SxS 8: Very Reasonable Events (Patreon)

Finding Issei was no problem for Sora; what was staggering was the sheer stupidity of the situation Issei had found himself in.

Apparently, Issei was unable to teleport via the magical circle and had to ride his bike to the client’s home. While that may have been kind of embarrassing for him, it still beat having to witness Issei and the client argue about the horrendous DBZ rip-off of this world.

At least nobody had tried to kill Issei today—yet. Sora vaguely remembered that this was one of Issei’s first contracts when he awakened the Boosted Gear, so he was there mainly to ensure it happened again this time.

After sitting on the uncomfortable roof for so long, Sora's ass was getting sore. Seriously, how long could two people possibly argue about power levels and horrendously named transformations?

Thankfully, Issei eventually left the client’s house and started walking back towards Rias's clubroom, his bike at his side. What was less fortunate was the appearance of another Fallen Angel.

A blue-haired woman approached Issei and attacked him after introducing herself. Sora found it baffling that assassins in this world were introducing themselves instead of actually sneak-attacking their targets. Seriously, explaining that you were there to kill someone was probably the worst way to catch them by surprise.

Issei managed to dodge the first attack this time, which was an improvement over the last time. The Fallen woman, Kalawarna, then charged in for another attack… for some odd reason. Why? She could throw those spears of hers, and Issei was literally sitting on his ass.

A small shockwave and gust of wind erupted as she closed in, pushing her back and disrupting her attack. It also somehow shredded all of her clothes.

“Aaaand she’s naked… of course she’s naked.” Sora face-palmed. “Guess this is where I step in.” He sighed heavily and moved.

Kalawarna was currently in the middle of talking, something about leaving Issei alone for today. Unfortunately for the indecently exposed Fallen Angel, Sora landed boots-first on her head before she could finish her sentence.

“You talk a lot…” he commented as he stepped off the downed woman. She was already completely fucked anyway. One sneaky bubble stole her light magic just as Sora stepped off her.

“Ah… Sora-san. Thanks for the save,” Issei said, looking between Sora and the newly awakened Sacred Gear on his arm.

“Just get to Rias… I’ll handle this.” Sora waved him off. “And stop staring at her tits, dammit! She just tried to kill you.”

“B-But… they’re…” Issei stammered, embarrassed that he had been caught.
“They're just tits… every woman has them,” Sora deadpanned. “And Rias and Akeno have better ones, anyway.” He tried to speak Issei’s language.

“Oh yeah, good point,” Issei muttered and turned around to leave, stealing another glance.

Thankfully, he was out of earshot before long.

“You know, I’m usually a pretty reasonable guy, but I kinda need your magic for a little experiment of mine.” Sora sighed and created another bubble at the tip of his finger. “No hard feelings?” he asked, waiting for a moment.

However, Kalawarna didn’t respond.

“Really? You were so talkative when you thought you had the upper hand.” Sora shook his head and fired the bubble. Kalawarna's body vanished soon after, completely destroyed by the explosion of spinning energy. The only remnant of her was a bubble full of glowing, yellowish magic.

Sora looked at the oddly beautiful object before quickly compressing and hiding the bubble in one of his pockets. He would first have to find someone insane enough to let him test if he could actually give people magic—and more importantly, if there were any side effects.

He took his time getting to the Occult Research Clubhouse, doubting that Issei had arrived long before him.

He was right. When he arrived, Rias was currently in the middle of explaining to Issei that he could indeed turn the Sacred Gear off.

Issei quickly excused himself, likely still overwhelmed by all the near-death experiences he had encountered over the last few days, leaving Sora in the room with the rest of the Gremory peerage.

“So?” Rias asked, probably not having gotten much useful information from her new pawn.

“The exhibitionist angel is gone. I just sent Issei away before finishing her off,” Sora explained. “What? Sure, I might be a shithead, but I’m not stupid,” he added after receiving questioning looks.

“I was more stunned by your description of the Fallen… but sure,” Rias managed to say after a moment.

“Her clothes vanished the moment Issei activated his Sacred Gear,” he said, shrugging. “Seriously, does the supernatural world have no indecent exposure laws?” he grinned, returning to his usual jokes.

“We don’t, actually. It’s quite fun,” Akeno cooed, already in a teasing mood. Clearly, Issei had run home too soon; she didn’t even get to say anything fun to him.

