Beyond Critical - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Another day, another seven hours of absolutely wasted time.

Koneko resisted the urge to sigh and roll her eyes in annoyance as she made her way through the halls of Kuoh Academy towards her classroom. As always, people greeted her constantly and kept trying to talk to her and get in her space.

She really hated that mascot crap they labelled her with.

She could be doing a million other things that would be a better use of her time. Like sleeping. Or listening her rap music. Or training.

Or eating.

She would kill for a cupcake right about now, she was starving. She'd trained a bit too long last night and slept passed her alarm.

It was honestly tempting to just blow school off for the day, not like it would truly effect her in anyway, she wasn't exactly going to be looking for a job when she graduated.

…Except then Sitri would get on her case. Freaking nerd.

This time Koneko couldn't hold back the sigh of annoyance that escaped her nostrils, 'I suppose it's at least better than keeping an eye on the stupid tit obsessed pervert.' she shrugged to herself as she reached her classroom.

Ever since they'd confirmed that Hyoudou had a Sacred Gear and she'd been able to make out a rather powerful dragon-like scent, Buchou had Koneko wasting her time spying on him during the day.

For the past two damn weeks.

Two weeks of absolutely nothing. All the idiot did was perv on girls, watch porn, or talk about a harem with his stupid perverted buddies.

And she could go a lifetime without ever again hearing that bald idiot practically salivating over her. Or the other two gush over Buchou and Akeno and their stupidly huge tits.

..All because he smelled like a dragon. Buchou thought he had a strong Sacred Gear, but what use would it be in the end? The guy wasn't exactly fit or anything and his magic power was terrible, possibly the lowest she'd ever sensed, she'd sensed babies, human babies with more magic power than him.

Could he even use his Sacred Gear with magic power that weak? And it wasn't like he was the only human at Kuoh Academy with a Sacred Gear, there were quite a few actually, and while they didn't exactly smell of dragon, all of them had vastly stronger innate magic power than the pervert.

'Speaking of dragon.' Koneko's eyes flickered to the window seat at the back of the classroom. There sat the only one in her class she'd found had a Sacred Gear. And smelt of dragon himself, though to a much lesser degree than Hyoudou.

Evander Kaito, or was it Kaito Evander? She'd really only noticed him because the punk had taken the seat she wanted, but it had made her take notice at least, and when she was near him, she'd smelled a very, very faint scent of dragon. And he'd had some of the highest magic power among the humans at the academy.

Buchou and Sitri had theorised he had a Twice Critical. And promptly decided not to go for him yet, he was a 'decent' prospect, but not one to rush for apparently.

Either way, he was a better prospect than the pervert at least. He was fit, the star of the schools soccer team despite being a first year, had a lot more to work with magically than Hyoudou…and best of all, she wouldn't need to hear him go on about big tits all the damn time. Granted, she'd caught him eyeing up girls while observing him herself, but at least he didn't shout it from the rooftops.

Koneko paused on her way to her own desk, 'Wait.' she blinked as something registered to her senses.

Something was different.

Abundantly different.

Her eyes narrowed as she examined Evander. His magical power, it had grown since yesterday. By…a lot. Well, not actually a lot. Compared to her and the others in the peerage or Sitri's peerage, it was pathetically weak. But his power since yesterday had at least, doubled. He was approaching the kind of magic power she'd noticed Sitri's pawns having after first reincarnating.

And that wasn't all. The scent of dragon coming from him, was much stronger. Before, she couldn't smell it unless she was standing right next to him, but now she could smell it ten feet away.

What had happened since yesterday? 'Did he unlock his Sacred Gear?' Koneko wondered. Though that wouldn't account for such a sudden growth. It wasn't even a matter of unlocking a Sacred Gear from what she knew, they were easy to summon if the holder knew they were there and could outright manifest in times of high emotion.

'Well, whatever.' Koneko gave a mental shrug, she didn't care. She'd let Buchou know, but beyond that it was nothing to do with her currently.

…Hopefully she didn't get stuck spying on Evander as well as the pervert. That would totally suck.

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…She'd noticed.

'That could be a problem.' Kaito clicked his tongue as he eyed the short, white haired girl eyeing him from the front of the classroom from the corner of his eye.

