uhhh, happy belated new year guys. I was gonna post this on the 31st but I procrastinate on things even like this so oops lmao.

anyway, I'll do the responses to comments at the end of this chapter just so you guys can get to reading

Chapter 20: When You Just Wanna Sleep In But Then You're Stuck Dealing With Nonsense™

It's like no one had a sense of time anymore.

For one, Vali decided to stay way longer than he said he would and it took me a little while to make him believe that I didn't have the book he was talking about (of course as he was leaving I had the feeling that he wasn't as convinced as he was letting on).

Then after he left, I lay down on my bed but I could see from my window that the sun was starting to rise and the lazier part of my mind began to reason that I could sneak in an hour or two to sleep before I had to get up and become a productive member of society.

However, as soon as I decided that I should sleep some more, Azazel called me (and I don't even know how he did it as I never gave my number to him. But then again he was the leader of a supernatural group that I didn't believe existed until a while ago, so he definitely had the resources to find it).

I let it ring the first time he called. Then he rang again, and I let it go to voicemail again. Once he rang a third time, I had to resign myself to the fact that someone or something out there was saying 'no sleep for you,' I picked up.

"Didn't I see you a few hours ago," I asked grumpily.

Azazel, unnaturally chipper as always, answered," Did you forget? You have training today."

Looking towards my desk, I reached over and grabbed the little calendar and sure enough, the little box underneath today had "Study Session!" marked underneath it.

"Study Session" was a little keyword for training so if Mom and/or Dad saw it, they wouldn't ask what I had to train for.

I yawned before saying, "Alright, just let me get ready or whatever. I'll see you in a half hour or something."

Even as I said that I wrapped my blanket around myself, if I had a half hour I could use 10 minutes-

Groaning, I threw my blanket off and stood up, if I kept Azazel waiting, he'd probably start calling again. Or worse, maybe even call my house phone and I wouldn't want to risk having mom or dad answer. That man was persistent, I'll give him that.

The house was quiet but then again, then I remembered it was probably because the school had been closed for a few days because of teacher conferences or something like that, but as it was still a weekday, my parents still had work.

So I got dressed, put my hair up in a ponytail and went down, as I got into our kitchen (which seemed a lot more spacious then I remembered) the faint smell of breakfast wafted through and to my nose.

Mom and/or Dad left some breakfast for me, the plate was covered with some saran wrap, it wasn't too warm so they must've made it thinking I'd get up as they were leaving.

So I ate, then washed my dish and fork (I wasn't going to leave it in the sink like some Neanderthal), grabbed a backpack I didn't use anymore (that carried the set of Unforgiven and Cerberus) and headed out.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't even halfway through today's training and yet I was already exhausted. Then again, he made me use a lot more magic and a lot more of my sacred gear than I was accustomed too.

But the more I used the two, the more it felt like second nature to me to use them, which was both really cool and really weird at the same. Another perk was that I learned if I channeled a bit more power into one of the Unforgiven before shooting, the bullet, once making contact with the intended target, would burst on impact, with small fragments of the bullet being embedded into it.

From what was on the test dummy, the marks looked pretty gnarly. I guess that's more of an 'in case of emergency' trick.

Azazel, being someone that was all about collecting more information about sacred gears, gladly jotted down things in some notepad. Following that, he wanted me to transform into that cheetah form again. That was probably the hardest part of the training he gave me today. I mean yeah it was starting to become a lot easier to transform, but keeping that form. up for long bouts of time was what made it more tiring.

"You should be proud of yourself," Azazel remarked, watching me transform out of the cheetah form, "The last Left Eye I met could barely hold this form for a minute."

"You also said that there were more transformations that are basically a set with this one," I pointed out, stretching my arms, "...and to be honest, it doesn't sound that impressive when you say I can hold this form for at least a half hour, and not know how to perform the others."

Azazel shrugged before replying, "Everyone's a beginner, Misaki, I can't expect you to be at 100 percent right away."

"That is probably the most encouraging thing you've ever said to me."

He preens, "I have my moments. Now come on, you have more training to do before our time is up. Maybe I can finally show you how to make a proper magic circle since your last one was horrendous."

