Chapter 3

Eventually EMIYA did tell them his name, and fulfilled his promise to start on training them after everyone, including the parents of the affected and formerly human parties had been notified, this was one condition that EMIYA would not budge on for any reason whatsoever. Rias had surprisingly agreed and their first training session was the very next day after school with all the parents there to watch their kids to judge whether they would condone them fighting and asked for the right to say no, Kazuto's sister Suguha was there as well. Rias had assured the parents that she always treated her Peerage Members like family, and that they by extension would be under the protection of her house if they so wished.

EMYIA started off by making Issei trace the class cards of Kirito in one hand and the class cards of Asuna in the other. He spoke out loud so that everyone, including their parents, could hear, "These will connect you with your doubles in the Throne of Heroes and make you into true Heroic Spirits like your counterparts. Your power will not be based upon the system of your new kind, but rather the legends you generate about yourselves. It does not matter how the legends get their start or how you gain the stories about you, so in your cases it will probably be beneficial for you if you continue to play video-games, sorry for saying that parents, but it is the truth that they can now end up more healthy and powerful by playing video-games. Now, to fuse these with your bodies, hold them up to your chests and say, 'Group Install Fusion.'"

The two did as he said, and a brilliant red magic circle different from any that Rias had ever seen, and that the parents were definitely surprised by, appeared underneath both of them. It split into two mirror images, one staying on the ground and the other passing up their bodies and over their heads where it stopped. A rather brilliant and flashy lightshow proceeded to cause all to turn their heads and look away, with those who were mystically aware being shocked at the amount of raw power pulsing from the two glowing figures. The light-show lasted only a few seconds before dissipating to reveal Kirito in all his black-swordsman glory, with the "demonic" Elucidator and "holy" Dark Repulser strapped to his back and Asuna in her regal Knights of the Blood Oath Second in Command uniform, with her trusty "holy" Lambent Light at her side. Both of them were easily felt by the mystically aware as something powerful, with Kiba twitching slightly to be in the presence of not one, but two "Holy Swords" more powerful than those in his past.

Kirito took his trusty swords out of their sheaths and swung both of them around with ease and wonder. Asuna also took out Lambent Light to swing a little as well with a gentle smile on her face that shocked her mother into realizing that Asuna was not the little girl, who was always trying to please her mother, she had once been.

Kirito then tilted his head sideways as he put his swords back into their sheaths as he started what was probably his favorite magic chant from Alfheim, "Seā urāza nōto diputo, ren herubegūru!"

Suguha instantly recognized it and smacked her forehead as the pillar of fire formed around him and expanded upwards and outwards, and then vanished revealing a version of the monster that Asuna also knew very well. The pointed ivory teeth within a goat-like head with glowing red eyes and golden spiraling horns coming from the back of it, and the vaguely humanoid body, with massive claws on the end of its hands and feet, and with a dark purplish-blue Cobra for a tail coming out the rear. It was, without a doubt, a being almost identical to the boss on Aincrad's Seventy-fourth Floor, and it was her beloved Kirito that had turned into the massive monstrosity.

An extra feature sprouted from his back in the form of the bat-like wings of the dark-kin, and they were truly massive on a scale that none there had ever seen the like. The wings unfurled with a snap as he held his hands out wide and released a roar that shook the earth and caused a pressure wave that knocked everyone within thirty meters of him down to the ground. Fire was spewing from his mouth and the snake-tail was busy hissing its displeasure to the world at the same time. Everyone there was looking at him in fear of the suddenly quantifiable power they could feel rolling off him, which Rias easily could tell was greater, by a large margin, than the majority of those who were considered high-class in her society. She would even say that it was almost into the lower end of the ultimate class.

Sona had by this time grabbed her peerage and run outside her office inside the school to see what was going on, and she almost slid into a defend-the-school-from-a-super-powerful-stray mode, until she saw Rias waving her off. She managed to hold her peerage in check before they could make a move to attack, except Saji who managed to launch the tongue from his gecko-like Sacred Gear at Kirito, who felt it wrap around his tail. He looked down at it, and then snorted as he ignored it and checked out his new body. The others managed to get themselves off the ground and brushed off, with more than a few of them mentally wiping sweat from their brows at managing to refrain from peeing their pants.

Asuna shook her head as Kirito flexed his impressive physic a little more before dissipating the transformation and standing there in his normal black attire, his light armor and swords disappeared back into wherever it is that Heroic Spirits drop their weapons and armor when they don't feel like wearing them. She then did the same for her armor and sword and smacked Kazuto upside the head for his usual lunacy. She then pulled him to her when he started to protest and whispered furiously in his ear with their parents watching with hawk-like eyes for any impropriety or any sign that these weren't their children anymore, and Saji was gaping because his Sacred Gear had been completely ignored and rendered useless and limp on the floor with the transformation of a giant monster into a boy slightly smaller than him with slightly ambiguous features.

Rias shook her head, "That was… Eye-opening."

EMIYA snorted inside his place in Issei's right hand, "Indeed. Now, for the next part of the training, Issei here is going to call me into the real world in a Servant body for this next part, so that there is no chance of him screwing something up and accidentally destroying both of the seals on your power and your connection to your pieces."

