Mandatory Disclaimer: Blah, blah, the gist.

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Chapter 3: Feelings to Save.

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Midoriya Izuku was lacking in a lot of places - adequate height, social aptitude when dealing with the opposite gender, and a normal childhood were some of those things - but there had never been a time in his life where he felt as though he lacked the ability to plan things through. Actually, even before acquiring his quirk from All Might, and he learned how to put the plans that popped up in his head into action, he felt as though his problem-solving ability had been way above that of any other teenager. So, that's why his current predicament was stressing him out so much.

Currently, the inheritor of One for All was using the quirk entrusted to him to jump from rooftop to rooftop, his destination being the roof of a building that was near the edge of Kuoh Town. Having used it as a place to continue training his control with One for All a many a times in the past, he knew that it would be private enough to hold a conversation with the person that he was currently carrying in his arms. Though, after everything that had happened, Izuku felt kind of remiss to even call her a "person," seeing as she had sprouted a pair of wings and started throwing around spears of what he assumed to be light.

Seriously… Izuku asked himself as he glanced down at the unconscious girl that had attacked Issei, still in utter disbelief as to what just happened. What are you, Angel-san?

As Izuku gazed upon the unconscious girl in his arms, who he had decided to call Angel-san in absence of an actual name, he couldn't help but notice one thing. She was extremely, ridiculously pretty. Really, it'd be more accurate of him to say that she was downright, drop-dead gorgeous. Her face was perfectly heart-shaped; her skin was pale and flawless; and her long black hair, that seemed to just go on and on, didn't seem to have a single imperfect centimeter to it. Everything about her just seemed so perfect, so utterly unreal that he could hardly even believe she existed - a fact that wasn't helped at all by the two wings that were sprouting out from her back.

Just what in the world is going on? Izuku asked himself as he used One for All to launch himself to yet another rooftop, there being a clear frustration in his voice. Normally, he was a rather hard person to irritate - his generally calm and understanding nature made sure of that - but his current predicament was simply a special case.

To say the very least, his entire world has been turned upside down by the sudden appearance of Angel-san. One moment, his life was that of a (somewhat) normal, entirely self-sufficient high school student just trying to get by and the next, he was fighting off the angel that was trying to murder his friend. Absolutely nothing about what he had just gone through made sense to him in any way.

Who was this girl? Why does she have the power to sprout wings and make spears of light? Why did she want Issei dead? Were there any more people like her? Those were all things that ran through his head as he continued to make his way to his desired location, body moving solely on auto-pilot at this point.

Izuku frowned deeply as he dashed across a nondescript roof, his frustration growing with every question that popped up in his mind. Thankfully, he wasn't too far off from his training spot and when he got there, he'd have the opportunity to ask Angel-san each and every one.

When consciousness finally returned to Raynare, she felt as though a truck had crashed into the small of her back with how badly it hurt and ached. Naturally arching to try and relieve herself of said agony, she found the act to be extremely difficult-so difficult, in fact, that it was actually impossible to do so without great effort. Why? Well, the fact that her entire body had been wrapped up in thick steel chains gave her a hint.

What in the hell?! Was the first thing that came to mind when she saw the attempt to restrain her. Head shooting up to her current surroundings, she found that she was sitting in the center of what the humans called an underground parking garage, though the "underground" part was mainly speculation by her. The ground under was asphalt and the pillars that ran up to the roof were made of cement, but she couldn't see a single sign of an outside world, which told her that they were currently underground. Where in the world…? How did I—?!

Being fueled by mounting frustration, the fallen angel shut her eyes hard and grit her teeth with the same amount of force as she looked back in her mind, trying to figure out what happened to get her in this position. One moment she was in the park about to kill her target then some boy—

It was then when Raynare's eyes widen in realization. It was that boy that did this to her. The one with the wild green hair… It had to be, but how could she have lost to a human? It didn't make any sense to her— No, wait… she stopped herself, eyes widening as she realized something. That power of his…

Yes, the power that the boy had displayed - the one that manifested itself in the form of electricity flowing throughout his body. From what the fallen angel could tell, it was something that caused enhanced both his power and speed significantly, though at what rate seemed to fluctuate as the fight went on. There were times where he bolted around faster than her eyes could follow and his strikes, as she stated earlier, felt like he was hitting her with a truck. She immediately thought that it was some sort of sacred gear - one that she had never seen before in the past, but that really didn't help her explain anything at all. Actually, it only spawned more questions for her to have to answer, though those were the last things on her mind at the moment.

