DxD : A New Hero : Chapter 25

Her Gremory Greed would not allow her to surrender Issei no matter what. Even if she wouldn't have wanted him in the first place when it comes to their Peerage, Gremorys can resemble a Dragon hording its gold. 

It doesn't matter whether they even want the gold or not or even if they have nothing to spend all they gold on, they will not let so much as a single coin go without a fight. Their Greed would demand nothing less.

...

After out laughter finally began to taper off, Sona resumed talking.

"Now don't get me wrong Shirou, I love Rias I really do but sometimes it seems like she keeps getting all the luck when it comes to Peerage members. That for once, just once, her luck has forsaken her has finally made things fair.

"This might make me a bad friend but at this moment there is nothing more than I want to do than hire that American fellow, that actor Ashton something. 

Then I'll fly him all the way here and make him break into the Occult Clubroom and yell 'BURN!' right in her face before just turning around and leaving. The look on her face will make it worth the cost."

Shaking my head in amusement, I said, "I know I keep saying this but despite outwards appearances, you and your sister are exactly alike in every way that matters."

She looked oddly pleased with that before shrugging and adjusting her glasses, "We are sisters after all."

Before I had a chance to response we were interrupted by the Council room's door opening.

"Kaichou, we have a slight problem. The repair man for the-oh", Tsubaki stopped speaking when she caught sight of me, "I'm sorry Kaichou, I didn't know you were entertaining guests."

"Its fine Tsubaki," I waved it off, "we weren't talking about anything important anyway. Besides you're going to probably start seeing me a lot around him from now on, might as well start getting used to me."

Tsubaki looked towards Sona for confirmation and seeing her nod, continued with what she was originally planning to say, "Kaichou, the repairman for the second floor's electric problem is going to arrive here at nine at the earliest. I'm afraid that we won't be able to restore power to that floor in time for morning classes."

"What about the Academy's Handyman?"

"He looked at it but it seems whatever the problem is it's beyond his capability to fix."

Sona let out a frustrated sight before continuing, "Looks like we have no choice then, we'll just have to relocate the classes for the day. We can split them up between the spares classrooms in the first and third floor for the time-"

"Actually," I interrupted her, "if you're having a repair problem, I might just be able to help with that"

I did my best to restrain my eager smile as they both gave me confused looks.

...

I, Sona Sitri, have seen and experienced many strange and unusual things in my short life. Having lived with my sister for most of my childhood has assured that. But even to me, this is new.

"That right there is your problem." Shirou's voice echoed out of large power box that was responsible for the school power supply. He had most of his upper body leaning inside and all that I could see of him were his legs.

At this moment I am in the presence of one of the most powerful existence on the continent, an Ultimate-Class Devil, a Queen of a Maou's Peerage no less, a being capable of tearing down entire mountains ranges and bring ruin to cities, and what do I do with him? I turn him into my school's handy man, what basically amounts to a little more than a Janitor.

"There is a large batch of wires that were completely burned out."

I'm not sure what made it worse; that he liked doing this kind of work or that he was actually good at it.

"If I use my magic, I can make some emergency repairs. It'll only be a patch job but it will last until the electrician fixes it."

When did my life become so messed up? Ah that's right, ever since I became my sister's sister. I was doomed from the very start.

"Is that fine by you Sona?"

"Yes, that will be fine Shirou." I replied while pinching the bridge of my nose.

Then again, Grayfia seemed to love working as a maid so maybe it was the position that just drives people crazy. Or perhaps it was a consequence of becoming powerful, a price that every strong Devil has to pay.

Does that mean that there exists the possibility that I may end up going crazy one day as well?

"Tsubaki." I called out to my Queen.

"Yes Kaichou?"

"If I ever end up regularly wearing a Magical Girl costume and start using a pink wand to cast spells of my own free will, promise me you'll kill me." I told her solemnly, "Trust me, it will be a mercy killing."

She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder and gave me an understanding look, "I promise Kaichou."

I wonder if it was a sign of my coming insanity that I felt reassured by that.

...

The endless droning of the teacher reverberated through the classroom as I stared out the window, not paying any attention to the lesson.

Turns out that Sona had a point when she told me I was ready for graduation, as I already knew most of what was being taught. It was the same for almost all of my classes. Though most of the teachers here were pretty good at their job, much better than my old school, even they can't make listening to facts that I already knew entertaining.

Thankfully I didn't share this class with Sona or any of Peerage members or else I'd probably be getting an earful for slacking off. As I sat there waiting for class to end, my mind came to wonder towards a mystery that had been plaguing me since I had that little chat with Sona. The Boosted Gear.

If Hyoudou Issei doesn't have it than who does?

Koneko claimed to have smelled the scent of a Dragon on Issei. No, to be more precise she said that the smell originated from him. 

Twice Critical, despite being a Dragon type sacred gear, is simply not strong enough to generate a powerful enough scent for her to notice when it's dormant, even when awakened the smell would be too weak to be notice unless she was standing next to it. 

There is no way it could leave a Dragon's scent all over school grounds.

That raises the question of how was it possible for Issei to have the scent of a Dragon. For that to happen Issei must have held the Boosted Gear at one point but if it had been removed he would be dead. No two ways about it, the process of removing a Sacred Gear removes the tethers the Soul has to the body.

Yet no matter how many ways I cut it, I can't think of anything other than the removal of the Boosted Gear that could explain the scent but Issei is clearly not dead. We'll at least he wasn't dead until the Fallen killed him but he had that scent well before then.

Magic has proven that a soul is attached to the body of an embryo with the first beat of its heart and the Sacred Gear alongside it. This makes the Sacred Gear tied so closely to its wielders life that it becomes impossible for the wielder to survive without it.

Yet somehow Issei shows signs of bearing a Sacred Gear that he clearly does not have.

I would have continued this line of thought if the sound of tapping hadn't caught my attention. Looking down towards my left, I found the source of the noise. There was a small crow standing on the ledge of the window and it was pecking against the glass to catch my attention.

While I didn't remember his name I did recognized the bird. It was familiar, one that belonged to one of the Devils that were assigned to guarding the border of the City. This particular breed of crows was popular among certain groups of Devils.

Though they had very little magic in them, leaving them incapable of transforming or casting proper spells, they were highly intelligent creatures capable of understanding and obeying complexes commands. 

Most importantly though their lack of magic made them incredibly difficult to detect allowing them to sneak past regular Bounded Fields, those geared towards sensing the presence of supernatural beings, with remarkable ease. It made them ideal scouts and spies.

Acting as inconspicuously as I could, I cracked open the window and slipped my hand through to take the small folded piece of paper it held in its beak. Its job now complete the crow didn't bother to stick around, as after a single flutter of its wings it took off.

After carefully looking around to make sure no one notice, I shut the window and began to read the note. 

A small voice in my head, one that sounded suspiciously like archer, sarcastically commented about the astonishing amount of effort I was going through for what basically amounts to sneaking around a couple of school girls to make sure they don't discover the existence of their secret guards.

I ignored the voice and focused on the letter instead, even if I did agree with it.

I read it once, read it again to make sure I didn't misunderstand anything then leapt straight out of my seat and made my way out of the classroom as fast as I could.

"Emiya-san what are you-" The rest of the teacher's question was cut off after I shut the door to behind me. There was going to be hell to pay later on but that can wait. Right now I had to hurry.

Something big was happening in Fallen territory.