Rias Gremory POV
The room around me was silent as I kept my gaze focused on the chessboard before me. My pieces were minimal, but that was intentional. I wanted to simulate a losing battle with my side nearly about to be defeated. The black pieces on the board were overwhelming in number, but, after long moments of deep thought, I saw a breakthrough.
"Checkmate." I announced my victory by moving a pawn to an open spot, which was in the path of the enemy king piece.
I reached out to claim my prize as I heard a small round of applause in front of me.
"As expected of you Rias. You were able to get yourself out of such a dangerous situation with ease."
"No need to praise me Akeno, this wasn't easy to do. That single move only opened up a spot on your side after my hours of thinking. I had to consider every possible outcome, but such time won't be rewarded to me on the battlefield." I know she was simply doing what she could to cheer me up, but I just couldn't take baseless praise that easily. Not when I'm about to fight Riser.
"Even so, your ability to work under such hard pressure from the enemy is surely going to be our key to victory tonight." Akeno continued to do everything she could to make me cheer up, and it was certainly working.
I smiled and chuckled slightly underneath my breath as we both stood up. As I began walking towards my desk, I looked over at the newspaper which was laying across it. On the front page in a small article showed a young boy with brown hair swinging down a bamboo sword. Sweat flew off his face as he got captured in a still frame of intense shouting. I picked it up to admire the article for a moment.
"To think he used to be in kendo...he would have made a fitting knight." I absentmindedly spoke about Issei. Akeno had managed to pull up this article, amongst others, as she explored Issei's background.
"Yes, he was quite the fierce little boy back in the day. When he first won a tournament, he confidently claimed that he'd win the other three in his following years of middle school."
"And he actually completed it." I accidentally started biting my lower lip out of frustration. If I had even one more asset at my side, this fight would be a bit easier.
With a sigh, I threw those negative thoughts to the wayside and looked up. Thinking about what could have been is useless. Instead, I need to focus and use what I have at my disposal to the best of my abilities.
"Excuse me." I heard a knock at my door before hearing it open slowly. Blonde hair was the first thing I noticed as Kiba entered the room with his usual smile on his face. At his side was his trusted sword, 'Holy Eraser', still placed in its sheath. And from behind him, I heard the small footfalls of Koneko.
"I'm not late am I?" Once inside the clubroom, Koneko was quick to go for the couch and sit down. She took out her custom MMA gloves and began inspecting them before placing the leather objects on her hand.
"No, you're slightly early. We still have another five minutes before Grayfia comes to pick us up."
"In that case, allow me to go over my equipment one last time." Kiba sat across from Koneko and started polishing his sword. His blade shone slightly from the light the nearby candles were giving, and once again, the room was plunged into silence.
We spent the last ten days training in preparation for this single moment. We pushed ourselves to our utmost limits so we could take on Riser and his peerage, but as expected, we were all still nervous. Not only was this their first time ever fighting in a rating game, but it held such high stakes that they couldn't afford a single misstep or error. Otherwise I...
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My life as the Protagonist of Highschool DxD
Fanfiction"From here on out, this is my story. And I'll lead this life however I want to." (Y/N) had read tales about people waking up and finding themselves in an entirely different universe, but he didn't expect it to happen to himself. Let alone that he'd...
