Fanfic / Issei: The Gaming Gear

Issei: The Gaming Gear is a High School D×D Fan Fic that, like Code Geass: The Prepared Rebellion, Zero no Tsukaima: Saito the Onmyoji, and After the Chamber: Lords and Ladies, is a mix of Alternate Universe Fic and Rational Fic written by SeerKing that has elements from The Gamer.

A home invasion by a psychotic attacker leads to Issei Hyōdō getting the Boosted Gear early along with something known as the Gamer's Gear. Things quickly snowball into a conspiracy when the attacker is killed while in police custody.

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This work contains examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Raynare legitimately gets amused when Dohnaseek earns the title Chūnibyō Fallen, due to it summing him up in only two words.
• A-Cup Angst: Downplayed. Sona is listed as having the "Mild Pettanko" trait, meaning that she has pretty much gotten over most of her envy towards large breasts, however, she is annoyed by people who hold up the Buxom Beauty Standard, like Issei which results in a reputation penalty with him.
• Absolute Xenophobe: The Purifiers hate all supernatural beings, including humans that can use magic and/or have a Sacred Gear power.
• Adaptation Deviation: In canon, Issei's obsession with breasts came from a perverted old man that was justifiably arrested and incarcerated for 9 years before reuniting with him in Volume 8. Here, the old man is implied to be Odin.
• Adaptation Name Change: Due to the fact that Issei's mother, Miki, had No Name Given for the longest time, her real given name wasn't released until Shin DxD Volume 2, a good chunk of time after SeerKing decided to name her Yukariko.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • Issei becomes friendlier with Murayama and Katase, as well as Aika Kiryū, due to his Character Development. Aika also decides to begin dating Issei some time after her kidnapping.
  • Raynare's group of Fallen Angels are just that in canon, with no details as to any other dynamics between them. Here, Mittelt is explicitly her mentee and someone she is quite fond of, while Dohnaseek and Kalawarner she's forced to work with due to their connections, and she pretty much hates them both.
• Adaptational Angst Upgrade: Aika Kiryū was assaulted by a man shortly before starting to attend Kuō Academy.
• Adaptational Badass: Several characters are a bit stronger than in canon:
  • Thanks to the Gamer's Gear and several Dungeon Raids, Issei is fairly stronger as a human than in canon. Downplayed compared to the others: Issei is only Lv.19, whereas the Devil cast members are all at least Lv.30, the sole exception being Saji at Lv.7, but even that's only because he was freshly turned.
  • Downplayed for now, but both Murayama and Katase^note the Kendo Girls that repeatedly beat up the Pervert Trio are noted by Sona to have some level of spiritual power, likely due to their families holding roots in Shinto Exorcism. It ends up getting both of them kidnapped by the Purifiers in Kuō.
  • Aika Kiryū has a Sacred Gear, Staring Armored Red, a magical bow that comes with a gauntlet.
• Adaptational Early Appearance:
  • Abe Kiyome (the third-year Beast Tamer) and Aika Kiryū (Issei's female pervert classmate) appear in Chapter 15 after being kidnapped by the Purifiers in Kuō, while in canon their first appearance was after the Rating Game against Riser Phenex.
  • The Kyoto Youkai faction shows up in Chapter 17 through Ryūdōji Mangetsu, a kitsune investigating the disappearance of Youkai in Kuō, as the mysterious boy that gets kidnapped by the Purifiers.
• Adaptational Heroism: Downplayed. In canon, while Raynare was always an extremely devout member of Azazel's faction, she still was somewhat power-hungry, extremely psychotic, killed Asia for her Twilight Healing solely so Azazel would take notice of her, and had no issue employing a psychopath like Freed. Here, she and Mittelt are disgusted by Freed, her loyalty to Azazel takes precedence above all else, and when she learns of the Sacred Gear user that wounded Armârôs, her first instinct is to order Mittelt to get Dohnaseek and Kalawarner to prepare for his arrival, and to capture him for Azazel rather than kill him for his Sacred Gear.
• A House Divided: Issei outright name drops the trope seeing how Raynare and Mittelt were almost constantly at odds with Kalawarner and Dohnaseek.
• All for Nothing: When Kalawarner suggests removing the Gamer Gear from Issei, Raynare shoots it down when she tells them about the Stray Magicians trying it with a different person a century ago. All they got was over a quarter of their members killed in exchange for nothing.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The users of the Tartarus Gaming Gear, as befitting their usual role as "villain" to the Gaia Gaming Gear's "hero" are almost always sadistic, immoral, completely insane, or a mix of all three, to the point that Raynare says that they'd make Freed look sane by comparison. She isn't sure if it corrupts its hosts somehow, or if it somehow manages to find twisted individuals to be born with, but even the exceptions have never been very "pleasant" individuals.
• Anti-Magical Faction: The Purifiers want to eliminate all supernatural beings, even mostly normal humans like Sacred Gear holders.
• At Least I Admit It: Issei may be quite the trouble, but he will always admit to his mistakes, and even those who dislike him are willing to accept his claims of innocence.
  • Played for Laughs when Issei copies Major Alex Louis Armstrong's Artistic Alchemic Cannon, noting in his thoughts that unlike the Purifiers, he's perfectly willing to give credit where it's due when he copies something.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Dohnaseek literally has no ability to comprehend the concept of tactics, and refuses to retreat.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: While Issei thinks he managed to kill Armârôs, she actually just fled to the abandoned church home to Raynare's group. Turned out to be a fatal move on her part, however, as Azazel designated her rogue, giving Raynare the excuse to headshot her.
