I stare at Mia for a long few moments before I can bring myself to speak again, "And I suppose you think you'll be staying here."
"Yup!" The damn bird chirps, "Not for free of course. Yasaka-sama has approved necessary expenditures, like for rent," I glare at her, "Which could be paid in things like supplies instead of money." I glare harder, "Like for wards!"
"Clever bird, huh?" I sigh.
"Yup!" Mia almost chirps again looking insufferably smug.
It would let me get real wards up quicker. And having somebody around to spar with would be handy. And it's not like I object to her company.
"Fine. You can have one of the guest rooms. I'll have a list of what I need for wards tomorrow."
"Yes!" Mia does a little bounce and fist pump, before dashing off to claim a room.
"You're paying for part of the groceries too!" I call after her. She doesn't respond, whether that's because she doesn't hear me or doesn't care, I can't tell.
Knowing Mia though I'm betting on the latter.
After a moment of impotent glaring at the back of the bouncing bird, I sigh and head to my own room. For the moment I drop my bags and start digging through them. It only takes a few minutes to find what I'm after, and so I resign myself to spending most of my first night in my new house drawing paper warding tags.
###
It turns out to be a good thing I do. After checking them the next morning, I find that several of the tags are browned, as though exposed to a heat just short of the point where they would burn. Which means something tried to penetrate the wards, and nearly succeeded.
This sends both Mia and me into a frenzy of warding that lasts nearly a week. Some part of me thought that I'd have to convince Mia of the urgency of the problem. Instead, I don't even have to speak. She sees the paper tag that had nearly failed, and my friend Mia the silly bird is replaced with Mia the spy. Really, for how much we got done, a week is gratifyingly fast.
Mia produces the stones, silver, and the crucible to melt the silver, with shocking speed and fortunate volume. We end up using almost a hundred of the manhole cover sized stones. Each stone produces an acute triangular panel of layered wards. These panels are arranged around the house forming two solid domes, just slightly offset. The idea is that in order to get through the wards, somebody would have to bring down at least four of the panels.
I also include a new idea, a circuit breaker. In theory, instead of continuing to try and stay active until the stone breaks, the stones will be able to tell when they're approaching the point of critical failure. At that point they'll shut down on their own until they're no longer in danger. Hopefully by the time an enemy starts work on the fourth panel that they need to bring down, the first one they'd gone after would be coming back on line, forcing them to start over again.
Between that set up, and the mana gathering Scripts to give them an essentially infinite energy supply, I'm hopeful that even somebody like Kokabiel would be at least slowed down.
Once that's done, I trap the fuck out of everything and Mia smothers the place with illusions. I also succumb to my paranoia, and put in several traps and wards specifically pointed at Issei.
With all of that, I'm satisfied that I'll have both privacy and as much safety as can be expected. I'm ready to take a much deserved break, but Mia has other ideas. Once everything is done, Mia confronts me with a map of Kuoh and two feathers. One black, and one white.
This project doesn't take too long fortunately, as I've already done it once before. So with only another day of work I recreate the Script I used to track Tengu in Kyoto. Only this time instead of the bird Yokai, the map tracks devils and angels, both fallen and not. Also, I altere it to just show where they are at the moment instead of recording their movements. Where Mia got an angel feather I have no idea, I do have the gut feeling that I don't want to know though.
We can't tell the devils apart, but we know where they all are. When the fallen show up we'll be able to keep tabs on them as well.
###
After all that precision work hunched over tables, and almost not leaving the house at all, we're both ready to do something more active. Especially if we can do it outside, and I'm more than ready to do what I'd come to Kuoh for. At least part of it.
Over the last few months I've gained a lot. Strength, regeneration, my voice, telekinesis, and a huge dose of talent. Ku helped me with the first, and taught me how to adjust to further changes. Which will be the first step in learning to use everything I've acquired. Before I can start merging everything I have into something resembling a cohesive whole, I have to know how I perform now.
Mia is more than happy to help me out.
We take a little time to find a good place to practice, but with the copious parks scattered about Kuoh it isn't hard. We end up in a park at the edge of town, it's an empty grass field surrounded on all sides by dense tree cover. There's a short hike to get to the field through the trees. It's almost like somebody designed the place on purpose to be the perfect place to practice strenuous physical activity, that you don't want an audience for.
Imagine that.
Mia and I start our practice with wooden swords, going at each other fast and hard. The staccato clack of wood provides a rapid beat for us to fight to. After we finish our first spar we use live blades. She uses her twin short swords, and I use Sclamhaire. We really shouldn't be doing this, sparing with live steel or whatever Sclamhaire is, it's a spectacularly bad idea. I don't have much of a choice though. Sclamhaire behaves so differently to any other sword that learning to fight purely with something else would make me develop all sorts of bad habits. We end our practice with an unarmed bout, and finally I actually win once in a while.
