Great Teacher Grimoire 13 (High School DxD, OC-SI, Celestial Grimoire) (Patreon)

You may not like it, but this was what peak elf performance looked like.

The first among the rituals that I’d done that night was the one that had boosted my stats by no small amount. It was like there’d been a wall that I’d been living under in terms of my speed and strength, and then, in an instant, I’d pushed through to the other side when the whole thing was over with. There was now a potency, or maybe more accurately a potential, that I could feel thrumming throughout my body.

In terms of raw speed, strength, and durability, Kalawarna and Mittelt were both sure that I outstripped them now. Not by some absurd amount, yet enough to be noticeable, especially when I was applying Mana Skin to boost myself even further. Even my mind was racing faster, and it took a bit to get my instinct to twitch at sudden sounds under control. However, walking into Kuoh, I was still a little tired, as back in my apartment, I’d barely gotten any sleep, and not from the fun way.

Trying to drown out the sounds and smells and all of the intensified physiological aspects of my elven body was easier said than done. It’d likely be something that I’d be trying to wrangle under my control for the next while, if I were being entirely honest about the matter. Considering how it gave me another boost in my magical reserves, though, I couldn’t be that angry.

Every step I took held a further touch of elven grace now. While I wasn’t anywhere near the bullshit Tolkien’s elves had been capable of, it felt like I could see a road that led to it eventually. All in all, the nerd within me was delighted that I had somehow managed to wind all the way back to basically being a D&D character.

Now, if only I could dual-wield swords and maybe have some sort of animal companion, my Drizzt fantasies would be complete. Much like how all evolution inevitably led to crabs as the optimal form, the optimal character was an Elven Ranger dual-wielding swords with a big cat minion.

I didn’t make the rules. I just followed them religiously.

In terms of advancement, outside of the process to reinforce my bloodline further, I ended up summoning that sword for Mittelt. When we promptly went out to practice, however, we got to experience how bullshit it was. Despite how much I was being enhanced, or the knowledge of swordsmanship I possessed… the gap between me and Mittelt wasn’t measurable.

When it was a contest of pure skill, she was the most peerless swordswoman that any of us had ever seen. It wasn’t even close. The tiny blonde Fallen was terrifying, a dervish attacking at angles I could scarcely comprehend, a master running on pure instinct. When we fought without reinforcing either of our bodies with mana, it was all I could do to keep up. Not winning, not overpower her, barely keep up, as she beamed with barely hidden, feral delight all the while.

Was this enough to cross the gap between low-class and mid-class? Probably not. Skill alone couldn’t solve everything, but it could make certain things easier to handle. When she actually ends up applying any real spellcasting from her free hand or reinforcing her body, it would be a potent source of strength for Mittelt.

Someone else might have been irrational about being beaten by a pint-sized Fallen. Me? I was over the moon; she now had the means to keep herself safe when I wasn’t around. Against truly powerful foes, it wouldn’t work at all, but I’d take what I could. Bit by bit, we could bootstrap these low-class combatants into actual threats.

The last thing out of the bunch that I had time to do before heading to school the next day was manifesting the Ring of Bonds. Not that I had an answer from Mittelt about it either way, but I still took to keeping it on my person. As for the rest, well, hopefully I’d be able to clear them out when I got home from work.

I walked in feeling like a million bucks. Maybe some of that was visible in the more curious looks the supernaturally inclined students gave me. They could tell that there was something ever so slightly different, at least to anyone who wasn’t Issei. That boy was so new to being a Devil with magic and just about everything else that he couldn’t tell even large differences in power in a person that way, let alone small ones. 

It was a good, wonderful, bright April 10th, and the world was coming up Frederick as far as I saw it. Now, that wasn’t to say there weren’t other things that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to. I still had to give Issei the news about Yuuma, or Raynare, and frankly, I wasn’t sure how the kid would take it.

How did you handle your first sort-of-girlfriend ending up being some sort of biblical Fallen Angel who murders you? Should you be glad because it was metal as fuck? Sad because you died? Angry because you wanted to smack a bitch? Some mixture of the three? I had no idea, as the mind of even a normal teenage boy could be impenetrable at times.

