I'm Too Sober For This

by Masked Spider

Shirou Emiya has had an interesting time adjusting to the world of his new king, Serafall, but not a terrible time. That is until a spell gone awry brings a different, and far more irritable, Issei Hyoudou into the fray. Will they get along or is a giant mess in store for the both of them? Either way it's gonna be quite a time for the world caught in the middle! GAIWP x ADLH

19. Double Dragon

Double Dragon

Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter of I'm Too Sober For This! We've got a special chapter this week, one written by Third Fang himself! Naturally I got to give a shout out to my other two Beta Readers, Enigmatic Bandit and Pyromania101, who put in the time editing alongside a couple edits of my own. And speaking of my own stuff, congratulations to my newest $10 patron Samson! He's requested a Black Clover story commission which I will attempt to premiere next week on this site so keep an eye out. Now then, with no guest review questions this week, let's see what's getting torn up this chapter!

o. o. o.

Serafall's personal Rating Game battlegrounds: Model Kuoh:

"Just to be sure, you DID tell everyone that this was a terrible idea as well, right?"

"Yup."

"And they agreed, right?"

"Yup."

"So why are we still going through with this again?"

"Beats me."

"... Well at least we're in agreement on something for once."

"The stupidity of others does make miracles happen at times."

Issei and Karasuba stood in the middle of one of the few rare parts of the imitation of Kuoh that hadn't been subject to mass mayhem from the latter's fight with Shirou Emiya.

"Hmmm. This is quite nostalgic." The grey-haired girl smiled whimsically as she looked at all the buildings she had demolished in one way or another.

"I bet it would. All this has your name on it."

"And how do you know that this wasn't Shirou's work? Everyone keeps on waxing on and on about how amazing and powerful he is."

"Because everyone knows he wouldn't need to go nearly this far to beat you."

"... And why did we agree to this again?"

"Probably because of Shirou, one way or another."

Karasuba snorted and shook her head. "Why are we doing this again?"

Issei shrugged. "They want to do a power assessment and make sure you aren't overly liable to kill your allies the moment you lose your temper and embarrass everyone, but your personality is far too gone to consider that a possibility. The reason why I'm the one doing it is because I'm the only powerhouse on hand that can easily handle you that isn't busy with politics."

"Of course I'm the child in this bit. You're an embarrassment to everyone every time you open your mouth." She rolled her eyes, letting the power comment wash over her.

"Meh." If that was supposed to insult her brother's counterpart, then it did less than nothing as he shrugged in a "it is what it is" expression. He didn't even bother trying to defend or excuse himself.

Honestly, the empty-hearted acceptance of her insult irritated Karasuba more than any of the ones he threw at her. But she led it slide. If she could handle her twin, the worm, embracing his laziness without erupting, then she could handle this.

"So what exactly do you plan on teaching me, oh powerful Sekiryuutei? I am but a pitiful runaway child with a haphazard education. Surely, any enlightening tricks you can teach me will just go over my head."

"Most will, which is why I'm giving you a dumbed-down simplified version that even my idiot other-self can understand." Issei nodded, completely ignoring her sarcasm and taking her mockery at face value.

"... You're too kind."

"Who knows." Surprisingly, he genuinely looked like he didn't know if that comment was true or not with a tired shrug. "Anyway, the basics of the trick are real simple and can branch out all over the place if you study a bit later… and don't accidentally kill yourself in the process."

"Sounds like fun."

"Didn't you train under Sun Wukong?"

"Like I said. Fun." Her tone was as dry as her expression.

It was the same expression Issei himself used when describing his experiences training under Ghost. Maybe they were related after all.

"Right, so the basic idea is real simple. You know how if you run a computer too hard it overheats?"

"Never seen it in person, but I have heard enough to get the idea, yeah."

"Well, essentially, you're going to apply those principles to your brain with your Boosted Gear." Issei explained casually.

"Boosting my… are you insane? Even my Ddraig advises against doing that. The last Boosted Gear user that tried it literally exploded their heart after ten seconds testing their first triple Boost." Karasuba looked at him incredulously.

"Before or after all the nerves in their brain and nervous system literally burned up?" Issei did not look surprised in the slightest.

"Both. Their death was drawn out and agony was magnified due to the brain's momentary enhanced perspective during the experience." Surprisingly, it was Karasuba's Ddraig that answered, his tone unusually curious and intrigued in the conversation.

"Yeah, that's not surprising considering odds are you were sloppy and probably told them to Boost their brain in their entirety without preparing the rest of the body, organs, and nerves as a bare minimum precaution." Issei deadpanned, not impressed at all.

"Then what WERE we supposed to do, Mr. Genius?" Karasuba rolled her eyes.

