Chapter 1: First Deconstruction.

"Most good stories don't begin when the battle has begun, or when it's over. Instead, they usually begin before anything happens – the quiet satisfied sort of tedium that is only there just to show the impact of what would happen."

Once upon a time, there was a story of a young teenager who dreamed of getting a harem. One thing after another, he died and then got revived, then not-so-subtly forced into a world he never knew before, and then gaining his dream – a harem. There was then another girl with red hair, then another girl with black hair, and then another one with white hair, and then another guy, then a whole student council, and then a bunch of devils, angels, and mythical creatures that included a dragon that was sealed in him.

Well, sealed in a gauntlet in him, but that's another point.

Then there was a bunch of heroes, homicidal people of varying species, more creatures and snakes, and after that, I know little more of what happened. And yeah, God was at sometime in between revealed to be dead.

But it doesn't matter really. Because that story is not my story. That story wasn't the story I wrote, the story I lived, the story I endured my life in.

But that story was related to my story. There were differences of course, but they were few and far in between.

The thing is, the first difference was that I even existed.

My name is Hyoudou Ryuusei. But it wasn't my first name, even though I was given that name the moment I was born.

I lived and died before. And while my previous name lost its meaning in the process, I still was and would forever be the person I was before.

A bit of a question for the ages, wasn't it? If there was such a thing called an afterlife or rebirth, how would it be? What would you feel if you were reborn as someone totally different? Would your memories stay the same, since when would you be aware of such an event, if ever? Luckily, or not so luckily I suppose, I seemed to be someone to finally get the answer.

In the beginning, when I first 'woke', I was hardly even aware of anything. Like a bit of algae floating on a pond, I was only there. I existed, I barely thought, and I did what I did. Which meant my underdeveloped legs swung back and forth, along with my arms, hitting the wall that surrounded me.

I breathed in water and breathed it out the same way. I didn't feel hunger, didn't feel heat, didn't feel pain.

I didn't even feel like myself.

But then the days – weeks, months? – passed and slowly I became more… responsive. More awake. More alive. But before I could even manage to do anything, or to even panic at the realization that I was underwater, the entire 'room' around me momentarily swelled before it squeezed. Being too weak and too unsettled to do anything, all I could only do was to let myself be swept away.

You remember that light at the end of the tunnel kind of thing people always say? Well, honestly it felt like that too, in the end.

The reds and blacks that were all that I had for company on those long 4 months that I was probably awake were all flooded away in a flash of white, a tight rhythmic squeeze that kept on repeating, and a strong hand gripping and pulling excruciatingly on the top of my head and I-

Pop

-was born, facing the white mask of the doctor who delivered me. Kind man he was, cooing me to help me calm down before he took on a pair of scissors and with a snap, painfully cut off the cord that connected me to my mom.

My dad, the energetic man he would certainly prove to be, immediately took me off the doctor's hands as soon as he was allowed and brought me close to the face of my new mother. Then, tiredly and with sheer exhaustion in her face, she mumbled,

"A strong child, I know he would be. A strong one, like the meteor falling from the sky."

Dad took her hand in a tight grip, pulling the three of us even closer. He then proclaimed,

"Meteor? Then this child's name would Ryuusei! Hyoudou Ryuusei!"

The shock of everything happening finally wore off – the glare of the lights, the pounding of blood in my head, the painful bleeding that was continuing from my fingers that were punctured by the doctor for my blood tests – and that was when I did the first thing I could do, the only thing that I hadn't done so far and causing the nurses to worry.

I cried. Loudly.

And even through it all, somehow I felt a bit of satisfaction as my dad pulled away his abused ears and handed me to the nurse.

I know I was reborn. In my past life, I was a writer, and as both a writer and a reader I knew all those stories about being given life anew after death, sometimes out of sheer luck and other times under godly influence etcetera etcetera…

Why I was reborn though, I didn't know. Whether I was reborn back in my own world or something else entirely I also didn't know – I wasn't well-versed in history enough to do any judgment, and it wasn't like I could even read after all. For God's sake, previously I spoke and thought in English and wrote and read using Roman letters. Japanese, on the other hand, with its complex system of kanji, hiragana, katakana made my head spin at just the thought of reading.