Let alone Issei’s.

I myself was the sort of person who couldn’t sleep well if I knew there was someone out there who specifically wished me ill. It was something I’d come to discover about myself, along with my preference and proclivity for decisively ending threats.

The same might not be able to be said of Issei. r. So I had some degree of trepidation when my English class rolled around, and I told Issei I wished to speak with him around lunch. While someone would ostensibly think it was about his grades, that was fine.

Issei, surprisingly, wasn’t actually a bad student. He’d studied to get into Kuoh in the first place and had the intellectual rigor to apply himself when the need was real. It was why I’d been hopeful that he could change his ways originally. Given that there’d been no more peeping, or at least none I’d heard of concerning him, that much seemed to be true.

“Sensei,” the boy spoke, giving me a nervous smile as he approached my desk.

“Issei,” I said, nodding back in greeting. “How are you feeling?”

“Like all of this is one long dream I’ll wake up from. I’m the Prez’ underling, y’know? A Devil! It’s…”

“It’s a lot, I’m sure. But that doesn’t mean it’s not fine to be a little lost about the matter. No matter what anyone says, you’re still very much a kid,” I assured him. “It’s okay to be kind of lost and unsure. This is the time in your life when, in fact, you’ve got the most leeway for that kind of thing.”

After a traumatic event, I’d normally caution him to go to some kind of counselor. However, I wasn’t really sure if Japan even had the structures for that sort of thing. Not therapists; obviously they had shrinks. I’m talking about specific individuals meant to speak with children, and Issei was a child, no matter how much teenagers liked to ape at maturity. Sometimes letting them have the space to grow that maturity was good and positive, and times like this were when you had to be a bit vigilant.

Perhaps Devils had a super special way of dealing with trauma. I had no clue, as it wasn’t mentioned in the history books Sona had given me. So I’d try to meet Issei where I could on this matter.

“... I appreciate that, sensei,” Issei stated, having taken the moment to gather his thoughts.

“And I can assure you with some certainty that Yuuma, Raynare, whatever you want to call her, will no longer be a problem for you. Nor will any of the Fallen in town.”

He blinked in surprise. “Wait, what?”

“They’ve been removed,” I continued, as his eyes widened at my words. “Through my own actions and the assistance of Miss Sitri’s peerage.”

His confusion only grew deeper. “Sitri?”

“Ah, I forgot, Sona Sitri is Souna Shitori. She’s another pillar heiress and Devil King.”

“The student council president is a Devil?!” He exclaimed in a loud whisper, glancing at the door as if she was going to barge in and smite him for saying the words.

There was no one listening to our conversation, though. My hearing was good enough for that now, and I could generally tell where most people were around me. Yes, I was going all in on Elf bullshit. 

“Try not to say it so loudly next time,” I lightly chided him.

He winced, rubbing the back of his head. “Ehehe, sorry, Sensei. But… she’s a Devil?”

“So are all of the student council members. Seems like a prerequisite for joining them.”

The amount of infernal control they held over Kuoh as an institution was… worrying. I hadn’t quite resolved to leave yet, seeing as I was still enjoying teaching here. That didn’t mean I couldn’t see it on the horizon.

My future institution, the one I pictured in my head, would be open to students of all races, species, magic systems, and creeds. And I didn’t think I could reach that new dream of mine if it meant sticking around Kuoh. Matters for the future, though.

“Wow,” Issei hummed, looking awed at the prospect.

“Anyway, back to what we were talking about.”

His initial surprise faded a bit as he realized what we were now circling back to. “Yuuma.”

“Her real name is Raynare, but yes. She’d sent her forces after me, and frankly, I’m not one to let a slight go unanswered,” I admitted to the boy, shrugging nonchalantly. “Which is why I want to say—and I say this with some confidence—that the threat  to you is over.”

It’d be one thing if she was after me. Going after my students was another thing entirely. I couldn’t abide by that, and it made it easier than I’d have imagined to put her down or the other Stray Exorcists that had followed after her. It was part of the reason why I’d been so overly judicious with my usage of Judgement Swords at the end.