Prior to today, he hadn't thought much of Koneko Toujou beyond her being hella cute.

That was until he was working out last night, fumbled during a bench press and smashed his head with the bar and suddenly have the memories of an entirely different life in his head. He was lucky he was using his Sacred Gear at the time or else he would have probably cracked his skull.

Now, he had the memories of a teenager from another world, who died at the same age he was currently after getting hit by a double decker bus, and the memories of his life, or well the world he lived in being fictional.

…Because he didn't even appear in that fictional adaptation. Apparently he didn't amount to as much as that useless pervert Hyoudou in the year above him.

That was depressing. Even more depressing was that Hyoudou apparently had what Kaito thought made him special and got him where he was today, on super god-mode steroids.

His Twice Critical as he now knew it was called, was considered trash, while that useless pervert had the Boosted Gear, containing the soul of a god killing dragon.

…Lovely.

If there was ever a proper indicator of life not being fair, beyond all the other unfair shit he'd saw over his life, it was that.

A useless pervert that never worked towards anything his whole life, who should have been on a sex offenders list, got the Boosted Gear. While he, an orphan that had worked for every scrap he had, only had a Twice Critical.

…Not that he was unhappy with Twice Critical. He loved it more than life itself to be honest.

The only reason he even got into this school and had an apartment of his own instead of living at an orphanage still, was because of a scholarship. Thanks to his skill when it came to playing football, he'd been scouted by the school because they thought he had the potential to go pro.

He stood out because of how hard he'd worked. He'd found his Sacred Gear pretty early in life, and used it constantly. He used it when working out to run faster or lift heavier weights and push himself harder and he used it even when recovering because it doubled all of his body's physical abilities, including his recovery rate.

Thanks to it and working as hard as he did, he was where he was now, wasn't just some no name orphan anymore. He was a no name orphan with a chance of a future.

Kaito put the thought of Issei Hyoudou out of mind for the moment, he wasn't important right now and neither was the amazing shit he would get for his luck in the future either.

The problem here was the fact Koneko had totally noticed him after his changes yesterday. After the change, beyond the memories he got that were actually very helpful, beyond the fact he got a free education of another sixteen year old and now knew how to speak English fluently not to mention knew of all the general threats to his life out there.

Two things even more important than that happened.

One of them, the lesser of the two at that, was his internal energy that he'd always used to fuel his Sacred Gear, doubling in scope. Which he now knew to be or at least guessed to be magic power.

Something that he knew thanks to the memories he'd gained, that the likes of Koneko could actually sense to a degree.

Which meant she'd probably noticed him literally doubling in magic power more or less since yesterday. And he couldn't sense magic beyond his own, so he didn't know where he stood or anything like that.

She was part of Rias Gremory's peerage. Who, Rias Gremory that is, was on the lookout for recruits.

Meaning she might approach him to recruit him.

And Kaito really didn't know how to feel about that. 'On the one hand, I'll get basically immortality age-wise, a power boost, devil magic, the backing of a powerful family, be surrounded by total babes and I could kiss my money worries goodbye.' he mused, which was very, very tempting.

On the other hand, he'd be a subordinate to some girl, babe or not and he'd end up playing second fiddle to that pain in the ass Hyoudou. Just like the blonde pretty boy sword user.

If it was just a matter of being Rias Gremory's subordinate, he could work with that. He could work towards becoming High Class and getting his own peerage eventually, he'd probably have to dedicate like a decade of his life to a plan like that, but he could stomach it. The money and longevity would be worth it.

But add in Hyoudou…

If he had to grind away and work his ass off to get up there for that, and have to watch from the side lines while that loser coasted by because of his Boosted Gear and got it on with smoke shows like Gremory, Himejima and the like, he'd go crazy.

He could never accept playing second fiddle to a loser like that. He had his pride.

The second overall benefit he got since yesterday would take him a long way, but it couldn't compete with Boosted Gear, not even close. And he knew of a couple ways now he could become way stronger, faster thanks to the memories he'd gotten.

But none of that even came close to the bullshit that was a Longinus and the Boosted Gear specifically. It was such an overpowered Sacred Gear that it even made a piece of trash like Hyoudou, an utter weakling in every form that mattered, capable of taking on and beating gods later down the line.