I didn't care though. All I cared was that I had a family.

It's quite simple, isn't it? A group of humans, most likely sharing an amount of genetic resemblance, staying together and interacting with each other in all sorts of ways, from very positive to very negative. The grown adults would support the children, and the children would grow until they themselves become parents and manage their own homes. Something normal, something usual. Not for me though, and several hundred thousand people like me, I suppose.

I was an orphan back then. Previously, I never had parents, never had brothers or sisters, and while some came close to be considered as family, nobody in my previous life was that important to me or vice-versa. Nobody probably mourned for me too long back then, I hope, as in a sense, I never really died. Completely at least. I was still aware of who I used to be, right? At least, if someone mourned that far for me, I hope whatever gave me my second life would tell them I was reborn…

Anyway, while long ago I had already accepted the fact that my previous family was gone – I didn't, couldn't bear to think they weren't, just gone by choice – like all orphans, I still longed to have the warmth of having a family. A mother. A father. A sister or a brother, maybe both! Maybe I was born again, chosen out of sheer luck by some deity out there, just to have a second chance in life to feel those emotions.

I had wanted and dreamt of having family for all of my previous life. And while this second life could be some kind of insane delusion or image my brain made to appease me on the way to death, I still grabbed upon it like a lifeline.

I took on the new name I had and wore it with pride. I was Hyoudou Ryuusei now, both four and twenty two years old, and I lived with the Hyoudou couple. My mom was a terrifying house-mom, and my dad was a reputable businessman. I had them, and they had me.

And then, they told me I was going to have a brother.

Four and a half years later after my birth, there I was, swinging alone in the playground set that was beside my kindergarten class. I was waiting for my parents to come, and I had waved goodbye away my few friends in my classroom.

Ah, 'childhood' friends. Such a wonderful thing to feel, very unlike the cold orphanage I had in my previous life. Inwardly though, I felt terribly awkward for that fact, being an actual adult inside a child's body interacting with real children. I was previously used to have to look down to talk to kids. Now, as the short one, I had to look up.

And certainly, the actions of my kindergarten teacher didn't help much…

"Ryuu-kun, why are you still here?"

Speak of the devil.

I immediately smiled back. "Sensei. Mom and Dad are late, but I promised I'd stay here where I would be safe!"

Slowly, I moved from the swing, smile still in place and slowly stepping away. Don't look away from her eyes, don't look away from her eyes, don't drop the smile. If she notices you trying to escape, she would-

GLOMP!

-too late.

The air in my lungs were suddenly seized out of them and my legs lost their beloved touch from the ground as I was tightly hugged by my teacher.

Swing~ swing~

"S-sensei~" I said, dizzily as I was swung back and fro as my energetic teacher clung on to me like I was a teddy bear before going through a series of pirouettes. "Make it stop~"

Miura-sensei looked at me in the eye, no doubt finding my expression cute, before letting me go ruefully. Immediately, I took several steps back, ready to escape from another hug-fest should the excitable woman in front of me jump again. What just happened wasn't just a recent thing after all. Twelve times. Just today, she had done it to me twelve times.

"Ryuu-kun," she said with bleary eyes, pouting very much unlike the adult she was supposed to be, "Do you not like me?"

I shook my head. Several times. I didn't not like her. She was a very nice lady, and honestly on the top of my head, I knew dozens of people worse than her that I still either liked/respected. I was the one who simply had an issue with her.

My eyes wandered over her rather humongous chest area before I pulled them away, feeling the painful sting of shame.

A few months of being fully aware of your mother breastfeeding you did that to any person. I couldn't look at anyone of the fairer gender without feeling shameful or bashful. No person would go unscarred through that after all. Unless they were perverts.