Apparently, I had a few different triggers for things that made me lose my shit. Threatening me, threatening the people I cared about, and threatening my precious students. Pretty normal stuff to be honest. Compared to what some people went nuts over, I felt like those were fair things to crash out over.

Issei’s adam’s apple bobbed as he seemed to struggle with whatever emotions he was feeling. Anxiety maybe? Dissatisfaction at how things had played out? A little bit of sadness, I felt, looking into his eyes.

“She killed me…” He breathed out, hands flexing and tensing at his sides. “And she was also the first girl that I ever loved. Is it weird, sensei, to be sad that she’s gone?”

“Yes and no,” I freely admitted with a shrug. “A lot of people will tell you that love can come instantly, but personally, I think love is what remains when the lust is gone. In ten or twenty years, are you going to remember Yuuma, Raynare, as someone who you cherished beyond all reason?”

“... No,” the teenager admitted, having been forced to come to grips with it. “It was a mask she was wearing to get close to me, wasn’t it?”

“It was. You’re at the age now where any crush can feel like love. A lot of it is lust, admittedly, though that’s also average for teenage boys. Even grown men.”

Did I love Mittelt? I didn’t think so, though I could also see a world where I fell wholeheartedly, unabashedly in love with her. I liked her a lot; I liked her personality, her looks, the way she looked at me, and more besides. However, I was old enough to at least make a distinction between the fact that you could feel a great deal of romantic affection for someone and not quite love them at the same time.

“On the flipside, once you get yourself someone you love, multiple someones, even, you’ll probably find that the experience is a lot of fun,” I added, getting the boy to perk up a bit.

“Really?”

“I mean, everything I’ve heard from people confirms that harems are pretty common on the supernatural side of the world. If you want to be a harem king, then you’d better get strong enough to claim the title.”

From the way he looked at me, you would have believed that I’d hung the stars in the sky. Perhaps it was because no one had ever actually taken his declarations seriously. But, with his new life, a Sacred Gear, and being a Devil…

It was actually quite feasible.

“Sensei…” The boy teared up before dropping into a low bow. “T-Teach me how to be strong, like you!”

Now it was my turn to blink in utter surprise. “Pardon me?”

“You’re strong, aren’t you? I’m a Devil, but compared to where I should be… I’m still so weak!” the boy admitted, looking chagrined with the situation.

“Isn’t your peerage helping with that?”

“Right now, I’m still getting used to being a Devil,” he admitted. “Which means I’m on flier distribution duty.”

“Huh.” That was news to me, but I knew such little information on the internal functions of the Gremory peerage and, outside of Issei’s treatment inside of it, didn’t have much interest in it either. “As long as it won’t cause any problems with your school or your peerage, there might be something I can teach you.”

Almost immediately, his face lit up as he stood straight. “Really?”

“Mhm. It’s a bit of a novel form of magic, but I think you’ll find yourself liking it just fine.” Giving Pyromancy to Issei was bound to be interesting, if nothing else. And he was an emotional guy, which meant that he was the ideal target audience for the field.

“I’ll take anything, Sensei, if it helps me get stronger.”

“Bold words. In exchange, I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”

With his eyes blazing with an enthusiastic fervor, he hastily nodded. “Name it!”

“Tomorrow, there’ll be a new exchange student coming here. I’d like you to show her around and help her get situated. They’re also, by the metrics of teenagers, a cute girl.”

Already, I could see his nostrils flaring at the news, but I held up a hand to forestall any words about to fly out of his mouth. “This is me placing some trust in you, Issei, to handle it for me. Provided you’re a perfect gentleman to Asia, and the other members of your… perverted trio… can behave themselves, I’ll teach you my magic.”

“I’ll be on my best behavior, sensei, I swear it!”

“Consider this a contract between you and me if you need to,” I assured him. “Might help you start completing contracts, too, ahead of schedule.”

Most of the time people gave up magical energy, bits and pieces of life force, or whatever for the sake of their dealings with Devils. I didn’t care a lot about giving up a year or two here and there when it came to helping out a student. Not when it was a renewable resource for someone like me.

