Code Geass: Devil Summoner (CG/SMT Fusion)

[Inq. Halbread]

The darkness of night smothered the streets of Old Tokyo. Not that it was a particularly hard achievement in the modern age. Ever since the nation of Japan became referred to as Area 11, the rotting infrastructure throughout the ruins of a city had been the lowest of concerns to its new Britannian masters.

No, instead their efforts had been focused on building the Tokyo Settlement on top of the ruins, investing in Britannian architecture while leaving the old city surrounding it, and the majority of its native residents in the literal darkness.

To the newly named Numbers, the darkness meant suffering, crime and vulnerability, only chased away by the meager offering of lights they set up for themselves.

To the young man stalking through those streets in the dead of night, the darkness was a godsend. It prevented those living there from seeing the blond hair, blue eyes and light skin that he sported, marking him as a Britannian, one of their conquers and, in the eyes of many, their oppressors. They didn't see the large case in one of the young man's hands, held satisfactorily but not comfortably due to the weight of what it carried.

They didn't see the silver blade of the dagger in his other, stained red.

And thankfully for the young man, had no way of seeing what he had done earlier that night.

This young man was known as Isaac Cross, known as a murder to none but those killed by his hand and tonight, he would take a well-worn path into the World of Shadows.

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Isaac breathed out a sigh, the sound of it lost in the night, as his body shivered for the last time tonight as the last of the adrenaline left his system. This hadn't been the first time he had taken a life and, while he had been getting better at controlling it, he didn't think he would ever get away from the symptoms of the dark deed he had done tonight.

"Good," a distant thought echoed in his head, "killing someone shouldn't be consequence free."

That was what a good person was supposed to think at any rate. That line of thinking had been so distant ever since he had killed in self-defense all those years ago and even more so since he had kept killing to stay living.

It was telling that any guilt his thoughts tried to force on him was quashed by the justifications that his mind thought up as he took the thankfully lonely walk back to the Tokyo settlement.

He was a member of the drug trade, preying on the innocent! Screamed his sense of Justice.

You made it quick. His sense of compassion added. He didn't suffer.

He was too tempting. His Greed and Hunger said together. It was all the money you needed this year on one guy.

He deserved it. His sense of pride crowed. If he couldn't defend himself from you while carrying that amount of money, then it was your right to take his life.

You have killed better men than he for less. His sense of nobility, long abused, said exhaustedly. You don't get to feel bad about literal scum.

To Isaac, the arguments were sound but that small voice decried them as justifications for the unforgivable.

Shaking his head, Isaac let the feeling of the warm night air on his face empty his head as he focused on the darkened street. He knew a more just man would have gotten the money he needed a better way, but the truth was that it happened. He had stabbed and killed a criminal in a dark street of Old Tokyo to get at the briefcase filled with money that he had. Now it was time to deal with the consequences of his impulsive action.

And the benefits… some part of his mind whispered as sliver of his attention went to the weight of the briefcase in his hand. He couldn't stop the small grin on his face from forming. It had been quite the score, hadn't it? The best part was that the body was in the middle of the ghetto, with hundreds of suspects in the area that would be a lot better at hiding the Black King's money than the mobster was. All the crime lord could reasonably do is send a much better underling to move the next batch of drug money.

It was a lot of money and Isaac found himself grateful for how much black the Ashford Academy school uniform used, especially as that uniform was the majority of clothes he owned at the moment. Black trousers, black shoes and a black jacket that hid the long-sleeved white shirt underneath allowed him to blend into the night very well despite the gold trimming on the latter. He was under no illusions that if he didn't blend in so well, his body would be found in the morning as well.

That was also the reason his other hand held the murder weapon, plain for all to see. It was so that anyone who managed to see him, piercing through the veil of night, saw that they would have to fight to get any prize from him. It wasn't even that good of a knife, being a sharpened steak knife that he had taken from the Academy's kitchen, but the mere threat would be enough to dissuade many. Not many were willing to put themselves at risk when there were easier targets elsewhere. He had little to fear from the more honorable citizens in the ghetto as well, the Britannian Police Force would be far more likely to beat down and arrest a "Number" for "distracting" them with their report. Even then, the outrage they would have had would die to a light grumbling when the former Japanese eventually heard that the victim was from Britannia. Such was the lack of sympathy for the culture that had a figurative boot on their own.

Isaac, of course, cared for none of this as his walk took another hour. His own mind registered it as convenient, but he couldn't say he exactly sympathised too strongly with the inhabitants of the houses. He had needs of his own to satisfy at the moment and pity was a feeling reserved for the more comfortable in the world.

And that was how it was. Isaac shaking off the last bits of adrenaline from his deeds as he walked cautiously into the night.

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

Isaac knew the moment he found his secondary destination of the night. It wasn't any particular sign on the ruined street of the Shinjuku ghetto but a feeling. A feeling of apprehension and tension filled the night as he walked on. Isaac stopped, he breathed in sharply, filling his lungs with air and hopefully confidence. This was going to be the trickiest part of the night.

He took a look around, from his position in the middle of the ruined road. Behind him, the dim lights of the ghetto shined weakly, barely piercing the darkness. Before him, however, was nothing. The street ahead was devoid of light and life equally, allowing the night to consume it almost entirely. The only thing that disallowed the area before him to appear pitch black were the bright lights from the Tokyo Concession before him. The raised city's luminescence allowing the dimmest of light to illuminate the path before him.

Isaac knew from experience that the area before him was approximately three blocks and reached all the way from the edge he stood at to the base of the raised city's struts. From there it would be easy enough to climb the unguarded struts into the Britannian city proper. This area was terrifying, to many it was considered haunted and for possibly good reason. It felt like you were watched constantly as you set foot in it and Isaac had even heard that some of the natives had gone missing within. Whether it was just a rumor that only pools of blood were found after their disappearance, he didn't know. What he did know was that he had crossed that area what felt like a hundred times before and was fine.

Regardless of his unshared opinion, the natives had refused to live in such an area, abandoning it near completely and the Police Force had been lazy enough to stop patrolling an area that no one lived in. For this reason, despite the unease traversing the darkened streets, it stopped the police asking why a blood-splattered Ashford student was carrying a case full of money in the middle of the night.

So, taking another breath Isaac moved into the darkness, armed with the knowledge that he had done it before and it was necessary.

However, keeping everything together mentally did mean he had to let something go from his stoic facade.

"Hello, darkness my old friend." Isaac whispered into the night as his form was shrouded in night.

Talking… helped.

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

It was only one street into his trek before Isaac realized something was dreadfully wrong.

The feeling that crawled up his spine was completely different from any other time he had walked through here. He let out a shuddered breath as he took another few steps down the road he had taken many times before. Before, it had just felt like something had been staring at him. Now the staring felt so much more… intense.

Before it had felt as if you had worn the wrong pants to class. Now the feeling felt… Hungry… Violent…

Isaac felt like he was the last fried fish in front of a crowd of hungry children.

Isaac took a few more steps, his eyes frantically scanning left to right as he tried to see anything. Predictably he saw nothing in the darkness, but occasionally his eyes did stop over a particular patch of it or two. On a second look he saw nothing but on the first he could have sworn that he saw two pinpricks of blue, staring right at him.

Another few steps. The adrenaline that he had spent so long to get rid of was pounding through his veins once again. He could feel his heart, his muscles were tensed and it was like he could hear and see everything.

It was only because of that, that Isaac managed to throw himself back in time to avoid the purple clawed hand that appeared from the dark and reached for his neck.

It missed by a finger.

Isaac did not time to contemplate this as he scrambled back and took a look at his attacker. It was only his experience in fighting for his life that allowed him not to fall into shock at the sight before him.

What came to mind immediately was some sort of short potbellied, purple man but almost immediately its inhumanity was evident through an elongated head with a mouth about half the size as its body. Staring out from that head was two, round glowing blue eyes. Almost lastly were some tags hanging from the creatures large ears, written on was some sort of symbol.

Quickly, reacting on instinct almost, Isaac held his bloodied knife in front of him, almost as if to ward off the thing that had tried to kill him. The monster did not seem that impressed at all as it seemed to lowly grumble and leap again, claws outstretched.

It was fast, too fast for Isaac to keep up with. He was in motion as soon as its feet left the ground, stepping backwards but the leap was a near blur to the young man's eyes. That single backstep managed to avoid a goring swipe to his torso by mere centimetres but his left arm, weighed down by a heavy case, was not so lucky as a single finger reached the arm, its claw stabbing into the area just below his elbow.

Isaac let out a short bark of pain as the claw met no resistance puncturing his jacket, shirt and then his skin. He only felt what was like a sharp burn as the creature dragged its claw down, parting flesh and cloth as though it were butter. His hand spasmed, both in pain and damage to the tendons, causing it to involuntarily drop its heavy load.

The attack had taken less than a second and before Isaac's mind had fully registered it, his arm had been split open from his elbow to his palm as it bled freely. Biting back a scream, he didn't try to grab at his wound. No longer did his own fear and adrenaline fill his head. Resonating within his mind was now pain and fear and the intrinsic knowledge that he could die here.

In this maelstrom of emotions and responses, Isaac's mind settled on one emotion in particular.

Rage.

Isaac screamed as he charged the monster before him, readying his good arm to stab his knife into the creatures belly. It stared back at his sudden advance, its features morphing into some parody of confusion.

That mistake would prove fatal.

It took only a second to cross the distance and even less for Isaac to slam the point of his knife into the distended belly. Contrary to his experience, there was so spurt of blood or feeling of wetness at the point of his knife but he was gratified as the creature opened its overly large mouth and screamed. Instincts born of many a street fight didn't let the Britannian revel in it as he instinctually pulled out his knife, it remaining oddly clean, and raised it to aim higher.

In the next fraction of a second the creature fell silent as the knife slammed into one of the glowing eyes. In the next, despite his pain addled mind, Isaac was surprised to see the monster rapidly dissolve into glowing red motes as they flew away and disappeared.

He was so shocked that he only returned to reality as he felt three lances of pain down his back. Out of reflex, the injured student swung out with his knife and was gratified for the swing to meet resistance.

Looking in that direction, he saw another purple creature, sporting a wound across its forehead, rear back, lunge forward and try to bite down on his leg. It was only the adrenaline allowing him to ignore the pain that allowed him to move his leg out of the way in time and stab downwards on the vulnerable head. The knife slammed down and the creature collapsed, dissolving into red motes allowing Isaac to let out a heavy sigh.

Looking up, he saw a sight that immediately made him suck all of that air he expelled in a silent gasp.

In the dim black were six more pairs of blue lights, all clearly watching him and his brain made the easy connection to make.

He had almost died fighting just one, got lucky but still hurt fighting the second creature. He had no idea what these things were, but it could be said that his brain wasn't asking at the moment.

Obeying his first thought, Isaac dropped his knife, clutched his injured arm close to his chest and ran in the opposite direction.

Deeper into the abandoned block.

================================
AN: Yeah, a Preta's feral claw is insane when you are level one and have no demons.
This is only the first part of the First chapter really but there was enough left that I wanted to cover and this felt like a good enough stopping point to turn it into two parts.
By the way, levels will matter in this story so yes, Isaac can and will become superhuman quickly and will be a significant plot point when it comes to summoners.
I hope all of you enjoy reading.

 

[Inq. Halbread]

Isaac tried to stifle the sound of his breathing as he stumbled through the streets. His initial flight from the monsters had been fast, spontaneous and most of all effective. To him it was honestly a miracle that he had managed to escape them so easily, especially as the pain in his arm and his back had quickly broken through the adrenaline and reduced his fervent sprint to a hurried shuffle.