Thankfully, that was the moment Dad finally came to pick me up. Teacher distracted with the incoming parent, I immediately ran off to play somewhere a bit farther from her. I still kept close enough to eavesdrop though.

"Ah, Miura-sensei. How was my son today?"

My teacher's face was practically beaming. "Hotaru-san! Ryuu-kun's been so well-mannered today, as always! His friends are even following his lead!" She then leaned her head to the side, sending in my direction a sigh. "He doesn't like my hugs though."

Way to make me feel guilty, sensei!

Dad tilted his own head in confusion. "Huh? We never had any problems with him on that front though. Honestly, he's the touchy-feely sort of kid, always giving his mother and me hugs before he sleeps. No nightmares – just a want to feel us close apparently."

A blush rose up to my ears at that concession. Don't tell her stuff like that, Dad!

Miura-sensei squealed. "So cute! That's why I love children! If only we were allowed part-time jobs when I was that stuffy all-girls Academy!"

Alright, that was it. There was no way I was going to let them continue exchanging stories and embarrass me in the process. I may be a child, but unlike most children, I certainly could feel myself practically wilting at the sound of my parents gossiping about me!

(At the back of my mind, I remembered how some of my friends in my previous life complained over and over again about how their mom or dad kept on embarrassing them. Back then, I thought they were being melodramatic. Now, all I felt was sympathy. I clasped my hands in prayer momentarily in my mind – I apologize for not believing you guys.)

I immediately ran back to my dad, hiding behind his knee to prevent any hugging attacks from Miura-sensei. I tugged at his pants. "Dad? Can we go home? I'm getting really tired…"

Dad chuckled, and Miura-sensei cooed at my expression. I knew I looked cute, and I wasn't afraid to use it to get very very far from this place. Kindergarten was nice, if a bit boring, but no to further embarrassment, no thank you!

"We'll be going now then." Dad laughed dryly before pushing me a bit forward. "Say goodbye to your Sensei first!"

" G'bye sensei…" I murmured before waving a hand to her.

Thankfully, Dad and I left immediately, as she then started to look a little crazed. What kind of world was I reborn in, if it was even my own world? To have such interesting and cheerful people in my life…

Dad stopped in his tracks when we were a bit of a distance away from the school. "Sei? Are you alright?"

"D-dad? What are you talking about?"

Dad smiled at me, kneeling to my height before rubbing his callused thumbs over my cheeks. That was when I realized I was crying. Tears of moisture formed themselves without my will out of entire melancholy. And my day had been so happy too…

"Why are you crying, Sei?"

I smiled, not needing to have it forced. I was really happy after all. "Tears of joy Dad! I'm just really happy I have all of you around me!"

"You're such a weird kid, Sei." Dad chuckled before dipping his voice into a conspiratorial murmur, dripping with amusement. "But you know what? Soon, you won't be the only kid in the family!"

My stomach dropped, and then jumped back up with the ferocity of a tiger as I realized- "I'm going to have a brother!?"

"Or a sister, if fate so happens to choose." Dad then added, messing at my hair with his hands. I pouted, but was inwardly very overjoyed. So this is what it felt? To suddenly find out you would have more family? "When the preliminary tests the doctor took come back, I'll be sure to tell you."

That was it. I jumped up and down, really feeling like the kid I was supposed to be. I was going have a brother! Or sister, apparently, but I didn't care – we were going to be the best of friends, and I was going to teach him/her as much as I could, and then I would infect him/her with my hobbies, we would be playing computer games together-

"You're babbling, Sei." Dad looked at me amusedly.

My mouth snapped shut as I blushed, realizing I was actually yelling my thoughts out loud.

Pulling at my hand, though not really needing to as I was skipping on my feet, Dad looked up to the cloudy sky and said, more to himself, "We never really planned having more than one kid, Sei. But you looked like you wanted to have a sibling so much that we couldn't help but just try. You were so easy to raise too – what was one kid more?"