"I could literally go on a whole three-hour introduction biology lesson about how the brain works and order of Boost prioritization and capacity, but you wouldn't care, so here's the idiot's version. First, because there's literally NO cap on how many times you can Boost it, you enhance your natural thermal resistance and tolerance as high as you damn well please. And I do mean first. Ignore everything else until that's done. Or you will die."

"Careful. You sound like you actually care about me."

"And then everyone will blame me." Issei amended his earlier instructions.

"Ah. That sounds more like it. Carry on."

"After the important first step that you will die if you don't follow, Boost your brain's ability to process external information and ONLY that. The end result is you end up with bullet-time reflexes with next to no risk even if you decide to do vanilla body Boosts later, outside of maybe a headache or aching eyes if you overdo it for a while because your body isn't supplying them enough oxygen and nutrients to accommodate for the prolonged extra work."

Karasuba frowned. "That's it?"

"I said it's the idiot's version. You'd be surprised how many functions of the human body are only limited by the heat ceiling. You want me to get the brain diagram out to show how Boosting your cerebellum before anything else is more or less a death sentence?"

"No no. The less you talk the better. For everyone."

"Suits me." Issei didn't seem to care either way as he pulled out his advanced-multiverse-theory-physics book and began to read it. "Just bitch if you need help."

Karasuba snorted and skeptically looked at her Sacred Gear. Normally, she wouldn't hesitate doing anything dangerous with her skills and abilities, much less take the word of an asshole like her brother's counterpart on the matter…

There were two problems though. The first was that said counterpart was strong. At least strong enough to beat her. Strong enough to even fight all four of the Maou at once and hold his own for a while. His personality was garbage, but his strength was real.

The second was that the ass was worse than terrible at lying. She had seen him try and weasel his way out of a few moments, and he had the exact same tells as her brother, only with more cursing and colorful language. If he said the trick worked, then it worked.

In the time she had debated whether or not to go through with the nonsense, her Boosted Gear had already accumulated fifteen charges, over double what she could normally handle before becoming a Devil. For a brief moment, she debated just attacking the annoying ass to see if he could keep up with her before realizing that if his trick did work, she'd have a better chance of putting him in his place for once.

[Explosion!]

There was the internal temperature resistance, and honestly, she didn't feel any different than she was before. If the assumption that there was no max to how high she could raise this part of herself, then it might come in handy later on.

That said, there was no way she was going to use ten Boosts on her brain of all things in a single go as a test. She was reckless, but not to that absurd extent.

[Explosion!]

Three Boosts to her brain's "external processing" or whatever was enough to show immediate results.

The world slowed down by a factor of eight, and everything seemed to move at a snail's pace. Including herself. It was honestly a bit of an out-of-body experience, one she didn't like, but not one that made her genuinely afraid for her health or wellbeing.

[Explosion!]

So she Boosted her body the rest of the way with a good ten charges to see how everything would stack up.

She smiled as her muscles and body caught up to what she wanted it to do. It didn't feel as fast as she knew she was going in reality, but honestly that only made it better in a way.

She could tell what she was doing with more clarity now. More precision.

An instant later, her nodachi materialized in her hand, and she started swinging it through familiar patterns and stances, relishing in the familiar yet new feeling of blitzing through them and yet experiencing them in a new way. She could already spot minor flaws and errors in what she had been doing before out of habit in each swing and correct them to make her cuts sharper and more brutal.

She had been skeptical about taking lessons and learning anything from the insane asshole, but even she would begrudgingly admit, to a very select few, that he got results quickly.

In fact…

WOOSH!

SNAP!

"I thought I told you to bitch to me if you needed something. Not be a bitch."

In the briefest of instances, she had swung and extended her blade at him as though to cut his head off, only for the book in his hand to move and snap out like a viper just as it had reached him and clamped down on its flat sides, pinning it in place.

She had seen it.

His movements weren't a single fluid movement, but a series of rapid fire, almost mechanical gestures that skipped the bulk of their travels with his Sacred Gear firing off absurdly quickly. The rotation of his arm, elbow, wrist, and the book itself were all done one-by-one, but so fast that if she didn't enhance her senses then it would have appeared to be a single fluid movement.

Karasuba smiled, hungrily.

"So you do have a flaw after all."

"Have you looked at me? Since when did I ever say I was perfect like some moron?" He looked at her skeptically.

"You have to control your movements precisely for exact control and results using your Boosted Gear." She went on. "There's little fluidity in your movements. Wasted energy. You're little more than a robot. Any martial arts master would be able to pick you apart in a fair fight."

Issei rolled his eyes, lifting his other hand and flicked the caught blade with his finger.

The metal weapon shattered in its entirety, all the way to the grip in her hands.

"Close. But not quite. Is that all you wanted?"

In contrast to his dismissive rebuttal, her eyes shone more as she recognized what he had done. "Oh? Touki as well? I thought you claimed you were a pacifist? Or were you just being hypocritical again?"