• Been There, Shaped History: The holders of the blue and orange Gaming Gears at the time helped create the RPG genre in a rare display of cooperation.
• Blessed with Suck: Gamer's Mind is great when Issei is facing dangerous situations that require a calm mind to face. Not so much when he wants to enjoy thinking about girls.
  • He later tells Asia that Gamer's Mind prevents him from feeling any strong emotions - and he fears that it is actually conditioning him for something.
• Bludgeoned to Death: Issei gets a hammer that belongs to the dwarf Eitri Brokkrsson and is currently inhabited by the dwarf's soul, along with a quest to use it to kill Tenkujo Arima and Rokka Nia, who tortured him to death. Both scientists end up getting their heads turned into pulp by the hammer.
• Break the Haughty: Purifier scientist Tenkujo Arima was completely broken down by Issei.
  • First, Project Cleansing Flame was completely demolished, with the only real damage Issei took being the explosion from it blowing up.
  • Then Nia, who he at least liked enough to bang, had her Judging Fist destroyed without being able to land a single blow on Issei, with him killing her afterwards.
  • Issei then proceeded to start tearing his machine apart after Tenkujo transformed it into Project Damocles.
  • When he saw that Issei was using a Sacred Gear, he activated his Sacred Gear Suppression System... only for the machine's power to be easily repelled, with Issei declaring that even a common Sacred Gear, let alone a Longinus, would be able to shrug it off.
  • Finally, he tried using the mouth cannon weapon of Project Damocles, most likely its ultimate weapon... only for Issei to completely overpower the blast with the Boosted Gear's Dragon Shot.
• Brick Joke: The title Issei has at the beginning of the story is Oppai Baka, and he gets a quest to change it. In Chapter 18, he gets a warning that he can finally change it.
• Bring It:
  • Issei to Arima in Chapter 16's Cliffhanger.
  • Issei to the Fallen in Chapter 18 via "NEXT" note.
• Bring My Brown Pants:
  • Rokka Nia, a member of the Purifiers, pisses herself after seeing Issei charge at her after defeating the guards that were with her in the zombie-infested base. Issei uses this when he finds her in Chapter 16 to make her angry.
  • Ichiba Hirohito (the figurehead leader of the Purifiers in Kuō) also pisses himself due to Issei's threats. Twice.
• Broken Masquerade: Kiryū, Murayama and Katase learn about the supernatural world after being rescued by Issei.
• But Thou Must!: A couple of quests, like gaining a harem, don't let Issei choose "N".
• Cast from Hit Points: In the entrance to the Dwelling of Mages dungeon, Issei finds a guy who seems to have died after doing a magical ritual. Issei figures that the man was not magically strong enough and the ritual drained his life force in an attempt to compensate.
• Chekhov's Gun: When Issei gets a handgun, the Gaming Gear states that any supernatural being with a modicum of supernatural power and competence can nullify gunpowder. When he attacks Purifiers' last base in Kuō, he buys a one-use magical device that nullifies all the gunpowder in the building, rendering pretty much everyone unarmed - including the mechas.
• Chekhov's Gunman: When Sona mentions all the people with supernatural abilities in Kuō, two of the people she talks about are Murayama and Katase. In Chapter 15, the two girls are among those kidnapped by the Purifiers.
  • Some of the weapons Issei finds are mentioned to have been created by a dwarf that has been imprisoned by the Purifiers. When he attacks the Purifiers' last base, he finds the dwarf's workshop - along with the dwarf's animated corpse and the dwarf's soul tied to his warhammer.
• Chuunibyou:
  • Issei pegs the Purifier scientist Tenkujo Arima as this when introducing his anti-Sacred Gear weapon Damocles.
  • Dohnaseek acts out like one during the Fallen's raid in Issei's dungeon - which promptly awards him a title calling him [Chūnibyō Fallen].
• Clark Kenting: Justified in that Issei actually puts effort into his disguise, keeping his more perverted tendencies in check and wearing fully concealing armor with enchantments that block his aura. It works so well that his Relationship Values are actually split between his two identities.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Chapter 11: Issei finally confronts Agent Flamberge of the Purifiers... who reveals him/herself as Armârôs the Fallen Angel.
  • Chapter 15: Issei starts interrogating a Purifier leader after sneaking into his office and intimidates the guy into talking... the details of which are revealed in the next chapter.
  • Chapter 18: The Fallen enter Issei's dungeon base in their search for Asia.
  • Chapter 21: Issei approaches the church used by the Stray Exorcists as a base in order to put an end to their actions.
• Combat Pragmatist: Issei is more than willing to use cheap attacks in battle.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Mittelt seems to have a masochistic kink, as being spanked by an Eternal Mud Golem left her with a vivid blush afterwards.
• Conspicuous Consumption: When infiltrating the Purifier base, Issei sees Arima's name-plate on his office is gold-plated and wonders if big bosses being so wasteful decorating their offices is a requirement.
• Conveniently Common Kink: In canon, Akeno is a known BDSM switch, though she prefers being the dom in most situations. In this story, Rias just so happens to be implied to be a natural sub, though still in denial. She apparently started awakening to her desire after letting Akeno indulge in a minor session with her.
