Chapter 9.5: Mental Training
OCs are mine
EternityDragon2610: Yeah I gotta give that one to ya, I mad him chipper way to quick, I was just in a rush to get the chapter out so I just said "fuck it". BUT imma fix that in this chapter. All and all you're 100% right.
V.I.Y.H: Here's the more you wanted. Enjoy.
This is called Chapter 9.5 because the events in this chapter take place in the last chapter.
On with the show!
1st Night
After getting settled in the mansion we were staying in, I decided to just crash early and get ready for the training we were starting in the morning. However before I started my physical training my father and Ddraig told me that they would train me in my dreams, mental training, if you would. As soon as I fall asleep, it begins. So I let my eyelids close themselves freely and prepared for the worst.
Once I opened my eyes I saw that I wasn't in my bed anymore, I was in some sort of arena. After absorbing my surroundings I saw a dragon flying over the stadium, who I assumed to be Ddraig. My guess was proven correct as he land on front of me, with my father on his back.
This was my first time seeing my father since I saw him die when I was six. He had his white hair slicked back with his bangs on the side of his face. He was wearing a fancy purple Victorian outfit with red linings and white gloves. I honestly don't remember him dressing like that when I was a kid. He jumped off of Ddraig's back and smiled at me.
"This is our first time seeing each other since you were a child." He said with a small smile.
"I guess so. Since when do you dress like that?" I asked gesturing at his outfit.
"This is what'd I'd usually wear whenever I went to the Underworld for official business. Stylish yet intimidating, wouldn't you agree, son?" He asked me.
"I guess." I said, unimpressed.
"Ddraig, how bout you?" He asked the giant red dragon.
"Should we really be discussing your sense fashion, Dark Knight?" He asked my dad, annoyed at this meaningless conversation. "We're supposed to be training your son, remember?"
"Ah, yes that's right. I suppose we should start, shouldn't we?" He asked with his eyes closed. He held out his hand and lighting stuck from the sky. A sword appeared where the lightning struck, and my dad picked it up. It was a simple long sword with at wings for a hilt, and had purple electricity around it. "This is Alastor, a sword that is said to have Zeus's lightning flowing through it." He explained.
"Lovely, let's get started." I said, summoning Rebellion. Ddraig went to the far side of the arena so he wouldn't get in the way.
"Whenever you're ready, son."
BGM: Taste the Blood from DMC3
I dashed at my dad as fast as I could and moved around him in a circle, hoping to catch him off guard when I attack. Suddenly, my father stabbed his sword, Alastor, into the ground and a shockwave of lightning hit me as I ran around him. I dropped my sword and fell to the ground. "Ow." I grunted. As I sat back up my dad had his sword pointed at my neck.
"Balance is off." He said bluntly. "Get up we're going again." I picked up Rebellion and stood up. "Now come at me!"
I charged him again only this time I jumped into the air and swung my sword at him, only he easily blocked it. Alastor's lightning started flowing through my sword, which ended up shocking me. My dad did the same thing as before, pointing his sword at me, and said "Poor form."
I got up again and decided to fight lightning with lightning. Rebellion shined bright for a second and transformed into one of my Devil Arms, Nevan. Nevan is a Devil Arm that is in the shape of a guitar, but can also turn into a scythe. All I need to do to unleash Nevan's attacks is to play her strings. Once I do I summon a field of bats that can be used as a shield and a weapon. The more notes I play, the more electricity is conducted and when I play the last note, all the stored lightning is released.
"Let's rock!" I started playing several riffs and bats started swarming around me and I could feel the electricity flowing through the guitar with each note played. I finished with three strong power chords and on the last one all the lightning threw itself at my dad. He used Alastor to block it but it took awhile to dispose of the lightning. He angled his sword at the wall so the lightning deflected off the sword and hit that. "No way!" I shouted in disbelief.
I decided to get up close and personal so I ran towards him and whipped Nevan back and switched her from her guitar form to her scythe form. I swung at my dad but he bent back to dodge it. I spun Nevan aroundmy body and actually managed to cut him a little. I spun her around once more only this time he blocked with Alastor.
"Better, but don't treat your weapon as a tool, think of it as an extra part of yourself." My dad advised as lightning crackled between our weapons. In the end hi lightning was stronger than mine so I fell back once again and he pointed his sword at me again. "I'd say that's enough for tonight. Can't keep you here to long or your friends will worry."
BGM end
My dad's advice wouldn't even have hit me until I battled Kiba the next day, where he would tell me te exact same thing.
