Disclaimer: I don't own Highschool DxD.
Funny How Things Never Change
"This was a great idea," Kunou decided, smiling as the story progressed the more cards she placed next to each other. Joshua, for his part, was reluctant to agree. Mainly because they'd ended up with a lot of option cards to "tell" the story, as it were. The stories, since things were getting out of hand really fast, ended up being really short. However, with the amount of options there were, it ended up being not that bad a thing.
"It is rather neat, yeah," Joshua said with a slight smile, regardless of all the trouble the Project Tale Maker had been. Kunou was happy and that was all that he needed. 'Business as usual,' He thought to himself.
He'd half expected, after recovering from his memories of the world he was in, that things would change. Surely some of his relationships would be different, right? Surely something wouldn't be quite the same anymore, right?
Well, he'd been wrong.
Sure, now he knew that his Devil friends were probably a lot more reliable and friendly than he'd thought they were. Now he knew that Vali wasn't. Now he knew a lot more about Khaos Brigade. Now he knew that the Church was to be dealt with warily, even if Griselda was probably decent enough.
At the end of the day, things could be different from his memories though. Jeanne was his sister now. Kunou seemed to be younger than he remembered her being. Furthermore, he'd already unknowingly sent ripples all over the place.
"Joshua?" Kunou asked, poking his side and catching him off guard.
"Yeah?"
"You are distracted," She accused with narrowed eyes. He gave her another smile, placing a hand on her head and messing her hair up a little. She was still just as adorable as before. The only thing his memories had done was remind him that she was, indeed, suffocated by her situation as basically the princess of the youkai. There wasn't much he could do about that, but he guessed what he was already doing was at least good.
"Sorry about that, Kunou," He apologized before regarding the unfolding story before his eyes. "So, what's next? Project Strategy? Or did you want to do something else? I have the day off from wards and you passed the test with flying colors, so we can do whatever you want."
His words brought a proud look from the girl as she all but preened under the praise. Joshua wasn't even exaggerating. She had answered all the questions he'd asked correctly. Some could have used more details and such, but overall she'd done perfectly. Thus, she'd decided to use her day to finish their card story project.
"Hm, I was thinking, maybe I could try to make some cards myself? Like, um," She mumbled, her voice growing quieter as she went on. Joshua thought he got the gist of it from that alone though.
"You mean, do all the work yourself?" He asked, blinking at her as she nodded shyly. "Sure, I'll just sit here then. Just ask me if you have any doubts, ok? What do you even want to make?"
"I was thinking of making some to keep in my room and things like that. Like an illusion of a sight out of my window or a night sky on my ceiling."
"Hm, a night sky might be better to get started. Should be simpler," He commented, getting a nod from her and he could see the gears spinning in her head. 'Wonder if that's what I look like when thinking about wards,' Joshua thought to himself with a smile forming on his face.
"Joshua-sama?" Fuyuko said as she placed a cup of tea next to him.
"Thanks, Fuyuko," He told her as she laid a second on Kunou's side. The girl, however, was already all but glaring at the notebook in front of her. The pencil in her hand scratched at the pages as she started noting down her ideas and theories about how to make it work. There were some mistakes, but she was still thinking it over. Joshua was sure she'd noticed herself. If not, he'd just keep an eye out.
"Yasaka-sama said to tell you that she would make time to come sooner today," The yuki-onna informed them, although Kunou was entirely too focused on her work. She barely seemed to notice the servant's words. "The Fallen's support seems to have helped her have less to worry about."
"That's good to know," Joshua commented, grinning amusedly as he looked at the little girl working. "I'll tell her once she takes a break," He told Fuyuko, in case the servant had something else to do. He didn't want to keep her waiting to be acknowledged.
"I was speaking to you, Joshua-sama," The yuki-onna said, making him blink.
"Oh," He voiced, slightly confused. "Well, um, I guess we'll be waiting here."
