- Hey guys, so Chapter 2 is out for you degenerates, things are going to be accelerated until his 17° anniversary, thats when canon is supposed to start. Good reading, and Authors Out. -
Morning came earlier for me than for most kids. I wasn't the type to sleep in anymore—not when every extra hour of rest felt like wasted time that could've gone into sharpening this body, this second chance I'd been given. My classmates could stay tangled in their dreams, drooling on their pillows while their moms shook them awake for school. Me? My eyes snapped open before the sun even cleared the rooftops, lungs pulling in the chilled air of dawn like it was a challenge.
I rolled out of my futon, palms pressing against the tatami mat, and let my weight fall into the familiar rhythm of push-ups. One. Two. Three. I didn't need a clock. The count was my clock. The beat of my breath, the thump of my heart, the way my muscles strained against gravity. Every rep carved something into me. Not just muscle, not just stamina, but discipline.
And, of course, I wasn't doing this alone anymore.
[Straighten your back, whelp. Discipline builds strength, and strength builds survival. Again.]
That voice—low, resonant, like the growl of tectonic plates grinding beneath the earth—rolled through me, shaking my chest even though it came from nowhere but inside my skull. I grit my teeth, lowering myself again, arms trembling under the effort. "Yeah, yeah, I got it," I muttered between breaths. "Keep the ass down, don't wobble, don't half-ass it. I'm not half-assing it, shut up."
[Half-assed is your natural state. I am correcting it.]
I groaned, sweat dripping off my chin as I pushed up again. "You know, most kids get encouraging voices in their heads. Like imaginary friends. You? You're like a drill sergeant with anger issues."
[And yet you keep moving when I speak. Perhaps you need anger more than comfort.]
Since that first night when he revealed himself, Ddraig had become my shadow, my taskmaster, and—though I'd never admit it out loud—the closest thing I had to a partner. At first, I'd expected him to mock me endlessly, call me weak, remind me every day how far below his past hosts I must be. Instead, his voice carried something heavier than ridicule: expectation. He wasn't satisfied with me being good. He wanted me to be relentless. And, against my better judgment, I wanted to meet that bar.
The weeks bled into months. My routine changed. School came and went, but every free hour belonged to training. Not the half-hearted kind where I swung sticks around and called it sword practice, but grueling, sweat-drenched, muscle-tearing repetition. Push-ups until my arms buckled. Squats until my legs screamed. Running laps around the park until I could taste iron on my tongue.
And then… the fire started.
At first, it was just a flicker, a spark that danced at the edges of my perception when I pushed myself too far. A faint warmth in my palms when I clenched them hard enough, a heat that wasn't entirely normal. One night, I stared down at my hands after collapsing from push-ups and saw the faintest ember glowing between my fingers, curling a wisp of smoke toward the ceiling.
I panicked, flapping my hands like a dumbass, half-convinced I'd set myself on fire.
[Calm yourself. That is not death reaching for you—it is me.]
I froze, staring at the tiny spark still licking my palm. "That's… that's you?"
[That is you. Your body is beginning to listen. The power that sleeps within the gauntlet does not simply gift itself—it reshapes the host. Fire is our birthright, yes, but it is not the whole of us.]
"Fire," I whispered, watching the ember flicker out. "You mean, like… breathing fire? Like an actual dragon?"
There was a pause, the kind of silence that felt like a massive beast cocking its head, unimpressed.
[You think too small. Your kind always does. Fire is only half the truth. A dragon's heart burns with flame, yes—but his veins are carved from the earth itself. Fire destroys. Earth endures. You will learn both.]
I blinked, still panting, still half-terrified I was going to light the tatami on fire. "So… I'm a six-year-old with matches strapped to his soul and a geological fetish. Great."
[You make jokes to mask fear. That is acceptable. But listen well. A flame without restraint devours its master. A mountain that moves without purpose crushes all beneath it. You will master them both—or you will die.]
The words dug deep. I wanted to laugh it off, but the truth was plain. I wasn't ready. Not for the world outside, not for the devils and angels and monsters that lurked beyond Kuoh. But I was getting closer. Every drop of sweat brought me closer.