“Eh? You walk around naked too, Akeno-san? So scandalous… what would all your admirers say?” Sora asked, playing along without questioning it.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll find out one day…” Akeno teased. Seriously, how shameless are the supernatural beings? Not that Sora cared all that much. If Akeno wanted to walk through the school halls naked, that was her choice.

"Well, as interesting as it is to speculate about Akeno's streaking, I’ll be heading home," Sora announced after a brief moment of silence. He turned on his heel and walked out. His job was done, and hopefully, Issei would avoid getting nearly killed for a while.

Luckily for Sora's training-life balance, Issei had not been attacked in the next few days. However, his devil chores had not improved in the slightest. The clients seemed to grow weirder with each new contract, but that was not what had Sora feeling mildly excited.

His excitement stemmed from the simple fact that he might have found someone insane enough to put his body on the line for Sora's experiment.

One of Issei's clients was a massive man who referred to himself as Mil-tan. He was perhaps the clearest case of clinical insanity and an obsession with magical girls, but he could certainly serve as a useful test subject.

One could only hope that Serafall never encountered this... specimen of a human. If they were to meet, it might create some kind of magical girl singularity that could consume the universe.

And to think he almost ditched Issei to go out drinking today.

The anime that Mil-tan made them watch had been kind of mediocre, but it could have been worse. It could have been that DBZ ripoff… At least Jojo manga was the same, even if it ended after the conclusion of part six. How unfortunate.

Sora seized the moment when Issei went to the restroom, pulling out a small bubble of light from his pocket.

"Look, I don't think there's a power in this world that can turn you into a magical girl. What I can do is give you magic," Sora said, trying to sound as casual as possible.
"I have no idea how it might react, though. Want to risk it?" He grinned while playing with the bubble.

"Not a magical girl, huh?" the skirt-wearing bodybuilder muttered. "But with magic, I can make myself a magical girl anytime I want!" he declared.

That was all the excuse Sora needed to push the bubble into Mil-tan's body. The moment it made contact, he felt the connection to the magic vanish. It was no longer in his keeping and was now integrating with his test subject.

"Well, now you just have to figure out how to use it," Sora commented. "Just keep your mouth shut about it and mark Issei's job as complete, or whatever it is you need to do to confirm a successful contract."

Fortunately, it appeared there were no issues with the magic integrating into a human body. Sora may have just given away a useful ability, but considering how weak Kalawarna was, it wasn't all that bad. He had essentially paid a hundred bucks to gain unlimited access to a bank vault.
Still, Sora would keep an eye on this strange guy for a few days or until he managed to harness Kalawarna's power.

With Issei's first successful contract behind them, Sora decided to take a few days away from the pervert so he could focus on his own training. He had seen little success with Senjutsu and had only made limited progress in figuring out whether he could utilize the spin at all. He had a lot of work to do and very little time before things could go wrong. Maybe he could visit old Nurarihyon after all this time. He would probably be able to tell him what he was doing wrong.

———

Life had been surprisingly good for Issei Hyodo over the last few days. Not only was he hanging out with the hottest girls Kuoh had to offer, but nobody had tried to kill him during the last few days. To add to his cheerful mood, Mil-tan had marked his contract as finished, allowing him to happily report his success to Rias.

Unfortunately, he had gone straight home the previous day, so he would have to tell Rias about it today after school.

He was so caught up in daydreaming about how Rias might reward him that he almost didn’t notice a blonde girl tripping over her own feet right in front of him.

“Uh, sorry. Do you need help?” he asked, shaking himself out of his lecherous fantasies and offering the girl his hand.

She asked for his assistance in getting to the local church, and considering where they met each other, she was clearly lost.

Issei wondered why anyone would go there, as the place had been basically empty for years. What stunned him was when she helped a little kid with his scraped knee. A soft green glow emanated from her hands for just a fraction of a second, and then it was gone, as was the injury. Was that real magic? Maybe a Sacred Gear like his own?

As they approached the church, Issei felt his stomach lurch, as if everything within him was warning him not to go any further. And to think he was still a good distance away! This had to be another aspect of the supernatural world that he didn’t yet understand.

He quickly excused himself, choosing to follow this ominous feeling rather than his desire to keep talking to a cute girl, even if it pained his pride as a self-proclaimed pervert.

Issei sighed as he headed to school, already anticipating another day of being glared at by every girl he encountered. Maybe it was time to stop looking through porn magazines in public? Nah, he believed in freedom of expression. If he wanted to look at some boobs, he had every right to do so.