• Cover-Blowing Superpower: Issei is very careful to not show that he also has Boosted Gear along with the Gamer Gear to Rias and Sona.
• Covert Group with Mundane Front: The main Purifier base in Kuō is disguised as a factory compound belonging to a sewage system repair company called "Pure Drains".
• Covert Pervert: Discussed. Issei notices that, soon after he stopped peeking on the Kendo Club members with Matsuda and Motohoma, Murayama almost looked wistful at his absence whenever they crossed paths. Later, when Kiryū implies she'd welcome Murayama to Issei's harem, she doesn't exactly say no.
  • Even with Gamer's Mind running wild on him, Issei still enjoys the sight of pretty girls. When Kalawarner gets her top blown away during the Fallen's attack on Issei's dungeon, he enjoys the show. And when that results in getting a Dungeon ability that allows him to have monsters target only clothes, he gives it a serious thought.
• Creative Sterility: Issei complaining about how the Ratmen and the Purifiers keep ripping stuff off from video games rather than make original designs is perhaps the biggest Running Gag of the story. He even points out that, by ripping things like video game bosses off so blatantly, they copied their weak spots as well.
• Crippling Overspecialization:
  • Raynare is confident that she can take Freed out if needed, noting that the insane man's skills are hyper-focused on fighting Devils, not Angels, Fallen, or otherwise.
    • When he fights Issei, Issei notes that Freed's hit-and-run style is bad against someone that can tank hits and quickly react to them, while the light sword he favors is very bad at cutting through armor.
  • Due to how the war between Angels, Fallen, and Devils happened, Fallen tend to favor quick skirmishes. Unfortunately for them, their raid into Issei's dungeon becomes a long slog that wears them out as they go deeper.
• Critical Existence Failure: This is how Issei works. As long as he has 1 Health Point, he will stay alive and on his feet. He ends up winning his fight with Armârôs after she runs away - while he is exactly at 1 HP.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Purifier Outcaste is mutilated to hide his identity while he's still alive.
• Cuddle Bug: Asia has been a tad touch-deprived most of her life, so she takes any chance to hug someone else with a smile.
• David Versus Goliath: Issei versus Armârôs the Fallen Angel. In this case, it wasn't this trope due to size, but due to Issei's enemy being twice his current level.
• Detect Evil: Both Kiba and Koneko are able to sense the evil nature of the Dagger of the Draugar.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Rather than dying to Rias, Dohnaseek is killed by the Crawling Chaos, Issei's dungeon's fifth level boss.
• Dirty Coward: It does not take long for Ichiba Hirohito to spill his guts about everything he knows of the Purifiers.
• Do Wrong, Right: During the girls' sleepover, after Kiryū implies she'd love to share Murayama with Issei as part of the latter's harem, Kiyome scolds her - it's better if she establishes herself as Issei's legal wife before bringing in the mistresses, after all.
• The Dreaded: Rias and Sona are so far above Issei in strength that he's flat-out terrified when he has to interact with them, forcing himself to keep his calm with Gamer's Mind. Both Devils are aware of this and quite unhappy, but can't begrudge his caution since powerful humans are often forcibly recruited by Kings.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Kalawarner's conclusion about how they likely aren't facing a Longinus user is wrong, but well-reasoned based on what she knows.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Issei's glad that none of the Purifiers' Flames is a woman, because he really does not want his first real-life look at a naked woman to be a corpse - he's not that kind of pervert.
  • Raynare and Mittelt hate Freed and consider him disgusting.
  • When Asia accidentally gives him a Marshmallow Hell when she hugs him in thanks for helping her, Issei mentally Dope Slaps himself to stop perving on Asia.
• Evil Weapon: The Dagger of the Draugr Issei takes from Armârôs. When used to kill a non-supernatural individual, it resurrects them as feral undead revenants. Both Kiba and Koneko notice the evil intent behind the weapon, and even the weapon description states it is evil. Issei resolves to find a way to destroy it ASAP.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When delving into Issei's dungeon, Raynare notices that it's rather video-game like, but can't consciously realize it until Mittelt makes a comment about it, causing her to realize that the owner of the dungeon is the user of a Gamer's Gear.
• Face Palm: Rias does this to Issei's Stating the Simple Solution suggestion.
• Fantastic Racism: Similarly to the Hero Faction of the Khaos Brigade, the Purifiers hate any and all forms of supernatural elements, including those that are fundamentally benign or beneficiary towards humanity such as the angels. Unlike them, however, this hatred extends to their fellow humans if they are supernaturally inclined: Sacred Gear users, magicians, and even said Hero-faction. As such they instead use bleeding-edge technology and genetics to create the Ratmen (along with the obviously magical Warpstone) rather than any form of magical ritual.
• First-Name Basis: Aika Kiryū tells Issei he can use her first name after their date.
• Foil: The Purifiers are this to the Hero Faction. Whereas the Hero Faction wants to eliminate any malevolent supernatural force but has very little morals aside from that, up to including brainwashing and killing their own, the Purifiers desire the elimination of all supernatural forces, period, but don't desire to become the monsters they fight and can understand when they've gone too far... for the most part.
