Disclaimer: I don't own Highschool DxD.
Spend Some Time and We'll Have Some Fun
"Josh!" Phil all but shouted in a chastising voice, to which the guilty party chuckled unrepentantly. "This is too much!" The poor man complained, looking quite disturbed as he turned towards his daughters and the pile of bags full of clothes. "When you said you wanted the keys to bring your presents, I thought you only meant to surprise them with a few things well placed, not that you'd fill my living room."
"I mean, I wouldn't say it's filled," Joshua pointed out with a grin. "But hey, there's an idea-"
"Joshua!"
"Oh, come on, Phil, relax," the younger man waved off. "I wanted to do something nice for you and the girls. God knows they could use some good things happening. I can't imagine spending all their time with Sarah is a cheerful experience."
"Still, Josh, you can't just do stuff like this," Phil still protested.
"I regret nothing," Joshua said, drawing a long, suffering sigh from the older man. "Honestly," he continued, his smile turning sad as he looked at Phil's twins starting to look through their new clothes and talking animatedly. "You know? I've sort of looked into the rest of the family. Nobody seemed too torn up about my parents, me or how things were going for me. I even approached some of them and… They said the right words, but I didn't feel the right things from them."
"It's been a while, Josh," Phil tried to excuse, but he wasn't putting all that much effort into it. Joshua couldn't say he blamed the guy. He'd been unfortunate enough to be part of his family for a while, he knew how they were already. Not even liberal use of Life Sense had given Joshua many positive things to say about his family members. If anything, it might have made things worse, really.
"The thing is, you are the only member of the family that is worth something," he said then, giving the man a grin. "So, I've decided that I'll spoil you."
"I'm not gonna be able to change your mind, am I?" Phil asked, sounding resigned. Good, it seemed that the guy finally understood how things went. It was about time, if anyone asked Joshua.
"No, you are not."
"The girls are gonna love you, at least."
"I remember when they were little midgets running around after me," Joshua said, happily remembering such times. Those were moments when he hadn't quite felt like an outcast in his own family. Few and far between, but they existed, at least.
"You were much better with children than you ever were with adults, that's true," Phil told him, not unkindly. It was a statement of fact and as such, Joshua appreciated the honesty behind it. "It's good to see you are doing better."
"So you keep saying," Joshua replied, rolling his eyes. "Still, thanks."
"Josh, did you really choose this? It's amazing!" one of the twins exclaimed, practically appearing in front of him and thrusting a piece of clothing so close to his face that he couldn't even tell what it was.
"Not really a choice, I wouldn't say," he answered with a chuckle. "My sister chose them, I just paid for them."
"You have a sister? Since when? Can we meet her?" the other twin asked animatedly.
"Sure thing," he replied, grinning fondly before his expression turned a little mischievous and he just looked at the closest twin. The girl in question noticed instantly and paled.
"Josh, no."
"Josh, yes!" the other twin exclaimed.
"Traitor, no! Josh!"
Poor girl should have known better.
Just because she was older didn't mean she was safe from the tickles. From the side, Phillip simply looked at them fondly, chuckling to himself as Joshua decided to be equitable and tickle the other twin too. Joshua could understand that, really. It was nice, just how things had been in the past. A reminder of better times, in a way.
It was a shame that he couldn't stay for too long, really, but Joshua had things to do. As time passed, it seemed that his days were getting more and more busy, actually. The only silver lining was that he enjoyed much of what he did, from tinkering with magic to teaching and so on. That day though, there was a reason he had to leave a little early too, and that was that he'd be setting up a ward array around Phil's house. Joshua didn't like thinking about it, but just by visiting the man from time to time he could be making him a target. As such, he'd make sure that one of his only nice relatives was protected.
"It went well?" Jeanne asked when he teleported back home, being just a second too slow with her greeting. As it was, Morag beat her to the punch, jumping and latching to his back as if she were a living backpack. "Did they like the clothes?" his sister added, fidgeting with her hands nervously.
