[300 PS = 1 Chapter Bonus]
*
I had only suspected that I had been teleported to before the beginning of the High School DxD story, but confirmation came when I was finally approached by Amano Yuuma.
I was going to that bridge every day after school for that very reason. It could have taken days, as it did, or months, and I would have kept going there.
Why? Well, Raynare was my ticket to becoming a devil without needing a servant collar around my neck.
Amano Yuuma, Raynare's human disguise, was a beautiful girl with a kind personality. She looked like a normal Japanese high school girl, even seeming shy at times.
After our conversation on the pier, we exchanged cell phone numbers. Luckily, I had bought a cell phone with the money I found in the apartment.
We set a date for Saturday of that week, and Friday passed quickly for me.
On Saturday morning, I went to the agreed-upon location in the city center. It was a square in front of a shopping mall.
It wasn't difficult to find this place, even though I was new to the city, because I had been here a few days earlier to pick up a flyer from a woman dressed in an erotic devil costume.
However, this wasn't just any flyer. In the center of it was a circle with strange symbols that looked like runes, and at the top was the phrase "I will fulfill your desire."
When I put my hand in my pants pocket to make sure I still had the flyer, I heard a lovely voice call my name.
"Leonard-kun!"
I turned toward the voice and saw Yuuma approaching.
"Good morning, Yuuma-san."
"Good morning... Sorry. Did I keep you waiting long?"
"No, I just got here," I replied casually with a smile.
If it were up to me, I would have attacked her right there. Spending a day with Raynare pretending to be someone she wasn't already made me anxious, but attacking a girl like her in a public place like this wouldn't end well for me.
'It's best to wait until we're alone.'
Naturally, Yuuma and I started our date by walking together through the busy streets of Kuoh, but we also went to the movies, the ice cream shop, and tried on clothes together.
To me, this date seemed to last forever, but we finally arrived at Fountain Square, where the orange twilight illuminated everything.
Yuuma had been surprisingly quiet since we entered the park. There was a blush on her face that anyone would mistake for shyness or nervousness. When Yuuma moved away from me and walked over to the fountain, she put her hands behind her back and continued to hold her bag. The moment she finally turned around, she looked at me and said,
"Hey, Leonard-kun. To celebrate our first date, I'll give you a present."
"A present?"
She slowly approached me with that friendly smile, placing one foot in front of the other.
Any boy would be nervous in that situation, expecting a kiss or something, but I took a deep breath.
"I know where this is going," I said in a cold tone.
"What?" Yuuma raised her head.
"I know what you are, Raynare, Fallen Angel of the Lower Ranks."
A sadistic smile appeared on her face at that moment. "You're the informed type then? That makes things even more interesting."
It was then that the sky began to darken rapidly, as if clouds were gathering in a whirlpool above us. The entire area was enveloped in a chamber of darkness, and that soft evening light was gone.
With a quick movement, Raynare transformed her bag into a sword of light, and at the same time, her cute, modern clothes were replaced by revealing. The clothes showed much more skin than before, but what impressed me the most was the huge pair of black wings that emerged from her back.
"Even though our time together was short, it was fun!" She exclaimed and attacked me with the sword of light in her hand.
["Boost!"] Ddraig's voice echoed in my mind.
The greenish light of the Boosted Gear appeared in my left hand, and I used that same hand to grab Raynare's right wrist.
I confess that her supernatural speed caught me a little off guard, because I didn't think she would be so fast. But luckily, I managed to stop her an inch before her blade of light touched my eye.
"Oh~ You have good reflexes," she praised me ironically.
I squeezed her right wrist, quickly wiping the mocking smile off her face.
"You have absolutely no idea who you're dealing with," I said, then kicked her in the stomach.
Unfortunately, my kick barely made her bend forward, let alone send her several meters backward. However, the level of strength required to do that was only a matter of time.
["There goes another one, kid! Boost!"]
I thanked Ddraig internally as I took two steps back. I already knew this fight wouldn't be easy, but I hadn't spent the four days I had in this world completely for nothing.
When Raynare raised her head and looked at me with a murderous gaze, I put my hand in the right pocket of my jacket.
Raynare laughed and exclaimed, "It doesn't matter what you've brought! You have nothing that can kill a Fallen Angel!"
She didn't give me time to respond and immediately lunged toward me. Once again, I was surprised by her speed because she simply crossed the distance between us in the blink of an eye.
I took my hand out of my pocket, drawing her gaze. She smiled from ear to ear when she saw that they were spheres the size of gumballs. However, when I threw them on the ground while dodging one of Raynare's attacks, a large curtain of smoke rose in a second.
Smoke bombs! They weren't that easy to find, but they were surprisingly effective.
"Cough! Cough!" Raynare coughed, waving the smoke away from her face with one hand. "Smoke bombs? Seriously, where did you find those? At a magic shop?"
I didn't answer, and she gritted her teeth.
"How stupid do you have to be to think something like that would work against me? I'm a Fallen Angel!" Raynare shouted and began sucking the smoke around her into her lungs.
In a few moments, Raynare filled her lungs with smoke and smiled at the end, when she finally saw me.
"There you are! I told you that a mere smoke screen wouldn't be enough to keep me from finding you," she said.
"I'm surprised. Of all the possible ways I imagined you could get rid of that smoke, you did the dumbest one," I said, crossing my arms.
"What?"
"Look, you could have created a whirlwind with your wings or simply flown up above the smoke, but no, you went and sucked it all in like Superman... I can't blame you for underestimating me. I am just a random guy to you."
"Kid, do you really think — Cough!" She coughed suddenly, and her eyebrows rose when she looked at her right palm and saw a spot of blood.
One of the advantages of coming from an apocalyptic universe was knowing things that ordinary people shouldn't know, like synthesizing poison into gas. It wasn't easy in my world, because the tools I had weren't those of a chemistry teacher, but I learned to do it in adverse situations in the ruins to use against monsters. So, modifying the contents of a ready-made smoke bomb inside an apartment was much easier than I was used to.
"It's scary how just three boxes of rat poison can kill even a bear," I said, removing my arm from in front of my nose and mouth. "Unfortunately for me, you won't die from just that, but you definitely won't be able to stay awake for very long."