I only respond by giving him an unamused stare. I mean...sure he was right, but I wasn't going to let him know that.

He created another portal and this time, a person, probably a fallen angel, appeared on it.

Oh great, I know who this was now. Although she wasn't wearing that bondage getup, I could still tell it was Raynare. Although it does look like she likes to wear tight clothing anyway, from the looks of it. From the annoyed aura she was giving off, Raynare didn't want to be here. Then again, from the last time I spoke to her (which was about a day after the Church fiasco), she didn't seem too sorry about what she did to my brother nor about what she did to Asia. To be honest, she seemed sorrier at the fact that she was caught.

So no, I wasn't too keen on having her here.

"Yes, Azazel-sama?" She cooed, I couldn't help but grimace.

"Raynare," He greeted her, "You remember Misaki, right?"

-ah yes, insert the obligatory flashback-

It had been a couple of day since the church fiasco when Azazel had decided to 'summon' me again. This was a rare time when Azazel had little contact between then and Rias' rating game. It was Sunday morning, so automatically I didn't feel like doing anything.

This time it was in one of the numerous abandoned buildings that this town so conveniently had, for no reason other than to just have them. However when I walked in, there Raynare was, standing there and looking like she was waiting for someone. She seemed surprised to hear a door open, turning quickly towards the noise, a light spear forming in her hand.

"Oh, it's just you," She said colorlessly, my eyes narrowed in response.

Your welcome for saving your feathered butt, I had wanted to say but I kept my words to myself.

"You should be grateful that she made it in time that night, Raynare," A new voice said, it belonged to Azazel as he stepped out from the shadows having arrived at this place god knows when and Vali was also behind him, arms crossed and a normal smirk on his face. Just where the hell did they come from?

Azazel continued on, "If she hadn't, the Gremory heiress most certainly would've killed you...that is, from what we could see on the feed."

Behind the two were Raynare's other cohorts, Trenchy, Boobs, and Gothic Lolita, aka, Dohnaseek, Kalwarner, and Mittelt. They all had their faces flushed in shame, at least I hoped that's why they were so red. Raynare nearly jumped, then quickly she was on the ground on all fours in front of him. I would've laughed out loud, but really I mainly just wanted to go home.

Speaking of that feed, another thing he had given me before I left for the church was a pair of fake glasses. They weren't anything too extravagant, just a plain black frame. Although in the center of the bridge, there was a tiny crevice, and in that was an even smaller camera. Whatever I saw, would be what those two saw, thanks to the glasses transmitting the images to them. Other than that, they didn't do much else, at least, I don't think they did.

Reaching into my bag, I pulled out a brown rectangular case, the glasses were inside. I motioned towards the Fallen Angel governor in a 'heads up' manner, without a word he held out his hands, I tossed the case to him, and he caught them.

We both shared a nod.

'Nice.'

Vali looked at the both us, amusement in his eyes. But also possibly curious, maybe a little bit of amazement too. Leaning on the wall, he cleared his throat, "Now, I'm sure that as fun as that looked, we all didn't come here just to watch you two play a game of catch."

"Well of course not," Azazel replied, "It only would've been a game of catch if we were tossing the case back in forth."

Vali sent him a pointed look, while I covered my mouth in an attempt to not laugh, despite a few giggles coming from my end, also earning me a pointed from him as well. This, for some reason, made it a lot funnier to me than what it should've been.

Letting myself calm down, I then asked, "Okay, now why are we here?"

"It's about the change of orders these four suddenly received from 'me' and just who told them about them," Azazel responded, sounding more serious.

The other four fallen angels shuffled uncomfortably as Azazel continued on, "You've all told me that it was Kokabiel that had told you about the change of plans, correct?"

They nodded.

Although not showing any outward reaction, you could tell from his body language (even if you weren't good at reading into that kind of thing), he was not pleased. Kokabiel, from what I already learned from Vali and a little bit from Aeron and Cerberus, he was apparently a leader in the Grigori. One of the founders if I guessed correctly. He was Cadre level and a really powerful one at that. He was also a war hawk, wanting to continue where the Great War left off.

