Chapter 13 - Never a moment of peace

With the saga of the young master completed, we proceeded to enjoy our short vacation in New York. We went to museums, visited the local attractions.

Noticed the overwhelming crime rate.

Snacked on local cuisine, which for NY meant adaptations both wrong and true of international dishes. We restocked up on blood and then moved onwards. Leaving the wonders of the Big Apple behind.

Since Valerie's first night with me, our relationship went along pretty well, at first she had that annoying little view of a savior towards me, but I managed to lower it just enough so that I was just as craz*cough*normal as my awesome self is #humblebrag. I've always disliked hero worship.

We currently had no problem holding hands and acting like a couple, though the last step was still on the way. Honestly, it felt pretty weird being in the state of pre-teen transitioning to teen. I wanted our first time to be without my transformation and in my original body.

I initially wanted for us to get back to training but Valerie suddenly gained an interest in the Asian countries, mainly, Korea, China, and Japan.

{Flashback}

"Hiro, Hiro!"

Valerie was excitedly jumping and calling for me but I didn't notice at first due to being absorbed into reading some fiction books I had bought during our stay.

"Earth to Hiro!" She jumped in front of me and waved her hand in my face.

"Hm? Oh, Val, what's up, ready to go?"

"Em, you know how you said that we'll go back to train and then go for another round of sightseeing?"

"Yeeees?"

"Before we go back to train, can we please please please go visit Korea?"

"I wouldn't really be opposed to postponing our training for a week, why tho'?"

'She blushed a little at that, I wonder why?'

"I-I just read about the country while browsing the Internet and reaaaally wanted to go there, pwease?" She finished her spiel with the puppy-eye attack combined with the ultimate pout secret move.

'Gah, maximum damage'

"Fiiiiiine, let me make the necessary changes but I'll guess that we'll be able to go tonight. I'll let you know"

"Yaay!" She jumped on me and proceeded

With operation cuddles.

{End Flashback}

So, now here we were, in Seoul, specifically, Gangnam at around 6 pm. I'm not going to lie and say that I never wanted to visit this place, it was definitely on my list.

'Still don't understand why Val wants to visit this place so much'*shrug*'women'

I didn't know much about Korea or the area so we simply booked a very nice-looking hotel for our stay. We arrived in our room, set down our luggage, and relaxed on the bed.

"So, my little murder-ballerina, since you were the one who insisted we come here, what's the plan?" I asked the girl who was currently trying her best to fuse herself to my chest.

She detached herself from our hug and looked up at me with a pout.

"Hey, don't call me murder-ballerina!"

Her pouting was promptly ignored, stupid pet names were my thing, so I gently ran my fingers through her golden hair. It distracted her well enough so she answered my previous question.

"First, restaurants, then karaoke, then the city at night, then local attractions and then…I'll figure everything else tomorrow" she started telling what she wanted to experience one by one, enhancing the view by using her fingers to number each item. She could be so deredere sometimes.

"Alright, since it's barely 7 pm, wanna go out to eat now and start with the rest tomorrow?"

"Yep, but first, let's take a shower and change"

"Sounds good"

Around an hour later, we were ready to go. I was keeping it simple, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled just below my elbow while the rest was all black. Val chose a similar color scheme, a black dress with red accents. (A/N, I'm the worst at describing clothes so I choose to run away from my fears, if you have any good pics, please post them here)

Ready and dressed up, we went on our way to the restaurant. Not many noticed us on the way to the restaurant so, sadly, this was not an anime moment where everyone 'ooh'd' and 'awwed'.

We had a lovely dinner, getting a taste of the local cuisine which we would enrich upon more on the next day of our stay.

After we left the restaurant, we decided to go on a walk and soon wandered from alley to alley, not really having a direction in mind, just walking off the food.

After enjoying our silent night walk for a bit, we didn't need to speak or break the silence between us, we were comfortable, we found ourselves in a less people-filled location in Gangnam.

I turned to Valerie.

"Let's head back and tuck in for the night, can't really enjoy myself after that flight here" I told my blonde companion.

"Yeah, let's, hey, can you lend me some more books before we go to sleep?"

"Sure, which one?"

She hesitated a bit but began telling me.

"W-well, those about cul…"

She couldn't finish her idea because both of us suddenly stopped and stood still as something passed over us.

"You felt that too." She wasn't asking.

"Yeah, guess we can't take some time off without some bullshit going" I sighed and chuckled" Someone's messing with magic and if I were to take a guess…" here I paused, looking around us "it's some sort of field that is driving the normies away" then I pointed her to the people, as few as they were, going away from this general with a blank look on their faces. It was probably a field that made people either leave the area or ignore anything supernatural that went on.

"Seems that way, the people will probably be okay after this but do you think it's targeted at us?" She looked at me with a fighting spirit in her eyes.

"Yep, the peeps will be alright, and no, I don't think that we are the focus, we're merely in the crossfire"

"Want to check it out?"

"Val, you just had your first real fight and you're already turning into a battle junkie?" I couldn't help but quip.

"Says Mr. 'I'll eat your soul and make you work for me forever'!"

"Without them, who's gonna do the gardening?"

"Point. Anyway, we have nothing to do, let's go and check out if anything interesting is happening. We'll go all stealth and if it's something else we'll…"

I grinned.

