After putting on some of Kiba's clothes that Rias temporarily lent him, Issei and Rias arrived in a spacious living area inside her western-style mansion. Two people were sitting on the couch. Issei knew one of them. The resident blonde shoujo protagonist was leaning with a long face resting on his palms, lost in thought.
The other was a tiny girl with silver-white hair whose hair reminded him of a certain nuisance in the room's bright lighting. She had a black cat-shaped hair clip on either side, and her face was flat as they come. Besides her, on the couch, lay two large bags of unopened snacks. Curiously, he didn't find Akeno anywhere.
Before their footsteps even reached them, the short girl's nose twitched slightly as she turned her head. Her amber eyes ignored him as background noise, greeting Rias in a monotone, "…President."
Kiba also straightened himself. He, however, noticed Rias and then looked past her to him. "Issei?" He whispered, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"Yo, my friendo!" Issei greeted him cheerfully. He pointed at the clothes, grinning sheepishly, "Sorry, I had to borrow these."
"That's fine." He waved his arm, "But what are you-"
"Don't ask, man. Terrible things happened."
Kiba looked a bit worried for a second. He thought of asking, but noticing Issei's lack of care for the topic, he chose not to. Instead, a wry grin formed on his face, "Seems like we all had quite the night."
"…Looks like it," Issei remarked, staring at his torn right sleeve and bruised thumb.
"Yuuto, Koneko." Rias took over him. She sat across from them and asked in a concerned voice, "Are you two alright?"
Koneko slowly nodded her head. "…Yes"
"Is that so…?" Rias' eye landed on the packets of untouched chips beside her, then back at her. She crossed her arms under her bosom, "…What exactly happened?"
Koneko didn't answer. Kiba sighed, "It was as Akeno suggested. The Fallen angels are up to no good."
"Fallen angels?" Rias repeated. "Weren't you two after some priest? How did you end up crossing paths with the fallens?"
"…We didn't mean to," Koneko said in a small voice.
"Exactly. We were just after the psycho priest who had held captive the nun we told you about." Kiba added.
"The nun?" Issei suddenly blurted, hearing that. Didn't he hear something about an excommunicated nun just this evening? Something about planning a ritual to extract her gear. How did the devils know about her? Or rather, why did they care about her?
His outburst caused all three of the discussing devils to turn towards him with questions in their eyes. 'Well, shit…' Issei sweatdropped. Right, he had just recently shifted to this town. He wasn't supposed to know anything about anyone in this town.
Cough
"I mean, since when did priests and nuns together start to become suspicious?" He said defensively, acting surprised. He further flipped the question on them, "Also, aren't y'all devils? Why are you worried about a nun?"
The question did its magic. "T-That…" Rias shifted slightly in her seat, suddenly looking oddly embarrassed. She looked down, then at him, and then back again, "I….uhh…."
"Let me explain that," Akeno declared, walking through one of the entrances. She arrived before them, carrying a tray with two teapots and a wide assortment of cookies. She put them on the table in the centre and handed a plate of cookies to a hesitant and embarrassed Koneko.
"Green or Black?"
Issei took a long inhale of the scent of the burnt butter, of the melted sugar, and he felt the sluggishness after losing all his blood, leaving his body. "Wow, m'lady, you're a Go—err…I meant, thanks for the hospitality. Uhmm…Black, please."
Akeno poured a cup of black tea for him and passed that alongside some cookies, "After losing so much blood, I thought you'd like something sweet."
"Thanks."
She did the same to the rest and took the seat beside Rias. "So about Asia." She began, and Issei presumed that was the name of the excommunicated nun. "Well, Rias and I met that girl a week ago. The girl was new to the town and had lost her way. And since she couldn't speak the local language, asking for directions was an impossible task for that awkward girl."
"As you may know, devils can speak and understand all human languages. We helped her get to her address, and that was that. Two days later, however, we coincidentally heard her voice again coming from a slightly secluded house, pleading for help. When we entered, she was lying on the floor beside two corpses, and the priest was repeatedly kicking her."