Isaac held back a laugh as another spike of pain erupted through his eviscerated arm, causing him to gasp through gritted teeth instead. It was just so typical of his life that things went this way tonight. Because when things went so well, when he thought he could literally get away with just killing one person this year, life decided to shit on that thought violently. All that changed was this time it wasn't an assassin, or desperate bounty hunters or even just native thugs looking for a fight. This time it was that his shortcut in and out of this ghetto was infested by monsters, of the purple variety and others.

He had seen them, as he tried to sneak through the streets avoiding any pursuers because he knew for a fact that they would. Occasionally, he could see what looked like the vague outline of a skull floating through the air erratically, easily seen through the darkness by the blue fire surrounding it. The other type of creatures he had seen were far more human like than the last two. From a distance it had a silhouette identical to a human and honestly, he would have said it was one except for the deep guttural growls they emitted and the solid, glowing yellow eyes that looked out from their slack faces. Isaac would eat his shoes if those weren't zombies, likely the Japanese who had gone missing when people still lived here. As long as he wasn't bleeding out at the time of course.

Another spike of pain erupted as he tightened his arm's grip on the wound, trying to hold the two sides of severed flesh together. It honestly wasn't helping the bleeding at all, his lifeblood still freely flowing down the back of his left hand to drip on the street. Isaac grimaced as he tried to imagine how much blood he had lost already. He didn't even have the time to improvise a bandage or anything from the ripped remains of his jacket.

All he could do was to keep going and hope that he had enough time to find somewhere safe and do something about his arm. Unfortunately, have had no idea what to do about his back as he dimly noticed another wet droplet ride down his spine.

So that was what he did, and after another few minutes of dodging monsters, he began to notice that he was breathing harder than usual.

How much blood did he lose? He didn't know and every labored step he began to doubt that he could do anything about the bleeding. Back in the Homeland, he had heard that such a lengthwise cut would kill you in minutes, especially if it happened to both of your arms. Did that mean that he had more time because only one arm had been cut? What about the wounds on his back? How much blood was he losing that way?

These were the questions one learned to be mindful about when you were homeless, and unfortunately like most of the times they were asked, the answer was that Isaac had no idea. All that he could tell about his condition was that he was feeling a lot more tired and cold than he had an hour ago. Whether that was from blood loss, shock, or simple exhaustion, he couldn't say.

It took another minute of walking before he saw something in the distance, just down one of the streets he was crossing. Out there in the darkness, it looked like the embers of a fire. It was not the blue fires of the ghost things he had seen floating around but what looked like a completely mundane fire. A fear shot through Isaac that what he could be seeing was yet another monster wandering around this 'abandoned' area. However, it was the only clearly visible landmark within the gloom, so Isaac made his way toward it.

As he took each agonising step, the source of the red glow became easier and easier to see. When he caught a clear sight of it, he felt himself take a sharp intake of breath. It was a skeleton, but the bones were blackened and took on an inner orange glow, as if the insides of the bones had not finished burning. He could see that there were cracks all over it, leaking the red-orange light he had seen before, and occasionally leaking an ember to the scorched road below it. It held itself up as though its previous owner had been crawling on its hands and knees, its arm raised in a hauntingly pleading gesture. His eyes turning downward, he saw the scorch mark as if it had originated from the skeleton in the centre, as though it had suddenly caught fire and incinerated on the spot.

Isaac moved closer to the light of macabre corpse and as he did, he swore he saw something particular. On the skeleton's outstretched arm, barely blackened was what looked like a silver wrist computer. From it ran a wire that ran along the skeleton's arm to a silver eye piece, similarly undamaged, hanged off the skull's eye socket. The next and most important thing he noticed about the computer was that the screen was flashing and that something was written on it.

In pain, tired and bleeding, Isaac didn't know why but he got down to his knees in front of the screen and tried to read it through his cloudy eyes. It took him a second, but he recognised it as Kanji and English which he translated to

SUMMONER ERR: NOT FOUND. AUTO RLS ERR. RLS DEMON?

Isaac, through experience dealing with computer errors and a mind too muddled to make deeper thoughts about the subject, did what came naturally when dealing with computer errors. With his bloodstained right hand, he pressed the button marked with a green tick.

Suddenly the wrist computer flashed in a green light with green pixels and Isaac leaped back quickly, immediately collapsing as he tried to support himself on his injured arm without thinking and crashed to the ground with a hiss. From his position, lying on the ground, clutching his arm in pain he had the perfect view to see those green pixels transform into red motes and all collect into one red light. From that red light, something phased into existence.

His immediate thought was that it was a small woman who reminded him slightly of a fairy, slightly larger than his fist. She was floating on long clear gossamer wings, and she had long, elfish ears that peaked out from her head of shortly styled brown hair. She was wearing a blue leotard with blue thigh boots and long gloves that came up to her biceps.

She stretched her entire body and yawned.

"Yesssss! Freedom!" She exclaimed, her voice light and airy. "I thought I was going to be stuck in that losers COMP forever!" Her eyelids opened, revealing normal eyes that rested on Isaac's prone form with yellow irises that seemed to glow with an inner.

"Oooh!" She gasped her hand covering her mouth. "And rescued by such a cute human too!" Her eyes flitted over Isaacs body and landed on his wounds, and the pool of blood forming under the limp form of his eviscerated left arm. "Or should I call you a cute corpse?"

She lowered her hand, revealing a mischievous smile. Despite the pain he was in, Isaac's eyes narrowed in a glare by instinct.

"Very funny." Isaac's tone managed to come out dry as a desert despite being nearly inaudible. "You make jokes over every dying guy or am I just special?"

"Relax." She waved her hand dismissively. "I owe you one, so I'm not going to let you bleed out. You mortals can take things way too personally."

She then shifted, her body glowing a green light as she spread out both her hands towards him. Next thing that Isaac knew was that he glowed with that same green and it faded as quickly as it came. With it faded the pain in his arm and back, the miasma over his mind and he felt so much warmer than he just was. Eyes widened with shock; Isaac took a look as his left arm as he raised it to his clear vision. His intact, unbleeding arm. Even his jacket and shirt looked good as new, except for the stains the pool under his arm had caused when it miraculously fixed itself in that light. Isaac raised himself to a sitting position, marvelling at the strength he didn't have mere seconds ago. He had actually gone from dying to completely fine in less time than it took to take off a shirt.

"See," The fairy's voice broke him out of his thoughts. Looking at her, she was now liaising about in the air, as if she were laying on a couch. "Now's the time to shower me in thanks."

"Holy shit, thank you." Isaac blurted out immediately, flexing his arm. The fairy stiffened, her face showing her shock at the sudden thanks.

"W-well," She began, getting herself under control. "At least you're way friendlier than the last human?"

Isaac's eyebrow raised and made the easy connections.

"Is that them?" Isaac gestured to the burned-out skeleton.

"Yep!" She replied with a happily, completely unaffected by the skeleton before her. "He was such a meanie. Said I was 'a tool of Yatagarasu'," She pouted, mocking a deep voice. "And then the idiot said, 'Samurai don't thank their tools for doing their job'. Can you believe that? Thinking that I'm like, a sword or something!?"

She paused waiting for an answer, only for her face to fall as she saw the expression of abject confusion on Isaac's face.

"You have, like, no idea of what I'm talking about do you?"

Isaac let out a hum of agreement looked around at their surroundings, trying carefully to avoid focusing on the skeleton. The fairy woman sighed, her head and arms hanging down in front of her in disappointment.

"Aww. I was really hoping that I had been saved by a cute looking summoner." She whined. "I don't want to have to hide 'till morning because of those gross Preta…"

"Preta?" Isaac's question interrupted her.

"Yeah," She looked up questioningly. "Those purple monkey things that barely speak. When they are hungry, they try to eat anything, even cute little demons lime me." She finished with a flourish at herself.

"You're a demon? Aren't you a little too… nice to be a demon" Isaac questioned again, both eyebrows raised this time.

"Wow, you really do know nothing, don't ya?" The fairy let out an exasperated sigh, her emotions showing on her face. "Demon doesn't just mean something big and mean, it's a name for everything that isn't human in creation." She pointed to herself. "Like me, I'm Pixie of the Fairy clan."

"You are a pixie?" Isaac confirmed, seeing her nod. It made sense to him based on what he remembered on legends about pixies. A carefree small woman with wings definitely fit the legends of a mischievous spirit.

"Hey," the Pixie began, face serious. "You are surprisingly calm about this. You aren't freaking out like most newbies do when they see demons for the first time. You, ok?"

"Kind of." Isaac admitted shrugging his shoulders. "I think all of the 'Oh my god, monsters' reaction when I was almost killed by those… Preta you called them? I think my brain got so panicked that I'm just taking everything as it comes now. That or suddenly not dying in a flash of light calmed me down a lot."

"Oooh, that's why you were bleeding so much!" Pixie mimicked lying down on her elbows, interest shining on her face. "How many were there? Did you kill any of them?"

"I think there were about… eight." Isaac frowned. "Yeah. Eight but I killed two, so I had to run away from about six…"

"Killed two, huh… alone…" her face fell into concentration. Isaac felt as if she was asking herself a question.

"You know, why the hell not!" She exclaimed, straightening up so that she was floating upright. "Hey, human. I don't think either of us want to wait around this creepy place till morning."

"That's kind of obvious." Isaac nodded. "I don't know about you, but I don't feel ready to fight with more of those Preta things any time soon, especially without my knife."

"Well, there is a way you totally could just kill those gross things…" Pixie said with a smile.

"Yes?" He motioned for her to continue.

"Its easy. Just become a Devil Summoner!"

"Okay. How?"

"Really? Agreeing before you know what it means?"

"Will becoming one help me survive tonight."

"As long as you turn out to be a good one, maybe." She replied, her smirk curving evilly upward.

"That's a given, isn't it?" Isaac rolled his eyes "So what do I need to do and what do they do."

Pixie rubbed her chin in thought.

"Well, they summon demons to fight other demons or summoners most of the time. So, you either need a ritual or a COMP." Her yes caught the glint of silver and immediately pointed at the wrist computer she had come from. "Like that one, grab it."

Instead of doing what she said, Isaac took a weary step back from the still-burning skeleton. He definitely didn't want to end up like that. Pixie looked at him in confusion for a second before…

"HAHAHA!" She burst out laughing. "No, don't worry. Hahaha. The COMP didn't do that to him." Pixie managed to control her laughter and then spoke with the straightest face she could imagine. "My last Summoner was just an idiot."

"How?"

"One of those Phantom Society dweebs challenged him to a 'duel of honour'. The idiot accepted and unsummoned all his demons, despite us calling him an idiot, and then caught a fire spell to the face."

Isaac looked at the burning corpse in a new light and felt remarkably less pity for the person it used to be.

"So, the…"

"The COMP is fine. It's a computer that uses the Demon Summoning Program to control powers humans had to sacrifice for centuries ago. A little fire isn't going to do anything like it did to the stupid costume he wore."

"Costume?" Isaac was almost afraid to ask.

"Guy dressed up like a samurai, but like half of it was made with that weird pink foam stuff."

"The flammable foam?" Isaac asked, shocked, as he kneeled next to the… COMP?

"Yep." The Pixie's smile was all teeth and Isaac felt a sigh coming unbidden from his throat. He wasn't even about to grave rob someone cool.

He was going to rob the corpse of a LARP enthusiast, and he blamed Millie Ashford, his classmate, for knowing what that was.

Without saying anything more, Isaac grabbed the silver arm computer. The same instant that he grabbed onto the computer, the skeletons arm lost its war with gravity and fell to the floor, leaving the COMP free. Unphased, he grabbed the eye piece, unhooking it from the skull with thankfully less desecration. Now holding the two pieces, he stood up fully, presenting them to the Pixie who looked them over and nodded.

"Now, it needs to synchronise to your Magatsuhi."

"What?"

Pixie sighed.

"Just put it on and tell it yes when it asks you to sync."

