Chapter 31: to take over (1)

*Bam*

Shortly after the portal incident, things had been chaotic among the members of Gorou's small organization.

"Spit it out. Have you calmed down enough?" she asked, with a split lip and a slightly swollen cheek.

Souji got up from the floor without the slightest sign of fatigue, despite the unreasonable treatment inflicted by Alpha.

"Grrr damn it!!"

The pale woman's Mana stopped thrashing around wildly after that last curse.

She took a few breaths, and the angry and desperate image disappeared like a mirage.

"S... sorry, I wasn't in a comprehensible enough state to handle your behavior," she said, bowing deeply.

Yet her eyes showed no apology for the blows given to her comrade.

Of course, Souji noticed it.

'...She won't forgive me unless the master returns.'

*Sigh.*

If Rei has to protect the laboratory, then Souji watches over Gorou's family.

That's also why she conducts patrols around his house and watches over his loved ones since her creation.

At the moment of the portal overload, she reacted too late for Gorou.

However, she couldn't lose Alpha.

'Yes... I did the right thing. If it's her, then...'

She concluded that there's a chance to reopen the portal.

"Rei... hurry up and get yourself together."

Alpha immediately took on her duties as Gorou's successor, after regaining her rationality.

A commendable feat, since the figure of her adoration had disappeared barely thirty minutes earlier.

Yet some creatures didn't benefit from coldness and rationality high enough to come back to their senses.

Rei unfortunately falls into this category.

*Bam*

"I'm telling you that you need to get yourself together!!"

After giving an ordinary punch to the Red Devil, the latter stopped trying to manipulate the damaged control console and mumbled incomprehensible things.

His golden eyes looked toward those deep black ones of Alpha, which no longer contained despair.

There was just great anger, but also determination.

"H... how..."

Faced with Rei's weak voice, Alpha's eyebrows immediately furrowed.

But Rei didn't notice this tiny detail because of his emotional state, as he asked Alpha again how she managed to stay lucid.

"Idiot! Of course I'm not lucid!!" She grabbed him by the collar before pulling him in her direction.

"Yet I have to make compromises with myself. And you have to do the same, or... I should abandon you."

Souji winced at Alpha's words toward Rei, because this wasn't a good sign.

'The master has barely left, and we risk fragmenting...'

She wanted to intervene, but she knew what the most rational choice to make at that moment was.

Follow Alpha.

*Burn*

Alpha immediately released her grip on Rei, as she took her distance and deployed her magic on her damaged hands.

A slight reddish glow covered her palms, revealing the burns left by Rei's energy discharge.

"...I only obey the master, not you."

The demonic energy bearing the destructive trait of the Bael clan surrounded Rei's body, as he observed Alpha.

Even though Rei was threatening Alpha, this attitude pleased Souji and the pale woman.

"Excellent, you seem to be coming back to yourself."

Alpha ignored Rei, who was still carefully observing her figure moving away from him.

'I'll return this burn to you later, but I have more urgent things to do than deal with an idiot who's only good at fighting.'

With a fluid gesture, Alpha grabbed Gorou's three journals.

Her dark eyes twitched slightly because of the pain signals transmitted by her damaged hands.

"Father wanted this to be used or hidden in case of emergency... he really had everything planned."

She spoke these words in a small personal monologue, while the sounds of turning pages filled the silent basement.

It didn't take Alpha long to go through all the notes and display a... disappointed expression.

"What's going on?" Faced with Rei's questioning, she just let out a sigh of frustration and explained her failure.

"...I can repair the portal, but these journals... they're coded in a certain way."

Yes, Alpha had access to part of the work done by Gorou and even to his future projects.

There were even his theories, but Alpha felt something was missing.

Her instinct was screaming at her that it was impossible for her father's research to amount to... this stuff.

Indeed, she wasn't wrong.

Gorou wanted to increase his synchronization with Stanford Pines as quickly as possible. So he had indeed written a large part of his research in these journals.

However, he found it too dangerous at some point.

To avoid a Gideon scenario from Gravity Falls, he falsified his research!

How? Every invention had weak points placed in it, and gaps lowering efficiency.

Apart from that, there exists a special way to read the journals to have access to more... intimate knowledge.

Alpha hadn't spotted the first trap, because it still remained relevant scientific work.

As for the second? That's exactly what had disturbed her.

The woman knew Gorou too well, but ignored his cunning nature at the same time.

"Whatever, as long as the portal works again quickly."

Rei nodded at Souji's words, which was a disappointing reaction in Alpha's eyes.

'That's why you're just subordinates... and I'm his child.'

At that moment, Alpha felt extremely lonely and considered meeting her father's other child.

After all, she had never seen Issei Hyoudou personally.

...

The events in the city of Kuoh didn't escape the eyes of the biblical faction or the Shinto faction.

Even a certain dragon, in The Dimensional Gap, perceived an anomaly in his domain.

But it didn't last long enough for him to precisely locate the "breach".

Despite all this, Alpha strived to manage the mortals and contain all the rumors circulating among supernatural creatures without factions behind them.

The only thing that completely escaped her control was the devils.

She could neither kill them discreetly nor hypnotize them as she would have done with ordinary humans.

As for the memory gun, she had indeed thought of recreating it to use against them.

But she ended up giving up on it.

Why? Too much hassle.

And especially, unnecessarily high risks.

A manipulation error with these creatures or an unforeseen event could provoke an open war with one of the three great biblical factions.

The personal relationships of the two women declaring the city as their territory are just too bothersome, but negligible in the plans to bring back Gorou and calm the city's atmosphere.

She therefore preferred to clean up all visible traces in the mortal world first, and undertook to move Gorou's main base elsewhere (Kyoto).

The experiments related to portals attracted too much attention.

She only left Rei and Asia in the old laboratory, because someone had to protect Gorou's family in her absence.

Why not Asia and Souji together?

Even though Souji had to protect Gorou's loved ones, she was lucid enough to understand that Rei and Alpha didn't get along well.

As for Asia, she was unilaterally looked down upon by the scientist who was naturally envious of anyone having too close a relationship with Gorou.

Thus, they temporarily divided into two groups, split between the city of Kuoh and Kyoto.

One watches over Gorou's interests, and the other conducts work in the mountain not far from Kyoto.

...

"W... who's there?" After his training with the other members of the peerage, Issei returns home.

Unlike his canon version at this time, the aura around Issei had subtly changed.

He was no longer as naive, but still retained a good part of his original personality.

"You took too long to spot me, Issei Hyoudou."

Rei came out of the shadow of a street, accompanied by a blonde girl familiar to Issei.

The moment he saw her, the teenager's face filled with relief.

"A... Asia!!" he said, in a tone bewildered by the sudden presence of a "friend" who had disappeared.

"H... hi Issei." Asia's friendly and innocent response almost made him want to join her immediately.

But the man at her side pushed Issei to stay vigilant.

'H... he gives me the same feeling as that damn Grilled Chicken or Rias.'

It didn't take Issei long to understand Rei's true nature and his power, because he now knew a lot about the supernatural.

After his father's sudden disappearance, he didn't take things lightly.

He knew his father was doing dangerous things.

The latter disappeared the day there were tons of strange phenomena, and Issei naturally connected this to him.

"Happy to see that you've already greeted each other, but I should introduce myself, right? I'm Rei... a subordinate of master Gorou."

Issei was caught off guard by the polite formula used by Rei to address his father.

Despite his expression, Rei continued his words in a calm tone.

"I know we have no real relationship outside of our connection with Mr. Gorou, but... I'd like you to join us, Issei."