"They loved them," he reassured her with a smile that only grew as Jeanne relaxed. "And the defenses are up. You should come with me next time though. I'm sure they'll love you."
"You sure?" she couldn't help but question, which almost annoyed him. He knew it wasn't because of him or his family though. It was about her and her family. 'Which reminds me, I should give them the Sarah treatment,' he thought coldly, even as he plastered a friendly expression on his face. On the back of his mind, he felt Nagini's harsh approval. There was a thought, maybe the serpent could help out.
"I'm sure," he repeated. "They aren't Sarah, they'll be nice to you. It just might be a bit awkward to explain our relationship and all that. The supernatural is much more accepting of unconventional stuff than the mundane, after all."
"It's fine," she waved off with a nervous smile. "I can deal with awkward no problem."
"That's the spirit."
[}-o-{]
"Not bad, not bad at all," Joshua said, parrying a sword with his daggers. His own weapons felt off in his hands, but that was to be expected really. At least they were doing their jobs as they should, despite the uncomfortable feeling he got just from holding them.
'Who knew there'd be that much of a difference between Holy and Demonic daggers,' he mused, continuing his spar against Kiba as he tried to get used to the Demonic weapons. 'Expected, maybe, but I just didn't think they would feel like this. Holy Daggers don't feel this different from normal daggers when holding them, despite the difference in regards to sensing and wards.'
Something to keep in mind. In a way, actually, the Demonic weapons seemed to be to Holy ones what Hexes were to Wards. Very similar, but also very different. Where Wards and Holy Artifacts were stoic and purposeful, Hexes and Demonic Artifacts were restless and wicked. 'Interesting that. I should look into it some more.'
Which wouldn't even require Kiba to be around, really, unless he really wanted to wield the things while testing. He still had Setan Kober, after all, and maybe it was time to try using it. His Mind Resistance was pretty high at level 43, after all. Surely that was enough to at least not go on a rampage.
'Maybe I should focus on the current issue at hand,' Joshua told himself with a self-deprecating grin as he continued sparring against Rias's Knight while the rest of her peerage practiced around them, with Jeanne and his familiars. The blond swordsman was, as it turned out, pretty good. Good enough to be at his sister's level, which was impressive, considering that she was a Hero Descendant and he was not.
"You are too rash," Joshua said, as he continued blocking. If Jeanne grew irritated whenever he got a pseudo-hit on her, Kiba seemed to be even worse. Each mistake seemed to drive the Knight positively mad. "Calm yourself. All getting angry does it narrow your vision and dull your thoughts," he advised, knowing it probably wouldn't stick. With some luck, the guy would remember the words later on and work on it.
Joshua found it slightly entertaining though, the fact that he sounded like an old master instead of someone that had been fighting for a little over a year. Maybe it was the system, or maybe he just had a naturally cooler head and that helped him, or maybe it was both or something else. He wasn't sure what was the cause of the whole thing, but it was weird. Nice, but weird.
"I know," the boy growled, belying that no, he didn't know.
"You are pushing harder than other times," Joshua noted, dearly hoping that his actions hadn't caused a change in the plot. The only thing he could relate to Kiba getting progressively more annoyed and angry was the Holy Sword arc. It didn't make sense, of course, considering that there should be two arcs before that, if Joshua's memory wasn't failing him.
Then again, he'd already thrown canon out of the window, but what could he have done to accelerate that part? A number of things came to mind, which made him grimace. However, it didn't make sense for Kiba to be affected if Joshua had somehow sped up Kokabiel's mess. Unless something had happened in one of the Knight's deals, he would have picked up something with his wards around Kuoh. Furthermore, he rather doubted Kokabiel or whoever was helping him would just… annoy Kiba and leave it at that.
Still, Joshua found himself impressed. Especially when he blocked a sword only for Kiba's hand to continue on its way as if he had hit nothing. That was Joshua's first clue, which made him step back with a frown. Sure enough, it seemed that his opponent had decided to be a little more tricky than usual. The sword he'd thought he blocked hadn't even been where his dagger had moved to stop it. 'An illusion, huh?'