From then on, sparks and tremors became my reality. My fingertips glowed faint orange when my focus slipped. The earth beneath my feet sometimes shifted, just slightly, when I stomped too hard. Out in the woods, I'd throw punches at the air until sweat blinded me, and sometimes the soil cracked beneath my stance as though the ground itself recognized me.
It was terrifying. It was exhilarating.
And through it all, Ddraig's voice never let up.
[Too sloppy. Again.][Control your breathing. Your lungs are bellows, not sieves.][Do not fear the flame. Fear your hesitation.]
By the time I turned seven, then eight, other kids spent their afternoons chasing soccer balls or button-mashing controllers. Me? I was in the backyard, shirt sticking to my skin, knuckles raw from striking the same tree until bark crumbled away under my fists. Some nights I crawled into bed sore enough to cry, but I never did. I bit my pillow, grit my teeth, and whispered to the ceiling that it wasn't enough. Not yet.
My parents thought I was just a hardworking, slightly strange kid. They'd see me running laps and beam with pride. "Issei's so serious," my mom would say, torn between admiration and worry. And my dad, ever the optimist, would clap my shoulder with a laugh, "He'll make something of himself."
And every time I caught their pride, every time I felt their trust, it burned hotter in me than the sparks dancing at my fingertips. I would not fail them. Not like before.
By the time I turned nine, my reflection didn't match the boy I remembered from the anime. Gone was the chubby, goofy kid with wide eyes and a permanent blush. In his place was a leaner frame, muscle starting to carve its way across my arms and legs, eyes harder, sharper. I could run for miles without gasping. I could drop and push until my arms went numb. Pain became an old friend I greeted every morning.
And still, it wasn't enough. Because I knew what lay ahead. Beyond the safety of Kuoh's streets, there were devils plotting, angels scheming, fallen circling like vultures. The calm was an illusion, a bubble waiting to pop. And when it did, I refused to be the weak link.
But then, destiny decided to speed things up.
Dinner was always the one place where my training and my secrets had to bow down. No matter how sore my arms were, no matter how much my body begged me to collapse in bed, I sat upright at the table, chopsticks in hand, because in this life I respected what I hadn't before. Family dinners weren't background noise anymore—they were the anchor. My mom's cooking wasn't just food; it was fuel and comfort, a reminder that I wasn't some lonely burnout wasting away in a shitty apartment. My dad's jokes weren't corny distractions; they were laughter I'd thought I'd never hear again.
So, when my dad cleared his throat halfway through a plate of curry rice, I knew he had something loaded. His eyes twinkled in that way that always meant he was about to drop news like it was the fucking weather.
"Issei," he said, putting his chopsticks down with dramatic flourish, "this summer, we're going overseas."
I blinked, halfway through chewing. Overseas? I hadn't even left Kuoh yet, unless you counted trips to my grandparents' place in another prefecture. I swallowed, staring at him. "Overseas? Like… where?"
He grinned, all teeth, clearly excited. "North Africa. Libya."
The word slammed into me. Libya. My fingers went cold around my chopsticks, and something deep inside me shifted like a sleeping beast twitching in its dreams.
[Libya… Yes. That cursed land.]
Ddraig's voice rumbled through my chest so suddenly I almost dropped my bowl. My mind lurched into the crimson depths of the Gear, whispering silently: What do you mean?
There was a long pause, a kind of silence I hadn't heard from him before—less judgment, more… memory. When he spoke, his tone was low, heavy.
[Long ago, before your so-called "God" chained me in this prison, I had… subordinates. Younger dragons. One of them fled when I was imprisioned, twisted by hatred. He vowed vengeance on the deity who sealed me. He found a city near the edge of the desert. I cannot recall its mortal name… perhaps Silene. There, he demanded worship. He scorched their lands, turned their rivers to steam, and forced mortals to kneel in my shadow.]
The taste of curry turned to ash in my mouth. My dad kept talking—something about plane tickets, about hotels—but his words faded to static. My focus was locked on Ddraig's voice.
[A warrior came. Not a devil, not a dragon, not even an angel. A man. A saint with steel in his hand and faith in his heart strong enough to pierce dragonhide. He slew my wayward servant in the name of his God. Humans called it a miracle. They tell the tale now as the legend of 'Saint George and the Dragon.']