Isaac examined it closer, trying to find a way to put it on. He was surprised to see that what he thought was a screen and some buttons had turned out to be just one large touchscreen across the top of the arm computer, about as large as half of his forearm, of which the screen seemed unpowered. Turning it around upside down, he easily caught sight of a large latch across the bottom. He quickly made to open it but not before he made note of the logo right beneath the latch.

It was a familiar, stylised fleur de lis, surrounded by an upside-down triangle with the company's name under it.

Ashford Industries

Isaac took a mental note to look into this later, when he wasn't at risk of getting eaten by purple demons and finished putting the COMP on his left arm, over his jacket closing the latch as he did so. He then fit the eye piece over his right eye, sitting comfortably like half a pair of glasses.

Immediately the screen lit up and he felt a tingling sensation all over his body as the eye piece raised up above his eye. The tingling was sharp as though his entire body had fallen asleep and been rudely awakened.

The screen on his arm lit up and across the surface scrolled hundreds of words, each few in a different language. Slowly one by one each word disappeared until one language remained that said, in English.

SYNCHRONISING SPIRIT ENERGY.

The tingling stopped as the words on the screen changed.

SPIRIT ENERGY SNYCH COMPLETE

CALCULATING SPIRIT EMIISSION

…

…

…

EMISSION SUFFICIENT. MAGNETITE REQUIREMENT NULLIFIED

AWAITING COMMAND

"Oh!" He heard Pixie exclaim, breaking Isaac's attention from the screen. "I never saw anyone have that before."

"What does that mean?" Isaac was not reassured by the small fairy's smile as he asked that question.

"Its going to make summoning so much easier for you! Oh, my sisters are going to be so jealous…"

"Ahem, explain please." Isaac demanded, breaking her from her thoughts.

"Right." Pixie raised herself up, taking a deep breath. "Demons can't take proper form outside areas with a lot of Magatsuhi. Summoners give off some of it but not normally enough of it for even a single demon, so they use this thing called Magnetite, which I think is crystal Magatsuhi, but I'm not sure."

"What's Magatsuhi?"

"Oh. I think its English name was Spirit Energy or something, but I always called it Magatsuhi."

Isaac nodded. It was harder to say but Magatsuhi sounded a bit more impressive than what its translation was.

"So, what does this mean?" He gestured to the COMP on his arm.

"It means that you have enough Magatsuhi that you don't need the crystals. You can summon demons anywhere and for however long you want." A big smile formed on her face as she said this, way too big for some thing this small in Isaac's opinion.

"So, what's the next step."

Pixie looked at him directly in the eyes, her face morphed into a smug, almost anticipatory smile. Isaac could feel the air charge with tension.

"Now, we make a contract with me."



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

It was silent in the deserted street as Isaac processed those words. Surprisingly quiet considering how infested it was with what was apparently demons.

In such seriousness, and with silence as the stage, the tension between them as the setup, Isaac Cross could not resist.

"I don't know… I don't really have any paper on me right now…" Isaac's shit-eating grin clearly visible.

Immediately the mood changed, the tension vanished, and the Pixie gave him the biggest pout he had seen a girl ever give him.

"Not that type of contract, you big meanie!" If she could have slapped him up the head from where she was floating, Isaac had the feeling that she would have. "It's a Summoning contract, so you can summon me."

"Sorry." Isaac let out a chuckle, clearly not sorry. "So how is it done?"

Her pout reduced sightly but not completely.

"Its nothing that big. We just have to mutually consent to allow the summoning and then you let the COMP do the rest."

"That's straight forward, no weird chants, sacrifices to the moon or firstborn sons, eh?"

"Eww." Pixie reared back in disgust. "Where did you even get those ideas from. No fairy would even go near those kinds of things."

"Just kidding." Isaac placated her. "So, will you be my summon until we both get out of here?"

"At least until we get out of here." Pixie confirmed putting strange emphasis on the first part of the sentence.

Immediately Isaac's COMP chimed with a message, a big x and tick mark under it.

PIXIE WOULD LIKE TO JOIN STOCK. ALLOW?

Isaac frowned at the message.

"It just says Pixie here. Don't you have a name or something?"

"No." Pixie raised her brow questioningly. "We don't have names like you humans do."

Isaac took a moment to think.

"How about… Juniper. Do you like that for a name?" He asked the floating fairy.

She looked like she was about to say something but stopped, her eyes unfocusing for just a second before coming to rest on him again.

"Juni." She said almost quietly, "I would prefer Juni."

Isaac nodded and turned back to the COMP and noticed that the message had changed.

JUNI WOULD LIKE TO JOIN STOCK. ALLOW?

Isaac quickly hit the confirmation button.

Immediately he saw Juni flash red as glowing red motes surrounded her before turning green. Unlike how she phased into existence before, it now looked like she pixelated, and those pixels quickly dissolved until he stood alone on the street.

Isaac looked down at his COMP and he noticed the screen had changed into a list that had the name of STOCK, filled with eight empty slots and one filled. On it read:

JUNI……………STA: READY

Just below that was a bar for what he assumed was her health based on its red colouring and one whose blue colour left him not wanting to assume what it was for.

With no hesitation he hit the button with Juni's name on it and it immediately moved to a newly made list that was named ACTIVE.

His attention, however, was immediately drawn to a green light that appeared next to him. On the ground, a strange circular glowing circle had appeared, covered in what looked like some sort runes and the middle was dominated by an eight-pointed star.

From this symbol a green lightning bolt came from the symbol with a green flash, revealing Juni. The second she had appeared she stretched as though awakening from a long nap. Isaac noticed that she was slightly larger, now about the size of an average cat.

"Wow." She said dreamily. "That felt so much better than the last guy." She looked at Isaac, curiosity on her face. "So? Anything to say?"

"It looked pretty cool." He admitted, seeing her smile grow bigger. "What do we do now?"

Juni made to start speaking before catching sight of something behind Isaac. Her face then sported an especially malicious grin.

"We probably should deal with our audience, shouldn't we?"

Turning around, Isaac saw what she meant. Just down the street was three Preta staring at him. What was easy for him to notice was that they looked to be twitching far more often and violently than when he had seen them last.

"Aww." Juni giggled. "They're scared. It would be so cute if they weren't so ugly."

Immediately Isaac looked around for a weapon. It didn't need to be anything fancy, just better than trying to hit the demons in front of him with his fist. He almost started moving to grab one of the bones from the skeleton to use as a club until he saw something much better. Quickly reaching down, he scooped up what looked like a scorched katana handle. Unfortunately, the blade seemed to have broken but thankfully the handle still had a piece of jagged metal about as long as his forearm stuck to it.

It wasn't as good as an unbroken sword, but it was still probably better than the knife he was using earlier. He tested the blade's weight as the took a look at the Preta, noticing their eyes following the movement of it.

"Don't worry about these small fries." Juni advised, anticipation colouring her voice. "Just do what comes naturally and I'll heal you if they manage to hit you."

"Alright."

"Hey, want to see something cool?" Juni asked. Without waiting for an answer, the pixie raised her arms as small bolts of electricity surrounded her. She gestured to the Preta on the left and in the next moment it was surrounded by those same lighting bolts, electrocuting it. With a warbling cry the Preta was reduced to ash before Isaac's eyes before that ash dissolved into red motes itself.

One of their own being disintegrated broke whatever spell was on the other two and they both charged with their gangly limbs. One Preta leapt at Juni who simply flew slightly upwards to avoid the leap entirely while Isaac wasn't so lucky. The other, instead of leaping for him like he expected, went low, managing to get a good bite on his leg. Yelling in pain, Isaac lashed out with the broken blade, scoring a hit on the Preta's back as it tried to get out of the way.

A blue flash from his right, and the pain from the bite was gone, allowing him to rush forward. Before it could even react, the Preta that had just attacked him suffered a slash down its chest from the blade, causing it to collapse backwards with a gurgle and dissolve into red motes.

Noticing its intended target was too high up for it to reach, Juni's preta turned and leapt at Isaac, hoping the death of its compatriot was enough to distract the young human. However, Isaac had learned to be light on his feet and his experience had always told him to be alert to his surroundings. So, the Preta let out a confused cry as Isaac slid to the side, allowing the Preta to land where he was standing and then said no more as the blade came down on the demon's thin neck, separating it.

Both head and its body fell to the floor where they both collapsed into red motes. Above it, Isaac took a few breaths, trying to calm down his beating heart, as he heard a tiny squeal coming from Juni that was doing a little dance in mid-air.

"Yes!" The pixie cheered. "That was so cool! Oh, I knew you would be a good summoner."

"You seem awfully excited." Isaac commented. Her good cheers deflated a bit as she stopped dancing.

"Well," Juni coughed into her fist. "Most newbies would only be able to barely deal with one preta on their own. Let alone two at the same time. Most of the guys at Yatagarasu don't know how to fight when they first pick up a COMP."

"Good thing I learned a while ago…" Isaac commented while looking around. The area looked darker, noticeably darker. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Oh." Juni straightened herself and came to float next to him. "That means the demons know you are here now."

Isaac looked around again. Beyond the previously dim surroundings looking much darker, he could feel a kind of tingling in the air.

"Didn't they always? I thought they were hunting me through the streets?"

"Nope." Juni denied. "Back then they thought you were some lowly meal, so they didn't bother hiding from you. Now they know a summoner is here and can killing them. Along with wherever that Phantom Society guy is, they are going to be nervous."

"So, they are going to avoid us?" Isaac asked, making a mental note to ask who all these societies and groups were later.

"Nope." She shook her head with mirth. "They are going to try to ambush us."

"That isn't going to be very good for our health…" Isaac started saying before being interrupted by Juni's waving who simply pointed to the COMP's eye piece.

Curious, Isaac raised his hand to it and quickly found a button on the side. Pressing it, the eye piece lowered over his eye and the world turned to a light shade of blue, allowing him to somehow see into the darkness. Just at the end of the street, he saw three green icons hiding in wait, all of them labelled as PRETA.

"Nice." Isaac felt a smirk coming to his face, an ugly one that was mirrored by the fairy floating next to him. "Shall we give them a taste of their own medicine?"

Answered with only a nod from the pixie, both stalked into the darkness, away from the still burning previous Summoner and towards the demons lying in wait.

Turnabout was fair play after all.

 

[Inq. Halbread]

Hopefully the next part will be the last part of the first chapter. I tried to do it here but after about 4k of words, I realised this chapter probably has another 2k words or more to it.

 

[Happerry]

Well, this seems promising, though there's not enough of it to see how it fits in with code geass yet. But you've got some good characterization here, and I'm eager to see the fallout and what comes next. Juniper is certainly upholding the reputation of the best starter pixies too.

 

[Inq. Halbread]

Had a surprisingly busy week so its late and shorter than I'd like. Last bit of the chapter will be next update.

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

Despite his enthusiasm, it wasn't surprising to Isaac that trying to ambush supernatural creatures wasn't as easily said than done. No, what surprised Isaac was that demons could phase themselves out of existence when they wanted to in a place with a lot of spiritual energy. So, Isaac was left attempting to ambush an empty street and only knew this much when he had asked Juni about it.

Juni, when asked why she hadn't mentioned the biggest obstacle to their erstwhile revenge, simply replied that she thought that he had a plan.

Isaac could only sigh.

However, the ambush had eventually proved to be a complete success and, rather uninteresting as a matter of fact because Isaac decided to use a rare piece of common knowledge and hoped it applied to demons as well.

Most people could only do one thing at a time.

So, it had ended up with Isaac running towards the ambush, using his eyepiece to keep an eye of where the preta were hidden. When the demon exploded back into existence with a flash of red energy, it could only watch as a broken katana blade was in mid-swing towards its head. After one fell, the others fell quickly after that with Juni quickly stepping in to start attacking as well.

In less than a minute, Isaac stood there, breathing heavily as the last preta dissolved in pieces by his feet. Feeling the elation of victory, Isaac looked up, only to find his spirits falling once again. Just further down the street was another icon displaying the location of a preta, the location appearing completely empty to his uncovered eye. Behind that one was another group of icons and to his left, was another group just within a ruined building.

