Well it seemed the internet was as friendly a place as ever. Only a few hours after my first public appearance it was now common knowledge that I was both a member of the empire, completely unrelated from them, some kind of devil worshiper, and most probably a villain. I did get a laugh out of the devil worshiper comments though, I wonder what the comments would have been like if they knew they were closer than they expected.

I could have done without the thirst comments though.

Nothing I could do about it though. Trying to get the internet to be less perverted was an impossible mission and not worth the effort.

Of course I could only spend so much time laying around my newly clean house watching people be idiots on the internet before I started feeling lonely. Ddraig was no use either. He had gone to sleep once it was clear I wasn't doing anything more interesting than making my home livable or playing with magic.

So after a few days I decided to venture back out into the city. Maybe this time I would do some combat practice? That could be fun…but first I had some shopping to do. I was getting tired of takeout.

-o-

It seemed like I was going to be picking up a few followers no matter what I did going by the group of men failing to discreetly follow me around the grocery store.

It was actually a little hilarious that they thought three muscular men with shaved heads didn't look completely out of place in the shampoo aisle.

But if they were content to stay out of my way, then I would do the same and ignore them.

"Thank you for shopping at ACME, did you find..everything..okay…" The cashier trailed off as I unloaded everything onto the conveyor belt. I didn't pay it much attention at first because people did seem to space out around me when they first saw me, but when I finished placing the last item down and realized the cashier hadn't even scanned the first one and Ddraig was snickering.

'Well then. Wasn't expecting to see you doing something like this. Having fun, White?'

'hmph'

Well that pretty much confirmed things didn't it?

The dark haired young man in front of me was the secret identity of my stalker, otherwise known as the independent hero Paladin.

Not that I cared at the moment.

"Is something wrong, or should I go to a different lane?" I asked just to get him to stop staring blankly at me.

Paladin jerked and quickly started scanning my items. "No, no. Sorry about that. I just…uh…"

"Right."

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I very pointedly ignored his attempted starts at conversation, paid for my things, and left the store. An entire city and I just happened to pick the one my 'rival' got a job at? I either had terrible luck or someone was messing with me.

And speaking of messing with me.

"Hey Red, hold up a sec. We want to talk with ya." One of the skinheads that had been following her called out. Only the one though, his buddies seemed to be missing.

"We?" I asked shortly, but not impolitely.

"Uh, right. The others just had to take care of something real quick.'' The skinhead shot a dark look at an alleyway a bit behind him. "Don't worry about it." I had a feeling I was going to need to worry about it.

"Anyways," He continued. "We just wanted to let you know you had some…undesirable people following you around. We scared them off but you should be careful. It's not safe around here for proper people."

Proper, huh? I wonder what he would think if he knew I wasn't human at all.

"Thank you, but I can take care of myself." I tried to excuse myself and walk by him but he smoothly slid back in front of me.

"I'm sure you can, but you sound like you're new to the Bay. The rats can get pretty nasty."

"I'll be sure to be careful."

"Right, well have a good one…ah! Wait, not that way!"

This time I succeeded in brushing past the skinhead and making my way down to the alley he didn't want me looking into. To my complete lack of surprise, his buddies were in the middle of beating on someone not white. Though I was expecting the victim to be asian not black since those were the type following me around earlier.

"Scared them off huh?" I said to no one in particular.

"Shit, I was hoping to keep you out of things but now that you saw this I need to take you to the boss. You need to understand why this is needed." Asshole number 1 said from behind me.

"Yeah, no. But how about this," I looked each person in the eye and flared my magic, catching all of them in a hypnosis spell. "Paladin is the one who did this." Then I punched Asshole 1 in the jaw and triggered my clothing change spell. Could I have done this without hypnosis? Absolutely. But I was going to cling to my secret identity for a bit longer, just so I could get to know some people without them instantly being in danger or approaching me as a plant for someone. Although a small voice in the back of my mind -not Ddraig- was saying it was because hypnosis is really easy to abuse on acceptable targets, supremacists of any kind made it very easy to justify.

I'll need to be stricter in the future.

Anyway, it didn't take long before the three skinheads were on the ground unconscious, normal humans simply weren't much of a threat to a Devil, and their victim was looking at me in confusion. Or glaring at me in pain. It was a little hard to tell given the state of his face. Actually wasn't this a chance to try out a healing spell? This guy probably didn't have any magic power of his own so it shouldn't be too hard for me to try…

I reached down slowly not to startle him out of the trance my spell put him in when there was a flash of white and a loud crash.

"Hold it right there, ne'er-do wells!" Paladin shouted. "I am here to, uh…oh, I guess everything is handled already…" He trailed off awkwardly.

"Handled my ass! Finish the job and take her down, you fake-ass hero!" The victim squirmed underneath me. Shit, his mind had decided I was with his attackers because 'Paladin' was the one to take down the skinheads. Dammit, I should have thought the hypnosis thing through more.

"I'll deal with that later." I decided and waved my hand in front of the victim's face, another spell forcing him unconscious. I was actually a little shocked he was able to fight it for a few seconds even when he was all beaten up but he did eventually relax. Guess I wouldn't be using that as a combat spell unless my opponent was already beaten.

"Rias…just what did you do?" Paladin asked, showing zero regard for the 'rules'. Good thing I wasn't actually going to rely on those in the future.

"Nothing much." I replied. "These guys were following me around the store and stopped me on the street. When I slipped past one of them I found them beating on this guy and beat them up."

"Why did he think you were with them then?"

I shrugged. "Misapplication of hypnosis. I was planning on leaving before he noticed, but his mind had to come up with some justification for why I was here when you showed up."

Paladin's shoulders dropped and he facepalmed. "Rias, this isn't your world you can't just mind control people here. People will really freak out about it."

I snorted. This guy was still assuming I was the character he was familiar with just based on our looks. And for some reason he was acting like I had some obligation to listen to him anyway. AND he was still ignoring the rules!

"I'll keep it in mind, Mr Cashier." I said deadpan.

"Ah, don't spread that around! I need to keep my secret identity safe!" I raised an incredulous eyebrow at him. I wasn't the one screaming out his first name like an idiot.

Thankfully, he did seem to finally get a clue once he got a look at my expression and thought it through for a second.

"Oh…right. Sorry."

"Hmm."

"A-anyway, I should call this in. Wait over there till I'm done?"

Again, that attitude that I should listen to him. "No, I think I'll just go home. Feel free to take credit. They all think you did it anyway." I told him and started walking off, much to Paladin's apparent distress.

"Leaving so soon? I just got here." A new voice called out from somewhere above me.

I looked up to see a blonde girl in a white costume floating in midair with a confident smirk on her face.

This…this was about to get annoying wasn't it?