My chopsticks slipped from my hand and clattered against the bowl. My parents glanced at me—concern flashing in my mom's eyes, confusion in my dad's—but I forced a laugh, scratching my head. "Sorry, sorry. Guess I was hungrier than I thought."
They bought it. They went back to their happy chatter. But my pulse thundered in my ears, drowning it out. Saint George. Patron saint of dragon-slayers. And we were going right to the heart of his legend.
I spent the rest of dinner shoving rice into my mouth like a machine, nodding whenever my parents spoke, but my head was far away, somewhere deep in the desert, imagining a warrior's blade slicing through scales, imagining Ddraig's subordinates screaming as they fell.
That night, when the house went quiet, I lay on my futon staring at the ceiling, fists clenched so tight my knuckles ached.
"What the hell, Ddraig?" I hissed under my breath. "You drop that kind of lore bomb on me while I'm eating dinner like it's nothing? Saint George? That Saint George? Are you kidding me?"
[You asked what I meant.]
"That's not an answer!" My voice cracked, frustration boiling over. "You're telling me the story my teachers used to bring up in history class is real? That your rogue pet dragon is the one Saint George killed? That the myth wasn't a myth?"
[Myth is a human word. For us, it was war.]
I sat up, dragging a hand down my face. My heart refused to calm, pounding like a war drum. "And now my parents want to drag me right into that fucking warzone like it's a family vacation."
[Then fate stirs. That place remembers dragons, boy. The earth does not forget where fire once fell, nor does faith forget the blood it drank. If destiny drags us there, something waits. Something old. Something dangerous.]
The room suddenly felt colder. My blanket felt thin, useless. I stared into the dark and whispered, "Do you think Saint George's… whatever… could still be there? His spirit? His weapon? Some remnant?"
There was another silence, heavier than before, and when Ddraig finally spoke, it wasn't mockery. It wasn't arrogance. It was something I hadn't thought he was capable of.
[I do not know.]
That scared me more than anything else.
I lay back down, eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling until dawn began to creep into the room. Sleep never came. My body twitched with leftover adrenaline, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw flashes of desert fire, of a man in armor driving a lance into dragon flesh while people prayed.
The world was no longer something I could prepare for "eventually." Fate wasn't going to wait until I was grown, or until Kuoh's timeline caught up with canon. No, it was throwing me into the fire early, dragging me across the sea into the land where dragons had died and saints had risen.
Nine years old on the outside. Twenty-nine inside. And now, destiny itself had its teeth in my throat.
The next week was hell, but not for the reasons you'd expect. I wasn't fighting devils, I wasn't clashing swords with fallen angels, I wasn't spitting fire into the night sky. No. I was stuck with the worst enemy of all—waiting.
Every day was a countdown. My parents bubbled with excitement, fussing over passports, talking about flights, buying sunscreen like we were heading to some tropical paradise instead of a desert dripping with blood-soaked history. Meanwhile, I couldn't shake the feeling that each sunrise dragged me closer to something ancient crouching just out of sight, waiting for me.
I pushed myself harder than ever. Running before school. Training after school. Studying late into the night. My classmates thought I was crazy, and honestly, they weren't wrong. One of them—Shou, a loudmouthed brat who thought he was hot shit at dodgeball—snickered when I tripped from exhaustion during gym. "Hyoudou's always running around like an idiot. Guess he's training to be the next Power Ranger." The other kids laughed. I just picked myself up, dusted off my knees, and kept going. Because fuck them. Let them waste their childhoods. I didn't have the luxury.
Every bruise, every ache, every drop of sweat whispered the same truth: I was still not enough. If Libya was more than just sand and stories—if it still held echoes of Saint George, or worse, remnants of that dragon's rage—I'd be walking straight into a battlefield I wasn't ready for.
Ddraig didn't ease my mind either.
[Your pace improves, but your control falters. You flare with every strike like a drunk with fireworks. Restrain it.]
"I'm nine!" I snapped one afternoon, punching the bark of a tree until my knuckles throbbed. "Do you know how insane this is? Other kids are learning multiplication tables, and I'm here trying not to set myself on fire."
[Then be insane. Sanity never forged warriors.]
"Easy for you to say, you're a giant dragon stuck in my soul! You don't have to deal with scraped knees and teachers who think I'm just a weird overachiever."
