Generally they left me alone for about a week.
Well, not completely alone, they'd check in, bring food, try to snap me out of it.
The first couple days they couldn't manage the last at all, I practically didn't react to external stimuli.
I was deep in my thoughts then, thinking about how to live going forward.
When the initial shock wore off, I realized things weren't so bad, sure I'm next to a big stinking pile called canon, but I have every chance not to step in it.
If I'd ended up as Issei, or God forbid as Rias... by the way, noticed something I need to urgently break myself of, otherwise I'm screwed—prayers don't work on me, I can take God's name in vain without harm to myself... or her alternative male version... read a couple fanfics with that theme, and if Rias's gender swap is one thing, gender-swapping Sirzechs, Issei, and Kiba is overkill... that would be real trouble!
But as it is, I'll try to live quietly and peacefully, stay far from canon and not poke it even with a ten-foot pole!
The decision to stay away from canon and accordingly canon's key characters was brilliant!
But that only worked on paper—I forgot life doesn't give a damn about my plans!
Should start with the fact that Zeoticus decided to acknowledge me and bring me into the main family, meaning I'll become an official bearer of the Gremory surname, not a member of the Gremory pillar.
Actually, Ren and his mother's return trip to the main Gremory family house was the result of Venelana getting on Zeoticus's nerves.
I learned the details thanks to Ren's mother's memory—she was also a maid in this house and knew where and when servants gathered to gossip about their masters, participated in it more than once.
And thanks to being small, I managed to squeeze into a niche behind a cabinet with some insanely ancient and expensive vase and listen to what the servants were saying.
They were talking about me, since this was the freshest and hottest news in the last decade!
So, Venelana started really rubbing it in Zeoticus's face that supposedly only thanks to MY blood, the power of MY family, children from ME allowed House Gremory to rise so high, and your contribution is minimal, and generally replace you with anyone else and the result would be the same!
Of course, it wasn't said exactly like that, but the SUBTLE hints and meaning buried on the third or some other level was exactly that.
So apparently in revenge or just to piss off his wife, Zeoticus decided to drag Ren's mother and him to the main house.
Especially since from Ren's mother's memory I knew she overpraised and exaggerated her son's powers and achievements way too much.
Though for a loving mother that's normal, for them their kids are the best even if objectively it's not just untrue but the opposite!
And if there really is talent, it gets inflated enormously!
But in this specific case, it turned out the rare letters where Zeoticus asked how his offspring was doing contained the truth!
So Zeoticus wanted to rub Venelana's nose in the fact that supposedly look how talented my blood is, and Sirzechs took after me, not you, that's why he became a super demon!
Well yeah, from those same servant conversations it was known that Rias is cool of course, but rides purely on raw power, among noble demons of her generation she doesn't shine.
I think it was precisely Venelana's fears that Zeoticus would make his bastard the heir instead of the recently born Millicas, whose very appearance displaced Rias from the heir position and made her convenient "merchandise" for forming an alliance with another pillar, that led to the assassination attempt on Ren and his mother.
By the way, I kept completely quiet about what I heard from the fallen angels!
I have no proof, House Gremory's guards didn't even leave ash from the fallen angels, and then it's the word of a bastard against the word of a lady from a noble house.
And even if they listen to my words, even an impartial judge could say it might've been a fallen angel ploy, or their desire to cause the victim more despair so they'd realize there's no help coming, that their own people betrayed them!
So I kept quiet to not give Venelana even more reasons to solve the problem with me decisively.
She's already got those reasons up the wazoo!
Well yeah, Zeoticus looked at my two pairs of wings and got proud, rubbed this fact in Venelana's nose, and prophesied the appearance of a second Sirzechs in me, but without any Power of Destruction this time.
Right now there's active fighting between Venelana and Zeoticus about my status in this house, which Dad of this body is apparently losing.
Especially since, again according to rumors, Sirzechs supported Venelana and suggested the idea of making me Rias's piece when she gets her set of Evil Pieces.
So my status in this house is kind of hanging, I'm supposedly the Lord's son but I don't have heir status even as second or third, and I'm "Gremory" with quotation marks.
And of course becoming Rias's piece doesn't suit me at all.
And not because I'm such a proud transported person who only accepts becoming King, or better yet Emperor, I just don't want to struggle alongside Rias!
Because whatever position I take, I might push out one of the canon characters, and then EVERYTHING will go to hell, since I don't want to struggle!
Otherwise I'd gladly become someone's piece who's a nobody or just disappear into obscurity and keep a low profile.
So remembering that Rias is terribly annoyed that people don't see Rias but see the Gremory heiress, when I met her I was maximally formal and respectful, and to all attempts to shift communication to an informal form and offer friendship I responded—how can I, Gremory-sama!
This behavior pushed Rias away from me, and hopefully made her grimace at the very thought of making me part of her peerage.
But apparently this behavior and attitude toward Rias pleased Venelana, with whom I also maintained a similar manner.
And Sirzechs nodded approvingly at this, though he looked at me like shit that should be flushed so it doesn't ruin the view.
Of course I thought about what it was like in canon.
No, I know about multiple worlds and now even believe it, and believe that not only does every world shown in anime or elsewhere exist somewhere, but I think every fanfic can exist, as well as a bunch of just parallel worlds of each "fictional world."
There were too many damn variants of what could've happened with Ren in canon, since he wasn't even mentioned.
Starting with for some reason he simply wasn't born, ending with the soul used in the ritual didn't watch anime or didn't dare to pull the bluff I did.
After thinking through a dozen variants, I realized this is all complete nonsense with no use for me whatsoever!