"Fuck shit up?"

"Don't make me swear! But yes, we'll do that" she said, chuckling.

Then, nodding to each other, I took her into a one-armed hug and began cloaking us in darkness. I had to do it for both of us as she wasn't as proficient as me in shadow magic just yet.

With both of us 'geared up', I jumped on top of the nearest building in order to get a better understanding of the cityscape. On top, I closed my eyes and began concentrating in order to find the center of the magical field. It was easy enough since it was a circular field, most of them were, I just needed to find one edge of the barrier, with that I could calculate the center point.

The barrier turned out to not be that big, just a couple of city blocks and we were almost at the edge.

I carried Valerie towards the epicenter, never jumping but slithering along the buildings' shadows.

Soon enough we arrived at the center and it was located in a warehouse. Instead of going in, I set the both of us up near one of the warehouse's walls.

Mentioning for Valerie to not talk, I proceeded in creating a magical construct and 2 pairs of glasses and earphones. The construct resembled a small spider which I then sent into the warehouse with it blending in the darkness. I then handed Val one pair of the equipment and motioned for her to put them on as I did so myself.

Through the glasses, a video feed popped up, showing us what the spider saw. It was a small unit that I planned for non-force entry and espionage, it would link up with the glasses and earphones and would provide the user with audio and video. It could also be controlled directly or function by pre-given commands.

Val and I continued our stay in the shadows while watching what the spider provided. It moved rapidly through the warehouse, going room by room finding them empty bar the usual stuff. Not long after, it arrived at what possibly were the stairs going down to the basement and proceeded downwards. It soon reached the bottom of the stairs and looked around and saw a single door through which it entered.

What lay before it was a big and empty room, illuminated by lights scattered on the ceiling. An empty room, bar the center where we could see a cage with some people surrounding it, we could count 5 of them.

Val and I looked at each other and nodded, depending on what was inside, we would take action.

The spider closed in, trying to see what was going on, it stealthily moved forward, always staying hidden, until voices reached our ears.

"-ou know what the higher-ups want with holders like this one?" Said one of the guys.

"Don't know, see what they have and then either turn them to us or simply kill them? I'm not high enough to know" answered another with nonchalance.

As they were talking, the spider moved on the ceiling, trying to see what was in the cage.

Meanwhile, the stooges kept talking.

"Yeah, I was just curious, it's getting boring waiting here for the other guys to be done. Hey, the field's still up, right? Don't want anyone to come back here"

"Don't worry, everything is still green and up. Hopefully, they will finish setting up and we'll move there with the target"

"Good, hate these impromptu bases"

The spider arrived in a position where it could see well enough inside the cage, in it, there was an unconscious guy of about 20 something years.

Back to Valerie and I, it was moments like this where I was slightly annoyed that I waited for so long before researching telepathy, I just didn't need it before. A sign that even I wasn't perfect and more to-dos on my list.

My only option was to talk with Val in hushed whispers, I knew they hadn't put some sort of perimeter check where we were, that or they didn't have the time yet; but still, even if I didn't detect anyone in our immediate vicinity, it didn't hurt to be cautious.

"Ok Val, it was your idea to come and check this out so I'm handing the way we do this to you" I gave her the reins of our 'mission' because I wanted her to learn about this kind of responsibility. You want to do something? Do it to the end.

"I understand. Firstly, do you know who they have kidnapped?"

"Don't know the person but they spoke about some holder, so it's probably someone with an unawakened Sacred Gear and they want to use him"

"Like me" she said grimly, most likely thinking back to her own time in the dungeons.

"Yeah"

"Okay, the way I see it we have two options…"

"Wait! I sense someone approaching" I shut her up quickly and she looked annoyed, probably because it was the second time this day that she got interrupted by these guys.

I concentrated my magic and focused on the intruder. I could sense that it was a single person, coming towards the warehouse, stumbling a bit like a drunkard. Then he stopped.

And seemed to look at me.

Through my field.

He righted his posture and...waved?

I was ready to jump and retreat with Val but that guy suddenly disappeared.

'What the fu..' I couldn't even finish my thoughts as I felt a hand tapping my shoulder.

Val's eyes were opened wide and she looked ready to attack, much the same as I, then the guy spoke.

"Yo!" in a cheery voice.

I looked around and there he was.

'Ha, my fucking luck' behind me with his hand on my shoulder, stood a man with black hair, golden at the tips, and with a mischievous smile on his face.

'Yup, it's Azazel'

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A/N

Hope you liked this chapter.

Some of you may say that Azazel shouldn't have found Hiro so easily or some such like that. Well, to those people, I raise you this: Azazel is the second smartest person in DxD and has had enough power and time at his disposal to encounter and go through many situations; while Hiro is just a guy who, no matter his potential or intelligence, has had only 2-3 years of time to study and grow his powers. Sure, he advanced and grew like crazy so that he could go toe to toe with some of the bigger guys but 2 some years is only that much time for his development of magic.

But don't worry, Hiro is someone who definitely learns from his mistakes and failures, as few as those may be.

Coming back to the topic of Issei. If I were to send him to Grigori, I need to find someone to fill Rias' peerage, Hiro will never join and I don't want her to be so understaffed. Any ideas?

As always, thanks for reading.

See you next time.