Note: Sekirei belongs to Sakurako Gokurakuin and the only thing I own here is my OC.
Kara, I, Akitsu, Takami and Leroy – bandaged in a couple places but grinning his head off – stood before about a dozen young girls who stared at with wide, innocent eyes with the exception of Benitsubasa who stared at me with fiery determination and Haihane who warily watched Kara.
"Listen up!" Takami stepped forward and called for attention. "You are lucky, for today we have number 51, Rei and number 4, Karasuba from MBI Disciplinary Squad here to show you what a real fight between two mature Sekirei is like."
"Maybe after seeing this, you pathetic lot will pull your heads out of your asses and finally start doing something." Leroy sneered at the girls before him, his contempt for their lack of effort evident.
"Akitsu, if you would please." Takami turned to her Sekirei who nodded and created an icy set of staggered platforms for the girls to sit on. They then cleared the area, leaving only me and Kara standing, facing each other.
"I say we start off slowly." I offered, not bothering to keep my voice down. "They won't have the skill to see what's going on at our full speeds."
"Mmm, sure." Kara leisurely agreed, not caring to pay attention to an angered mutter that the crowd of girls raised. We drew our blades, Kara's standard MBI nodachi while I pulled out my twin Sekirei longswords. For a moment we stood still and then -.
By our definition, slow meant that we only moved slightly below the speeds at which a typical human eye will only see a blur. The girls all shut up as we danced in a shower of sparks and dust, our strikes constantly parried, dodged or shifted. I, in my usual style, simply ignored all strikes that would land on my armour at a glancing angle and deflected only those who would hit me head on. Kara on the other hand had to dodge, parry or deflect every single strike I threw with my blades, however, her skills were more than enough to do so while at the same time attacking me with sharp, deadly blows.
Slowly, we began to weave in our abilities into the mix. The crowd gasped the first time pale blue lines began to litter the air, fabric of space hurriedly stitching itself back. In turn, Kara's blows began to pound me into the ground as she fed her power into her blows. Soon our battle accelerated to speeds at which all any human would see is a blur and judging by the cries of shock, so did a big part of these Sekirei. Finally, after 10 minutes of this prelude, we began our fighting in earnest, taking ourselves to our limits. Or, rather, I tried to strain my limits as Kara merely took the fight seriously.
At this point I doubt any observers except for Leroy and Akitsu actually saw what was going on and not the after effects like continuous shockwaves, spark showers, dust plumes, craters and blue lines crisscrossing everything. Finally, 15 minutes since the start of our spar, I couldn't keep up anymore and Kara instantly pounced on my stumble to send me flying into the icy podium, shattering the thing into icicles that buried me. I phased through them all and walked over to Kara in my Soul Form, breathing heavily. Kara on the other hand merely grinned as always, only a light sag in posture revealing that she was relaxing after a serious fight. I glanced back at the girls crowding on the still standing part of the podium and mirrored Kara's grin. Each one of them sported the expression 'how am I supposed to fight these guys in the future!?' There were a couple exceptions though. Although Benitsubasa looked as white as a sheet, the determination in her eyes didn't go anywhere which pleased me strangely. Haihane also stared at us with an odd look but she didn't show fear, only an intense sense of hunger of all things. And then there was also another girl, one that looked practically like Yume, who bounced up and down in barely controlled excitement, as if she couldn't wait to fight us.
"Thank you, for letting us watch your training exercise." Akitsu thanked us, serious as always as she, Takami and Leroy came closer.
"No big deal." Kara waved her away. "Not like we used anything actually dangerous or powerful so this is fine."
I glanced at the girls who were listening to every word and grinned. Some of them actually fainted from the notion that what we did here wasn't all that impressive by our standards. Some of them looked at us incredulously, unable to accept that fact. The fools, if I or Kara actually fought with full strength here with our powers we'd destroy half the island. My latest abilities I've uncovered and honed would've done most of the damage. Unlike Kara who is aimed at assassinations and single target combat, I've developed most of my abilities to be area-of-effect in an attempt to at least clip Kara in our day to day duels. Abilities like Gate:Random for instance, which happens to be my favourite, randomly swaps slices of Living Realm with Spirit Realm and what would happen to a person if suddenly half of his torso happens to be in another reality? The answer is rather messy and the last time I've used this ability we had to swim back to shore as Kara grumbled at me for sinking an aircraft carrier our target was on. Gate:Random is merely one out of several more basic abilities and then there were several which really screwed with people's minds. Like Gate:Marble which bent the world around itself, locking the targets in a sphere of Realms, confusing the shit out of anyone inside as it was rather difficult to tell which part of you was where at the time and considering only Spirit can touch Spirit and only Living can touch Living… It was also quite freaky in what it allowed those who understood how it works to do. I once used it phase a soldier's heart straight out of his body while watching as another accidently phased his own brain out his skull when trying to adjust his helmet.
Albeit my abilities took a LOT of thought and theory behind them to get, once I figured out how they worked I was pleasantly surprised by just what I could do. Still, in the end, I always lost. I just wasn't able to keep up with Kara and had to either retreat into the Spirit Realm or take a beating.