Isaac sighed. It was going to be a long night.

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

Isaac slashed downward and the purple demon fell, dissolving into red motes before it even hit the ground. This had been the seventh group of demons tonight and while it still made his heartbeat faster, but that was pretty much the only reason. Preta, as far as he could tell, were just bags of hunger, either attempting to claw him or take a bite out of him. There was no strategy in their movements, no thinking. On the street, people always looked for an opening, maximising profits while minimising gains because recovering from a stab wound when you were homeless was near impossible for most. These demons didn't act like that and, after getting over them being supernatural ghost beings, they were simple, barely reacting to Isaac's swings until the blade got close to them or the attack was too obvious.

There was another reason fighting these demons wasn't as stressful as it used to be.

Isaac took a step to the last preta of the group, its attention completely focused on the floating form of Juni. In the back of his mind, he noticed the speed of the step was a little faster than it used to be half an hour ago and he swung his blade towards the demon's head. Where once the broken blade would merely get stuck in the large head of the demon, the blade passed right through, bisecting the creature as it dissolved almost immediately.

The act of killing these things was somehow getting easier. The demons seemed to move progressively slower than him, it seemed to be easier to cut through them and somehow, their attacks seemed to hurt less. Where once a bite would go right to his bone, it now felt as If a dog bit his leg a bit hard. There were holes, it still bled but it was nowhere near as deep and absolutely not as painful.

Having mulled the thought over in his head for a while, he found himself forced to ask the only one he could.

"Hey Juni?" Isaac queried, getting a distracted hum of approval in turn. "Is there something wrong with these demons?"

"What do you mean?" Turning to her, Isaac was greeted by a raised eyebrow from a pixie who was distracted from checking her nails. How she was doing that through her gloves, Isaac had no clue.

"I mean, are they getting weaker or something? Did we already kill all the good ones or are we using up the Magatsu-something, so they aren't as powerful?"

For a second, Juni stared at Isaac with the most confused face he had ever seen, her expression almost displaying disbelief. That second passed as her face lit up as though she realised something.

"Oooh yeah," she giggled. "You have no clue why you are feeling stronger do you?"

"Forgive me for being ignorant." Isaac dryly replied. "This is my first few hours after all."

"Nah, don't worry about it." Juni glibly dismissed, straightening up as she flew closer. "Most of you summoner guys get some sort of training before you guys ever see a demon. I just forgot ya didn't."

Rolling his eyes, Isaac motioned for her to continue. Juni pointed one finger in the air.

"Firstly, you know all that Magatsuhi that is floating around? And how I said that demons are made of the stuff?" Isaac nodded at her question.

"Well, there are benefits to having a summoners contract, for like both sides." Juni said, almost conspiratorially. "I don't really get it, but I heard from this one Hua that the contract opens your soul or something, so Magatsuhi can go between you and your demon."

"Makes sense." Isaac considered, finger rubbing his chin as he thought. "If its spiritual energy then it should be in the spirit, I guess."

"Right," Juni nodded. "But that door opening means that more Magatsuhi can get in which makes your soul stronger as it gets absorbed and stuff."

"So, its… something like I'm getting stronger over time or something? How does that even work?" Isaac frowned in confusion, rubbing a hand through his hair.

"Well, your body holds your soul, right? So, if your soul gets better, then your body has to get better too, right?" Juni shrugged. "I'm sure there is a bunch of boring science stuff to explain it but it's pretty much like that. I mean, I saw one of the older Yatagarasu guys throw one of those big robot things at another guy 'cause he was annoying so that's probably how they get so strong."

Isaac felt his jaw almost fall open as his eyes widened as far as they could go. It wasn't hard to recognise what she was talking about was a Knightmare-frame and those bipedal tanks, at their lightest, weighed several tonnes. If she was telling the truth, she had seen a summoner casually toss a multi-tonne robot at someone because they were annoying him.

In that second, suspending all disbelief, a childish fantasy blossomed in Isaac's heart.

He would like to casually toss giant robots too.

"So…" Isaac spoke, finding his voice from the surprise. "To get that strong, I just need to wait around some Magatsuhi right."

"Hahaha, nah." Juni laughed. "There isn't enough of that stuff in the air for that kind of thing or demons would be crawling around everywhere. No, most of that absorbing stuff comes because when things die, they release a ton of Magatsuhi, meaning that your soul has been scooping up all that stuff from all the preta we have been killing, getting stronger as it went."

Isaac figured that made sense. He kept seeing them dissolve into those red motes that went all over the place. So, it made sense that his soul would scoop some of it up. He also instantly noticed that she didn't exactly specify demons and that made all the demons trying to kill him make far more sense.

Sadly, it also made all those disappearances make a disturbing amount of sense.

Even worse, it made a lot more sense to Isaac. Instead of the poor in the Homeland killing each other to steal scraps of money, it was demons killing the poor to steal scraps of Magatsuhi. Isaac wasn't afraid to say that it kind of ruined the mystique of such a haunted area to realise the disappearances were the result of violent supernatural muggings.

However, the situation was though, Isaac would get stronger from killing demons and that showed the dangerous encounters he had been having into a new light. No longer was it a complete risk to keep fighting the demons that seemed to be almost everywhere. Normally, a street fight was a losing proposition for everyone. Everyone had the potential to lose and nothing to gain, which is why most people forced into that tried to avoid it as much as possible. Isaac was used to thinking that way, taking the demons out quickly to make sure he didn't lose anything, potentially sacrificing something besides time in order to keep his life.

Now, however, there was a tangible benefit. He had been winning and with every fight, he would win harder. Every time a fight was won, he would get stronger. A tenson Isaac hadn't realised that he had left him. In a way, that little nugget of information had changed his night. As long as he kept winning, kept trying, he would, eventually, be able to overcome anything he would encounter tonight. All he would have to do is to keep killing demons, and nothing would be able to even hurt him after a point.

And that was a far better deal to Isaac than anything he had ever seen.

"Well, that's a pretty nice perk…" Isaac commented with a smile, trying not to let out a triumphant laugh. "The way you said that you were connected to my soul however… Does that mean?"

"Yep!" She confirmed his thought. "Any demon you summon also has that going for them, meaning we all get stronger together! Neat huh?"

"Yes, very much so." Isaac nodded, an excited smile still on his face. He gestured to the next group of demons in wait. "I feel like we could get a bit more exercise before we get out of here, don't you?"

"Yes," Juni's smile turned from proud to malicious. "Lets…"

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

With a new motivation at hand, the duo of summoner and pixie tore through the next few packs of preta demons. The cannibalistic ghosts, as Juni had explained to Isaac, often didn't even have a chance to react to the two. Isaac was way too fast for their reaction times and Juni would hop into the confusion behind him, breaking their ghostly bones with deceptively hard-hitting slaps from small pixie.

When asked why, instead of using the ability to play a tiny Zeus, she decided to hit them, she told him that a beings magic energy, or mana to use the term she used, was related to that beings state of mind and all that internal balance stuff he had heard people who like meditating talking about. To get it back, you would either need to eat something calming, use a magic rock or simply relax your mind, which was obviously impossible surrounded by demons.

It was in this supernatural rampage that Isaac had come across his first zombie.

Isaac had been trying to walk around the corner of a building to get into the adjoining street when he felt the urge to jump back. As he did, he was surprised but not shocked to see someone walk into view, swinging a metal pipe where his head had been.

Upon landing and looking up to get a better look, Isaac's first thought was that the man in front of him was a punk. A youngish Japanese Number, who upon being unable to find work, had fallen to petty crime and thuggery to both keep occupied, amused and to try to indirectly get back at the Britannians who put him in such a situation. The man in front of Isaac was wearing everything typical to that stereotype. Open, floral print shirt, revealing a gaudy belt buckle with numerous rings and bits of metal all over his pants and shirt. The only thing that told Isaac otherwise was the darkened skin from rot and the intelligent solid glowing yellow eyes looking at him with hate.

To Isaac, it was likely that the zombie from before him had probably gone into the haunted block for a shortcut or dare and found himself a victim of the demons.

Whatever the circumstances, that wasn't what was important, and it was easy for the Britannian to keep focus as the zombie growled and lunged forward with the pipe in its right hand ready to swing downward. The attack was too telegraphed and too slow however, and it was almost too easy for Isaac, who had initially started fighting with small knives, to step back and avoid it entirely.

Refusing to leave an opening ignored, Isaac stabbed the broken katana blade forward. The zombie, far more cognizant of the world around it than the demons he had been dealing with earlier, moved to block despite the uneven footing. Had the sword consisted of more than a quarter of a blade, then the zombie wouldn't have been able to get the pipe in-between it and the jagged point reaching for its midsection, but it was for nought. Isaac vastly outmatched the zombie's strength before him so, as the blade and pipe touched, it was the zombie who was invertedly deflected instead with a clang and the blade reached home, cracking through bone and into the zombie's heart.

With a quiet growl, the zombie stilled as it collapsed, falling off the blade and its eyes lost its glow, revealing normal eyes of brown.

Juni made no comment, to her it was likely just a feral demon to be killed and, to be honest, it was that for Isaac as well. A dark thought bid him to make the death of the former human as painless as possible, in respect for the fact that Isaac himself could have joined his fate.

Isaac tried not to dwell on such a dark thought as he walked away, to the next group of demons in his way.

He tried not to dwell on it when he killed two more, one an aging old woman and the other a small pre-teen boy, later that night.

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

After Isaac had stopped trying to avoid the larger packs of demons, he had realised that he had needed to decide on which direction to go. It was then that both Isaac and Juni had realised that they both had no idea where they were in the haunted zone. Isaac only really knew the one street he used to get into the ghetto and Juni legitimately had no idea where she was half the time because she didn't pay attention. So, the two decided that tracing Isaac's path backwards was probably a better idea than roaming around, lost until morning. It helped that they were already, kind of going in that direction and, hopefully his case would still be where he dropped it earlier that night.

Isaac put that hope temporarily aside as his eyepiece let him know that he was walking up to another group of preta. With a wordless nod to Juni, he immediately took to a run. No longer was his heart deafening in his ears as he took to a full sprint. He rapidly got closer an, just as he was a few steps away, he readied the blade in his hand for a swing. Before him, about five or so red bursts of light flared as the demons phased into reality. Before it could even react, Isaac's sprinting speed ensured that he was already among them as his broken blade fell. The purple humanoid's head was split down the middle as easy as cutting paper and with another red flare, the unfortunate preta dissolved into red motes. Another flare wet up behind him as Juni pulped another's midsection, also causing it to dissolve in mid-air. Isaac turned and slid sideways as a preta pounced where he was, missing entirely. Using the opportunity, Isaac swung his blade again, almost faster than he himself could see and the preta was opened horizontally.

As his target dissolved, he turned to the last as the second last was hit by a burst of sharp wind, cutting it to pieces. Isaac couldn't help but feel the corner of his mouth curl up in a smile at that. Juni's new 'spell', something she named Zan, seemed to be a particular weakness of the demons before him and it was kind of amusing how it threw the purple, potbellied demons off-centre.

Moving his attention back to the demon before him, he let his smile form into a malicious grin as he stalked toward the cowering demon. It felt… good to be in the opposite position to how they had him earlier that night. Isaac knew what was going to happen now. The frightened preta was going to fight like a cornered rat and would be cut down for it. It had happened before, and it would happen now.

Which was why, as Isaac was lifting his sword up and flipping it to a reverse grip to stab downward, Isaac was surprised when the preta dropped to its knees and had its hands in a pleading gesture.

"PLeeeeeEAase." The almost mournful terrified voice was a surprise to hear. "No KiLl. FrIend FoOr FreEE, Please!"