At least he would get to see the devil girls later; that would make up for not being able to watch anything sexy at home. He had been too exhausted over the past few days to watch nearly as much material as he used to before being reincarnated.

Hopefully, the Fallen Angels would stop trying to kill him now that they knew he was under Rias's protection. They had to have figured it out, right? That hot chick who attacked him seemed to have figured it out. She probably told her friends—it's not like Sora killed her or anything... right?
Issei remained distracted as he recounted his encounter with the cute nun to Rias, but her reaction surprised him.

"Issei, that feeling you experienced when you got close to the church—that was your devil instinct warning you that you're near enemy territory," she explained patiently. "From now on, do not go near that place." She ordered firmly. "And stay away from the nun as well. Church people are our natural enemies, Issei." She sighed heavily, likely recognizing his stubborn expression as displeasure.

Though things seemed brighter now that he hadn’t been attacked for a few days, following so many new rules was just as annoying, and Issei didn’t like it one bit.

———

The usually mundane school life of Rias Gremory was disrupted once again when Sona called her for help.

Sora, clearly bored without watching over Issei, had managed to fill every boys' bathroom on campus with thick cigarette smoke, making it impossible to see more than a few centimeters ahead.

“Focus on his training for a few days, he said…” Rias pouted as she headed to the affected bathrooms.

She couldn’t even see her elbow when she extended her arm. Why did that absolute idiot do this? Nobody knew, but if she had to guess, it was probably just him blowing off some steam.

Sona spent nearly half an hour trying unsuccessfully to open the windows and let the smoke out, ranting about how magic must have been involved. It would have been cute if they weren't standing in a room full of concentrated lung cancer.

Unfortunately, there was no sign of any magic; the windows were simply stuck beyond what even their devil strength could handle. Keeping the bathroom doors open was also not an option, as no one wanted the smoke filling the hallways.

Rias found herself envious of Akeno at that moment, simply because the black-haired girl didn’t have to deal with this shit. Where was she, anyway? Rias was sure Akeno was at school today, yet she was conveniently absent when Rias needed her to act as a scapegoat for dealing with the situation.

An application of violence and a powerful gust of magic later, Rias managed to clear the carcinogenic smoke, but at the cost of breaking a window. Sona looked torn between thanking Rias and scolding her for destroying school property. Yet, considering she was at her wit’s end, she decided to let it slide.

Several broken windows later, the hotboxed bathrooms were safe to use once again. Finally, Rias could think about her immediate plan: getting rid of the Fallen Angels that were clearly operating in her territory.

As Rias and Sona were leaving the last bathroom, the windows suddenly clicked open on their own, causing Sona to storm off in disbelief and fury. Sora was lucky they had no evidence linking him to the incident. Had Sona found anything tangible, he would have faced a lengthy lecture—or waterboarding. She looked angry enough to consider more extreme measures.

The day after Sora’s prank was oddly calm for Rias’ liking. Issei accepted another summoning, still unable to use the teleportation circle, and went off to complete it.

Weirdly enough, his magic abruptly disappeared upon entering a building. Was it a trap?
Rias quickly assembled her peerage and teleported there, finding Issei injured and in a standoff with a very unusual priest. To make matters worse, there was a dead body lying next to the couch.

A Sword of Light and a gun filled with blessed bullets? He was definitely an exorcist, but given his overall demeanor and the presence of a violently murdered human, he seemed to be a stray exorcist. However extreme the church could be, they usually didn’t indiscriminately murder humans.

What else was happening in this town without her knowledge? First Sora, then the Fallen Angels, and now a stray exorcist? Even the nun Issei had mentioned was present, though she appeared much less comfortable with the idea of killing anyone.

"Issei. Come here, we're leaving," Rias said, not taking her eyes off the deranged exorcist.

"B-But Asia!" Issei stammered.

"Issei!" Rias responded, her voice firm, a little harsher than she intended. "Asia is a nun. That makes her our enemy." She explained once more, leaving no room for argument.

Kiba quickly grabbed Issei and pulled him into the teleportation circle. The scuffle was brief; Rias only needed to flare her power to make the insane man back off enough for them to teleport away.

Issei, however, seemed quite distressed about the fate of the blonde nun. Rias would have to drill it into his stubborn skull that no matter how cute a girl may be, she could still be an enemy.