The Tengu unarmed style reminds me a lot of eagle style kung fu. Lots of spread finger clawing strikes and grips that go for muscle or soft tissue. The differences between the crow style and the human martial art are the Tengu style's odd hopping foot work, and the fact that when she performs the claw strikes she actually has three inch talons on her fingers. Also I learn that most of the reasons that jumping maneuvers are usually really dumb in a fight vanish when one has actual wings.
All told we spend three and half hours cheerfully beating the crap out of each other. It's a lot of fun, Mia's still better than me with swords, but she isn't the insurmountable mountain that Ku or Vivain are. I can sort of see how to beat her, I just can't quite do it yet. It's the same sort of feeling I got from practicing with the HEMA group back home. Which is a nice feeling, the feeling of progress being noticeably made.
"So how is it? What's changed?" Mia asks me excitedly. I take a deep breath, and open my eyes to look over at her. I'd brought a pre-drawn pressure Script painted onto a piece of cloth to help with recovery, which I'm particularly glad for now.
I mull over Mia's question, though trying to put into words what I've been meditating on, "It's... not like I thought it would be. I thought that there would be a... like the world would slow down. Or I'd just instinctively know how to counter you or something." I chew on my lip for a moment in thought, "It was more like I didn't need the world to slow down. Suddenly I could keep up, nothing had to slow down for me."
"And the instinct?" Mia asks scooting around to sit on the grass in front of me.
I cock my head to the side, "There was no sudden enlightenment." I say with a grin, "But like I said, I could keep up. I could follow what was happening and while there was no burst of inspiration, I can remember what you did. Remarkably clearly. I already have some ideas for counters." I rock my head to the other side, "I also think that I could perform some of your techniques with a little practice. I just..."
"You just?" Mia prompts.
"None of that went away when I put the sword down. I expected to have to come up with some sort of workaround to get a lesser benefit in unarmed combat. Like having to think of my hands as swords or something. I didn't though, I'm a little..."
I trail off as Mia, the kind and generous friend that she is, falls over backwards clutching her sides and laughing her chortling, croaking laugh.
Stupid crow laugh.
I just sit and stare the heaviest and most judgemental stare I can at the little Tengu. It doesn't help. It does the opposite of help actually, as she seems to almost recover several times before looking at me, and dissolving back into helpless giggles.
Finally she pulls herself together, though continuing to chortle under her breath, and wipes a tear from her eye, "Oh god. Think of your hands like swords, that's great."
"Are you going to be helpful now, or do you want to laugh some more? I could leave you here overnight to get it out of your system if you wanted?" I offer continuing to glare.
"No no. I'm good..." She snerked once, but manages to keep her composure. If only just, "Sorry, we don't have some mystical connection to swords, Ericka. Our 'talent' isn't even mystical. We're just physically gifted in a way that makes us stupidly talented with any form of physical combat."
I stare at her, "Then why...?" I gesture helplessly.
"The swords?" I nod, and she shrugs, "Cultural obsession. We have some ascetic nutcases in the mountains that only use Khakkhara." She paused at my look of incomprehension, "Those ringed monk staff things. But they're just as good with those as the rest of us are with our swords. Also swords are really cool."
I sit stunned, trying to wrap my mind around what this revelation means exactly. I keep stalling out though. I don't really snap out of it until my mana network begins to ache. I quickly close myself off from the compressed mana, and get off the Script. I start packing things up with Mia's help, who is blessedly quiet as I work through things.
I really need to start doing more research into what exactly the traits I'm stealing actually are. This is just like the incident with the troll's strength. Only instead of shooting up into a nine foot tall over inflated caricature of myself, my narrow combat boost turned out to be much more holistic than planned.
Mia starts cheerfully chattering about things again as I grow a smile on our way home. This isn't the sort of mistake I can keep making.
Just this once though? I'm not going to complain.
###
Most of my focus for the next year or so will be on getting a combat style out of all the tricks I've picked up, and one that will be adaptable enough to easily accept the new tricks I inevitably get. There are other things to work on though.
To practice my telekinesis I continue trying to learn to juggle with no hands. When I get tired of that I find a tennis ball to telekinetically bounce repeatedly off a wall. About all I can do with TK is practice with it constantly. Occasionally I devote some thought to how to produce a sustained force, but I usually stop after only a short while to avoid both frustration and headaches.
