A/N: To those of you who haven't yet read Worm, I advise you to do so. You can find it easily by googling Worm, Parahumans and Wildbow. Note: It's quite dark, and assume every trigger warning (suicide, murder etc.).

Chapter One

"Issei, can I ask you something?

Hyodo Issei had a voice in his head. Many people do, in fact, but those voices usually didn't tell them what to do. Especially not when your girlfriend (He had a girlfriend now!) was about to ask you something.

"Will you die for me?"

"Could you repeat that?"

"Will you die for me?" My girlfriend, Amano Yuuma, asked me, completely serious, if I wanted to die for her.

"Eh, well, you mean, like, jump in front of a bullet for you?"

"No, I mean this." Once again, completely serious. That's when I saw it. There were massive, black wings sprouting from her back. There was also a spear of light in her hands. So when the voice in my head told me to dodge, I did exactly as it told me.

"What? Well, I'll hit you with the next ones..." she muttered.

With that, a few more spears appeared. Once again, the voice told me how to dodge. Letting it guide me, none of them hit me.

Amano Yuuma, if that was even her real name, came closer, trying to stab me with one of the spears made of light. I don't even realize how that could even harm me, but I wasn't planning on finding out. This time, the voice suggested I do something strange. Well, it had kept me safe from harm, it wouldn't kill me to follow its instructions once more, would it?

And so, I jumped into the air and punched my psychotic ex-girlfriend, because no way in hell would I ever stay with her after she tried to kill me, right in the face. She didn't expect this, but then again, who would expect your less-than-average-in-PE high school student to be able to jump his own height in the air, then punch a flying Dark Angel, because that was my new name for her and I'm sticking to it, in the face?

That's right, absolutely nobody. To her credit, she recovered faster than I probably would have if the roles were reversed, but that didn't help her as I grabbed her leg on the way down. She was pulled to the ground before she came to her senses, and when she did, she at least tried to keep a semblance of a guard up.

It didn't really help her as I kicked her in the kneecap, but at least she tried. The voice was faint, but I could still hear it saying something in the back of my mind as my body was following its instructions already.

I really didn't expect it when I hit her in the face with a knee, nor did I expect the follow-up of my other foot into her stomach. At that point, I did expect the double-handed slam on the back of her head, but only because the voice was quicker in saying its instructions than I'd expected.

Huh, she really was down and out.

I heard clapping come from the bushes behind me.

"Well done, well done." Oh, not another one of these Black Angels.

I was momentarily stunned when I saw Rias Gremory, one of the two Beauty Queens of my school, come from the bushes. What surprised me even more were the demon-like wings sprouting from her back. Well, when the priest said the devil would be tempting me, I had no idea it would be this tempting.

I was snapped out of my staring when the voice in my head spoke again, and I took another stance. I didn't recognize this one, but I assumed Rias-Senpai probably would notice it.

"Not to worry, I come in peace." She said, holding her hands up. "Wait a minute, aren't you Hyodo Issei, from my school?"

This was the first time the voice told me to say something.

"Why did you use me as bait?" I said, and even though it might have sounded a bit mechanical, that was probably perfectly normal after just having beaten a girl into unconsciousness.

"Well, uh, you see, we weren't really trying to use you exactly, but for some reason, she chose you as her target." she said, caught off guard momentarily. "But I assure you, we would've rescued you!"

"Who is we?" I asked, seeing only one person there that was either conscious or not me.

"Come on out, everything's clear." she called out, and all of a sudden, it felt like I was put into a 'most popular at Kuou Academy' contest. There was Rias Gremory, Beauty Queen number one, Himejima Akeno, Beauty Queen number two, Toujou Koneko, who practically everyone saw as their cute little sister, and Kiba Yuuto, the most popular guy at school. The only one that felt out of place was me, Hyodo Issei, whose only achievement was being the number one pervert at the school, and sharing that spot were Matsuda and Motohama, my two best friends.