Maybe he was a part of some devil's peerage? No, he didn't give off the telltale signs of one… Maybe… Maybe…

Dammit, dammit, dammit…! Raynare cursed to herself as she pushed against the chains that restrained her with her arms and wings, planning on using the superior strength of a fallen angel to break them. The cursing didn't do anything but throw more dirt on the thoughts that were threatening to surface, though that was all she needed at the moment. After all that had happened, her situation was far from ideal and so, she needed to improve it. First off, she needed to come up with a list of priorities, which, in the end, was actually a really easy thing to do.

At the very top of the list was breaking free from her restraints, next came finding and mutilating the boy that did this to her, and after that, there was getting back to the church so she could regroup and go on to mutilate the target that she just barely whiffed on killing, Issei. It'd all be easy too! She just needed to get the first step over and done with first…

Unfortunately, even after several minutes of struggling, the chains didn't give at all. They didn't even shift an inch, they were bound so tight around her. She even tried to create a spear of light to cut through the chain, but her hands were tied separately from her body and angled in a way where she couldn't touch her bindings. Seriously, what in the—?

"Ah, you're finally awake, Angel-san!" The fallen angel's blood somehow froze and began to boil the moment she heard those words were spoken. She recognized it immediately, despite only having heard it once before and hearing it again prompted her to snap her head up towards where it had come from. When she did so, she found no one other than the very boy she was grousing about and simply laying eyes on him made her want to tear his eyes out of his skull. Though, for some reason, seeing her rage, which had to be pretty plain for him to see given that her face was literally twisted in it, made him let out a sheepish chuckle and start scratching the back of his neck. "Haha… I-I suppose I should've expected you to react like this."

Upon hearing that, a lot of possible responses ran through Raynare's mind, all of them being rather profane in nature as her mind was currently racing with fury, but a question ended up slipping from her mouth before any of them. She kinda wished that it didn't, though. It was way too shaky sounding for her liking. "What are you…?"

The question still came out sounding with a fair amount of outrage in it, though most of it was covered up by the large amounts of suspicion and genuine curiosity the fallen angel felt towards her captor. There was more of the prior than the latter, though.

"Um…W-What exactly do you mean by that?" Even when faced with the wall of negative of emotion that was her face, the boy's sheepishness didn't leave him, though he at least seemed taken aback by the hostility.

"You beat me…" Raynare lowered her head to face the ground as she, unable to stop herself now that her emotions were raging just as most fallen angels did, and uttered the words that weighed so heavy on her pride - a feeling that was only exacerbated when she saw how non-threatening the boy looked. Did she lose to him of all people? The way he was now, the worm didn't look like he could hurt a fly, so how…? "What peerage are you from?"

"H-Huh? What are you—?"

"—Don't you dare play with me!" The words burst out from Raynare's mouth with more venom than even the shiftiest of devil's tongue, raising her head to face the reason for all her anger. "Powerful sacred gear or not, there's no way a mere human worm like yourself would be able to beat someone like me! So, tell me the name of your peerage, devil! Sitri's? Gremory's? Which one is it?!"

As each and every word slipped out from her mouth, Raynare could feel her fury give way into something else - something that, despite being dormant most of the time, came rearing its ugly head every once in awhile. Thankfully, the devil's face had done something to make it so that her rage bounce back like a wildfire in the wind. It fell… Almost like he pitied her… How dare he?

"Um… I'm sorry, Angel-san, but I think you—" Just as the boy was saying that another voice cut through the air, stopping both him and her completely.

"Ah, there you are, Midoriya-kun." Turning to where the voice had come from, Raynare was faced with the one person, or should she say, devil, that she really didn't want to see. "You're a rather hard person to find, you know that?"

"G-G-Gremory-san?!"

Of course, Izuku knew the name of the red-headed beauty that stood before him, there wasn't a soul in Kuoh Academy who didn't. She was the crème de la crème. The tip of the very top in terms of social status and popularity. If someone didn't know of her at the very least, it was very much akin to being back in his home world and not knowing who All Might was. People would look at them as if they were brought up by a pack of wolves in the wild, and it wasn't without good reason.

Just like All Might had been the greatest hero in the world, Gremory Rias was known as the greatest woman in all the students of Kuoh Academy. Be it in terms of looks, social skills, or her general personality, she easily outshined any other in their school. If that wasn't enough to get the point that she was an overall perfect human being across, she even ranked second in the terms of her exam scores, only being seconded by Sitri Souna, the academy's student council president and known genius.