That didn’t mean I was a fan of the process. But those fliers didn’t work for anyone to begin with. If you summoned a Devil, it was because you had the need and willpower strong enough to make that sacrifice to begin with. Someone that focused could find far worse ways to achieve their ambitions.

“Thanks, sensei!” Glancing at the clock, he balked. “Oops. Lunch is almost over.”

“We’ll chat more about the training tomorrow once you clear it with your boss,” I assured him. “Have a productive day, Issei.”

With that, he ran off, leaving me alone with my own lunch. Not much really happened for the rest of the day, outside of me toiling away to try and catch up with work. Another reason why I was growing less and less enamored with the extraneous tidbits of the Japanese school system. For now, it was my job, and I intended on doing it to the best of my capability.

Another situation where being inhumanly intelligent was coming into play, as I plowed through grading papers.

The feeling of coming home to someone waiting for you could not be overstated. I mean, like, I’d walked back to an empty dorm room or apartment loads of times and hadn’t really thought twice about it at the time. I’d been lonely, yes, but I hadn’t actually looked at the situation outside of having the thought, “Damn, I wish I had a girlfriend," or considering getting a pet to keep myself company.

Having that status quo change after two lives was an abrupt alteration. Not an unwelcome one, though, as I returned to my apartment to find Mittelt there. My demiplane, at least for the moment, was housing Kalawarna and Asia. Given that I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened yesterday, well, the two of them would be staying there.

Otherwise, I was very, very happy to walk into my front door and be met by someone who was excited to see me. Outright happy to see me,, judging by the way her eyes lit up. “You’re home!”

“I am,” I greeted. “Had a bit of work to catch up on after I played possum yesterday. How was the day?”

“Honestly? I mostly went back to your demiplane and dueled Kalawarna for a bit with the sword,” she explained, still looking excited every time she brought it up. “I won every bout.”

“... While you had it on you, right?”

That admission made her radiant smile stiffen as she evasively looked away. “Y-Yeah. But a win is a win!”

I couldn’t argue with that logic. While I liked to accomplish things with strength that I knew wouldn’t be taken away, I wasn’t such a fool as to act like using tools somehow invalidated my victory. If I had a magic sword and beat someone who didn’t, well, tough titty. At the end of the day, who was still standing and who’d fallen was all that matters!

Glancing around, I also noticed something else. “Did you clean, too?”

“Of course. This maid lolita dress isn’t for nothing!” Mittelt beamed. “I mean, your apartment is kind of small, so it didn’t take that long.”

“I’m being pampered by a cute Fallen Angel…” I sighed, closing my eyes happily, as I basked in a sight that my younger self would have killed for. “Anime is real.”

“I regret ever thinking about doing anything nice for you.”

“It’s too late,” I smirked. “You’ve already become a part of my fantasies.”

“Oh?” A little predatory glint entered her eyes as she approached me. “Good ones, I hope.”

“The very best,” she was assured, as my hands grasped her hips, pulling her up into a quick kiss. “But as much as I’d like to get a little more distracted, I do have a few things I need to take care of.”

“Rituals?”

“Rituals.”

She gave a little sigh of her own, hands on her hips as she stared up at me with a deeply unimpressed expression. “You’re a workaholic. Ignoring your cute girlfriend to perform occult rituals…”

That much I couldn’t deny, but much of it came from how genuinely fascinating I found magic. Like I’d said before, people were lucky if they could find their real passion in life. I was beginning to suspect that I’d gotten blessed with the privilege to discover a second.

“Sorry,” I apologized, giving her a sheepish smile.

“It’s fine,” she shrugged. “I had an inkling of what kind of nerd I was falling in with. Even if it does make me understand my mother’s complaints a little more…”

That was a very special kind of pain, and I did my best to ignore any complicated feelings that came from it. Instead, I merely reached out to hug her a little closer to my body. “Sorry. New to this whole, uh, relationship thing, so if I’m ever ignoring you, just try to tell me that I’m messing up. That sound good?”

“It’s all good, Freddie,” she smiled, looking up at me with a fondness that made my chest ache. “Most of my complaints are just so I can have something to rake you over the coals with.”

“Brat.”