Saying I felt uncomfortable was an understatement, if anything.

"We were looking for Fallen Angels, and we sensed one was at our school. We pretty much knew who she was, but she'd been pretty evasive, either sneaking off or constantly being surrounded by her friends or other innocent people. This was pretty much the only chance we had." she said, smiling at me as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. I felt my cheeks heat up as I started blushing because one of the most popular girls in school had smiled at me, and I looked away. Then, it hit me.

"Wait a minute. If she was constantly surrounded by innocent people, or being very sneaky, then why choose to attack now?" I was sort of outraged. On the one hand, they pretty much said I was expendable. On the other, Rias had two very convincing arguments rather close to me.

"Well, one can hardly say you are innocent, Hyodo-san. Why, I heard the girls of my class gossip about you and your two perverted friends..." Kiba, that handsome bastard, chose to interfere at that moment. Why, I'll show him...

Oh, only three steps?

With that, I took three quick steps, lifted my leg, and aimed pretty far to the left of his crotch with my kick. Kiba, handsome bastard he may be, was quick, I'll have to give him credit for that. But when he tried to dodge, he leapt right into the kick. With a satisfying crunch, he fell to the ground. Somewhere, I felt pity well up inside of me. No man deserved that. Then I remembered how the girls were constantly hanging on him. No one man deserved that either! Handsome bastard.

The two older girls were gobsmacked. Koneko slapped me in the face, quite hard in fact.

The red-haired girl spoke once again. "Well, Issei, I get that you might be frustrated, but what I meant to say was that this was the only time we could have attacked her with as little collateral damage as possible. Imagine if she unleashed those spears in school! Here, the only person that might have been injured was you, and to be honest, if you'd have to choose between yourself and everyone in Kuou Academy, who would you choose? Honestly?"

She did have a point, unfortunately enough. Still, I kicked Kiba for good measure, then dodged the two follow-up slaps from Koneko. Totally worth it when she kicked me in the shin though. For some reason, the voice didn't help me dodge them either. Strange. She probably meant no real harm.

"Well, I'd probably choose the Academy. But only because all of the cute girls there, make no mistake! Bastards like him can rot in hell, for all I care!"

"Why is he a bastard?" the brunette of the pair asked. "I mean, he's been pretty nice to almost everyone, as opposed to a certain perverted trio spying on the girls in the locker rooms and the showers..."

My cheeks become hotter than the sun. "Well, eh... Because he gets to look good without even trying! And because of that, all girls are just hanging on his arms!"

"Have you considered he probably spends at least some time maintaining his appearance? And that he's actually nice to them, instead of spying on them and trying to blame the others who are involved when caught?"

OK, I felt at least a little bit bad about kicking Kiba in the crotch now. Still, he was a handsome bastard that could rot in hell.

At least they were nice enough to explain the basics of devils, fallen angels, and angels to me. How Yuuma was someone actually named Raynare (or something similar, I don't recall the exact name), and how she was an enemy of both angels and devils, and how they were actually devils who watched over this town.

Seriously, it was as if I had been dropped in some ridiculous anime. I saw a nun walk past on the other side of the street. Strange to see, but I knew about the church outside of town. My childhood friend and I once went exploring there, and he fell through one of the floorboards into the basement. Luckily, he hadn't broken anything and only scratched his knee. I wondered if I could ever meet him again.

Huh, the voice informed me that it was about a thousand steps if I wanted to do that, and more than a few of them involved shooting at the pope to shoot a bullet from midair. Huh, if it could do that, I wondered...

Wow, 25 867 steps. Well, with confidence, I completed step one, walk to the other side of the street. The nun's veil flew away, revealing long, blonde hair. I picked it up, and in flawless English I asked if she needed help. Step two and three, complete.

Only 25 864 more steps to go on the path to building a harem...

A/N: Issei's power explained: His power is to find a Path to Victory, or to simplify: accomplish any objective that can be accomplished, by following the steps the voice in his head provides him. Yes, everything.