• Gambit Pileup: While it's confirmed by the Fallen Armârôs being the true identity of Flamberge that Kokabiel is manipulating the Purifiers, it's hinted that at least one other supernatural faction has been playing the Purifiers for fools, especially given the timeframe and the other evidence.
• Genre Savvy: While following Asia's kidnappers, Issei turns off his mobile phone because he knows it is going to sound at the worst possible moment.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Issei gets a faint scar on his chin from the Purifier Outcaste.
• Guilt-Free Extermination War: Issei does feel a little uneasy about killing the Breeder, and thus reducing the Ratmen to a Dying Race, but justifies it by pointing out to himself that the Ratmen eat humans, and maybe even each other, among their other dangers.
  • After rescuing the supernaturally powered people captured by the Purifiers, Issei felt zero remorse for ensuring that no one in the base survived, as everyone was complicit in Tenkūjo's vivisection of countless innocents.
• Guns Are Useless: All but stated by the Gaming Gear when Issei first picks up a firearm, stating that simple spells to completely neutralize gunpowder are learnable by all but the weakest or stupidest of the supernatural races. Averted in the actual story, when Issei uses it to great effect to deal with a zombie-infested base.
• Heel Realization: Midorikawa Nobuyuki, the man in charge of Project Rat King, realizes as he dies that the Purifiers were going too far in their hatred of all supernatural beings.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: Swords are the primary weapon type that Issei uses in this story.
• Hidden Depths: Raynare plays videogames, judging by how she recognizes the God of War arena barriers at first sight.
• Home Field Advantage:
  • Issei's control of his dungeon is such that he can set special rules to negate an invader's advantages. While he can't go as far as transforming them into anything weaker (for example, turning a Fallen into a human), he can prevent them from doing things like flying, which keeps the invaders from just avoiding all traps and monsters.
  • One of the skills Issei gets after the Fallen's raid in his dungeon boosts his and his monsters' defenses by 25%, while another allows them to survive an attack that would have instantly defeated them, but both only work while in the dungeon.
• Hypocrisy Nod: Issei acknowledges that copying Armstrong's Artistic Alchemic Cannon technique is this since he's been complaining for a while about the Purifiers' constant ripping off from video games, but at least he admits he's copying the technique.
• Hypocrite:
  • The Purifiers hate supernatural beings, but are perfectly willing to use Magitek in their crusade.
  • Issei lampshades their hypocrisy when telling Asia about them, which is highlighted when they use a magical item heavily implied to have been obtained from the orange Tartarus Gaming Gear user in their kidnapping of Asia.
  • Issei notes that Freed doesn't really have room to talk calling him a "pagan" when he's a lunatic rogue exorcist that doesn't even believe in God.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Issei is definitely not comforted by the names of some of the dungeons within Kuō, such as the Level 30 Dungeon of Six Realms.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Issei calls the Purifiers that want to kidnap Asia "suspicious old men in cosplay", three of them seem to be more affronted about the suspicious, old, and cosplay parts than the fact that Issei pretty much implied something else.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The Ratmen definitely eat human flesh, and may even be cannibals.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Dohnaseek meets his end against the boss Ooze Avatar - Crawling Chaos.
• In Spite of a Nail: Asia still becomes Rias Gremory's Bishop, due to Issei realizing that he alone doesn't have the power to protect her.
• Internal Reveal: Issei reveals his Secret Identity to Asia after rescuing her from the Purifiers.
• Kill It with Fire: Issei uses a lot of fire magic when he fights. He even drops the trope name in when he fights the Dwarven Revenant.
• Kinky Spanking: Mittelt gets hit on the ass during the Fallen's fight with an Eternal Mud Golem, and her face is rather red, with Kalawarner accusing her of liking it.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: During his incursion into the Purifiers' base, Issei sets his looting system on automatic, which takes everything - even the dead guys' underclothes.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • Raynare attempts to retreat when she realizes that the Eternal Mud Golems are far more than what she and the other three Fallen can deal with, but Issei prevents them from escaping.
  • After Mittelt's capture and Dohnaseek's death, Kalawarner surrenders. Raynare follows suit after, knowing that she has no way to defeat the Crawling Chaos on her own.
• Lazy Alias: The Purifier main base in Kuō disguises itself as a sewage system repair company called "Pure Drains". Several characters remark on how obvious/unsubtle it is.
• Lethal Joke Item: One of the basic traps Issei uses in his dungeon is a spring trap that sends someone flying. On its own, nothing to write home for. Combined with other traps or agile monsters that can take advantage of the victim's sudden inability to dodge, it's lethal.
• Load-Bearing Boss: Project Damocles had its power core linked to the main generators of the Purifier base. When Issei landed a series of Earth Shots on the core, it started a chain reaction guaranteed to destroy the base. Considering he'd been planning to activate the base's self-destruct after he was done, this saved Issei a few steps.
• Logical Weakness: Issei suggests two strategies for dealing with Raiser's regeneration: use blades from Kiba that can No-Sell the Phenex's fire and keep them in his body since regeneration usually doesn't kick in until the weapon that causes the wound leaves the body, and using an Agony Beam sword to flood his mind with pain, since he's got to have an upper limit to the pain he can withstand, along with spells Issei granted them from the store with similar effects.
• Mad Scientist: The Purifiers' scientists verge on this, having no problem with experimenting with humans just because they have supernatural powers.