Thankfully, after only a few more seconds of eyeing him, Koneko seemed to shrug her shoulders and look away from him before heading to her desk.

Kaito sighed, his shoulders relaxing from a tension he hadn't even noticed had pressed down on them until that moment.

'I'll need to figure out what to do if Gremory does try to recruit me.' he groaned inwardly. It was such a heavy choice man.

And that wasn't even taking into account that it might just be Shitori, or rather Sitri as was her real name, the Student Council President tried to recruit him. But that might be even worse than Gremory, Sitri had a stick up her thin bland hard ass a mile wide.

'Ugh, screw this.' Kaito ran a hand through his short black hair, blue eyes twisting with annoyance.

He was getting antsy, he wanted to hit up the gym and work out the stress.

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The hours of the school day did not fly by at all, rather, they dragged on. Every so often, Kaito could feel eyes on him, and caught Koneko eyeing him every now and then.

Cute as she was, and while before he'd have loved to have her attention on him, now it was just pissing him off. He felt like he was walking on eggshells all damn day.

Finally though, the final bell rang and Kaito practically made a beeline out of the classroom. A few of his classmates, all girls tried to stop him for a chat, but he blew them off.

Politely as he could.

And no guys approached him, because they hated him in general for being a 'gaijin'. But in actuality were jealous of his height and muscular build.

He wasn't a freaking gaijin anyway. His dad might have been Scottish, but his mother was Japanese and he was raised here in Japan.

Not that he knew them. From what little he knew, his dad on holiday railed his mother silly then dipped out, and she dipped out on him because she didn't want to raise him herself and left him at an orphanage.

…Though of course not before naming him after his deadbeat dad.

Thankfully, it was Friday, so he wouldn't need to deal with this crap again until Monday, assuming they didn't know where he lived and actually came to recruit him.

'Oh great.' Kaito resisted the urge to groan as he exited the main school building and saw among others, a trio of perverted losers loitering about near the gate.

He resisted the urge to walk up and punch that tit obsessed pervert out to vent his annoyance. It would just get him more attention.

"I'm telling you, she's real!" Hyoudou stomped his foot and waved his fist angrily at his perverted buddies, "Come with me if you don't believe me, Yuuma-chan is meeting me right now that schools finished!"

"Still don't believe ya Issei!" the bald one snorted, while the glasses bearing one nodded vehemently in agreement.

Kaito almost stumbled at what he heard. He managed to right himself before making a fool of himself and powered on passed them, but even so.

His teeth were grit.

His luck, was trash.

Yuuma.

That was the name that fallen angel bitch Raynare went by when she wanted to kill the pervert and then Gremory reincarnated.

'Just typical, obviously when I actually have a chance with this shit, it's when the shit is actually starting up.' he growled.

That left him with-

Literally zero time to prepare himself at all.

Hyoudou would get killed, get reincarnated, within a week get into a punch up with those fallen angels due to Asia Argento, and then not long later, Riser Phenex would come to town and try to force his marriage with Gremory.

Which would make her desperate.

Which would up the likelihood of her approaching him to recruit him. And even going beyond the pros and cons of joining her peerage.

He didn't know how she'd react if he turned her down either.

There was really only one thing he could do here.

'Time to hit up the gym.'

That would help him clear his head.

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The gym truly was a holy place.

How could it not be? Only twenty minutes after entering, all the thoughts and worries he had over the devils at his school, faded away.

What else but a place of holy worship could do such a thing? Pretty ironic actually considering his other self was a catholic.

"….9…." Kaito grunted, pushing the bar up above him, extending his arms as long as possible and holding there for a few moments, before slowly lowering the bar down to his chest and then starting all over again, "…10….!"

He was currently laying on his back, doing some bench presses after warming up. Currently, he was benching four hundred and fifty pounds. Though, he could go higher and was aiming to go for hour hundred and fifty today and set a new record for himself, push to a new level.

He could lift a good two hundred and twenty pounds above his head now, just using his arms and nothing to alleviate the weight like using his shoulders or squatting. He wanted to see about benching double that at least.

At base that is. When he used his Sacred Gear, he could easily lift that without much issue.

The problem was, he was a teenager, and it was quite odd for someone his age to be able to lift anywhere near that. He had to be careful in how he presented his 'growth' at the gym, because lifting heavy weights, always drew eyes.