2nd Night
I was exhausted from the training Rias me do with everyone today. I thought about Koneko's words to me and the more I thought about it, the more I thought she was right. But I still just wanted to get the training with my dad tonight done. So I closed my eyes and waited to fall asleep.
I opened my eyes to see the same arena as the night before and my dad and Ddraig were in te exact same position as last night. "Ah, you're here. Good, let's begin." He said summoning Alastor. Before I could summon Rebellion my dad raised his hand at me. "No weapons, for you. I want you to use you're right arm as your only weapon." I was shocked at this.
"Are you kidding!? I'm still clueless on what I can do with this other than grab someone from across the room!" I shouted.
"That arm of yours is your source of magic, which we'll be focusing on tonight. Haven't you noticed, the brighter it glows the farther you reach?" He asked. Thinking back he had a point. Every time I used this arm to grab something from afar it would reach a good four or five meters, but when I reached for Raynare, that one time, it must've at least reached ten or so meters. And my arm was glowing brighter than any other time. "You can do much more with that arm than you think, it all depends on how much power you have and how much you focus." I looked at my arm and slowly nodded.
"Let's go!" I dashed at my dad and he swung his sword at me but I ducked and placed my right hand on his face. My arm glowed and my spectral arm sent him flying, only it was the usual four meters. I hoped to smash him against the wall but I didn't even come close. I needed reach, at least, twelve meters to do that.
"Not a bad tactic, but you'll never complete it by forcing your magic out." My dad said. "Now tell me, if I'm wrong, did you mean to do..." He removed his right glove and he revealed to me a hand that looked like mine, only his arm glowed purple. "THIS!?" He performed the tactic I tried on him, only he succeeded. My face, as well as the rest of my body, was really sore as a result. "Now you're going to try it on me again. Only this time, you'll focus."
I tried my previous attack again but he was pushed back the same distance. I tried once more and I could've sworn he was pushed back approximately half the distance of before. "What the hell!? I'm focusing but it's not working, it's just getting worse! I was doin so good with magic earlier, what happened!?" I yelled in anger.
"This is a magic that's never been performed, it's natural you don't have a good grip on it like what they're teaching you." Ddraig said from the sidelines.
"Remember what Akeno said "Don't force it out"." My dad reminded. "Now... AGAIN!" I tried many more times after that but I couldn't go any farther than my normal four meters. After two hours of it I told my dad I had to wake up so I could get my training with Kiba done.
3rd Night
It wasn't long after my talk with Rias and I was gonna work my ass off in tonight's training session. I needed to train as hard as I could to catch up with everyone and make Rias proud, but I also needed to prove to myself that I could be as strong as I used to think I was, I needed to prove to myself that I wasn't worthless.
I fell asleep and awoke in the arena. This time Ddraig was in the center with my dad, with a large pile of rocks of various sizes next to them. "Sup with the rocks?" I asked.
"We're testing your reflexes and how well you are with your guns. So Ddraig is gonna send however many rocks he wants at once, you can either dodge or shoot them." My dad explained.
"You do know some of those are to big to shoot, right?" I asked, pointing at the rock pile.
"BEGIN!" My dad ordered, ignoring my question. Ddraig slammed his tail into the ground causing some rocks to rise into the air, which he then whipped with his tail and they were sent at me rapidly.
I moved to the left and three quickly went by, I bent backward and five more missed me. I saw three more coming at me so I decided to pull out Ebony and Ivory and shot them. Two of them broke but the other was hardly phased. Before I could shoot again it hit my forehead. "Damn." I said rubbing my forehead.
"Again."
Ddraig did the same thing and decided to dodge every single one of them, not even thinking about pulling a gun out. Eventually my dad shouted "STOP!" I did as he said and looked at him, puzzled at why. "You can't just dodge them all, you need to counter." He said firmly.
"You saw what happened before. I can shoot some but not all of them!" I argued.
"Just enchant you bullets with your own energy, that'll do it." He said. I had never shot bullets infused with my energy, but I decided to give it a try. "BEGIN!" Ddraig sent more rocks at me and I dodged some as I began enchanting my bullets. Once I thought I had and saw a big one coming I shot and a bullet surrounded by red energy instantly destroyed the rock.
"Whoa, that was awesome." I said to myself.
"Now, Ddraig... throw the rest at once."
"WHAT!?"
"BEGIN!" Ddraig slammed his tail down much harder than any other time and all the rocks were in the air. He sent them at me faster too. I started charging my bullets when my dad told Ddraig to send them all at me, but I doubted that I could get them all. I shot at them but only about a quarter of them were destroyed. As they got closer the remainder of the bigger rocks were reduced to smaller ones, some had lost momentum and fell to the ground. Since I could now, I started shooting the remaining rocks, or pebbles now, and not one hit me.