I chuckled sheepishly beside him. Maybe I was a bit too vocal about it then… and maybe I also spoiled my parents too much with my birth. After all, as soon as I physically could, I 'developed' from crawling to walking, babbling to talking. My non-existent Japanese from my previous life proved to be worth something after all.

A smirk rose to my face at how Dad kept on pouting when I said 'Mama' first. He kept on doing that too, until I finally took pity on him a week later and said 'Papa'. Of course, before that, I made sure to say a few other words too. Like pointing at his face with a finger and saying the Japanese word for beard after Mom whacked him over the head for not trimming it.

The way Dad's face looked like a mix disappointed pout and baffled shock back then made me laugh.

"Aha!" Dad hollered, regaining my attention as he pointed to the sky. "Look, Sei!"

I looked up, and I smiled with my cheeks in a red blush. Winter was fast approaching after all, and what Dad was pointing at was really beautiful.

"Diamond dust." Dad smiled with me. "Maybe that's a good omen after all."

A few months later, I was helping Mom around at home.

"Mom! What can I do for you!?" I asked, jumping about filled with liveliness. Being a child sure made you very energetic! "Dad told me to not let you move too much – it can be bad for the baby!"

Mom laughed at my actions. She then sat down instead on the nearest sofa recliner and patted at her side. "Ryuu-kun, I'll rather choose to have you sit with me. Your brother is kind of heavy after all."

Ah, how I love the medical expertise. My parents didn't know about it, but I was fully aware of what the doctor was talking about the moment he called the three of us into his clinic and told us the news.

Unlike what most people knew, there were ways of identifying gender of a baby before it was even born. Cell cultures, collected from the amniotic fluid of the mother, could be kept and studied – just by identifying the sex chromosomes on those cells, the child could be given gender. Though, it was still a little difficult to do for most – separating the cells of the mother from the cultures was a hard thing to do after all. The doctor then told us he found a Y-chromosome.

Simply put, we were told I was going to have a brother. Yes!

"Ummm, Mom?" I tried for the 'bashful and innocent' look. I needed the convincing for this after all! "When would you tell me his… name?"

Mom smiled. "Why, Ryuu-kun. What makes you think we won't choose his name when he's born like what we did with you? We told you that, didn't we?"

They had no need to. I was fully aware when that happened. But I didn't say that.

"But that doesn't mean you two didn't choose one already!" I whined. "I saw you two reading books on names! You had to have chosen already!"

She laughed again. "You're really such a smart boy, Ryuu-kun. But no, we won't tell you, even if we chose already."

"That makes me sure you did!"

Our conversation was promptly stopped when Mom suddenly broke into a series of coughs. "Mom!?"

"Just a small cold, Ryuu-kun." She tried for a smile. "I'll be fine soon before you know it."

One and a half seconds later, I was already running off to find the medicine the doctor gave us.

My statement on the medical expertise had to be re-judged. Mom's 'cold' had been there for a week now, and it wasn't letting up. Instead, it was even getting worse – if only just a bit from how it was when it started – and the doctor still couldn't find anything abnormal. No abnormal white blood cells, no infections, no swelling, no anything, not even a drop or rise in temperature.

Mom just seemed to be getting more and more tired everyday, and there still was that coughing. The doctor said it was probably just go away soon, but I couldn't help but worry. Where were those medicines again?

"Mom?" I asked, looking between the cabinets for the medicine box. "Where did you place the medicine?"

When she didn't reply, I became a bit worried. "Mom?"

Silence. I immediately ran back to the living room. My fears were realized.

There was Mom on the floor, unconscious.

I panicked for all of three minutes before I snapped out of it and called the ambulance. When the damned receiver of the call tried to bluff me for a prank call, I all but yelled his ears out, scolding him and telling him my-mom's-on-the-floor-and-I-don't-know-what-to-do-so-please-JUST-GO-ALREADY!

The impudent man shut up before asking me our address. I half-babbled it all, half-attempted to make my words understandable as we didn't have the time to have the ambulance lost and thinking it was all a prank, because it was my Mom on the floor and I couldn't lose her, couldn't lose anyone, not my Mom, my Dad, my brother-

When the ambulance arrived, I blacked out in sheer relief and fear for my mother's (and soon-to-be brother's) well-being.