Izuku had never actually interacted with the girl before, but in just looking at her for the first time, he could tell that at least a third of the what everyone at school was saying was true. She was stunning. Absolutely beautiful. Probably the closest to perfect human being the boy had ever seen in terms of appearance alone. The flawless, porcelain skin that framed her perfectly proportioned face seemed to radiate with a certain sort of glow, even under the dim fluorescent lights of the abandoned, underground parking garage that they were currently standing in. Her long, straight hair ran all the way down to the lower part of her knees and was a shade of red so deep and vibrant that the former hero in training couldn't help but assume that it had been dyed. She stood impressively tall (though, he may have just thought that because she looked to be at least a couple centimeters taller than he did), which put a major emphasis on her long, long legs - legs that were pretty much exposed due to the shortness of her skirt—

—Wait, stop thinking about that! The now vigilante chided himself as he brought his eyes up and away from places that he knew Issei would care far too much about. There are more important things to be worrying about right now!

"Uh… W-W-What are you d-doing—?" He began to stutter out a question for the girl, but he stopped himself when he realized something that made him tense up. "—Wait, you know who I am?"

As Izuku had said earlier, they had never interacted with one another once during all his time at Kuoh Academy and he was far from someone who was known throughout the school like Gremory was (or, at the very least, he thought he was). So, how did she know who he was? Also, how did she even know he was here, to begin with? He had been trying his best to make sure no one saw him!

In response, the crimson-haired beauty simply cocked her to the side as if what he just said made no sense whatsoever, but after a second or two of silence between them, her brilliant blue eyes widened in what Izuku assumed to be realization. "Oh, right, there's no way that you would know about that…" she muttered to herself, raising her hand in a loosely balled fist to her mouth as she did so. Suddenly, she planted the back of her wrists onto her hips and smiled at him. "Well, anyways, don't mind that for right now, I'll explain everything later." And, just like that, his questions were brushed away as if they didn't matter. Great. "For now, I think that there's a certain elephant in the room that we need to talk about."

When the topmost lady in all of Kuoh had said, her eyes shifted over towards Izuku's right, immediately giving the green-haired boy an idea as what she was referring to. That had thrown him for a loop for sure.

Of course, the dimension hopper had expected the topic of conversation to eventually shift over to the girl that sat a few feet behind him. The entire upper portion of her body had been completely wrapped up in chains and the only parts of her that were visible were parts that were… well, visible. He couldn't help but think that the entire scene looked like something out of one of Issei's fantasies.

Shaking the thoughts out of his mind before they backfired (which had been a lesson that was learned from both Issei and Mineta back in his world), Izuku glanced back at the woman who had tried to kill his friend and instantly took notice of the look of pure malice that adorned her facial features as she glared at Gremory. That was far from a good sign in his books.

That look… Izuku thought to himself as he quickly turned his attention back towards Gremory, who seemed unfazed by the look that the dark-winged angel was giving her. Now that I think about it, didn't Angel-san mention a "Gremory" earlier…?

"Um… A-Alright, what did you want to talk about, Gremory-san?" The inheritor of One for All internally cringed at the shakiness and clear distrust that was present in his voice when he started talking. Thankfully, he was able to somewhat disguise it as he continued, but the apprehension was most definitely evident.

Izuku couldn't help the emotions that were leaking into his voice, though. There was definitely something different about the woman standing before him. What exactly it was, he didn't know, but it most definitely had something to do with the word: "Devil."

The glare that Raynare was currently sending the woman that she knew as Rias Gremory - a woman that she had never wanted to meet face to face ever, much less after she was beaten by a human of all things. To her own credit though, the said woman was a member of the infamous Gremory clan, one of the last remaining 72 original devil families, known as the Crimson Ruin Princess by her peers, so her being afraid was honestly pretty justified.

Honesty didn't make the fallen feel any better about what was going on, though. Actually, it made things even worse for her as her pride made it almost impossible for it all to swallow. First off, she had been beaten by a human and now, the area's ruling devil knew about her, a detail that made everything a trillion times worse.

"First off, I must say that I'm impressed with how you dealt with the fallen angel sitting behind you," the red-headed devil began, crossing her arms as she did so. There was now a smug air surrounding the girl that made Raynare want to slap her head off that pretty little neck. "Even for someone with a sacred gear, you should've had some sort of trouble, but from what I saw, you beat her pretty easily."