He continued on his current set to fifteen reps, before setting the bar on the holders and sitting up and stretching his arms out.

He looked around as he did, noting that a few people were eyeing him, a few giving him nods of respect before turning away. All of them were male, and round about middle age, it was rare to see young guys his age at a gym in Japan, or at least it had been so far for him, and even rarer to see women.

He waited until none of them were looking, before standing up and grabbing two more roughly twenty five pound weights and added them on to the bar.

Smiling and nodding to himself, Kaito made his way back around to sit down on the bar.

But just as he was about to lay down on his back and get back to work, a voice called out, stopping him, "Kaaaittooooo-kuuuuun!" a manly bellow that stopped him in his tracks.

Kaito sighed and sat back up, just in time to see a a muscular black haired man dressed in black shorts and a plain white t-shirt bounding over towards him.

"What have I told you about lifting such heavy weights without someone to spot you?" Uzaki Fujio, one of the main trainers for the gym and a big advocate for fitness admonished him.

"Hello Uzaki-san." Kaito replied drolly, with a roll of his eyes.

"Ack!" he grimaced, "Don't call me that, I've told you tons of times to call me Fuji-niisan haven't I?"

"Lost count." Kaito shrugged. Fujio was his main lifting partner, who volunteered himself and didn't give Kaito the option of saying no. Kaito wasn't really complaining, since the man had happily taught him all the proper lifting forms and such, but he did make it a bit hard when he wanted to see what his real heaviest weight was.

He usually had to wait until the dead of night to check that out.

Fujio pouted at him, "You're so mean Kaito-kun." the man, husband and father of three children, two of which that were older than him whined.

Kaito rolled his eyes again, before laying back on the bench and grasping the weighted bar. Fujio, took that as his cue to hop around the other side of the bench and hold his hands out, ready to support the weight if he couldn't lift it.

"…Four hundred and fifty huh, you sure you can do this?" the man visibly bit his lip. Despite his muscular build and rough looks, the man was such a mother hen, "You're crazy strong, but it wasn't long ago you got to four hund-"

Kaito cut him off with a grunt as he lifted the bar up into the air off of the handles. His arms shook a bit before he got used to the weight and he held it there for a bit longer in the air to adjust a little more.

Before slowly lowering it to his chest, "Alright never mind then!" a big grin spread across Fujio's face, "You've got this Kaito-kun, let's start with five!"

His tune changed pretty quickly. Because as Kaito mentioned, he was a fitness loving nut and he especially liked weight lifting and muscle building. If it weren't for the fact that the man topped out at five foot seven as a pure Japanese man with a tendency for being short, he would have probably been a hulk-like behemoth, as it was, he was already ripped and looked like his muscles were carved from marble.

He totally didn't look forty six years old.

As Fujio suggested, he started with five reps, in three sets.

And as he did so, the man decided as always, while he was lifting, that it was a good time to start some gossiping, and as it was eighty percent of the time, it was about his kids.

"Y'know I totally don't know what to do," the man huffed, "My oldest apparently has some guy she likes and is totally in love with him!"

"Uh-huh." Kaito grunted, barely paying attention.

If it wasn't his daughters he was gushing about, it was whining about his son being in his rebellious phase and not coming to the gym.

"Even worse, she's totally cooking food for him and stayed over at his place a bunch of times and he's not even made a move on her!" he added in complaint, "How could he not make a move on her, my daughter is super cute!"

The only reason Kaito didn't face palm, was because he was busy lifting four hundred fifty pounds right now, 'Now that I think about it, knowing what I know now, it explains why I've been able to get to this point so young.' he mused. Sacred Gears apparently heightened the potential and growth rate of those who had them.

Also, "Are you mad at him for possibly making a move on your daughter or not, make up your mind." Kaito huffed.

"Both!" Fujio shamelessly declared, despite the stupidity of it, before giving him a suspicious look, "Now that I think about it, should I worry about you putting the moves on my youngest with those amazing muscles of yours?"

Ah yes, how could he forget. Fujio's son, was a third ear at his school, while his youngest daughter, Yanagi was in his year, in his class in fact.

