When the white light faded, a new figure stood on the dark red sand.
Genichi's heart nearly leapt out of his throat. Every muscle in his body locked tight. Blood surged up into his head until the edges of his vision dimmed from sheer tension.
He stared at the opposite side, his mind racing through nightmare scenarios at breakneck speed—was it a Jedi with a lightsaber? A cultivator forming hand seals? A martial artist built like a slab of steel?
But—
The imposing, killing-intent opponent he'd imagined never appeared.
The figure was hunched, barely able to stand, swaying like a gust of wind could knock him over.
He wore a strange black outfit—almost like a high school uniform, but decorated with lavish patterns—yet the fabric around his abdomen was soaked through with a vivid, sticky dark red, and the stain was still spreading.
Genichi's eyes snapped to the wound.
A hole.
A fist-sized hole punched clean through him.
Through that horrifying cavity, Genichi could even make out the dark red sand behind him.
There was no spill of organs, no grotesque flood of gore—maybe because the wound had been cauterized by some kind of power. The edges were charred black.
Even so, his life was visibly pouring out of him.
That "Genichi" was pale as paper, lips drained of color. His eyes were unfocused, pupils already starting to dilate. He was only upright because of some last sliver of instinct… or the lingering force of the arena's compulsory teleportation.
He lifted a trembling hand as if to cover the wound, but his arm died halfway and fell limp.
His mouth opened. No sound came out—only bloody foam seeped from the corner of his lips. His gaze shifted with effort and finally landed on Genichi.
There was no battle intent in that stare. No killing urge.
Only endless pain, confusion… and something Genichi couldn't read—maybe the blank hollowness of someone on the verge of death.
"Wha—"
Genichi's head rang.
Then, absurdly, joy exploded through him—an almost ridiculous, surreal relief that scattered his fear and despair like fireworks.
The emotional whiplash hit so hard it made him lightheaded.
Dying opponent?
No. This wasn't "dying."
This was one breath away from dead.
A hole that big in his stomach—unless a god descended on the spot, he wasn't surviving it.
Did this arena have some kind of protective matchmaking? Pairing the weak with someone even weaker—someone already about to die?
No. The rules hadn't mentioned anything like that.
So was it pure luck?
While his thoughts spiraled, the other him convulsed violently. A short, strangled breath rattled out of his throat—then the last thread holding him up snapped.
He pitched forward and slammed into the dark red sand, kicking up a small puff of dust.
After that, he didn't move again.
Genichi held his breath, frozen, eyes unblinking on the body. Seconds dragged by like centuries.
Then he saw it.
The corpse began to glow.
Not light shining on it from outside—light blooming from within, from every cell, from the deepest strands of the soul itself. Soft, pure white specks.
At first they were faint.
Then they turned bright. Dense.
The body became a light source collapsing outward. Flesh, bone, clothes—
Everything that made him "him" dissolved, broke apart, and turned into countless firefly-like motes.
They didn't drift randomly. They were pulled by something unseen, gathering into a brilliant, slow-flowing river of light—one with a single, unmistakable destination.
Genichi.
Instinct screamed at him to step back, but his feet might as well have been nailed to the ground.
The light wasn't harsh. It was warm—strangely, seductively warm.
He watched the first mote touch his skin. There was no impact, only a faint coolness, like a droplet soaking into a sponge.
Then it vanished.
No—it merged.
A second mote. A third.
The river of light swallowed him whole.
In an instant, a tsunami of memories, emotions, knowledge, sensations—
Not his, yet fundamentally his— crashed into the deepest layers of his consciousness.
He became Hyoudou Genichi.
No… more accurately, he was living two lives at once.
The self-awareness of Genichi from the daily-life world remained clear, like an observer—and also like a participant—fully immersed in another, completely different life, a life intense enough to burn.
That other version of him had transmigrated into the world of High School DxD, taking the place of a boy named Issei Hyoudou—and becoming the host of the Red Dragon Emperor.
He had lived as Hyoudou Genichi from childhood onward. In order to keep the plot from changing too drastically, Hyoudou Genichi didn't do anything unnecessary, simply waiting for the moment he would be reincarnated as a devil.
He enrolled in Kuoh Academy as scheduled. Joined the three-man pervert squad. Accepted Yuma Amano's confession. Went on the date. Took the devil summoning magic circle handed over through a familiar. Got stabbed through the stomach in the park by Yuma Amano's spear of light.
Then waited for Rias Gremory to reincarnate him into a devil…
Two lives. Two sets of memories. Two sets of emotions—coexisting inside him.
There was no split personality, no confusion. The arena's rules seemed to ensure the victor's mind remained the core. The loser's memories were added like new books in a library—available to read and draw from, but incapable of overturning the dominant self.
Genichi slowly opened his eyes.
They were different now.
He looked down at his left hand.
An ordinary hand. Neatly trimmed nails. Clear skin lines.
