me, nor was I friends with them. "I suggest you take notes from them or recruit them into Issei's peerage."
"All of them already have plans for the future, so I can't do that last part." I knew everyone of my classmates had goals, and I refused to get in the way of their goals for power. "However, I will ask them for advice on doing their talents."
"Good idea." Grayfia smiled to herself as everyone left the room, and the two of us bowed in sync. "Greetings Lady Rias, Lord Zeoticus, Darling."
"Greetings Lord Zeoticus, Lord Sirzechs, Lady Rias." I followed Grayfia's lead, since the two of us appeared to be very similar in this sense. "I hope the meeting was productive."
"It was." Rias informed me as Grayfia and I stood up in total synch. "I hope we didn't keep you two waiting."
"Is it me, or do my children have a clear 'type'?" Zeoticus asked himself out loud, I guess he must be referring to Grayfia and I's loyalty, despite the fact I wasn't in Rias' peerage.
"Either way, come on (Y/N), we have some business to attend to." Rias signaled for me to follow her and Akeno, so I waved goodbye to the three adults and followed the two girls down the hall. "What did you two talk about?"
"I was looking for ways to get stronger so I could protect you all better." I answered honestly, not caring if I looked insecure about my power.
"Don't let yourself get consumed by your desire for power (Y/N)." Akeno warned me, and she actually looked serious, so I had no choice but to comply.
"Understood."
(A/N: In case you're wondering, Grayfia and (Y/N)'s relationship will purely be storge, or a kind of close friendship and almost family feel. By the way, does anyone know what the deal is with Kunou's father, like I know I haven't read that far, but I know Yasaka exists and she's Kunou's mother, but where's the father? Is he dead? Is it unknown? If it's unknown them I'm just gonna say he disappeared.
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