"I practice medicine on the human slash genotype body and live in Japan. In earnest. It's only natural I dabbled in Ki at some point." Issei shook his head as if explaining something obvious. "The more you know about internal energies, the easier it is to heal someone efficiently. The better shape you are in, the longer you can last in the operating room. Plus, White Magic and Ki naturally synergize real well as a side bonus. I'm not some martial arts meathead like you or Sairaorg Bael, but I do take care of myself to an extent. I'm a third tier Ki user at best and I have no intention of pushing it any further. You already eclipse me in the field."

She couldn't help but laugh in disbelief. On the ten tiers of Ki mastery, she was considered a seventh tier user, which was already phenomenal given her age, but in reality even being able to use Ki at all for a species that wasn't naturally gifted in the field was astounding.

To be able to reach the third tier and claim you were "dabbling in it" was, quite frankly, insulting for someone that went through hell training to get where she was. It was akin to a fresh and dedicated PHD graduate in any field being told by someone that had their Bachelor's that they had gotten theirs for fun.

"Seriously. I genuinely can't stand people like you."

"So says pretty much everyone." Issei, completely unaware of her mental dilemma, shrugged off her statement as just another insult.

"Natural born genius. Handed everything on a silver platter. Whining when things don't go your way. Bastards like you make me sick."

Issei was about to open his book again when her tirade cut him off and he gave her a double take. "Natural born… are you… ugh. You know what? I'm not going to even bother. You wouldn't even listen or even believe me anyways. Last thing anyone wants is another pointless teenage pissing match."

As if to underscore his point, he did the most insulting and dumbest thing possible, and turned to walk away from her, leaving his back completely exposed.

Oh no. She was not having any of that.

With her freshly enhanced speed and reaction time, she practically warped in front of him with a new nodachi in her hand. "And where do you think you're going? To jack off like the lonely little shit you are?"

"I don't masturbate." Was literally his kneejerk reaction.

The nodachi at his throat was what he won. "Wrong answer, porn monger."

In spite of the threat to his life, Issei didn't appear to be concerned at all. If anything, he looked bored and sighed as if having to do a chore that he didn't want to do…

A colossus with a hide as hard and thick as a castle barricade sleeping in the back of a cave shifted slightly as though to scratch an itch.

… And stepped forward, the blade of the sword pressing and scratching the jugular of his neck, but barely marring his skin before being pressed out of the way. No, if anything, it was as if the insane teen was suddenly of another reality. If their world had been a cartoon, then he suddenly appeared to be of a different, higher quality art-style altogether.

"What the—?" The hairs on Karasuba's neck stood on end and she instinctively jumped back to make some distance from the monster. She felt the resistance on her sword. It felt like she was pressed up against flesh, but for some reason her blade couldn't make it any further than just the surface.

Issei didn't follow. He was simply standing where he was with the same disinterested look in his eyes. "Are you finished with your tantrum?"

"That was… I thought your ridiculous 'bigger pissed dragon' illusion was just some fancy form of killing intent. Not some additional armor trick." She took a defensive stance.

Issei shook his head and scratched his side, slowly returning to "normal."

"It's complicated. The illusion bit is honestly an unintended aftereffect if anything. If I were to put it in simple terms without sounding like a complete chunni… hmmm, I suppose it would be akin to allowing mortals to manually do what Gods and beings on their tier do naturally. Honestly, it was originally made to give Gods the middle finger in the first place."

"... Hah?"

"Think of it another way. A dragon's scales are harder than other monster scales because they are a 'Dragon's Scale'. The principle and weight of the myth of dragons naturally makes them stronger. Same with how Gods can shrug off most anything you throw at them under most circumstances because they are 'Gods' with a capital 'G'. It's not the power that makes them stupid. It's the rules behind them that matter. I'm just… mimicking that 'I'm a natural force of reality' principle for a while. Anyone can technically do it, but it's a right pain to learn how. Plus, normal Gods get nervous and all on your ass the moment they find a normie that can pull it off. This trick is not exactly subtle in the first place, making things even more annoying if you blast it all the time, so I try not to use it that much."

"Could have fooled me." Karasuba took a deeper stance, getting ready to strike.

He made an embarrassed face and looked away, a habit that almost mirrored her brother's exactly. "Part of the trick involves 'full self-mastery' and 'putting your everything' into it. Once mastered, everything you are is tied together one way or another. That involves emotions. Unfortunately, that also means now if I get set off hard, so does the ability, intentionally or not. It can't be undone. Another drawback I didn't learn until later. I can't use it as reliably or consistently as I used to as a result."

"You don't say. So I guess that means if you don't have that freaky illusion up—" Her sword lashed out like a viper, extending to cut into his chest—

The tip of a crimson tail flickered up lazily.

Issei's left index finger met the tip of the sword and held it back effortlessly.

Karasuba clicked her teeth in annoyance, but quietly noted another peculiarity of the trick.