Yet somewhere inside that left arm—or deeper, within his body—slept a power so vast it made his instincts tremble.
The Boosted Gear.
One of the Sacred Gears, housing the soul of one of the Two Heavenly Dragons—the Red Dragon Emperor, Ddraig.
It held the Power of Boost, doubling its user's strength every ten seconds—stacking in theory without limit until the body could no longer endure it.
It also held Transfer, allowing the accumulated power to be temporarily passed to another person or object.
And its Balance Breaker form was the Red Dragon Emperor's armor—massively increasing both offense and defense.
A top-tier power, the kind that could let a mortal slay gods and demons.
And now that power—along with everything Hyoudou Genichi had been—belonged to him.
"Heh…"
A small laugh slipped from Genichi's throat, breaking the arena's dead silence.
It started low, uncertain, like he was testing whether this ridiculous reality was real.
Then it grew.
Bigger, louder, freer—
until it turned into wild, unrestrained, almost hysterical laughter.
"Heh… hahahaha… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
He covered his face. His whole body shook from laughing, and through his fingers, his eyes gleamed with a feverish, near-manic heat.
Luck.
What insane, unbelievable luck.
Just minutes ago, he'd been convinced he was the weakest one—the disposable stepping stone destined to be eaten by stronger versions of himself.
He'd practically braced himself to die.
And now fate had thrown him a miracle.
No—something beyond a miracle.
A version of himself from a high-risk supernatural world, carrying a top-tier Sacred Gear and limitless potential… delivered to him at death's door because the plot had "killed" him first.
It was a perfectly wrapped, doorstep-delivered super gift.
No struggle. No bloody battle. No brutal climb.
He'd gained the coordinate of a powerful world and a sleeping divine weapon buried in his soul.
This wasn't just survival.
This was the beginning of skyrocketing to the heavens.
Euphoria surged like the strongest liquor, flushing every nerve in his body. He could feel his soul trembling and cheering under the weight of this sudden, enormous windfall.
And then, once the high ebbed a fraction, he realized something else.
The power was his now.
But how was he supposed to use it?
A Sacred Gear required energy—demonic power, holy power, something supernatural—to activate and drive it.
And right now, at his core, he was still just a normal human soul from a daily-life world. His body didn't contain that kind of energy.
The Boosted Gear was sleeping inside him like a super engine without fuel.
He could feel it. He could almost touch that hot, regal draconic presence.
But to truly wake it—to wield it—he still needed supernatural energy.
Then there was the arena's rule set…
He lifted his head, looking at the empty, dead silence around him.
The first match had been a once-in-a-lifetime stroke of fortune.
The next one?
Was another dying, top-tier version of himself going to be gift-wrapped and handed over again?
The odds were practically zero.
More likely, he'd be matched against a version of himself who was healthy—who had already grown strong in their world.
He had a god-tier weapon now.
But the one holding it was still pathetically weak… and couldn't even chamber a round.
If the next match was against someone from even a low-magic world—a trained fighter with real killing power—Genichi could still be murdered easily, nothing more than a normal person carrying treasure he couldn't unlock.
The crisis wasn't over.
It had only shifted—from immediate execution to a temporary reprieve, paired with a chance to overturn destiny that was brutally difficult to realize.
His laughter faded.
Genichi lowered his hands. His face returned to calm—almost too calm.
Only deep in his eyes, a flame burned: ambition, caution, and resolve braided together.
He crouched and pinched a bit of the dark red sand between his fingers. Rough. Cold. Reeking faintly of iron.
"Hyoudou Genichi…"
His voice was low, echoing slightly in the empty arena.
"Thanks for the gift. Your resentment, your unfinished ambition—I'll carry it all the way to the end."
White light began to rise from the ground again.
This time, it was sending him back.
Genichi straightened, taking one last look at the ancient colosseum where his fate had turned. His gaze sharpened into a blade.
"I'll be back."
"Next time, I won't be livestock waiting for the knife."
The white light swallowed him.
His consciousness snapped back.
Genichi's eyes flew open. He was still leaning against the apartment door, standing in the narrow entryway.
For a moment, it felt like everything had been an impossibly vivid hallucination.
But he knew it wasn't.
He could recall every detail of Hyoudou Genichi's life with absolute clarity. He could sense that sleeping presence deep in his soul.
More than that—he could feel it like a mental interface.
If he focused, two clear "coordinates" surfaced in his mind.
One was this daily-life multi-anime world.
The other was the world of devils, angels, and fallen angels—the High School DxD world.
He could go there.
According to the rules, as the victor, he'd gained the right to freely travel back and forth to the world Hyoudou Genichi had belonged to.
Genichi's heart started hammering again—but this time it wasn't fear.
It was urgency. Excitement.
Go.
Activate the Sacred Gear.
That world had supernatural systems—energy, power, training paths.
That world was the key to breaking out of his current dead-end and truly stepping onto the road toward becoming the only one.
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