DxD : Emiya Shirou

There are too many coincidences for this to be just chance. Someone must have arranged this. Someone must have set this all up …

… Sirzechs you Bastard!

...

No- no that's impossible. Now I'm just projecting my feelings. Think about it. I know Sirzechs and while he is many things, he is not a cold blooded-murderer. Especially not of children, there is no way he'd ever hurt one. 

He wouldn't – lift a finger to harm so much as a hair on his head – Rias Gremory's words interrupted my thoughts

… he would just take advantage of their deaths. Not for himself, but his sister – Rias always had incredible luck when it comes to finding her peerage. It was like the hand of some god guiding her.

An act of God and an act of a Devil can seem remarkably similar at times.

Quickly I picked up Kiba's file again and scanned through it. Kiba was one of the victims of the 'Holy Sword Project'. Valper Galilei, the person in charge of the project, wanted to hide the details of the experiments from prying eyes so he set up the laboratory in one of the most isolated places he could find.

He choose a large patch of unused land that the churched owned in the northern part of the Taiga Forest in Russia. It was a remote and inaccessible place by non-magical means. Dozens of miles from the nearest town and nothing but thick woodland in between, it was a perfect place from him to conduct his project.

Kiba was found wandering in the middle of the forest in the opposite direction of the town, having lost his way. He had collapsed and was already dying when he was found by Gremory.

What was Rias Gremory, a twelve year old Heir of one of the 72 Pillar with an incredibly overprotective older brother, doing alone in the middle of the Church's territory located in the human world? Far away from any form of Civilization or Devil controlled territory?

Setting Kiba's file aside I picked up Akeno's next. The link was even easier to see in this one.

Akeno was born to a human mother and a Fallen father. When she was ten, Akeno's mother was killed by her father's enemies. Without her mother there to protect her, Akeno's family soon kicked her out onto the street due to her Fallen blood.

Having just turned twelve, Akeno had indirectly saved a human that was contracted by a Devil from the Gremory Clan. Terrified that the Devil would try and kill her due to her Fallen Angel heritage, she ran and hid from him.

Unfortunately while it she had succeeded from escaping from the Devil, she was captured by her relatives when she was trying to escape town. 

They were there to kill her but before her grand-uncle could land the killing blow he was stopped by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, the Gremory Clan Head's Bishop. Up until that point there was nothing too out of the ordinary, however what was unusual is that he had Rias with him.

Why did he bring Rias along? What was the Gremory Heir doing there in the first place? And was it just a coincidence that they appeared in the very last possible moment to save her but not earlier?

Tossing Akeno's file aside I reached for the last one, the file belonging to Gasper Vladi.

Like the other three, Gasper had a tragic past. Born to a human and a Vampire, Gasper's life went wrong for the very beginning. His mother passed away soon after his birth not due labor complications but because she looked upon Gasper's true form and died from fright.

This event had resulted in his father along with the rest of his relatives becoming extremely frightened of him. Combine with his Dampier heritage, Gasper was mistreated so badly by his family that he decided to run away.

During his escape he was found and killed by Vampire Hunters.

Again this is where it gets strange. Vampires, unlike many other supernatural being, don't live in the Underworld but the human world. North-Eastern Europe to be exact. 

Gasper was killed in the middle of the wilderness of that region as he was attempting to escape the Vampire Hunters. What was Rias Gremory, a thirteen year old Heiress who was once again alone, doing there in the first place?

Then there was Issei. How did the Fallen suspect that Issei had a Sacred Gear? His magical presence was so weak that Rias only found about it by pure luck. 

And even then Akeno had to literally run into him to notice, before then they had been going to the same school for months but no one realized he had a Sacred Gear. 

If things played out different it was entirely possible that Issei could have lived out his whole life without anyone realizing he had a Sacred Gear.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. This did not happen once or twice but every single time. 

Akeno in Japan, Koneko in the underworld, Kiba in Russia, Gasper in Europe and now Issei again in Japan. Everyone only joined Gremory because they would have died if they didn't, and yet not one of them had done a single thing wrong.

There was no way that Rias Gremory could have planned this. Setting aside her age I seriously doubt that she would have been willing to go through with all of this just to get Peerage members, despite what she did to Issei. Which meant just like the other involved she was being manipulated unknowingly by a third party.

And while I had no proof, I have a very good idea of who that third party was.

Sirzechs was a great Maou, though I did not like to admit it he was probably better at his job than Serafall. I knew that he is willing to go above and beyond the call of duty to protect the Underworld. 

Even if it meant sacrificing his life, I knew he would do it willingly with a smile if it was to protect his beloved nation.

He did however have one fatal flaw. Something that could ruin us all. He would put his family and their happiness above everything else, even his own or his nation. As an individual, such a trait would have been a virtue. As a Ruler, it was a flaw.

There was a brand of madness unique to Devils, a type of insanity born from their Sin. It rules them in a way human minds simply cannot comprehend, it twists them in a way people simply weren't meant to imagine. With Sirzechs it ruled over his Peerage and his family. He would happily see the whole world burn before giving up a single one of them.

If he was forced to kill one to save a thousand, Sirzechs would kill the one with a heavy heart. If that one was his family or Peerage, Sirzechs would massacre a million rather than the one. He would not even hesitate.

As a Maou he cannot show outright favoritism to his family, the Lords and people will rebel. However if he uses more subtle and less obvious methods to help them, then no one can complain. 

Helping his little sister get a powerful Peerage, one that could protect her when he couldn't, was something he would badly want.

If you look at in a certain way he did nothing wrong. After all, all he did was arrange a meeting. One between his sister and her future Peerage. And if he had to take advantage of a few dying children, well he was known as the Lord of Demons for a reason. 

You don't get a title like that for being nice after all. To Sirzechs, there was nothing that he won't do to protect his family, no price too high to pay.

Unfortunately he was not the only Maou who was like this. To protect Sona, I know that there is very little that Serafall is unwilling to do. Whether that was a good thing or bad I was still not sure.

I barked out a bitter laugh. What a mess, and the worst part of it there is nothing I can do about it. All of this occurred year ago, so long in the past it might as well be ancient history as far as I can do anything to change it.

I slumped into my chair and was about to put down Gasper's file when something caught my attention. On the bottom of the page, a few additional lines were penciled in. Lifting the file before I carefully read what was written.

Gasper Vladi's suffers from poor control over his Sacred Gear. Due to Rias Gremory's lack of power to contain him or his power, it was decided that Gasper was to be sealed away until the time that Rias Gremory matures enough as a Devil to control him.

As of the beginning of last year Gasper Vladi has been sealed away in the basement of the Kuoh Academy's old school building. He has not been let out ever since.

Letting the file fall from my fingers and onto the desk, I slowly leaned back into my chair. I inhaled deeply and shut my eyes and attempted to calm the emotions raging inside of me.

My desk fractured then exploded, sending splinters flying all across the room.

It didn't work.

Calmly I stood up, picked up my jacket and made my way out of the room. Enough was enough, I was tired of watching children get hurt as I sat back and did nothing. I didn't care about the consequences anymore.

There was nothing I could do about the past, but the present was an entirely different matter.

========================

Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)

...

if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :

 p atreon.com/Aerle