She had tried to weave and maneuver her sword away from the hand, even strike at his legs mid swing, but it was as if her attack had been gravitated or forced towards his finger against her will.

Cheating brat. Manually doing what a God does? Well, considering how Gods tend to screw everyone over in all religions and regions, she wouldn't be surprised if a cheap trick like this was secretly in their arsenal as well.

"A word of advice, if you plan on actually fighting anyone worth anything, I suggest getting a decent sword first." He was not impressed as his hand blurred just as quickly as her blade. "Even with your enhancements and Boosted Gear, you won't make a scratch on an actual heavy hitter with these things. Gotta hit them in their myth or natural weakness. There's a reason why dragon slayer weapons are a thing and valuable. Not being able to scratch Tia recently is more or less what will happen with everyone else."

He flicked it away lazily, shattering the second sword of the day.

"I'll make a note of it." Another sword materialized into her hands. "... You weren't this strong before."

"Like you were taking it seriously then too." Issei yawned as if talking about the weather. "The reason why we are here is to test your self-control, and while my personality leaves everything to be desired, control over my abilities and judgment in a fight is something I don't lack so long as my PTSD isn't triggered. I aim to put down my targets with very little collateral. You on the other hand…"

Issei looked around at the half-fixed imitation Kuoh, unimpressed.

"Don't you try pulling that 'holier than thou' nonsense on me. I doubt you would have done less damage against Emiya if you were in my shoes." The swordswoman snorted derisively.

"Maybe. But I specialize in one-versus-one setups in the first place. It's not often I need to do anything that requires this much collateral." Issei shrugged absently.

"Now who's overconfident? You sound like you could take him on without your Balance Breaker."

The young man tilted his hand side-to-side. "Eeeh. Kinda. My Balance Breaker is more for large numbers than anything. Not single fights. I've almost never actually needed it to be honest. It just turned out that way. I doubt I would have needed it to deal with yours. Then or now."

"You're seriously going there, aren't you?" Her violent smile widened to the point of stretching skin.

"I'm just a bad type of match-up against you. Simple as that." He shrugged, as if stating a blatant fact.

"Is that right? Care to test that theory then?" Not waiting for an answer, her left hand began to mutate into a scaled and clawed abomination, flesh growing and rippling up her arm and extending to the rest of her body.

"[Cardinal Hide]." With a malicious growl, she activated her Balance Breaker, looming over twice his height and looking ready to pounce.

"Haah. If I'm going to actually make you keep up with Shirou, I might as well see what you've got." In complete contrast, Issei couldn't appear to be less interested, taking his book out and materializing his own Sacred Gear.

Issei's subspecies Boosted Gear, Endless Crimson Hoard, revealed itself in its full glory. The blood red gauntlet was adorned with metallic coils, encircling around his armored left arm like a pair of snakes.

"EXPLOSION!" The coil on his Sacred Gear fired off once, and yet for some reason it felt tangibly heavier than the ones that its counterpart had executed just moments earlier. With the sound of a shotgun pumping, the coiled decoration on his arm pushed up to his wrist as if it were a spring and recoiled.

Karasuba, now half-transformed, scowled at his genuine dismissiveness of her and her power. Even if he hadn't been going all out, even Shirou had the decency to treat her like the threat she was.

[Boost!] [Boost!] [Boost!]

Her entire upper body was wreathed in muscles and scales as she accumulated more charges of power than she had ever done in her life.

The strength. The thrill. It was intoxicating.

The asphalt street crumbled under her feet and the air whipped around her—combined with the enhanced perception trick she had been just taught and she genuinely felt like she could take on anyone in a fight.

And yet, this asshole with her brother's face couldn't even pretend to care less.

She was going to enjoy this far more than she should… no. She was going to enjoy this as much as she should.

"EXPLOSION!" His Sacred Gear fired off again.

The ground cratered as she vanished. She wouldn't make the same mistake as before. She'd attack him right away to stop him from his usual bullshit and—

"E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-E-EXPLOSION!"

Her eyes saw it before it reached her ears. The coil on his arm suddenly fired off so quickly that, even in her enhanced state, she only saw a blur of movement as she swung down her blade on his head.

BOOM!

Where her original standard overhead blows at full strength would tear up the earth for a few meters, now she created a fissure that extended for what looked like a full kilometer straight into the city originating from a crater ten meters in every direction.

Only Issei was standing completely untouched a few meters to her right, book in hand, and not ruffled in the slightest.

[Boost!] [Explosion!]

Her blade snapped to her side to cut him in half instantly, extending to more than make up the distance and cause a flying slash that darted into the distance, cutting streetlights, trees, and even a few small buildings in half effortlessly.

Issei was behind her once again.

She followed through with her motions, causing her wild swing to go a full circle in every direction.

