Side Character DxD

Chapter 29: Summer Break (5)

Motohama Hirosuke didn't know what was happening.

One moment he was dipping his feet in the Kikuchi River, enjoying the small amount of time in the year when his Daughter and Grandson came to visit, the next he found himself sitting underneath the shade of a canopy of trees, his arms tied behind his back, as a Demon straight from hell towered over him.

Was he dead? Was this how he entered the afterlife? Was this unspeakable monster that stood over him none other than the Great King Enma, Ready to judge his soul?

"If I knew I was going to die today, I would have prayed to Buddha ten times!" Hirosuke thought to himself, his mind having trouble coming to terms with the sight in front of him.

The monster had raw red skin as if its entire body was burnt by scorching steam. Six bestial legs descended from beneath a grotesque torso, belonging to animals he simply could not recognize. Its arms and back were covered in hairy black fur, like those of a monkey. A slit spread horizontally from his belly button, opening slightly with each breath leaving its overweight body, revealing rows of teeth, its stomach had a mouth of its own. And worst of all, as Motohama weakly raised his head to look at the face of the monster, he saw no neck, only a small blob of raw red skin on top of the grotesquely overweight torso, with nothing more than a pair of eyes. The head had no mouth or nose, no ears or hair, only two eyes, looking down at him as if he was a meal, ready to be devoured.

Motohama Hirosuke closed his eyes and prayed to Buddha, to Izanagi, to Amaterasu, to Enma and Izanami, to any deity he could think of. 

Not a prayer to keep him safe, or for his afterlife to be one of fortune, but a prayer for his Grandson, who must have watched him collapse on that stone beside the Kikuchi, the only witness to his death.

"I am sorry, Ken, It seems I won't be able to give you the gift I prepared..." Motohama Hirosuke whispered a silent apology as he lowered his head and readied his soul to be devoured by the monster that stood in front of him.

"GRANDPA!!!" Only to open his eyes in shock as the voice of his grandson sounded out from behind him.

"Ken?" Hirosuke turned his head around and watched on with stunned silence as none other than his grandson, with a glowing light emanating from his chest, with tall grass and broken twigs sticking to his clothes, ran up and stood between him and the Monster.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!" He heard his grandson yell at the monster, but he was confused, how could his grandson come here? Wasn't this Meido? Wasn't he about to be judged? Why was Ken here? He didn't understand.

Motohama Hirosuke decided it would be better to simply close his eyes and ignore the world around him, perhaps this entire thing was a simple hallucination.

Yes, a hallucination, that made sense to him. And so, with no need to worry, Motohama Hirosuke laid on his back and went to sleep

..............................

Motohama Ken wasn't thinking about how he was going to save his grandfather, nor was he thinking about how he was going to take down the monster that towered over his grandfather.

Instead, all Ken could think about was "How hard do I need to throw this rock to make it hurt really bad?"

He did not think, he leaned down, picked up a pebble from the ground, covered in in the light from his Sacred Gear, and threw it at the monster.

The glowing pebble flew through the air like a firework, sparks of light escaping it as the Sacred Gear started wearing off after leaving Ken's body.

The question was now would the rock hit the monster before the Sacred Gear left it, or would it return to a simple rock?