For what was probably the hundredth time during the start of their conversation, the human, who she now knew was named Midoriya, visibly tensed at the mention of the fight. It looks like her assumption that he was a devil with a rare sacred gear was off the mark… Damn it. "…Y-You know about that?" He asked, stepping a step back as he did so. "H-How—?"

"—Oh, I watched," Gremory cut the boy off before he could finish the obvious question to be asked. From where Raynare sat, she could tell that the devil did it try and reassure the boy that there was nothing wrong, but it seemed to only have made him even tenser.

"Y-You were watching… H-How—?" Suddenly, the green-haired worm's eyes widened in realization as he cut himself off. "—Wait, doesn't that mean that you were you watching the entire time?!"

The devil blinked at the sudden intensity of the boy's voice before then nodding and curtly answering, "Not the entire thing, no. I only really caught wind of what was going on right as you jumped into the fray, so I wasn't able to see everything that happened. I was still able to grasp the gist of what was going on, however." That was when Gremory suddenly shifted her blue gaze over towards Raynare and the fallen instantly felt a chill run down her veins in response to the ice that was present in the devil's eyes. "And from what I saw, I think that the fallen sitting behind you needs to reminded just exactly who's territory she's on right now."

"F-Fallen…? Territory…?" Like an idiot, the boy repeated every keyword that was present in what Gremory had just said, which would've irritated Raynare greatly if not for the fact that she was currently too busy glaring daggers into the devil that he was repeating. "W-What are you…?"

"Oh…" Again, the devil blinked and stared at Midoriya owlishly, before then reaching up and cupping the tip of her chin as she looked down at the ground in what seemed to be contemplation. "It seems that you really don't know what's going on…"

"Well, we can just save that explanation for a later time, Midoriya-kun." Then, all of a sudden, Gremory's eyes raised themselves up from the ground and pointed themselves back at Midoriya. "For now, just know that there are currently forces at work that are beyond your current understanding," she began, shifting her eyes over to Raynare as she spoke, "and that those same forces dictate that a certain someone here gets punished for what they've done."

Raynare's eyes widened at the declaration and then immediately narrowed in response to what she perceived as a threat. Surprisingly enough, even though she opened her mouth to retort, her voice wasn't the one that she heard respond.

"'P-Punishment'?" The green-haired worm in front of her whimpered back in what sounded like surprise, which confused the fallen angel because didn't he bring her here to in some way? Why else would he chain her up and bring her to a secluded location like this? "What do you mean, Gremory-san?"

"What I mean is that she knew exactly who's territory she was on and what our rules are when you're on it and yet, she still found it acceptable to try and kill a human," Gremory explained to the boy in possibly the most condescending tone Raynare had ever heard in her life. "From where I'm standing," the devil then turned to look at the chained fallen, "I think that's more than enough reason for me to execute you right here and now, fallen."

"Wait, 'e-execute'?! Hold—"

"—And from where I'm standing…" Thanks to all of the anger that was running through her veins due to not being able to get a word into the conversation the two were having about her, Raynare was able to violently ignore the fact that she, in fact, wasn't standing. "I think that you existing is a good enough reason for me to want to rip your head off of your shoulders, so I suppose we're even, devil."

"Ara…" Suddenly, a new voice cut into the conversation and drew both the human and the fallen angel's attention towards where it had come from. Just then, a new face appeared on the scene and Raynare felt her heart stop in her chest when she watched her literally step out from the shadows to reveal herself. "That's quite a lot of big talk coming from the one who's all wrapped up in chains."

Just like she had with Gremory, Raynare was immediately able to recognize who the newcomer was. The long, dark black hair and deep violet eyes were tip-offs enough. She was known as the Crimson Ruin Princess' right hand and Queen, the Priestess of Thunder, Himejima Akeno.

"Oh, and speaking of those chains, Midoriya-kun…" The dark-haired devil then glanced over at the boy, who looked just as terrified as he was when Gremory revealed herself - a feeling that only seemed to be intensified when she smiled at him all of a sudden. "I must admit that I really didn't see you as the kind of person to be so good at tying people up." She then proceeded to strut over to the poor boy, lean into his personal space, and whisper into his ear, "Would mind sharing your technique with me—"

"—Alright, that's enough teasing, Akeno," Gremory eventually spoke up, stopping her queen dead in her tracks. "If you keep going, I'm afraid that you might give the poor boy a heart attack."