• Magic Versus Science: The Purifiers fall heavily on the science side, of course, but Arima in particular hates anything remotely supernatural, viewing it as "superstition" despite the fact that it actually exists. He has an especially strong hate-on for Sacred Gear users. In the end, thanks to Issei, magic wins out.
• Mama Bear: Mrs. Hyōdō was not amused when the staff at Kuō Academy didn't believe Issei about their recent home invasion being the reason for missing a week off school, not that it isn't completely unjustified, and makes her displeasure known. Even Sona was rather impressed by it, and the Gamer's Gear actually seems a bit intimidated.
• Marshmallow Hell: Asia accidentally gives this to Issei.
• Masquerade: The masquerade is broken for Kiryū, Murayama, and Katase. However, the girls are quickly told they must keep it up for others, due to it being the one thing that all mythologies hold in agreement.
• Mood Whiplash: Asia's fun time with Issei is cut short when the Purifiers attack them to kidnap her.
• Mook Horror Show:
  • Issei's raid on the Purifiers' base after saving Asia and the other prisoners becomes this due to his overwhelming power and the fact that all firearms have been rendered useless thanks to a magical device he's bought.
  • When the first Stray Exorcist team enters Issei's dungeon, they are subjected to this as they encounter the golems it contains, which kill them all in a few minutes.
• Named by the Adaptation: While Katase and Murayama's surnames are canon, they are given the first names, Reiko and Keiko, respectively.
• Nausea Fuel: In-Universe. Issei warns Rias and Sona that anyone that reads the files he found on the Purifiers' experiments better have a strong stomach or not eat for a few hours before.
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: The Purifiers are suspiciously Nazi-like, seeking to eliminate anyone and anything supernatural, even humans who just happened to be born with a Sacred Gear, and jump head-first into unethical and ultimately pointless experiments.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Raynare kills Armârôs after the latter's fight with Issei - getting rid of the only person that knows that Issei has two Sacred Gears, one of them being the Boosted Gear.
• No OSHA Compliance: When Issei sees that the Purifier base has a dissection table covered in blood in clear view of the cell with prisoners in it as an intimidation tactic, he notes that it cannot be sanitary by anyone's standards.
• No Periods, Period: Subverted. Rias first meets Issei during her time of the month, which combined with the recent news that she's engaged to Riser, left her in a poor mood to deal with him.
• No-Sell: Issei does this to Arima's Project Damocles.
• The Nudifier: After the Fallen's raid into his dungeon, Issei can now set monsters and traps to only destroy clothing.
• O.C. Stand-in: Thanks to their limited screen time in canon, Raynare's group of Fallen are pretty much all but OC's here, Dohnaseek and Kalawarner being a pair of morons who used their connections to get into her group, and Mittelt being a young Fallen with Raynare as her mentor.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Issei gets one when it's revealed that Agent Flamberge of the Purifiers is Armârôs the Fallen Angel, and is double Issei's current level.
  • He gets to induce this on the Purifiers when the latter realize their firearms don't work at all.
  • When they're infiltrating Issei's dungeon, Raynare and Mittelt point out that if their superiors find out that Kalawarner and Dohnaseek (the former two having been giving a report to their superiors at the time, so they're in the clear) let Asia wander around town without so much as a guard, they'll be in big trouble.
  • After the Eternal Mud Golem, the Mooks of the fifth floor of Issei's dungeon, proves so difficult that the Fallen have to use everything they've got to defeat just one of them, they decide to use stealth on the rest of the floor. As soon as they get to the boss room, they have a Mass "Oh, Crap!" when Issei reminds them that the floor bosses are powered up versions of each floor's main mook.
    Raynare: "Fuck... me... running."
• One-Hit Kill: When Issei is cleaning out the church of rogue Exorcists, even when limiting himself to non-lethal force he's able to beat all but one of the Mooks with a single blow.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Sona, who is The Stoic extraordinaire, acts very irritated in the aftermath of Issei destroying the Purifiers' base in Kuō as certain people have started to pressure her into lowering her standards for marriage.
• Playing Possum: Issei puts up a good fight against the Purifiers in Kuō after Asia, but then pretends to be defeated and knocked out so he can follow them and rescue her after discovering their lair.
• Power Nullifier:
  • Project Damocles has a feature that is supposed to disable Sacred Gears, but is so weak that Issei can counter it without even trying, and is sure that it wouldn't work much even against common Gears.
  • At some point in time, someone discovered that Kiryū had developed a subspecies Sacred Gear, and attempted to seal it away. Not only did they seal it improperly, allowing the Purifiers to learn she had one at all, the seal, combined with the trauma from being sexually assaulted, diminished her WIS stat by 10.
  • Issei's dungeon now has a [Gaol] that can nullify supernatural powers.
• Pragmatic Hero: Issei hates doing it, but he lets the Purifiers in Kuō take Asia so they can guide him to their lair. Considering that she wasn't the only one that they kidnapped, it was a very good call.
• Press-Ganged: Some Devil Kings grab any powerful humans they find into their Peerage, consent very much optional. Issei himself is terrified by the possibility of Rias or Sona invoking this upon him, while Asia's excommunication reeks of a Frame-Up to isolate her and do this.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Issei gives Asia a necklace with a tracking spell after he notices people following them on their not-date. They later turn out to be Purifiers out to kidnap Asia.