"Okay, so now what?" I asked, "I don't even know the guy but Kokabiel sounds like a really influential person, we can't just go and confront him about this kind of thing. We can't really make an argument off of the word of mouth from four low ranking fallen angels," I continued, I saw the looks on their faces from my mentioning of their rank but then I quickly added, "No offense to you guys of course."

"None taken," Dohnaseek responded.

"And if you think about it, it'd be way better to have more physical proof that Kokabiel is the one that wants to keep this war going here."

They all looked at me causing me to raise an eyebrow.

"What? Don't tell me you guys didn't actually think about that?"

Silence.

"...Seriously?"

"Good job," Vali congratulated, "You've managed to render them all speechless."

From the looks of it, though, it doesn't seem that hard to do.

"What's gonna happen to us now?" Mittelt spoke up, her arms were crossed and she had a worried frown on her face, "Even if we don't say anything Kokabiel-sama will find out that Azazel-sama knows that he changed the orders."

"Nothing will happen," Azazel assured her, "Kokabiel may want to continue the war. But he's also a thinker, he's not going to do something outright just yet unless he can somehow really get this war started all over again."

They all looked relieved now that he said that. With that bit of news, he let them leave, and then with a glow of a magic circle, they were gone. Now it was just the three of us.

"He chose this town for a specific reason," Vali answered, "It's not just the Gremory heiress that lives here you know, another heiress lives here too. From the Sitri house right?"

"Right."

"Not only are they heiresses, but they are both little sisters to two of the Maou," Vali added, "I don't think you need me to elaborate any further on that."

Azazel let out a resigned sigh, "That's why we have to be so careful about this. If Kokabiel is aware that we know what he's doing, he might accelerate those plans of his and another war is something we don't want here. He targets those girls, hell, if he kills them, we're gonna be looking at two very pissed and very vengeful Maou."

"So you're gonna what, let him continue on with this?" I asked.

"Apart from this Church fiasco, he's been keeping mum about literally everything," Azazel answers, then a thoughtful look grows on his face, "It's actually a little weird too when you think about it, you ask the guy how he's doing but all he gives you is a partial smirk and a nod and then leaves as if that even answers the question."

"I always feel like he wants to fight me," Vali said.

"Don't you like fighting people anyway?"

"Hmph, semantics really."

-Back to the Present-

"So what's this about?" I look towards Azazel and (the currently fawning) Raynare.

Azazel smiled brightly, "She'll be your partner for this little mission I'm giving you. And for right now, your temporary training partner."

"What."

"What."

The look in his eye seemed nearly sinister, "I think now we can find a way to have some evidence against you-know-who, and in order to prep you two for this small mission, I've decided that for the rest of the time here you both will be training together."

"Sounds fun," I heard Cerberus remark, "Although, you don't seem too eager about it."

'Wow I wonder what gave that away,' I answer sarcastically.

'I'm sure this could prove good as a learning experience,' Aeron said hopefully, probably being the only optimistic out of the three of us.

'Yes, what could go wrong?'

Oh my god that really did go wrong. Azazel somehow brought some kind of robot thing to test the two of us on our ability to work together. Then Raynare and I were supposed to find a way to defeat it. That doesn't sound too hard. But working with her, made it unnecessarily difficult.

She was very...bossy and that was putting it nicely. As we fought Azazel's robot, I was trying not to get beat up by a piece of tin, during this whole thing and working with Raynare made it worse, as she was more preoccupied in making sure she wasn't getting hit with the robot's attacks than she was helping me and then telling me what to do an acting annoyed when it was pretty impossible for me to defend the two of us and attack the robot at the same time.

Currently, the both of us were hiding behind a small shield that I made with a little magic, but I wasn't sure how long it'd last, I knew I shouldn't have transformed so much today.

Thankfully with Aeron's help, I was able to summon the sword like the one I used when I fought Cerberus (the black vein looking things going into my arms were still a little offputting).

'She's not that much help is she?'

'Nope.'

"Do you have any plan?" Raynare demanded after throwing a light spear that the robot dodged...again.

I sent her a pointed look, "I'm trying to make sure we don't get pelted with whatever that damn robot is shooting at us."

Whatever the ammunition was, it looked like BB pellets but had the effect of paint guns. Which meant that we would have to avoid getting hit with the paint. The robot stopped, and so I (stupidly) put the shield down, and in one second, it was firing at us again. Well so much for that then.