"What?" was all Isaac could say. These demons, the whole night, had made nothing but grumbles and roars and now one was pleading for its life?

"Seems like this guy wants to join us." Juni's voice broke through his thoughts. "That happens sometimes when you scare the hell out of them. Not surprised considering your glowing eyes over there."

"Huh," Isaac grunted. Quickly, he searched the metal blade of his sword for his reflection. To his shock, there it was. From his darkened features shined two glowing eyes, their irises a bright gold yellow.

"I wouldn't worry about it. Most humans that use Magatsuhi for something get glowing eyes. Only the ones with a hell of a lot of it have their eyes glow yellow." Juni brushed off. Taking solace in her words, Isaac breathed a sigh of relief. It hadn't been… whatever he had been about to think.

"Thanks." Isaac breathed out.

"No problem, we are linked remember?" Juni replied happily, answering his unspoken question. "Now, we should probably take this guy."

"Really?" Isaac asked, noting how the preta had perked up realising that he was the topic of discussion.

"Yeah," the pixie sighed with no real enthusiasm. "They are gross, and I've lost count of how many times one tried to eat me but a summoner of one isn't really much of one and, despite everything, they can get pretty tough if they aren't always starving."

"Plus," She took a look around at the darkened streets. "There isn't really a lot of variety is there?"

"Well, I saw a skull covered in blue flames earlier…" The disgust on Juni's face was more than enough to tell Isaac what she thought of that.

"No." She tried to stomp in the air "No, Will-O-Wisps. They barely think! And they stink!"

"Fine." Isaac turned his gaze away from the pixie in a tantrum, staring blankly at the preta.

"PleaAesS?"

"Okay." Isaac simply said and the Eyepiece alerted him to a new notification, which he saw on the COMP's main screen.

CONTRACT DETECTED. ADD PRETA TO STOCK?

Hitting confirm, Isaac was rewarded with the preta dissolving into green pixels and the name Preta appearing in one of the slots.

Not hesitating, Isaac pressed the new button and the Preta went into the active column. Before him, another summoning symbol appeared and the Preta reappeared in a flash of green light. Instantly, Isaac could tell something was definitely different as the once clumsy demon jumped from foot to foot deftly as it stretched. Its head turned and regarded Isaac with an intelligence that it had definitely not had before.

"My, my," A smooth voice of a man originated from the preta with out its mouth moving. "It has been such a long time since my all-consuming hunger had felt even the slightest bit of nourishment. Oh, and what nourishment it is."

The preta held out its hand to shake.

"My name is Preta, of the Haunter Clan. How do you do, my summoner?"

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

AN: Indeed. Isaac started with counter and high Agi. Its also surprisingly hard to explain levelling without resorting to video game terms.

 

[Inq. Halbread]

Isaac stared for just a moment before taking the demon's hand and shook it once. Even with most of his mind occupied with a distinct feeling of confusion, there was still a part of him that responded to the oddly gentlemanly manner of the demon before him.

"Isaac Cross." He numbly replied. "So why do you… You know?"

Preta let out a low chuckle.

"One is far more eloquent when your stomach grumbles with the force of a river." Preta answered, the human there noting it wasn't really much of an answer. "Now, shall we continue along and commit combat against my kinsmen. I feel quite the appetite for their essence."

Isaac glanced to his floating companion and took in the sight of the diminutive fairy regarding the demon in front of her with a face that somehow conveyed disgust and disdain in equal measure.

Isaac sighed.

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

It wasn't for the first time that Isaac marvelled over the fact that a journey that he had originally taken in minutes earlier that night, had now taken the new trio an hour. That interesting fact made sense in the fact that Isaac's original flight hadn't included killing every demon in his way but that didn't exactly make him feel better. What was mollifying was that the inclusion of Preta into his stock of Demons was allowing them to kill the ambushing demons at a far faster pace.

As it turns out, despite his increased vocabulary, his Preta only wanted to talk about death and eating making any conversation with Isaac's former victim extremely dull. Preta also seemed to have caused Juni to hate him even more than she had hated the ones who didn't talk. Knowing far better to ask a raging lady on what made her so upset, Isaac could only guess that it had been a combination of being an apologetic cannibal, speaking of physically eating his fellow demons, and having a diction so advanced that sometimes she had to think about exactly what he said, and then fume in frustration when she realised that it was about eating and food again.

As Isaac absently chopped down a preta that his Preta had already eaten the arm off, he wondered exactly what was going on. His current theory was that his Magatsuee thing was keeping the Preta 'fed' allowing him to be more ghost and less cannibal. However, all he liked talking about as they walked through the streets was death, eating and killing and then eating. Was it because the Preta's nature was just a ghost that was a cannibal, leaving him incredibly simple and Juni's more complex personality because pixies are seen as almost human in thinking? Is it the legend that defines the demon or demon that defines the legend?

Disregarding that train of thought, Isaac turned towards the last combatant, a zombie so rotted through that it had become unrecognizable, as it tried to back up. Its efforts failed as blue ice crept up its limbs and throughout its body. Its rotten face showed one last look of pain before it froze, flash-freezing under the Preta's new spell. Lacking the support it had, the now frozen sculpture of a zombie shattered over its uneven weight, falling to the ground in thousands of shards.

Isaac was glad that he wasn't going to be around when those tiny bits of flesh thawed out.

"That's the last of them." Juni announced as she floated over to Isaac. "Are we any closer to that street yet?"

"It's just around the corner- No! Preta, you don't know where he has been!" Isaac answered, interrupted by the sight of Preta trying to lick up the frozen chips of zombie off the ground.

The demon moved to object, caught sight of Isaac's glare, and thought better of it. The demon grumbled under its breath as it walked away, sulking. It was one thing to loot the dead of the odd amounts of money the demons surprisingly liked carrying around, but it was another to let Preta to eat a zombie slushy right in front of him.

And hadn't the money been a surprise for Isaac. He had first found out about it after Preta had pretty much swallowed another preta whole and then paused to spit out several pounds in coins. This time Juni had no idea that demons did that, which was understandable considering her size compared to the average one-pound coin. Preta, being larger actually carried a lot of money around for creatures without pockets, probably by eating the money, and Isaac was forced to berate himself for not even taking the wallets of the zombies that they had killed earlier either.

However, if what he was hoping was still there, was, then money wouldn't be that important for a while.

"Come on. We are almost to the street I started on." He announced to the two demons with him after picking up the money left by their fight.

It was only a short walk away before they made it to the street they needed to be on and as they stepped on the only familiar street to Isaac, he scanned the area searching for what caused all this.

And he saw it. The case full of money was lying where he dropped it. Above it was someone, clearly alive based on the cursing in Japanese, trying to open it.

"Shit." Isaac muttered. He needed to get in there and get that case back or the next half a year was going to be completely shit. Isaac took a few steps in that direction, clenching the broken katana in his hand before he was stopped by a tugging on his jacket.

"Psst, Isaac!" Juni loudly hissed at him. "People can see us when we are summoned by a COMP. Quickly deal with it!"

Isaac's face blanched and muttered a thanks at the anxious pixie as he pressed both her and Preta's icons on his COMP, returning them to the Stock list. Juni gratefully nodded as both her and an uncaring Preta were dissolved into green pixels.

Now alone on the street Isaac turned and hurried to the man, partly to not be alone and mostly to get the money before he could open it. As Isaac got closer, he could see the man was young, maybe only a few years older than him and was dressed like a stereotypical Japanese punk with a leather jacket over some tank top and ratty Jeans. The only oddities that stood out to Isaac were the red armband with some sort of logo on it and a hi-tech portable computer on his belt. It was so eye-catching; he almost didn't see the bat lying on the ground next to the punk.

Readying his blade, Isaac breathed in.

"Hey," He called out, causing the punk to scramble for his bat in shock, cursing while looking up.

"Who the hell are you!?" He yelled out in English.

"I'm the guy who owns that case you have there." Isaac spoke calmly, holding the broken blade out to his side, visibly but non-aggressively. "I don't want any trouble, not here, so I'm going to take my stuff and go."

The man scoffed and rose up, resting his bat on the shoulder but Isaac noticed his eyes never left his sword. He wasn't like most punks running around the ghettos. Isaac could tell that this man knew how to fight.

"Nah, little Brit, a guy like you and a place like this is no trouble for Haga Dai!" The man, named Dai, boasted aloud.

"Sure." Isaac acquiesced. "But trouble means more work for you, so make it easy and let me get the case and you can have a quiet night to yourself."

"Where you off to in such a hurry, huh?"

"Trying to avoid bigshots like you." Isaac's answer was as dry as a desert.

"Well too bad for you. You found one." Dai continued, ignorantly accepting the sarcasm, making Isaac frown almost involuntarily. "Not anyone gets picked for the Phantom Society after all."

"I don't care about any Phantom Society…"

"No," Dai interrupted almost glibly "You care about that case. Well too bad for you, I say that its mine now. What you going to do about it, schoolboy?"

"Probably gut you, maybe slice you up. It depends on the angle." Isaac replied calmly, flicking the katana blade to draw attention to it. He was used to standoffs like this on the streets. Right now, was the threats phase, and whether it actually came to fighting depended on no one backing down.

Isaac was not backing down now.

And from the bark of laughter erupting from Dai, he wasn't likely either.

"You? A kid like you thinks that he has a chance against my power?" Dai looked over him again, a smile erupting on that unwashed face. "Nice blade though. Looks a lot like the one from the guy I fried… Wait a moment, what are you wearing?"

"Hi-tech glasses" came the easy answer.

"Fuzaken! That's a COMP if I've ever seen one." Dai spat; his body language suddenly wary. "You one of those Yatagarasu Idiots, didn't know they even recruited Britannians."

"Don't know who they are, all I want is the case." Isaac kept a neutral face but inside he was nervous as well. Was this guy a summoner? Could Isaac win this if it came to a fight?

How far would he take this?

"Fuck your case." Dai spat, unclipping the computer off his belt. "I don't know who you are, but I know my master will reward me if I can kill two summoners in a single night."

"Then I guess your master is going to have to be disappointed. Especially when he finds your body in the morning."

"Fuck you!" He yelled as Isaac saw him slot a purple crystal into a slot of what he figured was his COMP and pressed a button. Suddenly a green summoning symbol formed next to him and what looked a cross between and onion and cooked chicken flashed into existence. Isaac wasn't idle however and swiped his finger down the screen of his COMP. As the eyepiece flipped down the punks one summoning circle was answered by Isaac's two as both Juni and Preta appeared in green lighting.

"What!?" Dai's outburst cut through Isaac's focus. "How do you have two!? And why didn't you slot some MAG first?"

"You running away now?" Isaac asked, ignoring him.

"Hell no, I'm going to kill you, and swipe your fancy COMP!"

"Fine by me."

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

There wasn't such a start of the battle as there was a sudden burst of motion. From Juni's words, Isaac was a summoner, and he knew that he moved faster than he definitely should. So, he was unsurprised when the other summoner also moved much faster towards him, almost blurring as the two met in the middle of the street.

Coming to a stop, Dai threw a quick swing at Isaac, the metal bat moving much faster than he had seen such a weapon move before. Fortunately, Isaac was faster and easily crouched under the swing, countering in a rising slash. Dai was just fast enough to move his bat in for a block, the blunt instrument meeting the edge in a loud clang. Lacking the ability to cut through the steel, all that force threw Dai upwards, away from Isaac's reach. Suddenly, Isaac began to feel the air heat up rapidly and, without thinking threw himself to the side as a burst of fire erupted where he was standing. Isaac wasn't fast enough as he felt the lingering burns on his arm and melted clothing as he rolled to his feet. In front of him, Dai landed on his feet next to his demon, grinning.

That was clever. They were working in tandem. A green light that restored Isaac's arm to normal brought a smile to his face.

Unluckily for them, Isaac wasn't alone either. The grin grew wider as Isaac charged to the opposite summoner again.

