He Who Came Before (Male reader X Highschool DXD)

Chapter I - Searching for answers

Y/N had slept outside before. In his line of work, a warm bed and a roof over your head weren't always guaranteed. Sometimes you had to make do with what you had, be it a tree, cave or just a big rock. In situations like those, waking up to a big, blue sky wouldn't be that much of a shock. However, this time was different since...

"I'm pretty sure that I fell asleep indoors yesterday." Y/N said to himself, tired eyes still locked on the sky above. He racked his brain for any memory of how he came to be... here, but quickly came up empty. Letting out an annoyed sign, the young man began to sit up.

Looking around, he could tell that he was in some kind of park. There were a few people sat on the various benches scattered around the area, some eating out very full lunchboxes while other read books or looked at their phones. One or two people were cycling along the stone path, while an older couple fed the birds next to a fountain.

It looked cliché, but not dangerous.

Deciding that he was probably safe for now, Y/N turned his attention to himself. Bring his hand up to his head, he began to run through a mental checklist.

Hair? Check
Eyebrows? Check
Nose? Check
Teeth? Check

"So far so good..." he muttered to himself. His eyes and ears seemed to be fine, although he would need to check the colour of the first one later. Moving his hands off of his face and in front of his eyes, he saw that all 10 of his fingers were still there. Looking further down his body confirmed the same about his toes. Running one hand around his neck and slowly pushing the other one below the waistband of his pajama bottoms, Y/N began the final and most important tests.

"Everything's still here" he said with a sign of relief.

Having completed his checklist, the young man could turn his attention to his next issue. Clothes. As comfortable as his pajamas were, they weren't the best thing to wear when it comes to recon. Comfy, but very conspicuous. He would need to change.

Sticking a hand out to his side, Y/N grabbed a bundle of spare clothes and a pair of shoes seemingly out of thin air. He was never the biggest fan of magic, but even he could admit that it came in handy sometimes.

Doing his best not to flash the old couple, the H/C haired male carefully got dressed. Sliding his old clothes off and his new ones on, Y/N threw his old outfit to the side and got to his feet. The pajamas vanishing from existence just like his new clothes had appeared, shimmering slightly before disappearing from view. Now dressed and slightly more awake than before, he could begin to solve his next issue.

"Where the fuck am I?"

Unlikely to find the answer in the park, he set off into town to look for clues.

•••

Six hours.

Six god forsaken hours.

That's how long Y/N had been wandering around the mystery town he had woken up in. Six hours that he had spent looking for any clue to where on earth he was. And after those six hours, he had only managed to narrow down his options to three or four different countries.

Going by all the people he had seen in his search for answers, he was probably in East Asia.

The signs around town helped refine his hypothesis, despite the fact he could read any of them. Everything was written using one of the symbol based alphabets, alphabets he honestly couldn't tell apart.

"Might as well be written in fucking wingdings." he muttered quietly to himself as he slowly made his way down the emptying streets, the setting sun turning the sky an orangy-red.

Y/N knew that Japan, both Korea's and both China's used such alphabets. Maybe Vietnam, but he wasn't sure on that one. He tried looking around town for any obvious clues, like a national flag or notable land mark, but hadn't spotted any. So, instead, he had to think back to all he had seen and heard during his trip around town.

From what he had seen, the townspeople looked reasonably well fed. This, and the lack of proletariat propaganda, meant 'Best Korea' was probably off the table.

The climate of wherever he was also helped to narrow down his options, with the trees in the park and the air in general matching a more temperate environment and pushing tropical Vietnam out of the realm of possibilities.

This still left Japan, South Korea and the Chinas. While the list of possibilities had been slimmed down, Y/N still wasn't close to a proper answer. That was until...

"Japan." a deep, slightly accented voice spoke, going unheard by everyone but the lost young man, "Kuoh, specifically."

"Oh, so you are still here." Y/N said out loud to the voice in his head, "I should've known I wasn't that lucky. What makes you so sure?"

"We have been here before." the voice answered, "You were sent here to retrieve Miss Argento."

"Really?" he questioned, "That was this place?"

"Ie."

"And how long ago did you figure this out?"

"I believe that you passed the abandoned church she was being held in around five hours ago."

"So you let me spend five hours playing Geoguessr IRL, despite you knowing exactly where we were for most of it?" Y/N asked, frustration growing in his voice.

"Ie." the voice confirmed.

...

"Prick."

"Pryf."

Shaking his head at the voice inside it, Y/N made his way back to the park he had woken up in. During his (apparently unnecessarily) long search for clues, the young man had put together a basic, mental map of the town. The park was at the centre of that map, being both where he started and a recognizable landmark.

The park was as deserted as the rest of town when he arrived, with only him and a brown haired schoolboy present. While the boy stared at the fountain and muttered something to himself, Y/N looked around for a suitable tree to sleep in. Even if he was going to have to rough it for a second night, he wasn't going to sleep on the floor again if he could help it.

Having found a decent tree, he hauled himself up its branches until finding one thick enough to bear his weight. Grabbing a blanket from the air and wrapping himself in it, Y/N settled down for the night.

That was until the sky suddenly changed colour. Instead of the redish orange of the sunset, the sky was a strange swirling mess of blue and purple. These colours put Y/N on edge. He recognised them.

"A barrier." the voice confirmed what he already knew.

Y/N let out a tired groan before sarcastically whispering to himself.

"Today just keeps better and better."