'Here we go again.' he resisted the urge to sigh. This was a regular topic between them, "Unlikely," Kaito gave him a flat look as he continued his reps, "Yanagi is cute for sure, but I'm too busy to focus on dating right now." she was cute indeed, with huge tits to boot.

Which apparently ran in Fujio's wife's family. Because he'd seen her a few times when she dropped off lunch for Fujio and she was crazy stacked.

"Hmm…" Fujio gave a suspicious hum, "I suppose I'll believe you, for now Kaito-kun, but don't think I don't know the lure muscles like yours have on cute girls, how'd you think I attracted my lovely Tsuki-chwaaaaan in the first place?"

And then he started babbling about how amazing and beautiful his wife was. Changing the topic completely.

Kaito snorted, but listened on as the man rambled, it was good background noise when he wasn't listening to music, 'Not that dating would go all that well for me anyway.'

He was a poor orphan living in a tiny one bedroom apartment, with very little amenities. He couldn't even afford to take girls out on dates right now.

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Two hours later, Fujio's shift finished and Kaito decided, it was a good time to take a break.

He found himself much more relaxed now after getting a nice good decently long work out in and chatting with Fujio. It helped him calm down and relax a bit.

And not to mention think things through more clearly.

For his break, Kaito made his way into the male changing rooms, which was blessedly empty beyond him. The gym he was a part of, despite being a really great place and pretty high tech facility with a bunch of features such as a swimming pool and sauna, didn't have much members.

And best of all, since it was a changing room, there were no cameras.

He took a seat on the bench in the middle of the room and stretched out his legs with a sigh of relief. It felt real good.

He held out his hand and focused for a moment. There was a rippling flash of light that surrounded his arm for a moment, before a black gauntlet materialised over it, enveloping his fist and reaching up to the end of his forearm, though leaving his fingers mostly bare after the knuckles. The knuckles of the black gauntlet were a shining gold colour, while a gold bar spread across the back of the fist on it, while in the middle of the gold bar, a deep ebony black gem sat proudly.

His Twice Critical.

He focused on the Sacred Gear for a moment, before with another flash, his school backpack formed into existence, being ejected from the storage space he had within the Sacred Gear.

Something that was so convenient and had to be just as useful as the ability to double all of his abilities just from that sheer convenience.

Grabbing the backpack, Kaito opened it up and pulled out the second bento he'd made from his leftovers from last nights dinner.

Once he had it, he stored his backpack back within his Twice Critical and opened it up.

Though just before he began eating, he paused, "May as well do this as well." he mused and focused on his left arm.

There was a flash of light, before a second identical gauntlet appeared on his left arm.

The greatest benefit of his other self. Last night, it wasn't only the memories he gained, or the magic power boost.

But a second Sacred Gear as well.

A second Twice Critical at that.

"[Boost!]

"[Boost!]

The gems on each of the Sacred Gears gleamed with a golden light as he doubled his bodies physical abilities and then doubled them again, and a deep male voice echoed out from each. Maybe a waste of magic power to some while he wasn't actually using the boosts for anything.

But not to him.

Right now, as he rested, his body had four times the recovery rate as it did before.

If not more so.

And here, in this moment, he couldn't care less about all the other crazy shit he'd learned. If Gremory or Sitri approached him, fine, he'd deal with it then.

But for now, he was going to do as he always did, focus on himself and becoming his best self.

Come what may, it was all he needed to anyway.

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So, to be upfront. This will be replacing Class Extended. I wasn't really a fan after finishing chapter two on how I approached that, felt the system was way too overpowered and wanted something a bit simpler. Though I wanted to keep the multi-cross aspect. But, with time I've added more to that multi-cross aspect. So currently, this is a multi-cross between DxD, Rosario Vampire, Ikki Tousen and Uzaki-Chan Wants To Hang Out.

As far as having Two Sacred Gears goes. He has two because the soul of his other self fused with him and as a human soul it was eligible for gods System. It was luck that got it though. I rolled a dice, making it a 1d100 with a DC of 95 for the pass, got a 99. And then for the actual Sacred Gear, I made it a choice between a possibility of seven of them, Twice Critical, Gravity Jail, Starring Green etc. Twice Critical won.

As for Kaito himself. If you're wondering what he and his Sacred Gear(s) look like, here's an image for him.