"Preta!" Isaac yelled. "Bufu the chicken!"

If the demon was throwing fire spells at him, then it was probably weak to ice, right? It was a gamble based on simple logic. Isaac glanced as he saw the chicken, his eyepiece called it an Onmoraki, surrounded by a phantom ice block as the spell took effect. He smiled as his gamble paid off as when he heard the demon let out an agonized screech and tumble in the air. Jackpot.

"I'm going to smash your head in!" Dai yelled in rage, seemingly taking the hit on his demon personally. It was only proven to be his state of mind when he charged forward, setting up for another wild swing from the right.

Isaac identically charged his opponent, tensing his legs for the right moment.

"Juni!" Isaac called out as they were about to clash again. "Zan!"

Isaac could feel his grin grow even wider as he saw the blades of compressed air shoot past him and right into the other summoner's legs, right where he was hoping they would go. Not expecting the attack, and moving at such a speed, the young man tripped, flailing in mid-air. Isaac, following his heart, did something he had never seen in real life before, something that he had only seen done in the movies.

In the second that the Japanese summoner, the Britannian counterpart jumped into the air, kicking both feet Infront of his leap as he did so.

In that moment of weightless-ness, Isaac's dropkick hit Dai straight in the face, stopping both of their momentums, leaving them hanging in the air. In that moment, Isaac felt a crack and something beneath his shoe give way. In the next, Isaac kicked away, sending him flipping backward, luckily landing on his feet while Dai went flying in the other direction, landing flat on his back, stunned.

Isaac took the moment to catch his breath. Looking around, he saw Juni giving him a cheerful thumbs up behind him while, in front of him, he caught sight of Preta. The cannibal demon was currently biting down on the Onmoraki in its mouth as the poor chicken demon was screeching and flailing as it tried to pull its lower body out from the pink humanoid's jaws filled with large teeth. With a final bite down and a crunch, the Onmoraki went still and dissolved into green pixels.

With the demon down for the count, Isaac worked on controlling his breathing. It wasn't stress this time and he definitely wasn't exhausted. Why was he feeling so light, and why was he grinning? Was this, excitement he was feeling? Was this fighting a strong opponent fun? Sure, he was winning but if he had messed up once, the threat of dying just like that other guy was very much real.

That was when he realised that this was fun. He was enjoying himself more than he had in years, both in Japan and before in the Homeland.

Isaac swaggered up to the recovering summoner as the punk groaned on the floor, his excitement was lightening his stance, leaving a satisfied grin on his face. Hell, if he enjoyed this kind of stuff, he didn't see a reason to stop…

"Hey, are you ready to give up yet? I'm sure I knocked your one braincell loose with that last kick."

The other summoner groaned as he got to his feet, mumbling curses in Japanese as he did so. With another crack, Dai reset his nose and sent a scathing glare at Isaac, the blood on his face the only indication that he had been injured at all. He was tougher than Isaac had expected and the knowledge of that sent electricity pulsing through his nerves.

"Fuck you, you glowing eyed Brit!" The punk swore at him as he grabbed the COMP off his belt. "I'm not giving up till one of us is dead."

In a sudden movement, the punk slotted another pick crystal into the COMP and, with a familiar summon sign appearing, the Onmoraki reappeared in a flash of green light.

"Fine by me." Isaac answered and burst into motion. He wasn't durable enough to survive any tag team move the man and his demon could get off, so he needed to end this as soon as possible. In one last move hopefully before he did some crazy magic stuff.

So, Isaac, in a moment had a plan, a small plan that would let him win if this worked. It was a little something he barely remembered from biology class.

"Zio!" Isaac yelled out, rapidly approaching his opponent who was readying his bat to supposedly deflect his attack.

It was fortunate that the summoner hadn't recognised the callout because in the next moment when they were about to clash, Dai was surprised by the multitude of yellow energy bolts striking him. Isaac could tell it didn't do a lot of damage but that wasn't the point. One's muscles ran on electricity as they said and that small jolt to Dai, had been enough to lock his in place for just a moment.

That moment was enough for Isaac to duck under his guard, line up the jagged edge of the katana blade, and plunge. In one swift motion, there was a crack and a spurt of blood as the blade broke through the chest bone and penetrated the heart with a large spurt of blood.

Dai stood there for a moment as Isaac held the blade in, his face twisted in shock and pain. With a smooth motion and a satisfied hum, Isaac let go of the broken sword with a small push. It was enough for the summoner to fall backwards, the sword still sticking out of his chest as blood fell freely from the wound. It was easy enough to justify leaving it in. Isaac had seen healing magic do wonders and, he had no idea what spells an Onmoraki had besides fire. It would be harder to regenerate a heart around a blade after all.

One would be forgiven for thinking that there would have been some words said, but the dying summoner died too quickly for that. Barely moving and then falling still, his face still twisted in that combination of surprise and pain. Above him, the demon now recently summoned, dissolved into green and then red motes as it failed to exist beyond its master's death.

There stood Isaac, triumphant over the body as his two summons made their way towards him. Next to the body of his enemy and the object of his desire slightly to the side of the street, having been disturbed in the fighting, Isaac found that he had little to say.

Little of importance to say at any rate, leaving only the…

"I'd say he got the point." Isaac said aloud, causing the Preta to his right to slap a hand over his eyes while Juni to his left sighed.

"Really? That is what you have to say?"

Without anything more but a self-satisfied nod, and a strange lack of guilt, Isaac went to the case of money this whole adventure started with and picked it up.

"Time to go home."

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

Isaac looked upwards. Above him was the massive scaffolding that held up the Tokyo settlement away from the ruins that sprawled below it. In between the metal pillars that rose imperiously upward were massive metal plates. He had once heard from a fellow student, interested in architecture, that the Tokyo settlement was supposed to be a multi-layered city, as envisioned by the Governor of Area 11, Clovis la Britannia. That was the plan originally, providing room to expand the new city downward without having to build more struts outward. While probably not the intention, it very much gave the impression that the settlement refused to be laid on Japanese ground.

Reality, however had reared its head when the immigration from the homeland was far less than expected projections, and those that did come preferred being in the sunshine elsewhere than building below the top layer of the settlement and the local Japanese preferred to live in the sun-kissed ruins of Tokyo around the settlement than do the same. In the end, those metal plates that now loomed above Isaac and the two demons with him, lay used for nothing but supporting the upper city.

Or did it? Isaac couldn't help but wonder how many demons had taken root in such abandoned places such as those, and how close he had been to the supernatural all this time.

Isaac looked up at the looming structure with a familiar weariness. It was only lessened by the lightness he could feel in his limbs. Despite the summoner's abrupt passing, he could feel that a large amount of Magatsuhi had been released with his death, enough so that Isaac felt noticeably stronger and faster. Perhaps the journey up wouldn't be as arduous, even with having to carry the case of money in one hand? With an exhale, Isaac resolved himself to a terrible climb and turned to his Demon companion.

"Well, Juni," Isaac's jovial tone was at odds with the odd twinge in his heart. "I guess this is where we part..."

"What?" Juni exclaimed, surprised. "What do you mean?"

"Well, our deal was to get out of that haunted zone and well…" Isaac continued, feeling a bit sheepish. "We did."

"Oh right, we did say that." Juni's tone, unnoticed by Isaac, occupied by his own thoughts, told multitudes. To Preta standing near them, it was a mix of surprise and disappointment. The two lapsed into an awkward silence as the purple demon looked between the two quizzically.

To any human viewing this exchange, they would be able to deduce the feelings between man and pixie in this situation, a combination of fondness for the time spent together and the embarrassment preventing the two from admitting it. Preta, being his namesake, could not and thus felt none of the awkwardness a witness.

"Weren't you having fun? Slaughtering everything?" Preta asked quizzically dragging them both out of their thoughts.

"Yeah, it was…" Juni answered distractedly. "I was worried for a second but… It was a great time."

"There's no real reason you have to go, is there?" Isaac blurted out, shocking Juni. "I just wanted to mention it in case the contract stopped working or something…"

"Oh, yeah. It would, wouldn't it?" Juni said distractedly. "Unless of course… we made it a bit more permanent."

"You really should." Preta interrupted again. "This young man is a good summoner. No way you are not getting a quality deal with a permanent contract."

"Why is it such a big deal anyway?"

Juni instantly reddened at the question while Preta just turned his head to look him quizzically.

"A permanent summoning contract is for life." Preta answered. "Quite literally I am afraid. A demon's very Magatsuhi becomes an extension of the summoner's and, unless the summoner releases the contract, cannot be set free even in death. Meaning that should the summoner die, all the demons linked to them does as well."

"That sounds… intense. What could the upside be to a contract that pretty much enslaves you to a human?"

"We can't die."

"Excuse me?" came the shocked reply from the human.

"We are linked in death to our summoner but that is the only time we can die. As long as you don't perish, none of the demons you have can be killed. Displaced yes, but with your COMP especially, all you need to do is summon us back to reality with more Magnetite, or time I guess in your case."

"That is a hell of a benefit."

"The potential to get infinitely stronger, not fear death and the only cost is to protect one human who grows stronger with you so you can slaughter even more? Indeed, it is quite the prize." Preta looked at the indecisive pixie. "As long as you choose the right summoner that is."

"Its not about that!" She yelled at the fellow demon, her face beet red. "He would make a good choice! He even likes fighting like a demon! But… It's just…"

"Hey, Juni." She immediately looked at the hand Isaac offered her as he continued to speak. "I had a lot of fun tonight as well. And even though I should be happy that I got out of there alive, I don't think there is any chance of me leaving the summoner life now."

Juni looked up at Isaac's face. Upon it sat an almost manic-fun loving grin.

It was a familiar grin. She had seen so many of her sisters and even she herself had worn that grin.

"So, what do you say, Juni? Do you want to stay teamed up, get into harder fights, get stronger and maybe save some people?"

What could she say to that? Regardless of her own hang-ups that seemed so distant in her mind, there was only one way a pixie like her could respond to that.

That same grin grew on her face.

"Let's do it!"

Unbeknownst to either of them, an alert had appeared on the COMP's screen. On it read:

TEMP. CONTRACT UPGRADED. JUNI NOW ADDED TO COMPENDIUM. NO OF ENTRIES: 2.

Agreement between the two renewed, they moved apart after a single handshake.

"So where are we going then, Isaac?"

"Up." The young man said simply.

Both demons looked up, both faces once filled with positivity, instantly paled as they took in the enormity of the looming structure above them.

"How high up are we going?" Juni asked, dread filling her voice.

"The top." Came the simple but heart-dropping answer.

"But… my wings… Flying up there is going to suck so much." Juni despaired. Despite his unknowable eloquence, Preta said nothing but clearly shared her despair, looking over his short stature.

For a second, Isaac simply stood there and enjoyed the moment. It was a great moment. However, after that moment passed, he interrupted their despair.

"Don't worry, I'll save you the climb." Isaac relented as he unsummoned them both from his COMP.

"Thank you!" Juni yelled as she dissolved into pixels. Preta gave Isaac a thumbs up as he did the same.

With a sigh and hefting the case in his hand, Isaac made his way to the nearby access ladder.

Ready for the long climb.

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

Isaac was glad that he had been correct. With the increases in strength and speed, climbing up to the Settlement proper had taken a fraction of the time and effort that it used to. It meant that he was actually early for the mid-night bus and also did not breathe like he had a lung condition like he often had before.

It was only half an hour ride until he got off at the edge of Ashford's academy's campus. It was incredibly lucky that none of the late-night bus drivers ever asked questions.

Now on the edge of the school grounds, he took a moment to survey his renewed home. With the money in his hand, this would be his home for next year. With no family anymore, he had to do anything he could to get enough money to afford tuition. To not do so would be to invite hunger, danger and worse, assassins eager to erase his family line for good.