I start getting a handle on my voice by the simple expedient of taking singing lessons. The first thing I need to do is get my voice under very precise control, and why struggle to figure that out myself when there are already people who know how, and would teach me? My singing instructors are very impressed with my voice and my ear. I think I drive more than one to drink with my insistence that I have no interest in performing though. I'm also having a lot of fun with the whole thing. Singing rapidly becomes something I enjoy a great deal. Enough so that I start seriously looking for an acceptable target with perfect pitch, or absolute perfect pitch if I can find it.
Mostly though I focus on Script.
Primarily I have two major Script projects. The first is the Script that will hopefully let me turn my eventual 'goodbye' into a 'see you later'. The other though, is just as important, more so in some ways.
Finally, I'm ready to devote some real focus to how I'm going to survive the Dimensional Gap.
The first step of course, is getting a bit of Gap to experiment with.
How am I going to do that?
Excellent question, I'm not entirely certain.
Well, that's not strictly true. My first thought is to build a very thorough containment vessel with Script. Then, very carefully, open a pin prick hole in the edge of the universe inside the containment. Hopefully the Gap stuff will just sort of... leak in. Safely contained, I could play with it at my leisure.
The problem of course is that I have no idea what sort of containment will work on Gap stuff. Stemming mostly from not having any idea what Gap stuff is exactly. Worse, as far as I'm aware nobody I have access to knows either.
So I'll have to go with an old fall back, do the best I can, try it anyway, and hope. With a sigh I settle down at my desk to design the most over the top, over engineered, over paranoid basketball sized containment sphere I can.
###
Mia and I have been in Kuoh for three weeks now and life has settled into a rather enjoyable pattern. We spend our mornings working on combat. Mostly we just spar with each other, I work on making my TK as instinctive as any of my flesh and blood limbs, and Mia works on whatever challenge she's set for herself.
Afternoons are spent by her doing spy things, and me working on Script, unless I have voice lessons that day. I take breaks to play with TK when I can't stand to stare at my desk any more, but mostly my afternoons were all Script. Unfortunately, neither one of my projects has made any real progress even after I'd finish my containment sphere. For some reason the Gap stuff won't leak through the hole I left for it. Apparently, whatever it is, it's consistency isn't something prone to free expansion. Which tells me plenty about what it isn't. Sadly I learn nothing about what it is, and now I have to figure out a way to reach into the Gap, and pull some out. Which I again have no idea how to do.
Mia has apparently been having just as frustrating a time as I have been. I still have no idea what she's getting up to, but the way she comes home everyday and spends several minutes screaming into her pillow tells me that it isn't going well. So that morning on our way to the park we've been using for our physical training, we discuss doing something that has nothing to do with projects, training, or whatever the hell is that Mia does with her time.
"We could attend a tea ceremony." Mia offers, "You've never done that before and it's quite relaxing."
I grimace, "Where would we go to find somebody to run us through a tea ceremony? Unless you can do it?"
"No!" Mia laughs, "I like tea ceremony, but I've never had the patience to learn how to do it. I hear there's a shrine maiden at the local Shinto temple that will do it though."
That's what I'm afraid of, "Isn't the Shinto temple where we keep seeing that devil hanging out all the time on the map?"
"Well yeah but... you think that the shrine maiden is one of the devils?"
"You don't know?" Honestly, that's the most shocking thing I've heard in a good while.
"Well..." Mia trails off, staring ahead at our workout clearing.
Which for once isn't empty.
In the middle of the clearing a blonde boy of high school age, wearing the Kuoh Academy boy's uniform, practices with a sword. He's good for his age. Clearly he's been trained since he was fairly young, though interestingly, even though his sword is European in style, his swordsmanship is decidedly eastern in influence. Mostly evidenced by how he neither uses the back edge, nor the cross guard of his sword, basically ignoring their existence.
That and...
"Ericka? What are we looking at?" Mia asks slowly and stares wide eyed.
"A boy with a sword?" A burst of faster than human movement haS me amending my statement, "A devil with a sword."
"But what is he doing with it?" Mia asks, almost sounding pained.
I shrug, "Dancing?
...The flourishes.
His practice is filled with sword twirls, extra flicks, and dramatic poses. When he actually fights he does more than decently, there's just so much extra. Which is what I think offends Mia the most. And while that's more than a little annoying to watch, the tragic under use of his sword is what has me wanting to tear my hair out.
It's that feeling you get when you're watching somebody play a game you've already beaten. That burning frustration when they won't do the stupidly obvious thing right in front of them, Yeah, watching this guy feels a lot like that.
The two of us share another glance, then a shrug. Well, I shrug, Mia gives me a pained grimace, and we head into the clearing ourselves. There's plenty of room, so we set up to one side and get started.
