And we're back to this fanfic. I don't have much to say so let's get to it.

DISCLAIMER: Don't own jack.

Begin

Road to the Mountain Resort

It has been twenty-four hours after the tension built meeting between Rias and Riser. The arrogant heir gave Rias ten days to buff up her peerage in order to bring some form of "entertainment" to him before they married. While Rias loathes the thought, she has to agree with Riser about this one. Her peerage may indeed be powerful, but Riser had competed many Rating Games and won almost all of them.

In other words, Riser has strength AND experience while Rias only has the former.

So in response to the "generous" offer from Riser, Rias told her peerage and Daku about going to a mountain resort exclusive to the Gremory family (being an heiress has its perks) to train and hone their skills for the upcoming match. And quite frankly, Daku mainly want to fight the bird boy himself. Probably because Daku wanted to show Riser who really rules over fire.

Pant "Come on…how long…has it been…?" Pant

The person who is dead tired is the only pawn, Issei, as he just carried literally a ton of equipment up to the mountain resort. To answer Issei's question, it has been two hours since the journey to resort. Issei can feel his muscles burning as Akeno and Rias walked ahead of the group.

"Come on Issei-kun. We're almost there!" Rias cheered as the pawn continued to push himself further. He then looked to his right and was shock to see Kiba carrying more stuff than him. "We…need to do this…for Rias Issei…gah…" Issei was shock even further when Koneko carried EVEN more stuff than both Kiba and Issei combined. Not to mention Daku is laying on top of the stuff to add the weight.

No one questioned why Daku is sleeping on top of the equipment.

"Oh come on…I'm just a newbie…cut me some slack…"

"Ehhehe…don't worry Issei-kun. You can do it!" The cheerful nun, Asia, cheered her friend. Issei smiled from her encouraging words and double timed it to the mountain. "You're right! This is for Rias! YAAAAAAHH!"

One hour later

"My legs…I can't move them…"

Laying face first on the couch is Issei. After the sudden rush of adrenaline, Issei powered walk all the way to the mountain…before collapsing on the solid cement of the front porch. Koneko picked up the closet pervert and dropped him on the couch before getting her stuff from the pile of their equipment. Asia, being the helpful girl she is, started to heal the aching muscles that is Issei's legs to full health.

Meanwhile, Daku explored the new area. He found a pool, hot springs, an enormous training yard and forest, and workout room, and other places people could enjoy in a mountain resort. And being the Unkindled undead as he is, Daku went out to the large yard…and laid down. To be fair, Daku had fought numerous battles in his time in Lorthic and this training journey is for Rias and her peerage. He basically has nothing to do for now.

"Alright everyone! Rest well because tomorrow is the start of our training." Rias said.

"Hai!"

Next day

True enough, the Devils started their intense training regime with Daku helping in the sidelines. Kiba asked Daku to test himself against the Abyss fighting style Daku used when he fought Dohnaseek. Daku obliged seeing that the fire from the sword will not spawn since Kiba has little darkness in his soul. He thought little because Daku can sense a faint sense of darkness inside Kiba's heart, but it's nothing major…yet.

Now, what happened between Kiba and Daku in their sword fight? Well, Kiba got beat. Hard. The knight had no idea where to attack and defend due to Daku circling around Kiba with the Farron Greatsword. The blade and dagger enable Daku to confuse Kiba. When Daku swing horizontally, Kiba ducked. When that happened, Daku planted the dagger on the ground and did a circle swing, which caught Kiba off guard due to him being in a crouch position.

It wasn't easy adjusting to Daku's Abyss fighting style, but Kiba then learned that the fighting style is all about mobility. If that was the case, then Kiba told Daku that he will train his mobility to be as mobile as possible. Knights are a hit and run class so Kiba think if he can dodge Daku's attacks while at the same time hit him when's he's opened, Kiba got his mobility down. Daku pointed to sword arm and flexes to show Kiba to also increase his sword arm in case he needed to block an attack.

Next up was Koneko. While Rias told Koneko to increase her speed, Daku thought she should focus on more of her defense and power. Daku fought many dark spirits and most of them have heavy armor and weapons that forced Daku to act carefully. This seems ideal because with Koneko being the powerhouse while having her friends bringing the heat to the enemy, Koneko can come out of nowhere and deal extreme amount of damage when they least expect it.

That's how they keep getting the drop on Daku.

So on the second day after training Kiba, Daku trained with Koneko. First, Daku wore the Havel armor sue to it being a goddamn rock and charade Koneko to hit as hard as possible. The goal is to have Koneko break the chest piece of the armor since that is the armor's strongest piece. Koneko nodded and she began to wail of the armor.

It took only an hour to cause a dent on his armor. Koneko was sadden by the lack of power she had but Daku patted her head to reassure her that they still have time before the big game. Daku then motioned her to put up her arms to defend herself while he put on the caestus.