“That’s the goal!” she laughed.

I broke off lest I begin something distracting to correct her ways, something I suspected she knew full well, given the knowing glint in her eyes. I found a place in my apartment to settle down and begin the other work that was on the docket, namely processing the other rewards from my Sacred Gear that I hadn’t yet gotten to.

All of the rest of the rituals I had left were wrapped up that evening. The divinatory check was useful, as I immediately used it on Mittelt to see where she was in comparison to myself. It was interesting seeing the results, since they were different between when she had the sword and when she didn’t. Without it, Mittelt made out to my senses as… incredibly easy prey, uncomfortable as it was to think of her in those terms. 

With it, well, the divination marked her down as a decent challenge. One that could be overcome with the right strategy or application of effort. That was interesting and only made me all the more curious as to the exact mechanics of the spell itself. Something that’d have to wait until later to really investigate, when I had more than a tenuous understanding of arcane theory.

The other magical process I underwent barely changed anything that I could notice. I didn’t feel magically inclined toward goodness and being some paragon of safety for the weak. Nothing really seemed out of the ordinary until I was snuggling up with Mittelt later, thumbing through one of the bottom-tier, introductory magical spells that had come with the books that Sona had given me.

She seemed positively boneless against me, as I looked over some basic introductions to temperature control. Theoretically, you could use these spells to give someone a good case of spontaneous human combustion or frostbite, if you took the advanced examples as gospel. As it was written, they were mostly used for chilling or warming your beverages.

“Comfy?”

“Mhmm.”

“What if I’m not?”

“Too bad,” Mittelt murmured, her face against my chest. “You owe me this much for ignoring your beautiful lover to play with spells. In fact, shouldn’t this help you concentrate?”

“Maybe it will,” I admitted, shrugging at the notion. “Or maybe it’ll distract me even more.”

Looking up at me, she rested her chin on my chest, impish delight clear in her gaze. “I don’t see how that’s a me problem.”

I’d concede that her position didn’t exactly lend itself all that well to furthering my studies of magic. But given that it did lead to an even more pleasurable diversion…

Well, I couldn’t find myself being all that upset about it.

Forget about being fired up; I was hyped. My blood was roaring in my veins, and I was clearheaded in a way that was hard to put into words. For a long time I’d been a little derogatory or mocking of girlfriend guys or wife guys, but you know what? I got it; I now completely understood how someone could be a simp for their significant other in every way.

Walking into Kuoh, I was practically glowing, something that Asia seemed to notice as she walked beside me. In her new Kuoh uniform, she looked like any other foreign beauty who might have transferred to Kuoh. Along with a new, plainly adorned silver ring on her finger, loaded with a translation enchantment courtesy of Sona. It’d come with her new outfit, along with other things.

In the abstract, I’d known that Devils had a wealth of resources and connections to the government. It was another to see it in action, as a whole package had come filled with basically fake identification papers, describing a whole fake life that Asia had lived. When I tried to pay, Sona only demurred, claiming this much was a service that was owed to me for the future business my apples would bring to the Sitri.

Whether or not this was true, I had no idea. The end result was that the formerly cloistered nun basically had a brand new identity, free of charge. She was all set for her new, ideal school life. Even if she did seem a little nervous about it.

“Got the jitters?”

“A little,” she admitted, giving me a sidelong smile. “A lot has changed so quickly, more than I’d have ever expected it to. But… I’m excited for it.”

“Good. It’s always hard to move somewhere new, but Kuoh’s full of good kids.” Mostly teenage girls by volume, but not as high as you’d think in genuinely mean girls. Also, Asia was pretty. Being attractive in high school opened doors for you left and right. “They’ll welcome you, and I’ve got a student of mine who’s going to give you a tour of the grounds.”

“Really?”

“Of course,” I assured her. “Your situation, at least in part, is a little bit of my fault. I’d be ashamed if I couldn’t do this much for you.”

It wasn’t like I’d made Grigori send her here or made Raynare plan to tear Twilight Healing out of the girl. That said, it didn’t mean I wanted her wandering around, homeless and unsure of herself. Especially seeing as I’d heard some uncomfortable stories about the Principal Clans and Rogue Yokai and how they reacted to foreigners in their country.