Issei quickly and hotly protested, "Hey! I wouldn't do that."

"Not intentionally, but you don't have as much experience with, or knowledge of, the different weapons that I have access to, even though my power will be severely limited by becoming a Servant for a brief period of time."

Akeno asked, "Why would your power be limited?"

"Because this will reduce me to my pre-Sacred Gear state and leave me inside of a Servant body, which only contains a portion of a Heroic Spirit's power."

Rias asked after thinking for a second, "Why are you even willing to do this?"

"Because I know all about the reason you want to get stronger, your arranged marriage to Riser, who already possesses his own little harem." The last word was spoken with such contempt and venom that it caused more than a few of them to flinch, especially Saji and Mr. Hyudou, who had thought about such things at least a couple times.

Kazuto and Suguha's Mom raised an eyebrow, well aware of her daughters own weird affections, "I take it you don't approve?"

The ancient Counter Guardian snorted, "They never end well, and the homes that come about because of them are because the man in charge views women as mere objects to sate his base lusts. The women and children also always end up competing against one another and violence is common. Hatred, disgust, and contempt are the only things that can come of any kind of relationship even remotely similar. I have a better view of women than that, but unfortunately, when I was a few million years younger, less experienced, and pre-Heroic Spirit living idiot, I had what amounted to my own harem, and it ended in heart-ache and violence. Do you think that women who have their husbands cheat on them for another woman are ever happy with them? Harems are merely "legalized" cheating that degrades women and shows the sleaziness, sex-obsession, and power hunger of men, or the other way around if it is the woman in charge of multiple men."

The parents were all nodding their heads at this, and they all found themselves glad that their kids at least had one good role-model in their lives who would speak wisdom to their kids. This little spiel also caused Rias and Sona to evaluate why their own immediate families didn't practice polygamy despite it being okay in their culture, and they quickly realized that it was as much an act of love as an act of wisdom and necessity, to keep order and love in the things they are in charge of.

Issei then raised an eyebrow because EMYIA told him what to do to accomplish the next thing, so he knelt and placed his hand in front of him on the ground and said, "Alter and Combine." Green lines traced their way along his arm and into the earth causing the ground to shift and form a magic circle made of Platinum with multiple strange symbols that Sona only marginally recognized, and even then, not really. The ground around it seemed to fuse with the circle and symbols seamlessly so that it formed a half an inch thick disk that was roughly three feet in circumference. Issei took his hands off as it started to glow on its own and started chanting:

"For the elements Silver and iron, the foundation stone and the archduke of pacts and for my great master Schweinorg.

"Close the four gates, come forth from the crown, and follow the forked road leading to the kingdom.

"Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill; Repeat every five times, but when each is filled destroy it.

"Set.

"Heed my words, my will creates your body, and your sword creates my destiny.

"If you heed the Grails Call, and obey my will and reason then answer me.

"I hereby swear that I shall be all the good in the world, that I shall defeat all evil in the world.

"Seventh heaven clad in the great words of power, come forth from the great circle of binding, thou Guardian of the Scales!"

The circle by the end had a swirling and very bright tornado of magical energy surrounding it that seemed to explode outwards in a cacophony of wind, light, and sound. The smoke gradually dissipating to reveal a man, who stood at six feet and one inches tall, with white hair, silver eyes, and a black and red set of armor with silver highlights.

EMIYA smirked as he looked at the slightly shocked faces around him, "Did you expect me to look like something other than a human?"

Rias nodded, "Yes, actually, I did."

He chuckled slightly as Issei seemed to stumble for a second, "Easy there, partner. Summoning and maintaining a Servant uses up a lot of mana. You are lucky that I am almost always an Archer class Servant."

Issei's worried mom asked, "Why is that?"

He half-smirked, "Archer class servants possess a Class Skill called Independent Action that is usually EX Ranked and allows us to survive at least two days without using any mana from a master, and because of the differences between worlds, I could actually last almost three weeks without using any of his mana outside of the summoning ritual itself, if I paced myself and didn't do much fighting. Kirito over there actually possesses the same skill if he is summoned, no matter the class that he takes, lucky for him that he is actually an unsummoned Heroic Spirit instead of a summoned Servant, so he doesn't have to worry about relying on a Master to supply him with mana like I do if I want to get outside the Sacred Gear for a while. As Issei gets more used to my power it will be easier for him to summon me from inside the Sacred Gear and maintain my existence in the real world." He then formed a strangely colored, crooked dagger in his right fist, and then held it up as mana started to gather along the edge of the strange blade, "This is what I will use to dispel the seal your father placed on your power, and I am going to use it to return your body to its natural state so that all your mana can go towards fighting instead of maintaining a false outwards appearance."

Rias crossed her arms under her chest, "I grew these completely naturally."