Issei had vanished and reappeared again, repositioning himself inside the crater she had just made, deep enough that the sharp blade went completely over his head.

He calmly turned the page of his book.

Idiot.

She was little more than a crimson blur, circling around the crater so fast it was kicking up a dust tornado around her. Her sword stretched slightly above her head pointing above her target, which combined with her movements turned the area above him into a literal single bladed blender.

And then she pointed down, turning the hole into the ground into a thresh pit with no escape. The average human wouldn't have had more than a second before being torn into meaty chunks that were suited for an off-brand lunchmeat.

And yet, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar figure standing outside said deathtrap just a short distance away.

Even in the rush of her blitz, she had seen it this time. The smallest of shifts in his left foot, barely more than a few centimeters as subtle and quick as one would expect from someone on his level, just before he had been torn apart. And he had vanished.

Her arm snapped again to lash out at the annoyance, only this time he didn't disappear.

… No. That wasn't quite right. He did move, only instead of out of sight…

He was standing right in front of her with his left hand up, and gently poking her nose.

She could practically see it.

The immaterial mountain of Boosts that were stored and contained in his Sacred Gear. A hoard of accumulated wealth so overwhelming that it genuinely made her break out in a cold sweat through her scales. It was a number that far eclipsed anything she hoped to manifest in her lifetime.

It was akin to standing at the base of a dam on the verge of opening all of its floodgates and breaking open all at once right on top of her. Had they been unleashed, she would have been overwhelmed in an instant with absolutely no hope of survival.

"Boop."

And instead, the asshole merely made a stupid childish noise and tapped her nose as if playing a game.

"... The hell do you think you're doing?" She couldn't even strike back at him since she was so bewildered by this latest display of stupid.

"I booped you." Issei pulled back his hand, and Karasuba's eyes caught a flicker of crimson red in his hand. He had somehow pulled one of her scales from her snout without her even noticing, and the sample began to glow with magical energy. "Hm. This should be enough for some basic testing later. Definitely keratin, but heavily laced with conceptual energy… interesting mix of alpha, beta, and delta keratin though. Clearly different from mine. A diet of eggs, carrots, salmon, onions, and garlic will really help boost their production long term…"

Her veins pulsed under her armor. The bastard wanted her scales? Fine then.

With the smallest of flexes, all the rigid plates on her upper body stood on end. It was a minor change that most novices and even some practiced fighters would miss in a high-speed fight.

"Hm?" Issei blinked, and turned to her as though just remembering she existed.

[Transfer!]

Instantaneously, the jagged crimson plates spiked out from her body, writhing in every direction like twisted bladed spears, reaching and lashing out at anything near their maker for dozens of meters in every direction. The tips of each improvised blade was sharp and hard enough to pierce concrete as though it was butter.

It still wasn't far enough to reach Issei, who had once more instantaneously vanished and reappeared out of range with the smallest of back steps.

[Discharge!]

That was, he was out of range until each and every one of them shot out of her body like they were arrows.

Issei took another quick back step—

[Boost!]

—When Karasuba added onto the surprise chain attack by instantly magnifying and warping the projectiles away from herself, turning her already lethal area of effect assault even more vicious and quite literally spontaneously threshing and impaling everything in a hundred meter radius around her.

Cars obliterated. Streetlights thrown effortlessly. Buildings impaled and collapsed, unable to withstand the damage.

And a single drop of blood.

"At least she knows how to combo her moves and diversify herself."

(Play music: Chainsaw Man OST: Nail-biter)

Sitting on the ledge of a skyscraper just outside of range of the fallout, Issei pocketed the crimson scale and casually healed the cut on his cheek. Perhaps, if it had been anyone else, or at least anyone shy of a mid level Ultimate-Class, then her attack would have worked from that range, especially with how instantaneous that last Boost made her projectiles.

Sadly, he was one of the few people out there that could actually react to a move like that.

He knew of the subtle tells that the Boosted Gear gave off when about to apply a transfer to something else, quite literally like the back of his hand.

He was intimately familiar with how twisted and disorienting the world could get when objects, much less himself, were accelerated or displaced on a dime. That also included following and predicting the linear paths they follow.

If he hadn't, then Ophis would have killed him within the first ten seconds of their prior encounter.

"Still. She's a bit faster than I thought she'd be after turning into a Devil. And that transformation definitely added to her muscle mass and bone structure. Rather than an armor or superficial skin transformation, it'd be closer to call it a pseudo full-body dragonification. Practically, a full step towards Juggernaut Drive already. It's not every day that you find someone that can make a full metamorphosis like that at will without magic or allowing complete possession. Or having something resembling lycanthropy. I'm guessing she'd be able to handle over twenty Boosts as she is. Maybe close to thirty—"

He tilted his head to the side without blinking, and avoided his skull being skewered by an elongated sword.

Likewise, he didn't blink when said blade near his head set itself on fire.