There was a pause, then a low rumble that almost sounded amused.
[Do not whine, boy. You remind me of Albion when you complain. He never shut up either.]
That image—Ddraig casually dunking on the White Dragon Emperor like an annoying roommate—made me snort despite myself. "Guess whining's a universal language, huh?"
[Universal weakness.]
And that was the balance we lived in: me, bitching like a kid who wanted to play video games instead of train, and Ddraig, shutting me down with millennia-old wisdom that doubled as insults. As twisted as it was, it worked. His relentless expectations forced me to push, and my stubbornness refused to let him win the argument by default.
At home, though, I had to play the part of a normal kid. My parents fussed over luggage, shopping for clothes that wouldn't melt in the desert sun. "Issei, do you want shorts or light pants?" Mom asked, holding up fabric like we were planning a fashion show. Dad joked about camels and sandstorms, pretending he was some kind of Indiana Jones.
I smiled, nodded, laughed when they laughed. But inside, my stomach twisted tighter every day.
The night before the flight, I couldn't sleep. I lay in my futon, staring at the shadows crawling across the ceiling as the fan hummed overhead. My body begged for rest, but my mind refused to shut up. My thoughts kept circling back to the same image: a man with a lance, sunlight glinting off his armor, driving steel through dragonhide while flames roared around him.
"Why Libya?" I whispered into the dark. "Why now?"
[Because fate does not care for your convenience.]
Ddraig's voice rolled through me, calm but sharp.
"Is this… punishment? Like some cosmic joke? The pervert protagonist reincarnates, trains his ass off, only to get yeeted into Saint George's backyard before he even hits puberty?"
[Perhaps. Or perhaps it is opportunity.]
"Opportunity? I'm a nine-year-old Japanese kid, not Indiana fucking Jones."
[Saint George was a man. Nothing more. He was not born divine. He bled, he feared, he failed, yet he still slew a dragon. And you carry me. If a man could kill a dragon without me, what could you become with me?]
The words lodged in my chest like hot coals. I wanted to argue, to say I wasn't ready, that I was just a reincarnated loser pretending to be disciplined. But something in Ddraig's tone—something old, heavy, unshakable—made me swallow the excuses.
I rolled onto my side, pulling the blanket tight, whispering through clenched teeth: "Then I'll prove it. Not just to you. Not just to fate. To me."
There was no reply. Just silence, deep and steady, like the pause of a beast waiting to see if its cub would survive the night.
Morning came too soon. My mom shook me awake, her voice bright, her smile brighter. Suitcases were lined by the door. Dad checked his watch like he was already late. And just like that, I was swept into a blur of trains, terminals, and airplane food that tasted like cardboard left out in the rain.
Nine hours into the flight, somewhere over the Mediterranean, I pressed my forehead against the window and stared down at the endless ocean. The hum of the engines lulled half the plane into sleep, but my pulse refused to calm. My reflection stared back at me—rounder cheeks than I felt inside, eyes too old for a kid's face. My parents sat beside me, flipping through travel brochures, blissfully unaware that their son's chest housed a dragon and a destiny itching to bite.
Ddraig stirred faintly, his voice a rumble only I could hear.
[Do not let fear rot you, boy. Fire must burn forward. The earth must hold steady. Remember both.]
I breathed in. Out. In again. And I tried to believe him.
When the plane began its descent, I saw the desert stretching out below, endless dunes glowing under the sun like molten gold. A land of sand and silence, but not empty. No. Beneath that silence, I could feel it—the faintest tremor in the air, as if the land itself remembered blood, remembered fire, remembered dragons.
Libya. The land where saints fought monsters. The land where legends turned into graves.
And now, it was waiting for me.
Nine years old outside. Twenty-nine inside. A dragon in my soul. And as the wheels touched the runway, rattling the whole plane, I realized something chilling.
Destiny wasn't waiting for me to grow up.It was already here.
---
Hey guys, I'm back, and I wanted you guys to vote for who will be the oficial girl of Issei, and the options are:
Tiamat (Vote here)
Ingvild Leviathan (Vote Here)
Kalawarna [because I like her design](Vote here )
Other (Need to be connected to dragons).