From his vantage point, he could see the main school buildings, the expansive gardens and fields, the multitude of sports fields, even the horse track and stables in the distance. Isaac Cross breathed out a sigh of relief and let go of a tension he had been carrying for weeks. For the next year or so, he was home.

"Wow! This place is fancy!" Isaac turned sharply at the surprisingly familiar voice. What his eyes behold was faded forms of both Juni and Preta, looking as though both were made of pure shadow. Only two glowing red eyes were visible from each form.

"What?"

"Oh, don't worry!" Juni's silhouette immediately placated him. "We aren't summoned so normal humans can't see us. We are just peeking out a bit from your COMP, is all."

Isaac quickly noticed Preta's shadow sniffing a nearby flowerbed. Well, if they weren't actually here, he didn't have to worry about them getting into trouble, right?

With a sigh, he gestured his two demons to follow, which to their credit, they quickly did.

"Very well, I was worried how I was going to show you around where I lived anyway. Come along and feast your eyes on Ashford academy."

From there the route back to Isaac's dorm room was marked by him gesturing and explaining each part of campus they crossed as they walked through the shadowed campus. He liked to believe that his tour of their opulent surroundings had suitably impressed them but, well, it was understandably hard to determine the expression of a face made of shadow.

The tour ended as they approached the dormitory buildings, perilously close to the student council building, and a familiar engine sound made itself known in the night.

An unfortunately familiar engine sound. As there was only one student who drove a motorcycle like that.

Isaac kept on walking to the dorms, ignoring the questioning look from his demons and ignoring the engine behind him. Even as he heard it come to stop, turn off and the new addition of angry steps coming up behind him.

"Here we go again…" Was the primary thought as the steps angrily caught up with him.

"What are you doing, Cross?"

With a muttered curse, Isaac stopped in his tracks. It was never the driver of the bike that he hated; it was who he was often with.

"Vice-president!" Isaac put on his fakest smile and spun around to face two angry purple eyes. "Late night?"

Before him stood a tall boy in school uniform. Despite Isaac knowing he was a year older than the boy before him he was still slightly shorter in height. On top of that hight was short, and seemingly messy black hair that framed purple eyes that was staring at him angrily. Of course, Lelouch Lamprouge, someone who personally hated his guts for a year would be the one guy to run into tonight.

Honestly, Isaac didn't really get it. Nunally had said that the whole thing had been funny, didn't she? So, no real harm done. Lelouch didn't need to hound him every time they saw each other.

Behind him, definitely trying to blend into the night on his bike, was LL's sidekick and student council secretary. And next to him, in the sidecar for the motorbike was a familiarly sized case.

Isaac huffed under his breath. So Lelouch was doing that again.

"Nothing," Isaac answered with a forced Jovial tone. "I am simply walking back to my dorm room to get enough sleep for the full day of school tomorrow. As, I am sure you are as well."

"That does nothing to explain why you are walking around school grounds at one in the morning, carrying around a briefcase and some sort of arm equipment. Is that an eyepiece."

"Monocle." Isaac answered automatically. So, with Lelouch was definitely going to make this an issue, Isaac decided to hint that he really shouldn't.

"Of course, I would imagine that I would be out and about for the same reasons that you were, Lelouch. As a vice-president of the student council, you would be an adequate role-model for me to follow, no?"

By the look on Rivalz's face, he got the hint, but all Lelouch did in response was narrow his eyes.

"Who did you take that money from, Cross?" Lelouch almost hissed.

Isaac cursed mentally. He definitely didn't get it.

"I'm appalled by the accusation." Isaac let all the false cheer drop from his voice, his tone dropping to a deadpan. "To suggest a student would have acquired funds through illegal means… Well, it would be very unbecoming for the Academy if that were true. Especially if more than one had been doing it."

Isaac looked Lelouch dead in the eyes as he fixed the button on his jacket.

"Imagine the scandal."

Isaac was a glorious witness to Lelouch's face showing, surprise, anger and shock for some reason in the span of a few seconds.

"There is blood on your sleeve." Lelouch spoke coldly.

With muted surprise, Isaac looked down to see blood splattered all over the sleeve of his right arm. It had blended in so well with the black of his jacket that it was only visible in the now-well lit surroundings. He dimly remembered the final stab on the summoner he had killed tonight as his blood went everywhere.

"Ah, don't worry, It's mine." Isaac lied lamely. One look at his face however, showed that Lelouch did not believe it for a second.

For several tense seconds, the two young men stared at each other. Neither blue nor purple relenting in their contest. Until suddenly, Lelouch turned away and began walking back to his friend.

"I'm watching you." He called back, voice filled with angry promise.

"I know." Isaac called at Lelouch's retreating back.

It was less than a minute before Isaac was left alone with his two demons staring on.

"I don't like him." Juni commented disdainfully. "He doesn't seem very fun."

"Can I eat him?" came Preta's foreseen question.

With a sigh, Isaac turned around and walked to his dorm room. He could only hope tomorrow was a shorter day.

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

AN: Wow. That was surprisingly hard to write. And with work sucking the inspiration along with my energy it just took longer but now the first chapter is done.

I wanted the boss fight to be more of a slugfest but as I built Dai, I realised that he would build himself for power and health, which meant that ironically he would win any attrition battle with Isaac's current strength. It only went so well because Preta had an element advantage and Isaac had a whole other demon in the fight, allowing Juni and him to tag team like Dai was trying to do with his Onmoraki.

Juni's hesitance is also cause, despite everything, Pixies are rather juvenile, so she was associating the contract with something silly in her mind when its more of a DND party thing.

As for Lelouch, he will be a part of this story regularly and as for now, Isaac thinks he managed to shoo him away by saying "If I get in shit, you are too" but he took it as "No one must know im alive, publicity bad."

Also, despite his relative innocence before the beginning of the anime, Lelouch still knows what so much blood on that arm means…

 

[notgreat]

As for Lelouch, he will be a part of this story regularly and as for now, Isaac thinks he managed to shoo him away by saying "If I get in shit, you are too" but he took it as "No one must know im alive, publicity bad."

Click to shrink...

Huh, I really didn't get that. It seemed really obvious to me that Isaac was saying "if attack me, I'm dragging you down too". The exact details of how that would happen shouldn't be important.

The blood is rather concerning though, and the "it's mine" is obviously a stupid response but he didn't have time to think of a better one. I do wonder what the noodle incidient with Nunnally was...

 

[Inq. Halbread]

Huh, I really didn't get that. It seemed really obvious to me that Isaac was saying "if attack me, I'm dragging you down too". The exact details of how that would happen shouldn't be important.

Click to shrink...

I probably explained that badly.
I mean more that Isaac did mean that "Im dragging you down as well." and normally thats an incredibly dumb defense because gambling is not as bad as what Isaac did to get his money but Lelouch got stuck in his own head thinking about how bad such attention would be.

Realistically, anyone would take LL's side in "blood splattered student arrives with cash" but he left it alone because he got stuck in his thoughts of "Can't do anything otherwise everything is at risk."

What this all means really is that Lelouch will realize this later and be far more aggressive to Isaac when he realizes that Isaac's defenses, in general, kind of suck but is quick thinking enough to put him off his game with bullshit.

As for the noodle incident. All will be explained but Isaac, from an outside perspective, does deserve Lelouch's enmity.

 

[Inq. Halbread]

Merry Christmas

As the Night turned to Day, the darkness had stolen the promised dreary normality for many in what has been named Area 11.

In the depths of the Shinjuku ghetto, the Britannian police puzzled over three victims of murder that had been committed in the night. One had been Britannian, stabbed in the dark with no noted legal business in the ghetto. Another, a young Number whose heart had been impaled with a force strong enough to puncture bone. The last and most perplexing of all was a skeleton, whose bones had scorched and still almost glowed with an inner heat, the sight perplexing all but the most veteran who had seen such sights rarely before.

In that same ghetto, the residents reeled, not from the new victims found in their mist but by having found the remains of loved ones, long since missing and long mourned as deceased. With grief opened anew, the new day was given to mourning by all those who had lost someone so long ago.

In a traditional dojo, hidden in a nearby mountaintop, a middle-aged man received the news that the youngest and sadly most foolish of his disciples had been killed. His heart hardened by such similar tragedy, he did not weep but he did allow himself a rueful smile when he heard that the young apprentice's killer was found dead slightly further away, killed with the young man's own weapon.

On the other side of Japan, an old man received similar news but discarded the messenger with a frown. He had no time to consider the fate of that waste of an initiate. For the new world to come, his attention needed to be elsewhere from blatant disappointments.

However the break from mundanity was the most pronounced for three individuals within the walls of Ashford academy.

A long-fallen noble who stayed up that night counting money out of a briefcase. Satisfied with the amount within, he removed the excess and placed it to the side of his bed. After placing a bloody jacket into a plastic bag, he disrobed and went to bed. Filled with a sense of accomplishment, the young man fell asleep in his bed, overseen by friendly shadows and enjoyed the first peaceful sleep he had in years.

In a dorm room not far away, an estranged royal tosses and turns well into the night. His deadening peace of mind having been shattered by worries of the future, brought by the image of a blond boy splattered red and his most unfortunate proximity to the only relation that the young man still cared for.

The last and least important of these individuals was the Accountant hired by Ashford Academy the next morning. She had settled in to what she had believed would have been another dreary day of wringing school fees out of Britannian Banks, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door opening and a polite Senior school boy without the black jacket entering her financial domain, wielding a suspicious bag full of money. She sighed to herself, and after having counted the funds, she listed that Isaac Cross had indeed paid his full tuition fees for that year. As the man in question left the office, she sent an email to the namesake of the school. Informing the Senior Ashford of the change to the account.

And what exactly, the young man had worn on his arm that day.

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

Isaac couldn't help but hum a tune as he left the office of Ashford Academy's accountant. It felt as though a heavy chain had dropped off his neck and, even if the weight wasn't literal, he definitely felt lighter than he could recently remember. For once in the many years he had spent at the academy he did not have the threat of upcoming tuition payments looming over his daily life as he got a good, and most importantly, safe education. It was hardly a concern for a normal student of Ashford Academy but they had sponsors, guardians or even the vaunted Britannian family to help keep the shockingly affordable fees for the average Britannian family. As a 'fallen' noble with neither family nor any inheritance to pay tuition with, such affordability became his only chance at paying it. It used to take an entire year of taking odd jobs and questionably legal… opportunities in order to pay those fees.

Isaac stretched as he looked through a nearby window, giving him an excellent view of the central grounds of the academy and a sense of peace. He had done so much over the years to keep being able to see this exact view everyday but he had never enjoyed it. To him, Ashford academy is a haven from the realities of living in the street, far away from his homeland and the promise of a better life. In Britannian society, you had to be better or you would fail as everyone laughed at your weakness. The academy was a place where Isaac could strengthen himself, take the time to get everything he needed to survive in the empire and far enough away from anyone who would have wanted to kick him back down. He had felt the bedrock of Britannia before, when he had been just a child, and he knew that no one would help him down there, content to see him suffer in his own weakness.

He had heard a few years ago that the Japanese used to have these things called "charities" that helped the bottom of society get to their feet and even some of their religious shrines were said to have helped those same people. Idly, Isaac wondered what it would have been like if he could have been helped back then and if it was a strength to help the unfortunate around you or was it a symptom of weakness that let them get conquered by a stronger Britannia.

Isaac was then shaken from his musing by flicker of movement in his vision. Turning his head, he saw the black silhouette of a pixie looking at an errant spiderweb on a corner of the roof. Isaac grinned. Just because he was free from one burden did not mean that another had not appeared in front of his face. The existence of demons, and other monsters was something he had to deal with, especially now that he was a summoner of two such demons, a pixie and a preta, which a quick search of the internet had revealed to be some sort of cannibal ghost which explained pretty much everything about it. However, the prospect of battling supernatural creatures didn't carry the same anxiety as meeting daunting financial goals and it even felt like he was…excited. He was willing to get to the bottom of this exciting new world, and with his tuition payed, he was more than willing to deal with any trouble he got into along the way.