  • Eitri Brokkrsson was, correctly, worried about dying a dishonorable death at the hands of the Purifiers, so he turned his hammer into a Soul Jar with rune magic so he wouldn't get sent to Niflheim after death.
• Race Against the Clock: Issei's crusade against the Ratmen is revealed to be this, as he learns that the latter are building up to attack Rias and Sona. He does manage to put an end to most of them before they can do much.
• Random Effect Spell: Issei, after leveling up the Gaming Gear, gets the ability to roll a random spell periodically.
• Related in the Adaptation: The old man that turned a young Issei into a perv? That was Odin here. And he gets a Sneeze Cut when Murayama declares her intent to beat the shit out of the man who would corrupt a child like he did Issei. More specifically, turn his groin into paste.
• Revenge: The creator of the Ratmen lost his father to a Fallen, leading to him joining the Purifiers.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Once Armârôs is labeled a traitor by Azazel and Kokabiel for her actions in leading the Purifiers, she is swiftly killed via headshot by Raynare.
• Romantic Fake–Real Turn: When Murayama, Katase and Kiryū come asking questions, Issei suggests faking a date between himself and the latter while the former two supposedly keep an eye so he won't do anything untoward to Kiryū, to get them somewhere where no one can eavesdrop on them. Kiryū quickly decides to make it a real date. By the end of the date, they decide to give the boyfriend/girlfriend thing a run.
• Running Gag:
  • During the incursion into the "Primordial Lair of the Ratmen", the air is so poisonous that Issei is constantly training Poison Resistance, which ticks him off as it slowly climbs to level 12.
  • Issei complaining at the creative bankruptcy of the Ratmen and Purifiers, who keep ripping stuff off from video games.
• Samus Is a Girl: Flamberge turns out to be a female Fallen.
• Sad Clown: It's heavily implied that Kiryū's perverted nature is partially a ruse she uses to scare guys away due to being sexually assaulted.
• Sanity Has Advantages: While Freed's [Deranged] Status makes it harder for Skills to predict his actions, it also reduces his Intelligence by close to half, and Issei notes that his Statuses in general have more downsides than benefits. Heck, Issei is even able to force Freed to retreat by fighting him intelligently despite Freed being eight levels higher than him at that point.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: In this fic, both Kalawarner and Dohnaseek are part of Raynare's team not because of their skills, but because of their connections. Kalawarner's grandmother is a Cadre-class Fallen, and both of them slept their way up the hierarchy, Dohnaseek being explicitly brought up through his "sugar mamas".
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Arima tries to do this after Issei kills Nia and destroys his mecha. Issei doesn't let him escape too far, though.
  • Upon finding out he is outmatched by Issei and the boy is well-armored and equipped, Freed flees the temple the Fallen had made their base in.
• Secret Identity: Since the "Ratcatcher" was always gone before her arrival or masked in her presence, Rias has no idea that Issei is actually him. Likewise, no one is aware of his true identity thanks to Issei donning armor and masks when meeting with others, the most anyone knowing about him being that he goes to Kuō Academy and that he's the Gaia Gamer Gear wielder. He eventually buys a magic mantle that hides his magical presence. The only one who even knew he had two Sacred Gears, Armârôs, took that knowledge with her to her grave once Raynare killed her.
  • However, he knows that neither Rias nor Sona are stupid, and eventually the two girls will realize who he is, so he needs to plan for the future that said event will bring.
  • His precautions are for naught in the case of Sirzechs and Serafall, who are keeping an eye on Kuō for their sisters' sake. Fortunately, the Maous can tell Issei has good intentions and is helping Rias and Sona, so they give him the benefit of the doubt and watch in case of trouble.
  • Issei reveals his true identity to Asia after rescuing her from the Purifiers.
  • After his talk with Murayama, Katase, and Kiryū, The Gamer begins to track both identities separately when it comes to his relationships with other people.
• Secret-Keeper: Asia is the only person Issei has revealed his dual identity to.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Ratmen were mainly inspired by the Skaven of Warhammer lore.
  • The first boss Issei faces is named Byral Warfang, a combination of the names of two rats from Redwall. Additionally, his boss drop, the Rapscallion Waveblade, is the weapon that the Rapscallion tribe leader used to decide if they would travel by land or sea.
  • The Ratmen Breeder is noted in the narration to be similar in appearance and creation as Clotho, which of course also makes it an expy of a Broodmother.
  • While going through a Ratmen dungeon, Issei ends up finding some Rare Candies. Neither he nor Rias are amused at the idea of being treated like Pokemon.
  • Akeno calls Rias' "thinking pose" the "Gendo pose". Rias notes that letting Akeno watch Evangelion had been a mistake.
  • Issei notes some of the traps guarding the Ratmen and their Broodmother come from the God of War games, along with Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia, Half-Life, and Portal 2.
    Issei: Damn copyright-infringing rats!
    Issei: (after seeing ideas from Portal 2) Apologize to Valve, you damned, thieving fanatics!
  • Issei notes that the first base layout option is straight out of XCOM.
  • The dungeon Issei goes in after meeting Asia is based on Final Fantasy IX (along with several Uncharted puzzles) because someone accidentally created it as part of a slapdash ritual combined with a pirated copy of the game.