Twilight Healing was a perfectly normal, purely utilitarian Sacred Gear. That wouldn’t stop someone from just treating her as a threat, or just another resource to exploit. If I could give her a good life with my relatively boundless money to throw at problems, why shouldn’t I?

“Any thoughts on my other offer?”

“The magic? It’s…” She trailed off, looking a little unsure. “Can I take time to think on it more? It’s not that I’m ungrateful for what you’ve done. But I’m less sure about delving into that sort of thing.”

I didn’t expect that she would, not easily, anyway. The Vatican and other offshoots of organized churches tended to rely on Holy Power, first and foremost. That was fine, good even, seeing as I felt like it fit for them to serve as a bulwark against predation from other supernatural threats. It also limited their potential in some ways, though.

While she was still young, Asia had grown up around that influence. I wasn’t too surprised that she didn’t find the notion of learning Pyromancy all that enticing. If it’d been largely a discipline that could heal, maybe she could have been more inclined toward it. Either way, her rejection wasn’t something I found surprising.

Walking to Kuoh didn’t take us too long, and standing at the gates was the boy I’d been expecting. Issei stood up a little straighter at our approach, though his eyes kept drifting to Asia. Not without reason, either. While I wasn’t attracted to her, given her age, I wasn’t blind, either.

She was a pretty, young, foreign girl who had that innocent look down pat. If I was his age, I might have been in shambles too.

“Issei,” came out my greeting, nodding toward him. “Thanks for meeting us here.”

“I-It’s fine, sensei,” he stuttered out. “It was the least I could do to help show someone new to school around.”

A smirk drifted over my face as Asia beamed at him, only making him flush even more. “I’m sure you’re a regular samaritan. Now, this is Miss Asia Argento. She knows her classroom but needs to know where the other facilities are as well.”

“I’ve got it, sensei! You can count on me.”

“I’m sure I can. As long as nothing untoward happens, I’ll be happy.”

Asia, the sweet, innocent child that she was, approached and gave Issei a little bow. “I-I’ll be in your care then.”

If he was about to explode or die, I might have believed that would have been enough to push him over the edge. Somehow, though, he managed to wrangle his self-control. “Of course! I won’t steer you wrong, Argento-san!”

With that, the two of them walked off. Issei attracted no small number of curious looks, to put it lightly, from the largely female student body of the school. Provided he acted appropriately and didn’t actually devolve into perverted behavior, I’d follow through with my end of the deal. For now, another day of mundane tedium was ahead of me.

Author’s Notes

It’s the 10th of April, and Riser doesn’t come to rain on people’s parade until the 23rd of April. Which means Issei has that much time to learn Dark Souls Pyromancy, which is fortunately driven specifically by the sort of emotion that Devil Magic handles well. And then the actual match isn’t until May 3rd. I’m roughly going off the anime timeline for this, since the Light Novel isn’t nearly as good about timelines, but this works well enough.

After this arc, the world is going to open up a lot, though. I plan on having Frederick at least take a leave of absence to try and head elsewhere to find new students. That, and not quite finding that he enjoys getting wrapped up in Devil shit, which he always will, provided he has to teach at Kuoh.

I’m unsure if I want him to get more involved in the Riser Rating Game as a Contracted Magician, or if I want to let him just trust in his teaching (and the apples he’ll give Rias because of Issei) to handle the situation.

In other news, I had a lightning strike of a Bleach idea with the Chaos Gacha, and since I'm literally ahead in everything I'm supposed to be writing, I might focus on that today. Or finish my next ASO chapter. We'll see. Current working title is Dispirited Away, with the Unfamiliar Curse, starting with Soul Window, Exorcist, and Kiriha from Tsugumomo, as some guy doing his best job as a bit-rate exorcist.

I like Unfamiliar because it strips out the automatic mental bindings familiars have to serve the Gacha user, and allows for relationships to be built based on their own merits. Which works well for Tsugumomo, since the entire power system there is built on your relationship with the item spirit.

As always, let me know what you liked, disliked, etc.