Thankfully, the next day, Mom was stabilized by the good doctor Agasa.

I really loved the medical expertise.

"Mom, are you sure you are alright?" I couldn't help but say worriedly as I clutched her hands beside her hospital bed. "You don't feel sick or anything? Even a little dizzy or tired?"

"You sound like the doctor, Ryuu-kun." Mom said to me with a smile. "Don't worry! I'm completely alright now!"

'Yeah, you say that, and that's when Fate strikes back,' I couldn't help but think, as the writer's intuition in me struck. But, I shook it away – this was reality, not something out of a manga or anime. Mom and Dad were real people, as real as I was, and so was Miura-sensei, Agasa-san, and though my brother was still unborn, he was real too.

Life wouldn't be so cruel to rip apart the family I wished for so long.

"Mom…" I murmured, only holding her hand tightly as the dam in me broke. "I was so worried…"

"I was so scared I was going to lose you, that I was going to lose my brother, that Dad and I would be all alone in our home. I was so scared that if I did something wrong, you were going to die, and it would be all my fault, and I can't take that, never could-"

I was then suddenly pulled into a tight hug.

"Ryuu-kun…" Mom said, close to my ears. She wept away the tears that was falling from my face again – as Dad had did the previous night, when I woke up with nightmares of the same scenario as I had just told her. "Look at me."

"You. Are. A. Hero." She told me with as much pride as she could fill her words. "Not all kids could've done as well as you did!"

"Listen to your mother, Sei." Dad added, suddenly walking in from the door behind me. He took a moment to kiss Mom before wrapping his arms around the two of us. "You even completely gave the man who received the emergency call a much-needed lecture from what I've heard. You were the one who saved your mother – not I, the one who was at work, or the ambulance driver, who needed to be told everything after a lecture."

"You were the one there, the one who acted beyond what most expected of you, Sei. We couldn't be more proud."

Of course. In their eyes, I was just a precocious four-year old, nearing five coming March. But I knew the truth – I was a twenty-two year old man who almost lost his newfound family. There was nothing special to what I did – the fact I even panicked meant that it wasn't even a smidgen close to being enough.

But I took in the warmth of their hug, clung on dearly to their arms as I wept.

I looked like a four year old child. I felt like a four year old child.

And as a four year old child who loved his parents deeply, I cried my tears until I couldn't do it anymore.

"Mom? Dad?"

"Yes, son?" They asked, stopping from their way out of the door and into the Caesarian Section. "Is there something you want to ask?"

I smiled as wide as I could.

"Promise me, you two would come back, right?"

Mom and Dad exchanged looks before they returned me their own smiles, Mom's a bit more tiredly than Dad's.

"Of course. And when we do, we would be a family of four!"

I knew then that it was a promise for a lifetime. Mom and Dad would definitely try to make sure that nothing bad would go wrong – the doctor even told me himself that nothing would go wrong. I was but a child in their eyes, and they might have just said it to calm me down, but I still believed in those words with all of my heart.

I believed in them, but-

Not all of them came back.

"Dear! Dear! Agasa-sensei, there's so much blood!"

"Sensei! We don't know what's causing this – her heart just started going out of control!"

"Prepare the secondary coagulants, get us some blood packets – hurry, or else both her and the baby would die!"

"Please…" Her voice sounded for the last time, sore from exhaustion. "Name him Issei. Hyoundou Issei. We promised Ryuu-kun a brother, right?"

"Don't let our family get torn apart…"

I closed the camcorder in my hands.

Dad still needed to someone to be by his side. Mom too. And my younger brother needed his older brother to be there for him too.

They all needed me to be there with them, even with all of their hearts apart.

I closed my eyes as I tried to block out the memories of my Dad's yells from the video. It was supposed to be happy, right? Dad brought the camera just so that I would know how my brother would be named. Why was it then a record of how it all happened for worse?