"... You'd think she'd learn this trick won't work from last time…" He trailed off and frowned slightly, putting his left hand on the skyscraper he was sitting on. "... Or not."

"TRANSFER!"

The coil on his arm fired off silently. He had made it a point to put noise-canceling magic on his arm during longer fights just because hearing Ddraig scream out what he was doing rapid fire was annoying, and it gave away what he was doing at key moments.

Five-thousand charges in the construct was more than enough to make it collapse on itself right underneath him, making the teen drop instantly.

Just in time to avoid Karasuba's heavily-scaled figure, which looked more like a porcupine than anything, literally tearing through the space he had been in just a second prior, and crashed into the roof of the next building over.

Both slowly turned to glance at one another as Issei casually allowed himself to free fall among the disintegrating debris of the cosmetic building he had been lounging on.

The sword she had extended earlier hadn't been to attack, but to limit where he would go. Likewise, the fire was just intended to be a distraction so she could charge up enough Boosts to make the jump.

A berserker with enough sense to use tactics. Looks like Illya was more on point with her nicknames than he thought.

Clearly, the girl did not pay any mind to the devastation and property damage she was causing to her surroundings.

Very well, if that was the way she wanted to play it, then he might as well have some fun with this nonsense as well.

Halfway to the ground, Issei did something that gave the raging girl pause.

He smiled.

It was a small, twisted, broken, abomination that didn't seem to fit on him, or any human being, but was without a doubt, a smile.

By the time Karasuba got over how chilling the expression looked on him, not only had he fallen halfway to the ground…

But she had only just noticed then that the coils on his left arm had been firing off rampantly without stop during the entire drop.

"Round two." He mouthed, before vanishing before her eyes.

Karasuba looked around with a vicious snarl, her senses amplified to the max as her Boosted Gear restocked itself. The annoying bastard was too full of himself. Finding him before was simple even at a distance. Doing so again wouldn't—

"Boop."

Her entire body froze in genuine incomprehension as the sensation of a finger pressed against her nose and a childish taunt reached her ears before she even registered that someone was standing right in front of her.

Likewise, by the time she realized what had happened, the culprit had already vanished again…

"You know, I do have to congratulate you. Believe it or not, you've made pretty big progress lately." He was sitting on a water tower on an adjacent building.

She set it on fire.

"Last time we had a tussle, I was using my fifteen Boost per body part set." This time he was lounging on an AC unit on her other side.

It was split in half.

"This time I started at twenty-five, but you just made me amp it up to an even fifty just to be safe. Nice. There aren't many that can force me to go this far on just brute force alone. You really are an exceptional meathead." He was kicking his feet off of the edge of the corner of the building she was on.

It crumbled as she tried to obliterate it with her projectile scales.

"Ah. You still have some work to do though. Especially if you want to catch up to Shirou. When I had my little fit against the Maou when I first got here, I was working with a clean hundred set then, and truth be told none of us were actually putting in THAT much effort or focus into it for one reason or another. For you I'd say… hit the eighty Boost mark if you want to have a hope of beating your boss when he's serious." He was casually walking just a few meters away as if taking a stroll in the park.

The entire top half of the building crumbled as she lashed out.

She couldn't keep up.

It wasn't his speed. Not exactly.

He used his Boosted Gear to amplify the distance he traveled when moving, so technically he was already moving instantaneously from the beginning. A few centimeters of his left foot made in half an instant could turn into kilometers traversed with his ability. Rather it was the lag time he had between moving at instant speeds that had been reduced to nothing from her perspective. Before she could at least follow and track where he stopped, where he almost lingered for a good quarter second before vanishing again in a direction she could reason out.

Now though? It was rapid fire. Almost a single instantaneous movement. She could barely register three of his jumps in a single chain before realizing she had already completely lost him once again.

That was until… everything was quiet.

She didn't hear him. She didn't smell him nearby. She didn't see so much as a flicker.

She blinked as she realized she could finally get a bead on him again… on the other side of the city.

And not moving.

Was he… was he actually waiting her out?

Oh no. No no no no.

That bastard was annoying and ruining what was supposed to be a decent fight, but he was NOT going to mock her like this on top of all that bullshit.

She grabbed her sword with both hands.

The fucker wanted to play at long range?

[Transfer!]

Then he'd get it.

With a massive swing, twenty Boosts went into her sword, extending and enhancing the metal until it reached the other side of the city, and harvested the buildings that made it up like it was wheat.

"You know, you could have just asked me to come back."

Karasuba's response to the annoyance was to follow through with a second swipe, only for the blade to shatter against its target. Not due to its target's durability, but because even conceptually, twenty Boosts was too much for the weapon to handle more than once.

Judging from the not surprised expression on Issei's face, he had expected as much. "Just for the future, normal tools like that typically have a one-time use overboost cap around ten. Twenty at most if it's decently well-made. Anything more than that'll just fall apart before you can use them."