"Are you ok?" Kunou asked when the servant left to continue with her duties, probably soon to return, since the yuki-onna was usually around in case he needed something. "Mum was worried the other day. Something about you not feeling well all of a sudden?" The girl explained when he turned and raised an eyebrow at her.
"I'm fine, nothing to worry about, Kunou," He reassured, giving her a smile as he picked up his cup of tea. The girl next to him immediately copied him, which almost made him chuckle. "Maybe I just have to work a little less," He added. Not because he really wanted rest, but because Yasaka had been adamant on not letting him work himself too hard.
Considering how the regaining of his memories had left him that day, he couldn't really fault her. He also couldn't explain what had happened, so he'd just have to roll with it. With any luck, he wouldn't have to cut his work too much.
"Maybe we can make games when we work on illusions?" Kunou asked, giving him a smile over her cup of tea. "Something to play while you have to rest?"
"Sounds good to me. Any ideas?"
[}-o-{]
"So, you learning anything, Jo-tan?" Serafall asked, resting her chin on her palms as she looked at him curiously. Joshua, meanwhile, tilted his head slightly as he considered the information his wards were telling him.
"Hmm… I'm learning that I'll probably need to make some specialized wards for this," He grumbled, deflating on his chair and side-eyeing the vial of Phoenix Tears Serafall had brought for him to look over. He was learning a few things, but not nearly as much as he needed. "This might take a while."
"You think you can make something with that?" Serafall asked then, straightening a little and sounding surprised.
"I definitely think it's possible. If I'll be able to make it, that's another thing entirely," He said, still trying to make sense of the data his wards were giving him. It was a lost battle though. It was mostly gibberish, at best. "Anyway, last chapter was interesting," He commented, making her perk up even more and her eyes go wide.
"You watched it?" She asked, incredulously.
"I sure did," He admitted with a chuckle.
Serafall had apparently decided that she'd set him up with a TV that could watch the Devil channels… Which was an interesting thing to know existed, let alone watch it. He'd since watched a few episodes of her show just to see what that was like and… it was not that bad, actually. It wasn't a masterpiece by any means, but it was a fun way to spend some time.
It helped since he now had to take more breaks than he would have liked.
"Didn't expect that betrayal at the end, honestly," Joshua commented, laughing lightly at the baffled expression on Serafall. Was that the first time someone she knew watched her show? That was kinda sad, honestly. "It was fun."
"You are my new favorite human, Joshua!" Serafall exclaimed, all but jumping in place.
"You know a lot of humans?" He asked blandly.
"A whole lot, yes!" She confirmed, nodding emphatically. "I didn't think you'd watch it!" The Satan exclaimed then, bouncing on her seat excitedly. "You have to tell me everything. What episode did you watch? How much have you watched? Do you want an autograph?"
"I watched the one I caught last night. Dunno if it's on several channels so… Yeah. I caught it like five episodes ago and I've watched them all so far. And no, no need," He answered in order. 'Did I get all that right?' He wondered, before continuing.
"Would you like to join the show?" She asked then and Joshua blinked. "I'm sure we could have Jo-tan join us. Maybe you'd help Levia-tan. Or maybe you could be a villain!"
"Woah, woah, slow down. I don't think I'll join, sorry," He said quickly and slightly panicked. When she deflated and pouted, he continued. "First of all, I don't think I'd make a good actor. And second, I don't like crowds, or dealing with people in general. I don't think that'd go well with this."
"But Joshuaaaaaaa!" She whined, sounding like Kunou whenever she was especially motivated and needed to be told to take a break. "We could have so much fun!"
"I'll have to pass, sorry," He replied with a half-smile as he brought up his cup of tea. "Margalo really likes the show though. Maybe she'd have fun joining," He added, receiving enthusiastic chirping from the little bird.
"Oh oh oh! That'd be great!" Serafall exclaimed and he could almost see the stars in her eyes. "You could, little thing, what about the others?" She asked then, turning towards the rest of his familiars.