And Dad, Dad was devastated. He loved us as his sons, but Mom was his wife. His other half. He didn't eat, he didn't sleep for days before I finally managed to convince him to join me for dinner.

I cooked too. But my tasteless food only made the empty seat beside Dad feel a lot worse.

I placed back the electronic device back to the bag Dad left for me. It wasn't that it was entirely damning. I was still hopeful – Mom was still alive. She was just… in a coma. People woke up from comas, I knew. Days, weeks, months, even if it took years, I would make sure to keep Mom's last words. After all, there was still a chance that Dad and I, and Issei would-

I turned back to the thick glass window separating me from my brother – still in his incubator.

He looked so fragile, so weak, yet he had been the one to cause all of this to happen.

Blame him, my mind told me, and my hands clenched into fists. If he hadn't been born, if he hadn't been born-

But then, the sharp stab of regret stabbed at my being. Then came guilt.

I knew now after all. I realized, the moment his name came of my mother's bloodied lips. Of just what world I was born into, of just whose lives I had shamelessly inserted myself into without meaning. Images of a perverted teenager flashed in my eyes, of red gauntlets, of chess pieces, angels, devils, and dragons.

'DxD? Wasn't that the anime with way too much fanservice?' My now-unfamiliar voice from my past life echoed in my head. "I know it has a light-novel series, but I've never been interested on reading those. Just watching twelve minutes in the first episode made me change the channel."

Empty laughter spilled out of my lips. So he was my brother? Hyoudou Issei, the self-proclaimed Harem King, the breasts-obsessed pervert? But I didn't feel disappointed. I just felt too worse for that.

I knew Hyoudou Issei had parents. I knew he had a family, and as far as I knew, his mother wasn't supposed to be in a coma.

Why then, would the Hyoudou Issei I know through my very eyes would be like this, weak and brittle, needing the support of a machine just to breathe as a child? Why then, would the Issei I knew, my brother, in such a young age be the target of my father's glaring eyes?

"We never planned to have one more child."

The reason was simple. I was born.

I became the first child of the Hyoudou family, became the reason why my parents even took the decision to have more children. Because of that, I paved the way for disaster, my selfish wish to have siblings tearing apart my family starting with my Mom falling into a coma.

Or even worse, if I hadn't done so, Issei would've never existed.

Four years and eight months of happiness I received, in exchange for ruining my family's lives. I was nothing more than an invader, a parasite in plain sight, and yet I wasn't even going to be to be the one blamed for the damage I had unwittingly wrecked. Instead, it would be the innocent child in front of me.

I was an anomaly in this story, the aberration tilting the supposed direction by a single degree. I made waves, and the first thing I did in my life was to tear apart the family I always wanted to have.

I didn't know what to do.

AN: Welcome to Deconstruct, my first SI-OC fic.

This starter chapter has been in the works for a week already, the complete concept behind it already done a month ago. Don't expect updates to come quickly – this is difficult for me to write, as I usually write happy stories. I don't like making people sad after all.

But this idea had to be written, had to be shown to the public. This is what it says on the tin: a deconstruction. This is an answer to what I've read so far about this fandom, about the concept of SI-OCs and to all the clichés I have seen. This isn't made to slight anyone though, or to bash any characters.

This is a fic on Highschool DxD. This is not meant to be nitty or gritty, not meant to be angst or gore. This is meant to be the shadow of humor, and how some things have to be remembered while writing stories. I wrote a 'writer' character to make that point after all.

The first deconstruction: the birth of a reincarnated SI-OC.

Not all changes would happen through expected ways, and sometimes, just the fact of your existence would make things worse. This is the meaning of the summary.

"Sometimes, the addition of a new piece allows for more solutions, more ways to solve a puzzle. Other times, all that happens is that-

-things would break apart."

Thank you for reading, and please leave behind reviews before you leave. As for the fans of my other works, please wait for a week at most – I'm also finishing up the next chapters of both SkyWorld and TBaC.