First are stretches. Something I don't have to worry about any more, in the sense of hurting myself, they do help increase my flexibility, which is something I do have to worry about. Trolls aren't the most limber of creatures. Then, a few warm up drills, and finally, after that, we get to the good stuff.
A solid hour, of full speed sword on sword. Well wooden sword on wooden sword. After a week of this I'm finally getting used to the new way my body moves and performs after my most recent upgrade. My body of technique has also grown by leaps and bounds as well. I almost can't help myself. Everything I see Mia do with her sword sticks in my mind like a bad commercial jingle. At that point I find that I only have to practice them once or twice to have the new technique available to me, like I've been practicing for years.
We finish up our first round of sparring and I settle in for my ten minute break in my pressure script to get ready for the next hour. Really important to be in top form for that one, sharp metal will be going everywhere.
A cough has me opening my eyes and looking over at where the young devil that had been sword dancing earlier stands a polite distance away. As soon as he has our attention the blond teenager bows politely, "Excuse me. I am Yuuto Kiba of Kuoh Academy, I have never seen you here before, might I have your names?"
While Mia introduces us I study the young man in question. Sona's peerage is entirely female, so he isn't one of them. Out of Rias' peerage there's only one male I can recall, which would be the guy that more than half of the girls in the school wanted in the pants of. I can sort of see why he might have that problem. His overly polite method of speech, constant small smile, and direct eye contact, it would be easy to assume that he's flirting. If I found him at all attractive anyway. Instead I think that's just how he is, or he flirts unconsciously and nobody's pointed it out to him.
"It is a pleasure to meet you both Rhostana-san, Mia-san. I could not help but notice that you were practicing with swords, and I wondered if you might be willing to accept an additional sparring partner." he says with a gentle smile.
Yeah, if he were a cute girl talking to me like that, I'd be getting some mixed signals as well.
"I have no problem with it." I say slowly, "Just... I don't know if you noticed Yuuto-san, but we practice very different styles of swordsmanship." Which is true. While Kiba seems to tend to a very showy kind of dueling style, Mia and I tend to be more brutal. I half sworded, we punch, we kick, we grapple, and on one memorable occasion Mia pecked me. I was pissed as hell, and she was very apologetic. She swore up and down it was a reflex, and I chose to believe her. It's one hell of a reflex though.
On an unrelated note, it takes me about two days to completely regrow an eye.
Kiba looks like he doesn't know whether to be offended or amused, "I don't think I'll have any problems." His smile becomes slightly smirkish for just a moment.
Wow.
Is this confidence a teenager thing, a devil thing, or does he just not recognize what Mia is.
I glance at Mia and manage to keep my shock down to a cough. Why is Mia's nose short? And why didn't I notice that before now?
"Why don't you go first, Ericka?" Mia glances my way out of the corner of her eye and smirks, "I'm still kind of tired from our last bout." Liar.
"Fine." I stand up shaking out my legs a bit, "Do you want to establish some rules? Just swords maybe?"
"Whatever you're comfortable with Rhostana-san. I wouldn't want you to feel that you'd done less than your best due to unfamiliar restrictions." Kiba replies with a shrug, and a smile that I'm starting to feel is slightly condescending, "Are you ready?"
I sigh again. What am I getting into here? He's a devil knight, looks fifteen, maybe sixteen years old. If I recall correctly this is the guy who wants to destroy the church's Excaliburs. He wants to do that because... because... Because he'd been the one who the church experimented on, to make artificial holy sword wielders. So he started training early, though most of that period of his training would have been rather abusive. More geared towards producing the immediate physical results needed for the experiment, rather than a competent fighter. He and his friends were a proof of concept, not a finished product. Then he was trained by one of Lucifer's peerage. Some famous samurai from history, though I can't for the life of me remember who. Still the Lucifer peerage is supposed to be the most powerful group of fighters in the underworld. So I can assume the guy knows his stuff.
Though, I recall what I saw of Kiba's practice, he evidently doesn't know his stuff well enough to step out of his comfort zone, and teach a western style for a western sword. Or enough to keep his student from developing showy habits. Is that an artifact of the instructor, or something Kiba had picked up somewhere on his own?
Physically... I don't know. He's a devil knight, so chances are that he's faster than me. Maybe stronger? Though strength and toughness matter a whole lot less in a spar. Endurance? In my armor I'm coming to understand that I can out last anybody. Out of it though? Once again I just don't know.
So, can I do this?
Again, too many unknowns to be certain, or even suspect anything.
Which I suppose is reason enough to go for the spar right there.
I nod, "I'm ready."