"Morag seems to like watching it, but she's not interested, sorry. Nagini and Cheshire… yeah, they aren't that enthusiastic, let's say," He answered apologetically.
"That's fine, we can just have fun between the two of us. Don't worry, Margalo, I'll see what I can do," The Satan announced and Joshua simply smiled wryly as the bird flew to her shoulder. Then he shared a look with Cheshire.
Well, here was hoping that Margalo would have fun. She probably would though, he was sure. She was the most lively of the bunch. She'd probably enjoy being a random bird that happened to have a little scene in the show. Knowing Serafall though, she'd try to give the bird at least a somewhat decent role, probably.
"We'll discuss payment later then," Serafall announced, looking at Margalo, who was now standing on her hands. Joshua though, leaned back for a moment and watched the whole thing unfold. He wondered if he'd been this carefree before his memories. He had been doing a lot of that lately.
He didn't think he was acting or feeling all that different from before, but he still wondered.
"Joshua?" Serafall called, snapping him from his thoughts. "Everything ok?... You are tired after all, aren't you?" She said then, narrowing her eyes accusingly at him, to which he gave a weak smile.
"Maybe," He replied. It was as good an excuse as any, he supposed. "Anyway, can you leave this here or how do we do this?" He asked, pointing at the Phoenix Tears vial that had been left all but forgotten on the table.
"I can't leave it here, but I'll bring it with me anytime I come to visit," She told him, to which he nodded. That worked well enough for him. "Now, about sweet little Margalo here. I'll have to talk with a few people, but we can definitely find a role for her," She said, making the little bird chirp happily.
"She'll love that."
"Oh oh oh! What about Gin-tan?!"
"Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen," Joshua answered wryly, to which the woman deflated. "So, if that happens are you just gonna come and pick her up or what?" He asked, before blinking. 'How'd the conversation reach this point?'
"Well, you could come to bring her with you if you want, Joshua!" And there she went. Joshua simply leaned back, drank his tea and listened to her talking about her show.
[}-o-{]
"Things have been quiet," Joshua mused out loud, idly reading through some of his notes. Next to him, as was now usual, sat Kunou, working on her own cards.
The system the two of them had decided to use was a simple one. She'd work up a circle and then he'd tell her where the mistakes were but not how to actually fix it. Thus, having her think up the solution herself. So far, that method had worked quite well for them, so it was staying until it didn't anymore.
"Don't jinx us, Joshua-sama," Fuyuko told him with an uneasy smile as she left a cup of tea next to him. "But yes, things have been calm. I have to say I prefer it."
Annihilation Maker's attacks had gradually slowed down, after all. Now, there hadn't been an attack in a whole week. However, the magicians, Joshua included, were less than reassured by this. They all were thinking the same thing, Kunou had confirmed with her heightened senses.
This was probably the calm before the storm.
Granted, there was a good chance that the Fallen Angels arriving had driven Khaos Brigade away. It was a decent possibility, really. A major power had decided to get involved in a very overt way, contrary to what had been going on beforehand. Still, for Khaos Brigade to just leave like that? It felt… wrong. There had to be something going on, right?
Thus, Joshua continued working like the attacks kept going. There was a whole lot of things to tinker with, after all. He had the life energy illusions to work on. He had wards to improve. Furthermore, he was still struggling with his idea of ever changing magic.
He'd expected that last project to take long though. Making a spell that changed how it worked wasn't that hard. It was difficult, yes, but it was doable. However, he didn't want them to change once. He wanted them to change endlessly, like a randomizer constantly picking a number out of a million.
For the moment, to say he was working on it would probably be a lie. He couldn't even really say he was making progress, if he was honest. At most, he was working on the theory and how to go about starting that project.
When Kunou groaned in frustration, Joshua could only give her a commiserating pat on the shoulder.