  • During the infiltration of the Purifiers' last base, he compares some of the soldiers with the Marines from Half-Life, mentions Ainz Ooal Gown, insults the Purifiers when he sees they are cribbing ideas for their mechas from Mass Effect, comes up with a new spell based on Armstrong's Artistic Alchemic Cannon, destroys Project Damocles with the Dragon Fist and is reminded of Robotnik's Egg Mobile when Arima tries to escape.
  • "Shakkomon the Divine Metal Dogu", the first floor Boss of Issei's base that the Stray Exorcists encounter while attempting to retrieve Asia, is a reference to the mutant Digimon from Digimon Adventure 02, right down to its name and description of appearance, as can be seen here.
  • When Issei blocks the way between his dungeon's fourth and fifth level to prevent the Fallen from escaping, Raynare compares it with the barriers from God of War.
  • Issei's performance against the Fallen earns his dungeon monsters the skills Reliable Guardian and Stalwart Guardian, two defensive skills from Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense..
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Issei delivers a powerful one to Tenkujo after overpowering his ultimate machine's mouth-cannon with a single Dragon Shot.
  Issei: "Science isn't the answer to everything in this world, Tenkujo. Nor should it be! The world is a big place, full of secrets and mysteries that no one, human, monster, or god, can truly answer. It's searching for those answers that makes life worth living! If you were hoping to codify the world into neat little boxes, then what I'm going to do to you will simply be putting a fool out of his misery!"
• Sibling Incest: One-sided between Serafall and Sona, but it's all but explicitly stated when one considers that Sona was voted "Devil Most Likely to be Seduced by her Sister".
• Simple Solution Won't Work: When Raynare realizes that the abilities of the Eternal Mud Golems make them too much of a hassle to beat effectively on their own, she tries to have the quartet of Fallen retreat so they can get the backup of their Stray Exorcist minions. Issei quickly puts a stop to that idea by blocking off the exits.
• Slippery MacGuffin: Apparently no one has ever been able to hold a Gamer's Gear outside of the body of a host because once removed, it instantly vanishes back into the Sacred Gear System. One magician organization tried to capture one in order to try and uncover its secrets, but in the end all they ended up going was losing a good number of their members because they couldn't hold onto it.
• Smart Ball: Kalawarner is a bimbo, but when Raynare speculates that the lair the Fallen are attacking to retrieve Asia might belong to a Longinus holder for all they know, she puts forth a logical (if Entertainingly Wrong) explanation about how that's unlikely, since the Boosted Gear is the only Longinus currently unaccounted for, and the users of that Gear tend to be power idiots, not mages, defending herself when her companions stare at her in surprise by saying that keeping track of which factions have Gears capable of killing gods is just common sense. Raynare decides to ignore the display of unusual competence, believing that if she didn't it'd cause a Reality-Breaking Paradox.
• Sneeze Cut: After Murayama swears to find the old guy that turned Issei into a pervert and grind his groin into paste, someone heavily implied to be Odin feels the shivers.
• Soul Jar: Eitri Brokkrsson was crafty to the Purifiers killing him dishonorably, so he used rune magic to make it so his soul would be drawn to his hammer in that case. Sure enough...
• Spanner in the Works: Project Rat King might have been able to keep the Ratmen under control... but then the Ratmen managed to get a hold of some historical manga, which they used as the basis to craft their own identity as a species.
• Spotting the Thread: When Issei learns of the events that led to Asia's excommunication (she used her Healing Hands power to heal a Devil she found in the church she lived in), he immediately realizes there's something fishy about the whole chain of events because no Devil would ever willingly approach a church to seek help. This, combined with the Contrived Coincidence of said Devil appearing at the one church that hosted the girl with the Twilight Healing Sacred Gear, leads to the deduction that Asia was set up by said Devil with the objective of forcing her into their Peerage.
  • When she explains she was sent to Kuō to join a priest that is stationed in the abandoned church, he realizes something is seriously wrong - a feeling vindicated when he finds that the Fallen are living in said church.
• Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly: Issei starts his infiltration of the Purifier base sneaking around, but after rescuing Asia and the other people that they had kidnapped, he abandons all stealth and proceeds to start killing all of the Purifier personnel in the base - not that he cares much about making noise at that point.
• Stating the Simple Solution: When Issei suggests that Kiba makes blades that can No-Sell fire to deal with Riser Phenex, Rias facepalms and curses herself for being an idiot.
  • Issei gets a dose of it himself when, after telling Ddraig the reason he hasn't been using the Boosted Gear as much as the dragon wanted was that Rias and company kept showing up when he was in dungeons and he wanted to keep his possession of the Gear secret from them, Ddraig points out he could just buy an item from the Store to help conceal his abilities, then again when Ddraig points out that there's an item to help him set up a Base in the Store as well.
• Stock Shōnen Rival: Not only does Issei have Vali to deal with as the respective Sekiryuutei and Hakuryuukou, but like the Heavenly Dragon Sacred Gears, there are also two Gaming gears. Issei has Gaia's and which is of course blue in color, while the Tartarus version is supposedly orange.
• The Stoic: Thanks to the Gamer's Mind ability, Issei is able to keep himself calm and in control when he would normally panic, such as when facing Rias, her peerage, Sona, and Saji. Played for Laughs when hearing his inner thoughts, as Issei can still react like normal mentally, leaving him understandably freaked out at having managed to keep his cool while talking with high-class devils. However, it's later revealed to also be a case of Blessed with Suck as the Gamer's Mind also affects extreme positive emotions thus is unable to feel anything more than content, something that Asia is completely aghast at.