"Will you just shut up and FIGHT ME ALREADY?!" The enraged teen shouted at him maliciously, her temper making her scales grow even longer and her image even more horrific. "NO JOKES! NO TALKING! JUST DO SOMETHING! OR ARE YOU TOO SCARED TO EVEN GET CLOSE TO ME ANYMORE OTHER THAN PRETEND YOU CAN KILL ME WITH THAT STUPID TRICK OF YOURS?!"

Issei looked at her with almost a pitying expression before sighing. "... Fine. If that's the way you want it. Just don't say I didn't warn you. I fight dirty."

The monster girl laughed in half relief and half rage at his admission before charging at him again with a new sword in hand with a swipe that had more than enough power to tear him in half—only for Issei to once again vanish. "There's no such thing as a clean fight, you coward!"

"So I've been told."

She turned to obliterate the bastard that sounded like he was finally within striking distance for once and noticed something different half swing.

He was holding up something in her direction with one hand and pressing the other next to his head.

It looked like an air horn.

BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Correction. It was apparently a Boosted air horn. "Apparently" because, when the damn thing went off, her mind literally went blank from the noise blasting next to her skull.

"ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS?! IS THIS A GAME TO YOU?! AN AIR HORN?!" Her holler echoed over the destroyed city, but it could do nothing about the ringing in her ears.

"You're right. It's nowhere near enough."

Even if she couldn't hear him due to her abused ears, she could still feel the bastard appear right next to her again from the other side. Not taking any chances again, she jumped back with a fade slash and—

Pfssssssssh.

"GHAAAAAAAAAAAHG?!"

—Screamed in absolute agony as Issei casually jumped over the sword with a Boost and sprayed her face with pepper spray from a normally safe distance.

The pepper spray was also clearly Boosted.

"Never leave home without it. Gotta be careful about stranger danger you know." Issei mocked, tossing the overcharged one-time-use canister over his shoulder like trash, talking more to himself than the now blind and deaf Karasuba.

"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU WORM!" It was almost pitiful how she was thrashing about while moving erratically to deal with the pain and clean out her eyes.

Issei wasn't fooled as he casually "walked" around his opponent at absurd speeds. His Vali nearly got him with this act too.

It was easy for someone to be trained to fight while rendered blind and deaf. They were usually the first things that were aimed for in a real fight if an opponent could get away with it.

It was a bit harder when they were hit with something new. Over and over again at that.

"Pocket sand." Stopping to her side once again, he pulled out and threw some conventional dirt at the poor girl, and as expected, she reacted instantly, jumping up to the sky immediately and avoiding getting hit with anything close-ranged.

Which was the right move.

Now what about the follow-up?

"Prank balloon." Following her instantly with his own jump, he chucked half a dozen fist-sized water balloons at her and Boosted it so that she had no hope of dodging.

Had she not been rendered painfully blind, deaf, and overwhelmingly pissed, Karasuba might have countered in a more efficient method other than lashing out violently with her scales and sword.

As it was though, her flailing only served to burst open the balloons filled with the Boosted nectar and essence of Rafflesia Arnoldii.

AKA the corpse lily.

AKA that one giant ugly flower that every child has seen in a school textbook at one point or another that smells like rotting carcasses.

And Karasuba had just been bathed in the stuff.

"What the… hurp?!"

The poor dragon girl couldn't even get a sentence out before the stench overpowered her senses and made her gag to the point that she felt like she was turning her stomach inside out.

It didn't help that her Balance Breaker state also hyper-boosted her stomach along with her stomach muscles.

Issei, being Issei, took the moment to vanish again and reposition himself once more on the other side of the city.

Some people may ask why he had such stupid things on him in the first place.

He'd always reply "they work, don't they?"

… Well, they usually worked in "Phase 1" of most fights he was forced into if his opponent was strong enough to be a multi-phase disaster.

"Now, let's see that scale." He hummed curiously to himself, taking out the minor trophy he ripped from his opponent's face, as the screaming red dot of pain and bloody murder that was Karasuba fell back to earth in the distance.

Definitely one of Ddraig's genealogy, but the power saturating its makeup was unstable as fuck. By all rights, had it been any other material it would have fallen apart in his hand, but dragon tissue was terrifyingly power conductive in general, quality or type be damned. It was why dragon body parts were so in-demand for making weapons and other tools.

Going by this logic, her body was probably in a similar state. Channeling an absurd amount of magic and power, but doing a terrible job of it in the process.

The bottom line was that in spite of how she currently appeared, if the girl actually got her head on straight and mastered her power and temperament, then she could be even stronger pretty quickly.

That said, the quality of the power and scales in general…

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHGHGHGHGHGH!"

An explosive pillar of fire that generated a shockwave that he felt seconds later from where he was lit up the artificial dimension.