"At your leisure then." I take him at his word, so when he whips his sword around and up into a fancy salute, I punch him in the face.
He staggers backwards and I go after him, allowing no time for him to recover. He swings at me frantically to keep me at a distance. Instead of backing up I step to the side and towards him, in the direction of his strike and swing back. The trick is called a single time counter, something I learned from Ku. Thanks to the angle, my swing not only stops his strike but with sharp steel and follow through, would have taken the top of his head right off. It's something that I've never managed to do to Ku. He has done it to me plenty though.
Ends up pretty cool when I'm not on the receiving end of it.
Kiba freezes with the 'edge' of my wooden sword resting gently next to his head, just above his ear. I hold the position for a beat or two, then disengage and fall back.
"Again?" I keep my voice as even as I can. The last thing I want to do is set off his ego somehow. Something that both teenage boys and devils are known to have in excess.
Kiba blinks twice, then sets his face in his typical pleasant mask. Determination leaks around it though, "Again."
We clash again, and this time he presses forwards. He swings hard and lunges forward into my attempt at a parry, which lets him lock our blades together at the cross guards, and tries to press me back with physical strength. I find to my surprise that I'm actually stronger than he is. Not by a huge amount, but enough that if I really wanted to I could win this clinch. Fighting strength to strength has never been my style though. Instead I twist, pushing Kiba's sword away from me, and gently introducing the back edge of my practice sword to the side of his head, again.
Again we both pause, then disengage.
"Again." He growls, his composure cracking.
We have several more bouts, each ending the same way. After ten minutes, and almost as many bouts, the smell of his frustration saturates the air, and I call a halt to things, citing that Mia and I need to finish our training. Kiba doesn't seem very happy about that. He keeps it fairly well concealed though, behind his standard pleasant expression.
Mia and I move on with our standard workout program. I get an actual expression out of Kiba when I pull Sclamhaire out of her carrying case, his surprise at the clearly magical sword temporarily overcoming his control. Otherwise, in spite of his frustration, Kiba seems content to watch us work without comment or reaction.
By the time Mia and I start in on our barehanded routine, the smell of his frustration has completely faded, and slowly his expression turns thoughtful. He left before we finish the hour without comment, which is kind of rude. Mia and I merely shrug though, and head back to my house to clean up.
"Well that was odd." Mia drawls as we make our way back into range of the bus system.
"Yup." There isn't much else to say really.
"Think he'll learn anything from what you did to him?"
I shrug, "No way to know. Worst case..." I pause then sigh, "He tells his king about what happened and Rias starts stalking me." I glare at her out of the corner of my eye, noticing that her nose is back, "Thanks for that."
"No problem." Mia chirps, cheerfully bouncing along next to me as we reach the bus stop.
A few minutes later we're seated on the bus heading home when Mia turns to me, "You know, if you're that stressed out about what happened, you should do something to relax." Oh no, "You know what would do that?"
"I bet you're about to tell me."
"A tea ceremony!"
###
I'm drying my hair after getting out of the shower wondering if I can find something sufficiently shiny to distract Mia from this tea ceremony idea she has, when the doorbell rings. I frown wondering who that could be. The only person I really know in town is Mia, and she's still using up my hot water in the bathroom. Sona or one of her peerage maybe, but my minimal read on them leads me to think they'd have called first.
So who the hell else can it be?
I turn that over in my head as I call that I'm coming, and quickly pull on some clothes. I take another moment to pull down the devil/angel map and stash it somewhere out of sight. Chances are that whoever is at my door is a devil, even if I can't figure out why it would be, and I don't particularly feel like letting them know that I can find them anywhere in the city.
Finally ready, I head barefoot to the door and pull it open. As soon as I see who's on the other side my brain stalls.
A strange panicked voice in the back of my head gibbers at me to run while I still can. A much more resigned voice points out that at the point I'm face to face with them, it's already far too late for that.
There are two of them, and they are, in fact, devils. Just not local ones, though on some level I really shouldn't be surprised by their visit.
One is a tall man with bright red hair hanging down around his shoulders in an artfully messy look. He wears a long cloak that covers him below the neck completely, and comes with feathered shoulder pads that belonged on an MMO character.
The other is a much shorter woman, generously proportioned like most devils are. She wears an overly elaborate white dress with an impressive amount of lace, ribbons, ruffles and general poof. She has a ridiculous looking wand in one hand. It looks like a white rod with a very silly pink heart on the end of it suspended in a golden hoop.
Why is Lucifer on my doorstep?
"Magical Girl Murder-Chan!" The shorter one squeals and glomps me around my middle.
Why is the Leviathan hugging me?
Just...
What?