Unfortunately for Kiba, his new trick being ineffective seemed to be the last nail in his coffin as far as the spar was concerned.
"I think that's enough," he announced, after placing one of his daggers in what would have been an uncomfortably close distance to someone's neck for a normal person. Kiba, instead, just huffed, glaring at him like he'd personally offended him. "Cool your head, we can spar some more after that. You aren't getting anywhere as is."
"I'm fine," Kiba hissed.
"No, you are not," Joshua said, raising an eyebrow at him. "Now, calm yourself and come back later."
"Fuck," the Knight cursed, making Joshua's other eyebrow join the first. Yes, Kiba usually let his hidden temper get the better of him during spars, but he usually kept it well controlled, even if it clearly affected his fighting. "Sorry, I just…" the boy started, before sighing. "I thought I would do better, is all."
"Don't worry about it, you did great," Joshua told him, getting a dubious expression from the blonde. "Better than other times, for sure. You were more creative with your swords, for one. Normally you just counter whatever your opponent uses against you or use some simple elemental swords, which is fine, if a little too straightforward in my opinion. Today though, you were a little more indirect. The illusion swords were unexpected, I'll tell you that. Nice idea to make swords that fool the opponent through their senses."
"I guess it was too much to expect it to work perfectly the first time, huh?" Kiba asked, looking entirely too frustrated for Joshua's liking.
"Yeah, you could say that. Might have something to do with the fact that I use illusions myself, too," he replied nevertheless, because he didn't want to lie to the blonde. That didn't seem to reassure the boy much, if the grimace that appeared on his mind was any indication. "Still, that's what spars are for, right? Train and test stuff so that you can do better later."
"Yeah," Kiba answered, although he didn't sound very convinced. "I just…" he started before trailing off and running a hand through his hair. "I really wanted to do well today."
"Any reason for that?" Joshua asked, tilting his head curiously. The way Kiba tensed up at the question was very suspicious for him, especially because he didn't get cagey as he expected. Instead he looked nervous and… sheepish.
"I wanted to impress you," the boy replied, making Joshua blink repeatedly. "I wanted to ask for your permission for something." That more than anything, clued him as to what was likely going on.
"Permission for what?" Joshua asked, narrowing his eyes.
"I… I want to ask Jeanne out," Kiba said, straightening his back. "You are very important to her."
"So, you wanted my blessing or something?" Joshua said, raising an eyebrow. The Knight replied to that with a stiff nod. "Relax, man. You aren't asking for her hand in marriage. Jeanne can go on dates with whoever she wants," told him with a chuckle.
"Thank you," Kiba said instantly, letting out a long and very relieved sigh.
"But if you hurt her, I promise you that nobody will find your body after I'm done experimenting with it," Joshua told him, his grin changing from friendly to predatory as he activated Bloodlust. Over his bond, he felt all four of his familiars turn to look at Kiba. "If my familiars leave anything after they are through with you, that is." To punctuate that, Nagini gave Kiba her best glare, which was quite impressive in its own right.
"I… expected that," the Knight, to his credit, replied. He did look rather pale, but he still stood tall. Good. "I promise I'll do my best. I really like her, she's… very different from what I'm used to."
"You don't have to tell me those things, prince charming. It ain't me the one you wanna impress," Joshua told him, deciding that that brief moment of intimidation was enough and leaving it at that. "Good luck, man."
With that, Joshua summoned himself a bottle of water while Kiba moved to the side where there were a bunch of them set. The fact that Jeanne was there too was mere coincidence, he was sure. Chuckling, he turned to look around a bit while everyone trained. 'Wonder what goes on in that school. I could have sworn that Jeanne's crush was more one-sided.' Then again, he wasn't privy to much of what went on at Kuoh, only what Jeanne told him. Evidently, that wasn't enough to know everything, likely on purpose.
'Better than Issei, I guess,' he mused with a wry smile.
"I thought he'd have more trouble," someone said from next to Joshua and he turned to see Rias.
