Infernal comedy: A Rias Gremory self-insert (Highschool dxd/Sandman Au)

Understanding, that was what eating and consuming the essence of a deity like Kagutsuchi gave me.

Eating a god, the essence of a god was so more profound and intimate than everything that could possibly ever be done.

That was seeing another being in their entirety, looking at them and learning about them, about things they probably didn't even know about them and ripping all of those things apart.

Ripping those things, bending them, perverting them before consuming them. I'm sure that even if I hadn't gained anything substantial from the usurpation of Kagutschi, the experience would have been worth it.

That intimate act gave me knowledge and enlightenment about gods and about the nature of the world.

Gods were nothing but dreams. They were the dreams of millions, of hundreds of thousands. They were the conglomeration of hopes, of fear.

In my heart was beating the spark of Kagutsuchi and with it, the sparks of all people and their descendants that had been called Japon for thousands of years.

It was awe-inspiring, it was intoxicating, it was disgusting. The humans of this world I realized were worthless.

Maybe calling them worthless was too much but they were as close to it as my eyes. Everything they've ever had was given to them!

All their successes, their defeats and their triumphs were not because of their own hands and wits but because they were guided and manipulated by supernatural beings.

What was the point of hard work when everything was so much easier for you because you were descended from a supernatural being or were blessed by one?

What was the point when all of your successes were given to you on a platter of delicious-looking rotten fruits?

I could understand now why the supernatural beings of this world lacked respect for humans. When they were so weak and everything they ever had was because of you or beings like you, how could it be possible to respect them?

I'm sure that without the value of their souls, they would have been erased aeons ago by either my ancestors or other terrible supernatural beings.

I wasn't thinking in such a way because of the post-clarity eating. It had been something that had bugging me since my arrival in this world and this was only now after understanding more that I could argue that line of thinking correctly in my mind.

It put me into a conundrum. I had usurped away from Kagutsuchi his authority. Could it even be called an usurpation when I was everything he was and so much more?

Anyway, the thing was that I could feel them both strengthening and leeching my strength away.

The people of Japan felt more like parasitic beings than anything else. It made me respect Kagutsuchi because I don't think that I could have appeared as calm as he did while being constantly sucked up.

I liked the power that it all gave me, that euphoric feeling as if I could step on the world itself and unbalance it. This was something that was hard to imagine if you never had real power, true power capable of shaping directly the world to your whims but I hated the responsibilities that came inherently with it.

I'm sure that if I wished, I could completely cut myself from the Japanese people and their worship or transform the link we shared in the only one benefitting would be me. Power without all the hurdles at the cost of my metaphorical soul.

'You lost your soul a long time ago,' a part of me whispered. 'You lost it even before cannibalizing another immortal being before you even stopped caring about the ones you are supposed to protect, the ones you say you love.'

I ignored that voice and pushed it deeper into the back of my mind. I would think about that later.

Right now, I needed to choose a solution. The first solution would be to allow myself to be leeched on by the people of the land the original Rias and I adored.

The second solution would be instead to take everything without giving anything in return. Taking everything while they suffered because I cut them away from the pool of divinity I had taken from Kagutsuchi.

There was another solution and this was to renounce, to give everything back, to give this power that coursed through me like a drug.

I munched absently on one of the remaining fingers of Kagutsuchi while I thought about what I should do.

Three solutions. Become a leech, allow yourself to be leeched on or give up everything you've just gained.

The demonic part of me abhorred the idea of even giving a part of myself, to giving up strength for weaker and lower beings.

What if I mixed all of the options in something else? There was no chance in heaven that I would give up on what I had just gained but leaving the people of Japan suffering, being the cause of their suffering and doing nothing while I could do would only bring and leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Hardships, efforts, this was it! I was disgusted by them because everything they had was given to them unlike the humans of the world I came from.

What if I gave them the power, the choice to fight for what they wished for? All their existence, they had only been fed but was it their fault when they were never taught how to feed themselves?

I had read so many different novels or books where it was only by fighting, by training, by trying that the protagonists could grow.

I had already a frame of mind and with the link that I had with them, it would be something easy to implement.

That would be my last gift to them. Whatever happened to them later doesn't concern me anymore.

I swallowed the last remaining finger of Kagutsuchi whole. I closed my eyes and directed my attention toward my soul where I could feel my demonic energy and the divinity I had just gained.