"Huh?" Himejima asked, confused by the sudden interruption, but then seemed to understand after pulling away from the boy that she was supposedly making so uncomfortable. Raynare couldn't actually tell from where she was sitting, but as the newcomer pulled away from him, she found that true to the Crimson Ruin Princess' words, Midoriya looked like he was made of stone, he was so petrified. "Oh, well, I guess you're right." She offered the living statue an apologetic smile as she chuckled to herself sheepishly. "Sorry about that, Midoriya-kun. I got a little carried away. I'll be sure to take it easy on you for now."

"F-F-For now?!" Midoriya repeated in his dismay.

Gremory, probably sensing that she was about to lose control of the situation once again, cleared her throat and gained the attention of the entire room, and when all eyes were on her, she stated, "Alright, so back to the topic at hand…" Her blue eyes once again found their way back to Raynare, who had been stewing in her own rage on the floor as she, for a second time, took a backseat when it came to her being the focus of the conversation. "You, what to do with you, I wonder?"

The crimson-haired devil walked over to the chained-up fallen angel and looked down at her, crossing her arms over her chest as she did so. "Logically speaking, I should probably kill you right now before you can cause me any more trouble…"

Damn… This isn't good… Raynare thought to herself as she glared up at the devil who was obviously doing her damndest to be condescending towards her. There was no doubt in her mind that Gremory could just kill her now and be done with it. First off, Gremory was completely right to say that the fallen angel had transgressed against the devils ruling over the area by trying to kill Issei and to make things worse for her, she was more than sure that none of her race would be willing to risk war by backing actions. How do I get out of this…? Come on, think! How do I—?

"Um, Gremory-san…?" Suddenly, the Midoriya boy decided to speak up. He did so timidly with his eyes being pointed down towards the ground and index fingers pressing against each other, but he decided to speak for whatever reason. "I-I don't really know what's going on right now with these 'higher powers', 'devils','fallen angels', or whatever you were talking about, but, um…" Then, with no warning, he lifted his head and looked at the Crimson Ruin Princess with a conviction that Raynare hadn't reared its head since she and he fought. "Even if she did try to kill Issei, I'm not going to let you kill this girl!"

Silence rang in the air after the boy had said that and frankly, while the two devils looked at the boy as if they were shocked, no one in the room was more surprised by what he had said than Raynare herself. She had tried to murder someone who was very clearly a friend of his and yet the boy, for whatever reason, decided that he did not want her dead. Why…? It made absolutely no sense to her, no matter how many times she went over it in her head.

"Hoh…" Himejima suddenly broke the silence that sat in between the four of them as she said, "This certainly makes things a lot more interesting."

Izuku submerged himself deeper into the warm, warm water of the bath that he had made himself and let out an exasperated sigh. Glancing around at the simple white walls of his small apartment bathroom, he attempted to keep his already overclocked mind from wandering back to the thoughts that overworked it, to begin with by looking at and taking note of everything that sat in the room.

There was the bath/shower hybrid that he was currently sitting in, an amenity that he hadn't expected when he first rented the apartment due to the rather apparent age of the building. He expected there to be a shower, but to have a combination of both? That was actually a pleasant surprise.

Everything else in his bathroom (a.k.a.: his toilet and sink) were much less of a pleasant surprise due to the fact that they were both generic-looking. They did, however, look sort of new and modern, which was a plus in his book.

…Damn it, Izuku thought to himself as he raised his head up from the water and turned it to look straight up at his ceiling. This isn't going to work…

Thinking back to all that he learned in the past few hours, the boy couldn't help but what happened to the world around him. To say that the last couple hours for him had sent his equilibrium rocketing into space would've been an understatement. Actually, it'd be pretty accurate to say that him sitting somewhere that was even vaguely familiar to him felt like a godsend.

Devils… Fallen Angels… What in the world am I supposed to do with all this information? The former hero in training asked himself, before then nearly jumping out of his skin when he heard a feminine shriek and metallic clanging suddenly come from behind his bathroom door. Crap! She's already awake?!

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Chapter End.

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Yo, I finished a chapter and before you all get on me for already actively fucking up the timeline in favor of original shit; please remember, I have very little knowledge of the actual timeline, to begin with, so this was a route we were going to take anyways if I continued to write this story while not fully partaking the sweet fruit that is the High School DxD series. I'm probably going to do that, though. I at least want to know what canon events I actually can't fuck with, y'know?

Anyways, I got this entire thing done in about a week. The past week to be exact. I've just had a lot on my plate as of late and so, actually working on a story was pretty hard. Sorry about that. Still, I got you guys something, so there's that.

Also, Merry Holidays~.