The goal for this is for Koneko to stand the incoming onslaught of punches from Daku for ten minutes. The rook was a little confused on how Daku could hurt her since a Rook's defense is top notch, but discard it quickly when she took the first punch and winced from the pain. The duo kept up the regime for three minutes until Koneko conceded.

Daku then performed a healing miracle and healed Koneko's wounds. The girl was shocked of how a holy spell was able to heal a Devil's wound like the Twilight Healing but shook it off as irrelevant for now.

"…Thank you." Koneko thanked as she walked away, determined to build up her defenses for Rias' sake.

Then there was the Queen, Akeno. There isn't much to say about the training for the Queen of Lightning. The duo merely threw lightning spells at each other, after making Akeno shock that Daku can also conjure lightning as well, to buff each other's resistance while making Akeno hitting harder than normal. Won't make sense to Daku seemingly he was wearing the Dragonslayer armor to buff up lightning res, but it was necessary since Akeno's lighting hurts pretty bad the more she conjures them.

And when I mean pretty bad, I mean taking the full force of the Nameless King's lightning pretty bad.

"Ooh…I love it when we play like this Daku~ Can we do this another time maybe? I promise I will be a little gentler if you do the same~ Ufufufufufufu." Akeno teased the undead. It is true about one thing about Daku. He is a sort of a masochist since he did not even try to dodge the hits. Merely take it and throw his spells at the alluring Queen.

Nevertheless, both sides had fun and they continued like this throughout the training days.

Nothing to say about Rias since she just wants to learn more tactics to be more effective King. Daku isn't really a man of tactics. He's more of a hands on and think on his feet soldier. However, he did offer some offensive spells to Asia in case she has to defend herself. She doesn't necessarily have to kill. More like stall/disable until help arrives since she's the healer of the group.

Finally, we have the wielder of the Boosted Gear, Issei. The training was mostly basic by making Issei increase his strength, endurance, and a little bit of agility. His most powerful attack is the Dragon shot but there was something else Issei wanted to try out with Daku.

"Alright Daku-san. I wanted to make a move that will make my enemies completely defenseless. So, I thought of this technique and I hope it works." Issei proclaimed. Daku was slightly intrigued by what it is and was even more when Issei asked him to bring out the strongest shield he has.

Wasting no time at all, Daku brought out the Havel Greatshield since it is one of the strongest equipment in the era before this and assume a sturdy stance to endure any attacks. Issei then pulled out his Boosted Gear and focused on it until it reached its max before tapping on the shield.

"DEFENSE BREAK!" Issei then snaps his fingers and Daku felt his shield being weaker than before. Issei then charged at Daku, winded his fist for a strong punch, and deliver and devastating blow to the shield. Daku winced as he was pushed back and felt the shield crack a little. Looking at his shield, he saw a small crack from Issei's punch.

"Dammit. Not enough. I need to practice on this move some more. Thanks for the help Daku!" Issei said before heading back to the lounge. Astounded by Issei's new move, Daku fixed his shield with the repair powder and walked back to the resort with Issei.

The Devils trained to their breaking point to overcome the high expectations of Riser winning the Rating Games. Each Devil gave it their all with Daku being the training dummy to hone their skills.

On the final days of the training regime, Kiba was able to dodge most of Daku's attacks, Koneko was able to withstand the onslaught from Daku and did a major damage on the Havel chestpiece, Akeno brought Daku on his knees due to her lightning hitting as hard as the Nameless King without exhausting herself, Asia learned a basic lightning spell ad can cast it ten times before exhaustion, and Issei was able to land a larger dent on the Havel Greatshield thanks to his defense break.

All in all, Rias and her peerage felt ready as ever.

"Alright everyone. We endured a lot for the last ten days. Let's show that Phenex heir what happens when you mess with the us!"

"Hai!"

Rias smiled as she saw the determined looks from her peerage. She can feel it. The sense of victory. And Daku will be there to secure it.

Scene

I know this is short but I just wanted to put out this training chapter before the real deal that is the Rating Games. Now, I bet some of you already saw some things that is unique. The most important is me changing Issei's dress break into Defense break. I felt like the dress break was supposed to break defense but Issei being the pervert in the anime, it was female only and rips off all the clothing. So I made some changes.

The second is the training. I bet some of you notice that Daku is making them hone the builds they have like Dark Souls.

Koneko being the Rook is the heavy equipment build.

Kiba is the light and fast build.

Akeno Sorcery/miracle? Build

Asia is the miracle build.

And Issei the all-around build without magic.

And I may plan to let Rias learn some dark pyromancy arts from Daku. What do you think?

One last thing, I am making another fic featuring Owari no Seraph x? The problem is that I don't know which crossover. For Honor. Dark Souls. Or Bloodborne. Gears will be saved later so sorry. Will be putting up a vote poll so vote on which you want!

That's all for now. Ja Ne!