Before I begin, I would like to offer a special thanks to my beta reader, Blake Zephyr, for bearing with my rambling PMs at awful hours; Touhou Ranfuku for his expertise on DxD which has saved me some characterization woes; and for a certain real life friend whose brainstorming sessions and oft-acerbic encouragement were instrumental in formulating this story. Finally, I would like to thank anyone who stops by to read the prelude. It's a decidedly different take on Highschool DxD, and I hope that this both provides a helpful insight and somewhat softens the blow.

Prelude

"Can you buy a man with suffering?"

This question is famously posed at the beginning of Robert Bolt's play 'A Man for All Seasons.' Richard Rich's elaboration, that one tortures a man and offers release, makes it not nearly as profound a statement as it could be. But can you buy a man with suffering?

What is suffering? Is life itself suffering? Every slouching step does bring us closer to gloomy death, like a candle that has burnt to its end. By having been lighted – by having been given life – the end is inevitable. We suffer. Our minds suffer. Our bodies suffer. If existence were entirely suffering, it would not matter. Without any benchmark, it would be impossible to compare our suffering against happiness or even recognize happiness. But we know happiness. We have a tacit awareness of some perfect happiness, of Paradise, that both allows suffering because our human condition does not permit us to know Paradise and brings up hope in the assurance of its existence. This concept of happiness, or truth, or love transcends the physical. A spiritual reality.

But can you buy a man with suffering? In Richard Rich's superficial way, certainly. However, there are other ways to buy a man with suffering. Consider the life of St. Ignatius of Loyola. In his younger years, he could have been described as a devout sinner. All it took was being brought to the lowest of lows for him to embrace a devout life. This is how a man is bought with suffering. When the spirits that cause evil to be received as water on a sponge, and good as water on a rock are purged from the soul. When we recognize darkness, we better appreciate light. And sometimes, one must hit the bottom of the well to truly understand the darkness.

This is merely one hermaneutic through which the matters that follow may be viewed.