"Um... How'd I do that?" I asked in shock at what I did.
"You showed us how strong you really are." My father said. He walked towards me and said "You proved to us, and possibly yourself, that you're not weak." He was in front of me and put a hand on my should and continued "The amount of progress you've gained in such a short amount of time, is phenomenal, and you have more time before your game, so you'll only get better. You wanna be as strong as your friends? With your rate of progress and your stubbornness, you will." Koneko's words played in my head.
"You're stubborn. You don't know how to give up. The rest of us usually stop when we've had enough, but only you fight until you've either won or died. That's not something many people, or devils, are willing to do."
"Since you did so much already, let's call it a night, huh?" My dad asked.
I stood there with my hair covering my eyes for awhile before responding "No."
"Huh?"
"You heard me, I'm not done for the night. I wanna keep training until my mind is numb when I wake up! We're done, when I say we're done!" I said, raising my head and showing my, now, red eyes. My father saw how determined I was to keep going and nodded.
"Very well. We'll get some more rocks to work with." He said.
"Make them big." I requested. He nodded and left with Ddraig. While they were gone I was doing my own work out. After a few minutes of waiting I was on pushups.
'I'm still weak, I still don't stand a chance against Raiser, I'm still not good enough to prove to everyone that I'm worthy of the blood in my veins. No matter what anyone says, only I can determine how strong, weak, or worthy I am. I'm stronger, yes, but I'm far from being strong.' I thought as a switched from pushups to crunches. 'I'd rather everyone think, I think, I'm strong instead of everyone think, I know, I'm weak and worry about me.'
4th Night
The following night, I hardly thought of anything before falling asleep. I hardly could, because I was so exhausted. After what Rias had me do with my Boosted Gear, we tested to see how good I was with my Unholy Arsenal, which was me sacrificing as much blood as I could without feeling light-headed. I went just a bit above the average blood loss, which is one pint, but I got to about two and a half before feeling light headed. That got me a weapon for about two or three minutes.
I was once again welcomed by my father and Ddraig in the arena. "So what are ya having me do today?" I asked.
"I'm gonna teach you different fighting styles, the styles I learned during my time as the Dark Knight. Learning these styles will increase your powers, depending on what style you're using, as well as expand your fighting tactics." He explained.
"Sounds interesting." I said in amusement.
"You don't know it, but you've already mastered the Swordmaster style. Based on yesterday's training, we'll teach you the Trickster style first, which focuses on quick movements, like dodging. Your reflexes were good, but against a living being they need to be better." I nodded and he started the lesson."First you need to learn to trigger this style. I'll make this easier on you and transfer the trigger knowledge to you." He placed his hands on my head and I felt his knowledge transfer itself to my mind. He released my head and told me to focus and trigger the Trickster style.
"Trickster." I said after a minute of focusing. I was surrounded by a yellow aura and small sparks of electricity. I didn't really feel any different.
"No I'm gonna try and punch you, and I want you to dodge." My dad said, he swung his fist before I could respond and instinctively dodged, only faster than I ever had.
"Whoa!" I said in awe.
"That was a simple dash, a move only usable with the Trickster style, it allows you to move at a speed so great your opponent can hardly see you move. You can do that in the air as well, but we'll get to that after teaching you the other styles." My dad explained.
"Why don't we learn now?" I asked, eager to continue.
"We'll switch between styles so you can get used to switching from one style to another."
"Alright let's get started." I said, a little calmer now as we continued to learn the other styles. If I could learn these, I may actually be of use to Rias and the others.
If ya didn't see how I fixed the whole problem EternityDragon pointed out I'll summarize it for ya. Basically his sudden confidence explosion was a ploy, so the others wouldn't worry so much about him. That's the best way I could say it.
And yes I'm adding the styles from Devil May Cry as well, I originally wasn't gonna, but I just replayed DMC4 and I couldn't resist cause the styles are just so fucking badass. I'll go through the abilities of the styles in future chapter cause I really didn't feel like going through ALL of them in one chapter, cause where's te fun in that? Plus it'd take WAAAAY to much fucking time going through like the dozens of techniques I each style.
So next time is finally the Rating Game and imma thoroughly enjoy writing that one. OH! And I hardly got to think about the harem so that'll be in the next chapter, swear to God.
And I'm sorry if this was a bit rushed, I just wanted to get this out and the next one started.
Next Time: The Rating Game