"Honestly, do you take me for a violent person?"
"Not really, unless it's related to someone you care for," she answered and he nodded. Because it was a perfectly correct guess, really.
"There's no point in scaring him off of Jeanne," he replied with a shrug. "She likes him, and I'm sure you know that. And even if that wasn't the case, she's free to do whatever she wants. If she wants to give someone a chance, she can go ahead. I'll get involved when I think she needs me, which she doesn't right now."
Jeanne was good enough to take care of herself, really. And even if she could make mistakes, the Voices would surely intervene then. If even those didn't work, there was the fact that she would be hard pressed to hide something from him if it came to that and Cheshire would no doubt pick up on anything that might be wrong.
"Hm, she's lucky to have you," Rias said and it dawned on Joshua that maybe, just maybe, the Gremory girl was drawing a few parallels between herself and Jeanne. The cases didn't seem all that similar to him, if at all, but that wouldn't stop her from doing that, he guessed. Understandable, since it was probably in her head a whole lot.
"I just do the best I can," he said simply, not wanting to give the girl a promise he couldn't keep to make her feel better. Maybe there was a more tasteful way to reply to her, or some other less dramatic way to make her feel better. If there was though, it didn't come to Joshua, unsurprisingly.
"Yeah," Rias said with a sad smile. "Thank you again for letting us train here. We both know that you could get in trouble for this."
"Let them try to get me in trouble," Joshua told her, waving her gratitude off with a grin. He'd already consulted with Yasaka and she'd told him that he could easily avoid getting himself in trouble if it came to that. It'd mean him making some political moves that he'd rather avoid, doing works for certain people and such, but it was possible. It wasn't like he wanted to do that, but he was starting to accept that it was probably something that he would need to get more progress into his fight against Khaos Brigade.
'But damn it if I'll avoid politics as much as I can,' he thought to himself.
"Besides, it's not that much. I've told you that you can come more often," he added, giving her an exasperated look. She had the decency to look sheepish, at least, even if he could tell she'd be stubborn.
"I know that you can take care of any trouble this could cause," she told him with a determined expression that told him all he needed to know about what would follow that statement. "But it doesn't mean I'll take advantage of you that way. You are already doing a lot for me, so the least I can do is try to make things easier for you, Joshua."
"You are entirely too stubborn, Rias."
"So people keep telling me," she replied with an unrepentant grin.
"I wonder why," he said with a wry grin. "Cute as that is, try not to sabotage yourself, yeah?" To that, the redhead had, once more, the decency to look sheepish, looking down with a slight dusting of pink on her cheeks. "With that said, you've progressed a fair bit since the first time you were here, which makes me wonder if someone might not have been training as they should."
To that, Rias looked off to the side.
"I… I didn't think I had a chance to begin with. I thought I'd fail anyway so I just… spent my time complaining and doing the things I thought I wouldn't get to in the future," Rias admitted before her shoulders slumped. "Not the best of decisions, but it's what I did. Now… Now I feel like I could make it."
"Well, at least you've started already. That's better than nothing," Joshua told her before nodding. "With that out of the way, I think it's as good a time as any to talk some strategy. You feel up to it?"
"Sure," she agreed easily, beaming at him.
With some luck, if he failed with his Phoenix spell idea, she'd be able to beat Riser on the Rating Game. Hell, maybe she wouldn't even need Issei. Speaking of, he wasn't very sure what she would do with his recent addition to his cafe, but Joshua didn't feel like getting involved at the moment. Maybe later, if he didn't like the redhead's odds.
Thoughts for later, he had strategy to talk with her right then and there.
[}-o-{]
"Not the place I thought you'd like to go with me, I gotta admit," Joshua commented while under an illusion that made him look like a man with blond hair straighter than his own. Funnily enough, his blue eyes remained, although eye color wasn't very important, he supposed. With his facial features changed too, he was still unrecognizable.