"Hey human," She said.

Resisting the urge to sigh, I only gave her an expectant look.

She continued, "How are you with heights?"

Dealing with the robot wasn't so awful now.

Training with Azazel was finished now that Raynare and I beat his robot. Although he did sound a little miffed as he recalled the damage that was done to it and how he'd have to spend more time making it better. At least now I could just go home and laze about.

...Okay, scratch the whole 'being able to relax part' because as soon as I got home, a very nice looking car was parked in front of the house.

Again, I couldn't even spend my day lazing about now that I realized that Rias did tell Mom and Dad that Issei would be home by today (then again they didn't mind, they were just happy that he was getting out of the house with people who weren't Matsuda or Motohama).

I pretty much saw all of them beginning to get out of the car. And they look like they wanted to get inside as quick as possible, I could barely see my brother though. As they made a tiny formation with him in between them. I guess they didn't want anyone to see what happened.

"So, how was the trip?" I ask as I approach, also smiling politely in greeting.

Rias turned to me quickly in surprise, "Misaki! I didn't know you weren't home."

"Yeah, I felt like stepping out for a bit," I lied easily, "Nothing too extreme."

"A-ah, I see," She stammers, I could feel her aura of uneasiness.

"I probably should've sent you a text or something, it honestly slipped my mind that you all were coming back from your trip again," I added with a small sigh, at least that was partially true, "Trust me to be forgetful about this kind of thing."

"It's fine," She said quietly we should've called to remind your parents that we were coming back." She stopped herself from elaborating further, looking down and avoiding my gaze.

I, still pretending to act like I didn't watch my brother get beaten half to death on live TV a few days ago, raised an eyebrow, "Did something happen during the trip?"

"Oh nothing too serious," Kiba chimed in, a charming smile on his face, Rias looked at the blond boy in relief. She was definitely was taking what happened harder than I thought. Then again, I wouldn't feel that great about it either if I was in her place.

"Well if you say so," I said, putting my key in and unlocking the door, inviting them in as I entered the house. They all headed into the living room while I went into the kitchen, putting on some water for tea. As the water heated up, I looked around the kitchen for any snacks.

Playing the part of the hostess wasn't so hard, and they wouldn't be here long anyway, or so I was being told. I mainly stayed in the kitchen, since they were probably talking about 'club activities.'

Whenever I looked out towards the living room, I had to keep rubbing my eyes. Something just felt, for a lack of a better word, off. 'You have anything Aeron?' I asked him.

'She's very forward, using an illusion like that,' Aeron said quietly, 'It's only bothering your eyes because the Left Eye would always use their magic subconsciously to see through things like this. This one is...mediocre, at best.'

'That's an illusion?' I ask him incredulously.

'Yes, it is,' He confirmed, 'Now, look again.'

I blinked once or twice, and when I did look, I saw the Issei I had thought was there, was gone, Rias was also gone too. Looking towards the stairs, I saw Rias slowly heading upstairs. But, then she looked at me and we could've been staring at each other for a solid minute (if not less) but I broke her gaze and went retreated back into the kitchen, ignoring the conversation in the living room. Even if it was for a few seconds, I could feel her shock from either realizing I could see her. But I was hoping that she would believe I was really just thinking about something and I just happened to be looking at that area in particular.

The rest of the club left after a bit, including Rias, however, Asia had decided to stay, but she was probably upstairs in my brother's room. Closing the front door behind me, I let out a breath that I didn't even know I was holding.

...so that's that.

Now to the comments:

Guest (1): I mean,,,, if Issei's gonna be the 'Harem King' why can't Misaki have a boyfriend here or there too?

quick psa: so I normally don't mind when I get update comments because that just means people probably like my stuff and they want to see more of it. Like I'm glad people are taking the time to comment and everything, but, I kind of wish they were more about the chapter, what you liked or maybe didn't like, etc.

now back to the comments

: it could be a possibility

icewrack: glad you enjoyed.

ok so for my own little resolution I wanna try to get at least one to three chapters out a month because I have an awful updating schedule lol. wish me luck guys.

Until next chapter, izuniias out.