As I was thinking I kind of zoned out everyone and missed out on Takami's speech, Leroy's taunts and came back only in time for Akitsu to finish her quiet dismissal. While the children hurried off to leave, I was surprised to see Benitsubasa walk towards us with determination, Haihane right behind her. We watched as they came close and then Benitsubasa clutched at the hems of her red and black dress and stated.
"Please, teach us. We want to be strong like you, stronger even!"
We all glanced at each other and then Takami and Leroy shrugged, giving me and Kara the choice while Akitsu merely watched.
"You know, I spent 2 years…" I paused, stunned by the revelation. "Huh…it's been 2 years already."
"Anyway, I spent 2 years getting destroyed by a superior foe. I fought, bled and sacrificed much to get to where I am now and I am still nowhere near Kara's strength." I stared at the duo seriously. "Are you prepared to invest so much while realizing that you may never actually surpass us?"
"Khmm, to be honest, Rei." Kara laughed. "It's not that you haven't been growing, it's the fact that I grew with you. Had you fought the me from 2 years ago, I would've lost."
"We are fine with never beating you." Benitsubasa stated. "Doesn't mean we'll give up trying though and it definitely doesn't mean we don't want to at least get to the level where we can give you a decent fight!"
"And what of you, Haihane?" Akitsu asked suddenly, her melancholic voice startling us all. "So far, I've only seen Benitsubasa actually want this, so why are you here?"
"I want power." Haihane turned her black eyes to Kara. "I don't care if I'll never defeat you. I just want to be powerful. I want others to look at me as they did at you today and I want them to be in awe. To fear me, to look at me as if I was a Goddess manifest upon this world."
I looked at Kara and saw that now; there was no way Kara would pass up training up what seems like her copy. Which meant that I'd have to grab Beni with me too. Then I thought of her possible training schedule and a sadistic leer appeared on my face that made the poor girl flinch.
"We'll take them." I glanced at Kara to see a slight nod. "Pack their stuff, we are going home tomorrow."
"…"
"What?" Kara asked as she climbed into my bed later in the night. After we sent Benitsubasa and Haihane off with Akitsu, I went to talk with Takami while Kara skulked off somewhere and only now came back, nearly ten hours later.
"Tch, I visited the brat."
"Yume?" I opened both eyes now and stared at Kara intently.
"…I couldn't sense her." Kara turned her eyes to the ceiling. "It truly is as Akitsu said."
"We'll see her again, one way or another." I told her with 0 doubt in my voice and then shifted over to pull her towards me, sighing in content at the feel of her warmth.
"One way…" Kara whispered as I fell asleep and then huffed causing me to smile. "Too long."
"Living here will be quite simple." I did the honours of acting a glorified tourist guide as Kara had to go on a mission the moment we returned. Minaka wasn't particularly happy with our vacation but to him the fact that we accepted Benitsubasa and Haihane as apprentices was more than worth the trouble. He started spewing some garbage about how this '3rd generation Disciplinary Squad will be the best' or something like that as I didn't bother listening to him and just left instead. At the moment I and the two young Sekirei just entered our floor.
"Each one of you will have a door engraved with your symbol. Do not enter other Sekirei's rooms without permission." I told them sternly as we walked over to the rooms' side of the floor. "Kara may have accepted you as students but if you end up in her room by accident or otherwise, you might as well save yourselves the pain and jump through the window."
"Umm, you call Karasuba, Kara, why?" Haihane asked after they tossed their things into 2 unmarked rooms.
"Because she lets me." I answered simply. "If you try calling her anything but Karasuba, your demise would be extremely painful and inevitable."
The duo gulped at my carefree tone that accentuated my words.
"What's in this room?" Benitsubasa tried to break the uncomfortable silence and pointed at the door emblazoned with a Sekirei symbol inside a golden sun.
"That's…Yume's room." I said sadly before shaking myself and continuing. "If we catch you so much as standing near it, there might not be anything left of you to clean up."
"Umm…anything else we should know about that's incredibly dangerous in this place?" Haihane asked, paled and shaking.
"Not really." I answered and they breathed a sigh of relief. "You are not welcome in my room either, but I won't really kill you for it. Just hurt you. A lot."
Messing with the 2 shaking girls was quite fun, truth being told.
"We will not be actively teaching you." I stated as we all sat at the table, Kara still on her mission.
"What?"
"Why?"
The duo chorused confusion and fear on their faces.
"Because we don't know how to." I poured myself a glass of red wine. "All we'll give you is an unbeatable sparring partner against whom you are welcome to try anything and everything and push your limits. We will also provide you live practise against armed and mostly dangerous humans and we will give you constructive critique whenever we feel like it."
I leant back and took a sip, enjoying their lost expressions.
"You are here, to push yourself. To train against a foe you cannot hope to defeat at your current level. I found that if you are trying your best in a life or death situation – which, coincidentally, will be every single morning spar against us – that is when you get the best ideas, the best results."