"I just thought it'd be more… normal, or something," Kunou said from next to him, with her features changed to look very similar to his own. With her hair already being blonde, she'd had to, instead, style it differently, which she'd done by simply tying it back much like he had. She had made sure that it was much less messy than usual too, leaving a single bang out of the ponytail. It made them look even more similar, really. If he was remembering right, it also made them look rather similar to certain characters, amusingly enough, but he kept that thought to himself.
"I mean, I guess?" he replied, looking around from where they sat at the ramen stand. In front of them, the woman working there looked at them, or more precisely Kunou, like they were the cutest thing she'd ever seen, but otherwise left them to their own devices. Just in case though, Joshua was casting illusion sounds to change what she and everyone else heard of their conversation. At least when they were talking about anything that shouldn't be heard. "Whatever makes you happy. Anything in mind for afterwards?"
"I just… wanna walk around, if that's fine," Kunou mumbled before eating from her bowl. "I'm sure we'll find something. I just wanted to be able to go around and call you dad in front of others."
"And you'll get to do that a whole lot, I'm sure," Joshua told her with a grin. "So, how are you liking the food. I'm sure it's very different from what you usually eat."
"It's good, dad," she replied instantly, smiling in a way that made him want to hug her. "I thought it'd be much worse, really. It's not the best thing in the world, but it's still pretty good."
"Just because it's from a stand and it's cheap doesn't mean it's bad," Joshua told her, shaking his head. "It won't win any contests, but it sells because it's good."
"I guess. I just hadn't thought about it much," Kunou said. A moment later though, she looked at the stand woman and then around them thoughtfully. Then, her smile returned, wider than before. "Everyone that looks at us immediately thinks you are my father," she told him before looking down at her food, still looking very pleased with herself.
"You talked about that a lot, but… I mean, you could still pass as my daughter even with how we look normally, couldn't you?" he commented, drawing the girl's full attention. "I mean, yeah, we don't look very alike, but that can be said to be just because you take after your mother, which is true. Your hair actually looks more like mine than hers, even if the color is different," he explained with a soft smile. It wasn't even a lie, really, but he got where she was coming from. She liked the idea of people knowing, or at least thinking, that he was her father.
It was unlikely to happen in reality though, so she'd come up with this make-believe "game". It was sad, really, and Joshua so wanted to make it a reality for her, but that was a can of worms that was better left unopened. He could only imagine the kind of problems that would make for Yasaka, and that was without considering what it would mean for Kunou herself and him. And yet…
"Hm, that's true, I guess," Kunou mumbled, her voice going even lower in volume afterwards, which meant that he didn't catch what she said. When he turned to look at her, she blushed a little. "Nothing, just complaining about other things."
"So…" he started, deciding to save her the embarrassment of whatever it was that she'd whispered to herself. "Have you looked into any more of the cards?"
"Yeah!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, seemingly more than happy with the topic change. "Could we change the Attack/Defense thing? I think it'd be more fun if we did it like other games do, with a health amount for the Units that goes down depending on the damage they take. Would that be too much work, dad?"
"I mean, it probably would," he admitted with a half-smile. "But if you want to do it that way, sure. We can go over the cards we have and change them. We could even save those ideas and make two different games, really."
"That's a great idea, dad!" she replied, and he could almost see the stars shining in her eyes. "Two games with one set of cards… Um, doesn't sound that well said like that," she mumbled, clicking her tongue. "So, any new cards in mind?"
"I mean, I was thinking about having a set of cards be about normal things. Like, mundane people as units and stuff like that," he explained, looking around them. "Could even have a ramen stand as a unit, you get what I mean?" he told her and she blinked before looking around curiously.
"And it could combo with a cook unit, and stuff like that?" Kunou asked, looking at the woman in front of them with narrowed eyes. The woman herself simply looked between them with an expression that was both amused and bemused. She probably wasn't understanding anything they were saying, but at least it was normal enough that he could leave what they were saying uncensored. "That sounds fun, dad."
"Sure is, it was my idea," he boasted jokingly, making her roll her eyes.
[} 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/)