"Why is this so hard?" The girl grumbled, pouting down at her own notes.
"I feel you," Joshua agreed with a nod before sighing. "Want any help? I could use something to distract me from this," He asked, waving a hand to his notebook as if it had personally offended him.
"I just… The stars in this illusion. I can't make them shine right. It's either too much light or too little," Kunou all but groaned, looking like she was holding back a scream. Yeah, Joshua had been there more than once.
Taking a look at the circle, he went over the whole thing, trying to see if there was anything else he had to point out for her besides what she was stuck on. She wouldn't like that, but it was better than her having to find out she'd made other mistakes later. Surprisingly though, everything looked ok. Not perfect by any means, for sure. There was room for improvement in several places, after all. However, overall the circle looked pretty good.
"You aren't specifying the location of the stars enough, that's what's messing with the shine," Joshua pointed out, running his finger through a few lines in her circle where she'd have to make the correction.
"Hm…" Kunou hummed, in that way she used whenever she wanted to ask for more details on what she should do but knew she shouldn't. He gave her a proud smile, both because of her restraint and because of her work so far. On top of that…
"You are doing really well so far," He told her, drawing a small smile from her. Before she could do her usual thing and ask if he meant, he continued. "Really, I checked for other mistakes and I didn't find much. Looks like you've almost finished your first circle."
"Not much?" She asked then, narrowing her eyes at him.
"Kunou," He said, rolling his eyes and placing a hand on top of her head. "I'm not even gonna point out any of that to you unless it gets on your way. There's no need to make the circle perfect. You'll get better with time."
"I know," She all but whined and he chuckled. "I just wanna do this well. You've spent so much teaching me and I just… The only thing I can do is cast with the circles already drawn."
"You are a child, Kunou, and you haven't been working on this that long, really. You are doing really well. Stop pushing yourself so much, ok? Or the next one to need more rest will be you and your mother will have my hide," He told her, only half-joking in the end. He didn't think Yasaka would take too kindly to her daughter overworking herself because of his teachings.
"I certainly wouldn't appreciate that," The aforementioned youkai leader commented, making the both of them jump where they sat. The woman giggled behind her hand before she took a seat beside Kunou. "Everything going well?"
"Magic is dumb," The girl grumbled, looking down at the offending circle.
"Well, I guess we can remove magic classes from your day then. I'm sure we can find something else for you to focus on," Yasaka commented, giving Joshua a smile that her daughter didn't see.
"No!" Kunou protested quickly, before realizing that her mother was just joking as she looked up. "That was mean, mom. It's just… I'm struggling with this dumb circle," Added, mumbling all the while.
"She'll have her first personalized illusion real soon, if she keeps it up," Joshua commented, making the girl look away from him. "She's just being unreasonable as usual."
"Am not!" Kunou protested the claim instantly.
[}-o-{]
"Do you think the danger has passed or is trouble coming our way?" Joshua asked Yasaka one afternoon. They were sitting in the garden outside where he usually went to work. Some distance away, Jeanne, who had come with him and his familiars instead of going sightseeing for once, was showing off some new swords to Kunou.
She'd come up with a variation of the swords that fought by themselves. These ones didn't have autonomy of any kind though, instead she had to control them with her mind. It saved some power, in turn making the swords more powerful than their variants. However, she was still getting used to the way to handle them.
Joshua guessed she'd soon go around as a pseudo-Irelia or something. That'd be neat.
"I think they've been scared off," Yasaka commented, taking a sip from her cup of tea. "But I don't want to be too hopeful, if I'm honest."
"Hm, I get that," Joshua nodded with an uneasy grimace. He absently fidgeted with a knife in his hand as he watched Kunou approach Jeanne to ask her something. The teenager quickly moved her swords away. The movement wasn't very smooth, but she got them out of the way with no risk of anyone being wounded, which was the whole point. "I probably wouldn't stop making plans even if they were actually gone."