I ignored my overeager power of destruction that yearned to be used. Thinking about it, with my links with them, I could probably curse very badly the people of this land without them being able to do anything.

I'm sure that other Gods could have protected them but I would be surprised if there were a lot of other Japanese gods like Kagutsuchi that let themselves be leeched by the inhabitants of Japan.

Kagutsuchi even though what he did was so freaking stupid at so many levels really loved the people of this land, in such a way that I would call it madness.

I'm sure that most gods only acted as leeches for the prayers and the strength mortals gave them and only gave blessings to their favoured mortals.

I plunged myself into the ocean which represented my demonic energy. I could feel my essence thrum under my skin in anticipation of the action I was going to commit.

I took a deep breath and summoned around me all of my demonic energy. I felt my body stiffen as if an electrical rode was inserted in my spine.

I didn't remember at all the incantation of Pandora. Well, it didn't matter. It just meant that I had to create something new.

"Ô you children of the land of the rising sun," I uttered my voice taking a quality that could only be called divine.

"You who had never been able to rise over your stations. You who never could fight to make this world yours. I gift your souls with potential. The strength of Every beings that would fall because of you would become yours. I free all of you from the chains binding you since the dawn of time. I bless all of you with my fire," I whispered even if I knew that the universe itself would hear me, that every Japanese person supernaturally inclined would hear my voice.

My demonic power exploded away from me in a wave of scarlet covering the universe in a sea of blood.

It continued its advance digging through space and reality, travelling to the souls of the Japanese people and burrowing itself in their souls.

That would be the last and only thing I would do for them. Anything else depended on them. Even with my 'blessing' I wasn't sure that it would be enough for them to survive with the existence of beings easily capable of destroying this universe but this was at least something that I would allow them to become independent if they wished to.

I felt space distort behind me. I could feel an Eldritch presence invade reality, their attention turned toward me.

I touched my face and felt blood streaming from it. Just its presence and I was bleeding both from my nose and my eyes.

Its hand appeared breaching through space. No it wasn't breaching space. I could see it with my eyes and the new understanding I gained after eating Kagutsuchi.

They were not breaking the rules of reality, bending it. It was reality itself that changed because of them.

I knew that my actions would have consequences. I had usurped a god, one of the greatest blasphemous acts. More than that, I had altered millions of souls.

"What kind of abomination you are," I spoke. Darkness was the one to answer me. It smiled at me and even with my essence trying to fight it, I fell into its grip.

There was an old saying that I had learnt when I was younger. It was one I wasn't sure I could ever forget. I had forgotten from where it came from but I didn't forget the words.

The night is dark and full of terrors. It was unfortunately for me literally in this world I was living in.

I was falling into what seemed to be an endless abyss. Tendrils of darkness grew from all around me.

They looked like hands, rotten hands that were plunged in a dark sludge blacked than the space between stars.

They buried me, whispered to me, pierced my flesh, smothered me. They made me feel pain at a level I didn't was possible.

I felt them attack and corrupt me not only physically like a cancer but at the level of my soul trying to devour my entire being and the worst was that they were succeeding.

I tried to blast them with my power of destruction but they destroyed and consumed it like a pack of angry wolves.

I tried to teleport away using my memories and my link to my peerage as a portal. They drank from my demonic energy faster than my essence could regenerate it.

I clawed at them with the strength of my body, a strength that should be capable of pulverizing at the lower-end mountains. They didn't bulge, their grasp on me staying firm.

It reminded me of something I had buried deep in my mind, that I had tried to forget but this powerlessness, this wrongness, their touches only brought it forward into my mind.

I was supposed to be different, stronger, so what was this happening again to me? Why wasn't I strong enough? Why was I still weak?

My thoughts, I could feel them slowing, my life, I could feel it being drained away. I knew that even with my essence, I would die. I had no doubt of that.

I felt a weak chuckle escape me as the darkness almost completely consumed me. The only things they hadn't yet completely consumed were my essence and my power of destruction.

All of this was so wonderful, better than anything I could I have imagined or dreamed but like with every dream, there was a time to wake up.

I closed my eyes as I felt the darkness finish to consume my essence and my power of destruction. 'I just wished it could have lasted longer,' was my last thought.

"SHE IS NOT YOURS TO TAKE"

I heard a voice utter before a dark red gigantic comet the same shade that my power of destruction fell and consumed everything.