• Sudden Game Interface: Issei ends up with this after receiving the Gamer's Gear.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: After Issei infiltrates the Kuō Purifiers' base without being seen, frees the prisoners they had taken, annihilates more than twenty Purifier soldiers without taking an injury, and blows up a robotic mecha, Arima believes he will easily defeat him with a mecha of his own.
• Teleport Interdiction: Anyone besides Issei or someone he approves who tries to teleport into his base will get redirected to the start of the topmost level.
• This Cannot Be!: Arima was completely flabbergasted at how completely ineffective his Project Damocles mech truly was against Issei, descending into cries of "Impossible!" when his Sacred Gear Suppression Field proved to be completely useless.
• This Is Unforgivable!: As he realizes the depth of the horrors inflicted on innocent people by the Purifiers in Kuō, Issei decides that he will kill everyone in their last base, and to hell with any consequences.
• Toxic Phlebotinum: Warpstone. The substance has several forms and uses, but is highly toxic and mutagenic (which was used to accelerate the development of the Ratmen project) and can cause insanity just by proximity, let alone physical contact, which may be part of the reason the Ratmen rebelled.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Enforced. When Arima activates his mecha's transformation, the Gaming Gear freezes Issei in place and informs him that, in these situations, he will only be able to move if in immediate danger.
• Trash of the Titans: Dohnaseek's room at the church the Fallen and their minions were staying at is a god-forsaken mess in more ways than one. When Issei loots the rooms of the other three so the Grigori won't have any excuse to come back if/when he releases his prisoners, he takes one look at Dohnaseek's and just nopes out, saying that Grigori can get the stuff themselves if they really want it.
• Trauma Button:
  • Since she lost her mother in a house invasion, Akeno is immediately sympathetic to Issei when she learns about why he missed a week's worth of school days and is pissed off at the staff for their Lack of Empathy about it.
  • After Issei (in his Ratcatcher disguise) states the actions of the Purifiers are worse than what happened in the Holy Sword Project, Kiba asks for some time alone as he's reminded of the hell he was put through when he was a child.
• Troll: Issei is convinced that the Gamer's Gear is sentient and that it is screwing with him repeatedly, like giving him Rare Candies, and snarking at him every time he gets a stat improvement. Currently, he wants to find a way to speak with this consciousness so he can punch it in the face.
• Turned Against Their Masters: A supernatural variant occurs as the Ratmen, once they develop their own identity, quickly slaughter the Purifier personnel inside their burrows.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It hasn't come up as more than rumors, but Rias mentions that the Ratcatcher's actions (particularly the fact that she and Sona keep getting caught off guard) is causing people to question their ability to hold their territory, and could allow their parents to force the issue on their Arranged Marriages.
• Unwitting Pawn: Sona and Rias discuss the possibility that the Purifiers are being manipulated to some degree by a group of supernaturals, like the Old Maou Faction, to eliminate their enemies. They're right on the money, as Flamberge is a rogue Fallen named Armârôs the Lesser, the Gamer Gear specifically noting she's from Kokabiel's faction.
• Villain Respect: When one of the Purifiers in Kuō that attacks Issei in order to kidnap Asia tries to kick him while he's unconscious (or, rather, faking it very well), their leader punches the man out because he can, at least, respect Issei for doing what he thought was right.
• We Have Reserves: Besides the element of surprise, the Ratmen's main advantage is their easily replaced numbers. After Issei kills the Breeder, this only brings the end of their species closer.
• Weak, but Skilled: Issei manages to defeat Armârôs, despite the Fallen being nearly double his current level, through creative application of his combat skills, Boosted Gear, and spells, though he lost almost all of his health in the process.
• Welcomed to the Masquerade: Murayama, Katase, and Kiryū are inducted into the supernatural world after their encounter with the Purifiers. Kiryū even gains a subspecies Sacred Gear.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 15. The Purifiers in Kuō kidnap not only Asia, but also Murayama, Katase, Aika Kiryū, Abe Kiyome, and an unknown boy, forcing Issei to infiltrate their last hidey-hole to save them. Even worse, the method they used to kidnap Asia heavily implies that they're trading with the orange Tartarus Gaming Gear holder.
• What If?:
  • There's a group of humans who are aware of the Masquerade and wish to destroy all supernatural factions. As part of their efforts, they created the Ratmen.
  • A rogue member of the Purifiers decided to attempt to attack Issei about a month before the start of the canon story, causing him to awaken Boosted Gear, as well as the Gamer's Gear. This leads to Issei getting stronger much earlier, and his actions catch Rias and Sona's attention earlier as well.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once Armârôs the Lesser, one of his underlings, is revealed to be leading the Purifiers, Kokabiel immediately severs ties with her and declares her a traitor in order to maintain the illusion he's still listening to Azazel.
• Youth Is Wasted on the Dumb: Amongst all of Raynare's team, only she is over 200 years old (specifically in the ball-park of 500 or so) and it shows with Mittelt at barely 75, Kalawarner at 150, and Dohnaseek at 185. And the latter two prove their incompetence by losing Asia to the Purifiers on what was supposed to be a milk run. Also, if Raynare and Mittelt are to believed, they also pretty much slept their way into their positions.

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