"... You know this is a temporary job, right?" Yasaka asked him, making him smirk.
"I don't know what you are talking about," Joshua replied, starting to juggle the knife with one hand. "I'm Kunou's teacher. It's only right that I take some precautions in case someone's stupid enough to try to attack her."
"Hmph," Yasaka huffed, a smile on her face. "You are gonna make me look for a way to repay you, aren't you?"
"No payment needed here, honestly."
"Don't let my daughter see you doing that, by the way," She said, somewhat sternly as she looked at the knife rotating down in the air before being tossed back up. "Last thing I need is her trying to imitate that."
"There's an illusion between them and us. They are seeing me fidgeting with a card," He reassured her. He'd taken to juggling his knives occasionally for two reasons, actually. One, because it was cool, and two, because it actually helped raise Dagger Mastery, apparently. He was pretty sure it wasn't much, but when he'd gained a level while juggling a knife just because he felt like it, it'd been quite the surprise.
"She could pick up on it if she sensed life energy, you know?" Yasaka persisted and he acknowledged that with a nod. Then he waved his left hand, his free one. "Huh… that's strange."
"Kunou said the same thing," He replied. "It's a work in process, but at least I can now somewhat obscure things from life sensing. I'll get there eventually, I guess."
"You know she'll realize something's going on anyway, right?" Yasaka pointed out, making him sigh. This time, when the knife fell, he'd pulled a storage card, making the blade disappear inside a bright circle. "Better," The woman said as he started doing as his illusion was and fidget with the card.
"Honestly, you are right. The last thing I want is to see her trying to juggle knives," He said, shaking his head.
They remained silent after that, both content looking at the two girls having fun, Joshua's familiars laying around the garden. Somehow, the calm setting reminded him of better times. Times when things had been quite different. And yet, it felt the same.
"It'll be a year since my parents died soon," He said. He felt Yasaka turn towards him with both Magic Sense and Life Sense. He was getting better at using that last one without having to focus. "I've been thinking a lot more about them lately."
"Is that so?" Yasaka asked. He wasn't very sure of what he heard in her tone, but his guess was curiosity.
"Yeah. I think they'd be happy for me," He mused with a sad smile. "I never was a very social person. I think they'd at least be happy that I now have a bunch of friends. Weird as most of them are."
"I hope I'm not in that last list," The woman commented jokingly and he chuckled, shaking his head.
"You are definitely one of the most normal ones, I gotta say. Which is nice. I can only take so much crazy at a time," He said.
"As a parent myself, I can tell you that they'd be very proud of you," Yasaka told him, making his smile turn the slightest bit happier. "Kunou wasn't the best at socializing either. So, thank you for helping her be a child again. I had feared that she'd remain closed off, trying to be an adult for so long that she'd never get to be the kid that she's supposed to be."
"Happy to help," He waved off, his grin widening. "She's precious, honestly."
"That she is," Yasaka nodded. "She looks up to you a lot."
"It's kind of scary," Joshua admitted to that. "Scary, but great."
"It is like that sometimes," The youkai leader agreed. "I worry, however."
"That she'll turn up like me?" He asked, only half-joking.
"No," Yasaka denied instantly. "I worry that as easily as you decided to move here, you'll move somewhere else. I worry that my daughter will have her heart broken if you leave."
"That's… a valid concern, I guess," Joshua reluctantly agreed. "I couldn't do that to her though. It'd break my heart," He told her with a half-smile. "You know that I want to travel, but I like it here. I don't see why I would move again, honestly."
"Just promise me that if you do go away, you won't forget about Kunou."
"That's a promise I can easily make."
"Good."
They shared a smile then, looking as Margalo perched herself on Kunou's shoulder and both watched Jeanne put on a sword show.
[} Chapter End {]
(AN:Please remember that this story is not mine and will never be mine. Make sure to give thanks to the original author on fanfiction.net https://m.fanfiction.net/u/11459794/)