He shook his head as the others also started to realize what the two of them were talking about, "Not as much as you like to think, Rias Gremory. In fact, magic that maintains a false outwards appearance is more costly than any other kind of magic, except for using high-level projection magecraft like I use, which my body technically couldn't handle, so it warped my appearance into what you see before you now. That is where the other four percent of your destructive potential is going, Rias." EMIYA looked at Akeno out of the corner of his eye, "It is the same way with you as well Akeno, though your 'lack' of power is also the same as with Kiba and Koneko, you all refuse to use parts of your full potential because of trauma in your pasts that in two of your cases, you don't even know the full story about what happened. Your views of the world, the people from your pasts, and your overall power have all suffered as a result. Each of you, not just Rias, are only using the smallest fraction of your true potential for idiotic reasons that should have instead pushed you to become stronger, but you have severely limited yourselves instead, which could potentially cost Rias her chance at freedom from a certain chauvinistic pig."

All three of them started off glaring at him for his words while the others stood off to the side slack-jawed, but by the end of his rant they all were wincing harshly when the full measure of his words hit home and had the maximum effect that he was hoping for. Rias was busy sighing, because she knew that had needed to be said for a long time, but she was fearful that telling them the truth would lose her their friendship, which she coveted above all else. Sona was busy mentally applauding the old Counter Guardian, while outwardly giving a look that was half-way between a smirk and sympathy to her long-time friend and rival. The parents were busy wondering how long it would take for that burn to cool off.

Rias looked at him, "If I didn't know you were right, I would be busy throwing as many balls of destruction at you as I could conjure up for degrading my family that way."

EMIYA simply shrugged as he waved the dagger through the air, "I simply said what needed to be said. It is better to nip a problem in the bud and get things out in the open before they cause even more problems. I will actually have even more words for each one of you today, because sometimes you have to break something before you can build it up stronger, and if you really want to get stronger, know that what I will be helping you out with today is the baby-steps of training that I want to do. As the old American saying goes, no pain, no gain."

Rias and her entire Peerage nodded, with many of them gulping slightly, and Sona asked, much to the chagrin of her gathered pieces, "Can we also get this training?"

EMIYA nodded, "Yes, though your Peerage doesn't have quite as many problems as Rias' in either the power or mentality department. Now, Rias, are you ready?"

The red-headed heiress nodded, "Ready as I will ever be."

EMIYA motioned for everyone to back up very far, "It doesn't matter if I am close to her when it happens, but the likelihood of any of you surviving from this close after I undo the seal is very slim."

They all quickly backed off a good distance away, with the parents next to their respective children, and EMIYA stood next to Rias and said something that resonated with Issei because of their connection;

"I am the bone of my sword.

"Magic's principles, divine providence, the principles of the world... All creation... I will send back everything to their origins.

"RULE BREAKER!"

With the final line of what he said, he brought the dagger to Rias' chest and stabbed it in, and in the next instant a wall of crimson and black energy erupted from the young girl and engulfed EMIYA. It ate away at the ground and almost reached the families before Rias managed to get her power back under control, causing what was in the air around her to detonate in a spectacular fashion, shattering the school windows and causing the ground to shake violently. The winds, shaking, and heat from the explosion almost caused the groups there to fly into the air, but they only ended up falling to the ground instead.

The smoke from the explosion gradually cleared to show Rias, and her real appearance was in many of the parents and Issei's opinion far better than it was before. Her crimson hair had darkened a few shades so that it wasn't quite so bright and noticeable. Her once bountiful bust was no longer inhumanly large and was, instead, now considerably smaller, but that, combined with her slightly younger looking face and smaller hips, drew Issei's attention in a way that her appearance never had before. She noticed the look she was getting from Issei in particular and squeaked slightly in embarrassment. They all looked around for any sight of EMIYA and noticed him buried in the wall of the school, a little singed around the edges, but otherwise he was perfectly fine.

He slowly peeled away from the wall and coughed with a little blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth, "Remind me to not do anything like that again anytime soon." A few of them ran over and prepared to help him stand up straight, but they were amazed when he shook off the effects and stumbled slightly before walking towards them again, "It is a good thing I have such fast reflexes, otherwise my hastily projected Rho Aias wouldn't have done any good and I would currently be back inside the Sacred Gear."

Sona's eyes widened, "Do you mean…?"

He nodded as he worked the kinks out of his neck, "Why do you think that I said the form of Projection I use was high-level? It wasn't just because my projections had form and ability, it was also because the most useful projections I make are the armaments of legends. The dagger I used was Rule Breaker, the dagger of my world's version of Medea of Colchis. The two swords that are on the back of the physical manifestation of my Sacred Gear, which Issei still needs to learn how to do, are Kanshou and Bakuya, the swords made by Go Jiang."

Rias' eyebrow rose as everyone focused on him, "I thought you were the physical manifestation of the Sacred Gear."

EMIYA shook his head, "No, the power of the Sacred Gear is that it allows the wielder to use the five spells I knew in life to their ultimate limit, gives them a small but permanent boost in physical stats, and allows them to equip the power of any two weapons or artifacts within my arsenal to the users own body."

Saji's eyebrow twitched cause he felt very cheated considering his Sacred Gear was only a Gecko with an unbreakable tongue, "I CALL BULL-CRAP!"