'And then you made a heroine's entrance and saved the girl, right?' Issei humoured in his mind, thinking how cliched that all sounded. 'Some fated shit.'
Outwardly, he kept listening attentively. Akeno reclined back on the couch, "Long story short, he had gotten annoyed at her because she kept coming in his way to punish heathens because she kept healing them. We intervened, but the priest managed to run away. As it so happened, the girl had a sacred gear capable of healing everyone, even devils."
"Ah, I see," Issei perked up, "A sacred gear capable of healing devils? That's a treasure right there." That also explained why they targeted the girl. From the description, she didn't seem much like a fighter, so going after her was definitely a good idea.
Rias shrank in her seat, "Ehh…Yes. T-That's why I asked her whether she'd like to join my peerage. But…"
"But the girl was a nun at heart still," Akeno continued, "She didn't reject Rias' offer directly. Asia was too good for herself, but she asked for some time to consider the proposal."
"So Rias got rejected?"
"Ehmm…" Rias coughed.
"Oh, so that's why you're embarrassed?"
"Well, not exactly…" Rias avoided eye contact, looking guilty like she'd been caught with her hands in the cookie jar.
Issei stroked his chin. He more or less knew what she was thinking. And he didn't blame her either. He'd have the same thoughts if he were in her shoes. Longinuses weren't a joke after all. The boosted gear, despite being the worst of the bunch…
[You mean the best.]
…it was still a longinus. A godkilling weapon. Who wouldn't want that in their peerage? Much less someone like her, who was in desperate need to avoid the chasm her future was inching towards….or so Sirzechs said back then.
Still, Issei would've liked to push this inevitable conversation some more. Issei thought, enjoying the delicious cookies. Damn, these things slapped.
Sigh
"Rias, do you want me to join your peerage?"
Rias' eyes went wide. Her mouth opened and closed and opened again.
"It's not something to be embarrassed about, really." He took a small sip, "Y'know who I am, right?"
He didn't mean to brag about that. But he was one of the wielders of the godkilling weapon. He was special.
"…who?"
…Apparently, not to everyone.
Issei glared at the snow-haired girl, calmly nibbling on her cookie. Damn, rabbit! The brat kept nibbling on her portion, completely unbothered by his glare.
Eventually, Issei sighed. Well, this made for a perfect moment to get introductions out of the way.
Thinking that, he shoved his thumb into his chest and pumped his chest, "Listen, miss one and a quarter feet, and you too, my dear friendo!" The other two more or less knew him already.
"I am Issei Hyoudou. The current and future host of one of the two heavenly dragons, the wielder of the Boosted gear, the Red Dragon Emperor, for the next eighty-three years at least. Because I am not dying till I smash that 100 mark."
"Wait, you're the red dragon emperor?!" Kiba exclaimed, instantly boosting Issei's ego by one hundred percent. "The Red Kite?"
"That's right! That's right! It is the great I, the red Kite!" Issei flexed his empty biceps. There was nothing there. No muscle, no definition. In fact, Koneko's lithe form had more definition than his sickly form.
And the girl made sure that he knew that fact as well…
"…Never heard of him."
That's why she flexed one of her arms, showing a much more impressive bicep, while never stopping the mouth's idle motion.
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A little clarification. Kiba knowing about Issei and Issei getting mad at Azazel for pimping him in earlier chapters is not contradictory.
The Red Dragon Emperor is famous, mostly due to past events he'd ended up getting entangled in. But Issei Hyoudou is a complete no-name to anyone who doesn't know him personally or hasn't seen him fight in this side of the world.
Another thing,
The file that Kiba got was simply informing him of a person from the supernatural world transferring to their school- the school that is in their purview.
They don't know where the file came from, nor is it mentioned anywhere in the file that Issei is the current red dragon emperor.