Juni the pixie absently moved to the side, revealing that she hadn't been looking at the spiderweb like he thought but rather she had been making faces and laughing at what had been caught in it. Isaac felt himself involuntarily sigh as he saw that caught in the spiderweb was a small green paper man, struggling to get free and cursing at Juni under its breath. Absently, Isaac grabbed a rock out of his pocket that he had prepared for when Juni once again got stuck in such a web and threw it at the web. The rock flew inaccurately but true, damaging some of the web and letting the small demon get free. It immediately blasted off down the corridor with a gust of wind and a drawn out "THANKS DUUUUUDE!", zooming right by another student who had just entered the corridor and blowing all the papers she was holding across the trail of his path. As Isaac watched the young brunette student frantically scrabble for her papers across the floor, Isaac was incredibly glad that normal people couldn't see demons.

Isaac was then distracted by a dogs head with a large red spot on the top appearing from outside the window, of the third floor he was currently standing on and belonging to the longest dog he had ever seen, no doubt wondering what all that noise was. Indeed, Isaac was very glad for the fact that normal people couldn't see demons….

Because there were so bloody many of them.

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Once dawn had come and gone and Isaac was no longer distracted by his need for sleep, one of the first things he had noticed was that demons were far more common that he had even thought. He hadn't had time to think about it with his mad rush to spend most of the briefcase of money to settle his academic future but unfortunately for him he had the rest of the day to notice the presence of demons almost everywhere in the school. If it wasn't the green paper men, called Kodamas by Juni, zooming all over campus, it was other almost identical pixies floating around and moving small un-attended items away from people while giggling. Eating his breakfast in the cafeteria, he had been under the watchful eyes of a cooked chicken thing like what he had fought last night and he swore he saw a floating Jaco lantern in a witch costume go into the kitchen with a small devious-looking snowman.

It made sense in a way. Juni had said, in a roundabout way, that demons wanted, if not needed spiritual energy from humans, this Magatsuhi as she said. What better place to soak up tons of human emotions than at a school. It only elevated this thinking when he had caught sight of what looked like a Kelpie, an old English spirit that led to drowning, in the school's pool when he walked by. He guessed the feelings of the smaller kids feeling that they were drowning during swimming practice was enough for it to be satisfied considering he hadn't heard about anyone actually drowning.

Maybe it just liked the water, he didn't know.

That was the order of the day as he experienced the rest of the school day. As for 'his' two demons, they surprisingly didn't do much. Juni was too busy taking in the sights around her to really talk and spent most of the time looking around or resting inside his COMP. Preta for its part didn't manifest except for mealtimes, begging for table scraps and stealing others when no one would notice it gone. As for the COMP itself, it had been a lucky break to notice that the headset could somehow fit into the COMP almost seamlessly, meaning that it just looked like a fancy wrist computer to everyone and plenty of people complimented him for it, despite the sight of the silver computer clashing with his second and now only school jacket after he had to throw away the last one. Not even the industrious Sophie Wood would be able to save the bloodied and torn up thing.

Of course, the issue of the COMP would come to a head as Isaac went to change for his afternoon Gym practice.

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"Come on, Isaac." The aforementioned summoner heard as did the final adjustments to his newly changed gym shirt. "You can't seriously wear that thing to exercise, can you?"

The question was immediately answered by a look from Isaac, a peculiar look expressing a mixture of incredulity and daring.

"There's no rule to say I can't, is there?" came the verbal response.

The red haired student in-front of him rolled his eyes as he finished tying his shoes. He was known as Damien Smith and was by far the one classmate to talk to Isaac the most this year. They weren't exactly friends but from the trials and tribulations of being roughly equal in build and sitting next close to each other, they were definitely more friendly than not. Reflecting on it, Isaac wasn't sure he had any real friends, he had always been too busy to make them, but if he was going to have one, he guessed Damien was probably a good first contender. It was a far better shot than the other students currently in the locker room with them at any rate.

"You can't think it's going to be stolen, not at Ashford of all places? No Numbers here for that."

"Your faith in your fellow Britannians is astounding." Isaac deflected. "There are far less people willing to honour the unspoken rules of a locker room than you think."

"Sure, and you meet most of them doing whatever shady thing you did to afford it didn't you?" Damien shot back as he stood to his full height, his shoes now neatly tied. The gym uniform was a simple one, consisting of a white polo shirt with a green collar, dark green shorts and black pumps with navy blue socks.

Isaac stared at the student in confusion, hoping to mask a slight nervousness he felt at that comment.

"No, What shady business?"

"You come back to the academy late at night and covered in blood." This time the incredulity was on Damien's face. "There is no way you weren't doing one of your 'side jobs' last night."

"Dude." Isaac tried desperately to look affronted. "It was just a job at the butchers. I was stupid and left my jacket on and-"

"Yeah, yeah." Damien waved him off, clearly not listening. It was a deeply unfortunate occurrence for Isaac that the existence of his extra-legal activities were well known throughout the student body. The unfortunate consequences of a careless youth in crime. "Totally legal work, I get the song and dance. Although thinking about it, I don't blame you for not trusting your stuff today, I hear that good old Ice Prince is after you again."

Burdened with this new information, Isaac sighed. Lelouch Lamperouge could be amazingly annoying at times.

"What did the toothpick do now?" He asked.

"Nothing yet, but a girl I know says his fanclub caught him glaring at you. Probably about the blood thing last night."

"It couldn't just be the fact I caught him coming home from gambling, could it?" The question earned a scoff of amusement from the red-haired student.

"Considering almost everyone knows about it, no." Damien's answer was quick. "You probably jumped right on the sister button again dude, coming back looking like you killed somebody or something."

"It's always about his bloody sister…" Isaac grumbled. "How many times do I have to say that I was aiming for the maid and not her?"

"He doesn't believe you, dude." Damien said with amused finality. "And neither does half of the school."

Isaac let out a sigh of frustration as Damien walked past him, the other occupants of the Locker room having started to leave the room themselves, giving Isaac a pat on the shoulder as he did so.

"Come on." He spoke. "Keep your head down and the guy will eventually calm down again. Besides, this is our final year, you can't let someone like him get you down."

With a grumble, Isaac followed the crowd into the gym proper. It wasn't easy having the younger Vice-President of the Student Council as your self-declared nemesis, but it's the cards he had.

Plus, the whole summoner thing kind of put the odds in his favour anyway.

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It was a little-known fact that Ashford academy was suffering from a critical lack of coaches for Physical Education. After all, the Academy demanded a high level of skill for all its educators and sadly the position of PE coach directly competed with the Britannian army in what skills they demanded. What physically fit man or woman with knowledge in physical education and discipline decide to work in an academy for a fraction of the pay they could get in the military in Area 11? No, one could not simply hire one of the defunct Japanese army members, even if they were honorary Britannians, chronically unemployed and had all the skills necessary for the job.

And so, with this almost self-imposed shortage, Physical Education times were thus cut in half, with the two sessions divided between girls and boys respectively. No one knew why but some said that Milly Ashford, grand daughter of the head of the school Reuben Ashford and other things besides, was behind it.

With the girls going first, that left the boys of the year with good amount of time to kill and as boys were want to do, started doing their own thing. Many groups were formed in the gymnasium, most of the boys within talking and joking around with each other. Two of the largest groups however, had started competing with each other about how well they could exercise. Things like how many push-ups one could do and how long one could do a handstand were fair game in the competition brewing between the boys. Isaac for his part, used the time to reflect and observe.

Well, it was mostly Observe. Specifically observing the two demons watching the brewing competition with obvious disdain on their faces. One was a large, red-skinned monster man, with a horn on the top of his head and white tusks prominently jutting from his mouth. It wore some sort of purple overcoat and pants combo, leaving its heavily muscled torso bare for all to see. Along with the heavy polearm in its hand, it left no mystery to what that demon's deal was. The other was man-sized and surprisingly just looked like a man in old Japanese armour, wielding a smaller but sharper polearm than its compatriot. The only supernatural thing about the demon was it solid yellow eyes, crunched up in disgust at the sight before it.

"Pathetic." The armoured one spat. "This is what they are teaching the children of my people's conquerors? Disgraceful that we lost to this…"

"Yeah, not the strongest, are they?" The red one agreed. "Bet the whole thing would have gone differently if I was there."

"Tough talk from a demon watching kids." The reply was automatic on Isaac's part, causing all three of them to be surprised. The armoured demon seemingly looked at him until he caught sight of the COMP and then glared.

"Do you have something to declare summoner?" The armoured one challenged while the other squared his shoulders.

Isaac sighed. He got himself into this accidentally but there was no way he was going to back down.

"Sure." Isaac walked towards them, filling himself with either confidence or bravado. "You are looking at the children of scholars and calling their warriors weak." He tried to sound as archaic as possible for the demon's benefit. "Isn't it rather dishonourable of you to avoid actual opponents and mock children for not being you?"

The Armoured demon's eyes flared in anger, the glow somehow getting brighter.

"You dare to insult the honour of Momunofu?" He hissed, his polearm almost blurring in his hand. "I will make you pay for your insolence gaijin!"

Isaac readied himself, his hand near his COMP for a rapid summon, the computer almost coming to life at his thoughts. This was a stupid idea. A summoner fight in front of his classmates with no weapon but there was no way he was going to let the demon insult all of Britannia like that.

The tension was thick and he could see Momunofu brace….

Until the tension was cut by a large red hand landing on Momunofu's shoulder.

"No." The large demon simply said to the smaller one. "I don't feel like dying in a battle with a summoner today."

"Hey kid!" The red one yelled out to Isaac. "You want us to stop shit-talking how weak these little wimps are right?"

At Isaac's nod, the demon grinned.

"Then show us, little summoner. Show us how strong you are."

"How and why?" was the simple question from Isaac. With the tension so thoroughly ruined, Momunofu un-readied himself as the red demon stepped forward.

"How about…" The demon looked thoughtful. "You do the exercises we tell you to do and in return, we tell you how to get stronger."

The deal was simple, and under the begrudging acceptance of Momunofu, the deal seemed legit. In all honesty, there was no real reason to believe them, but the lack of fighting was nice and, in the end, Isaac accepted for the simple reason that he had nothing better to do.

The exercises were seemingly undoable, a several hundred push-ups there, a couple of hundred sit-ups there but Isaac did do them, rapidly and easily. He was almost surprised how easily and effortlessly such simple exercises came to him, and this ease only seemed to excite the red-skinned demon more, causing it to give him more complex and arduous exercises as time went on, allowing Isaac to finally put some effort into it and start to feel the burn.

After five minutes, Momunofu had walked away grumbling quietly and after ten minutes, Isaac was breathing heavily.

"Haha." The demon cried out. "The second you squared up against the tin-man I figured what kind of summoner you were."

"What would that be?" Still breathing heavily, Isaac got to his feet, oddly energised from the exercise.

"You aren't one of those wimpy casters." The demon said. "You like fighting things. Getting up in the action without any of that complicated magic stuff."

"What does that matter to you?"

The demon looked at him incredulously.

"It means I like you kid." He said as though that answered everything. "And as a reward for getting someone like me to do that, I'm going to help get you even stronger during these… gym times of yours."

"Why?" was the obvious question asked, causing the demon to shrug.

"I've got nothing better to do. And I better make sure that my future summoner is at least as strong as I am!"

At his confused look the demon grinned and bowed.

"The name's Oni and you've got a long way to go before you can handle me."

Isaac looked away, trying to see the other demon from before only to notice the amazed stare of his fellow students, who had apparently been watching.

Silence as the amazed and the shocked stared at each other until a single comment broke the silence.

"Holy shit, dude. You win."