"Haaah. Welp. Looks like she's ready to go primal on my ass." Issei stood up and pocketed the scale again. "Reminds you of when Ass Man first tested his Balance Breaker on me, right?"

"Heh. Good times. Albion didn't have the nerve to talk around me for a month after that. You really are an insufferable little shit." Ddraig snorted in agreement. "... She's coming."

One moment, Issei was standing on a giant collapsed building that had been cut down.

The next, he had to jump away as the raging flaming meteor that was Karasuba slammed into the structure so viciously that her arrival resembled a volcano going off.

"Ohohoho, she's pissed." Issei made a blatantly amused statement of the obvious from a building that was just barely outside the destruction zone of her attack.

His statement precluded the fireball blasted in his direction that plowed through the landscape effortlessly into a molten canyon twenty meters in diameter.

"I hope the guys that have to fix this place get paid overtime after this." Issei looked down on the destruction from atop another building, more interested in the damage than the threat to his life.

The building he stopped on was split in two by a sword a second later.

The devastation throughout the city was rampant as Issei always kept himself several jumps ahead of the wild beast that wanted nothing more than to end him one way or another.

Surrounded by wildly thrashing fire and power, Karasuba looked more like an elemental than anything. While it more represented how ungodly pissed she was at him, it still served as a solid defense mechanism against the cheap tactics he used earlier.

That said, it still didn't stop the fact that her ears were still ringing, her eyes were still bloodshot red, and her nose was clotted with the stench of burnt decayed meat.

At the rate they were going, he was sure that she'd be out of stamina within about half an hour. Not bad for a fresh Queen, but he knew that she'd do better in the long… oh?

He quickly stopped and doubled back a moment later as a literal forest of spear-like scales fell from the sky on where he had been and where he was going. Immediately afterwards, he had to make a few more jumps to avoid getting his head cut off via burning sword.

Interesting, she was still thinking through her pain. She noticed he preferred moving onto outcrops in the rubble and aimed for all of them at once to cut him off. She's better than he—

[Transfer!]

"?!" Issei suddenly had a sense of vertigo as the world in front of him turned into a hammer and slammed him back into the side of a fallen building and did not let up.

It was the surprise that stunned him more than anything, even though he was pinned by what felt like an ocean of pressure. He didn't expect Karasuba to pull a trick like this off.

"Doubling. Space?"

He couldn't move. His bones were creaking under the pressure. She probably used at least ten Boosts on him in that instant to make sure he was put down. A normal human would have been crushed into paste from the experience, but he had conditioned his body for a long time to surpass that limitation. Combined with his Touki training and white magic, he could manage to retain consciousness, albeit painfully.

He could see her land right in front of him with a heavy crash. Sword in hand and looking as feral as ever. Hell, she genuinely looked happy for once looking at him, although that was probably due to his predicament.

For a moment, she looked like she was debating with herself about something, but quickly came to a decision and lifted up her sword. "Eh. You'll live."

Issei, pinned and unable to move, smiled. "And you're still slow."

Karasuba's eyes widened in alarm and her arm swung down.

Chack. Chack.

"TRANSFER!"

Issei fell to the ground.

As did Karasuba.

Neither had received any damage, as the latter's sword had fallen out of her hand mid swing and missed its target completely.

"Haaah. Close. Very close. You almost had me for a moment." Issei groaned lightly and picked himself up to his feet, dusting himself off in the process as if he had merely taken a small stumble.

Karasuba, on the other hand, was too winded and hurting all over to do the same.

"H-how?" Her deep and guttural voice was regaining some of its human femininity, though it did nothing for her surprised and pissed off glare. It was as if all the energy in her body had been ripped from her in a single go, leaving her running on fumes at best.

Issei was not in contact with his opponent at all, but he didn't need to be. The act of constantly putting pressure on him, exposing him to her power, was enough of an opening to exploit.

He had been serious about his statement in their first encounter. Doubling space was a tricky and stressful move to pull.

VERY stressful.

"Big moves have big costs. I just made yours a bit more expensive."

He pointed at her with his left index finger.

"If it was me, I'd use it as quickly as possible for minimal exposure and risk. Like this."

"TRANSFER!"

The distance between them doubled.

"TRANSFER!"

It doubled again.

"CANCEL!"

It halved.

"TRANSFER!"

Doubled.

"TRANSFER! CANCEL! CANCEL! TRANSFER! CANCEL! TRANSFER! TRANSFER! CANCEL! TRANSFER!"

There was a rapid fire doubling and canceling of the Boosts, and Karasuba's position was ridiculous and absurd.

She couldn't tell or see where she was, let alone her opponent. She was forced to move back and forth like a ping pong ball without any control or say what was going on. The experience was giving her motion sickness even though she technically wasn't moving.

Had she not been drained of energy. Had her senses not been assaulted viciously. She probably would have been able to break out of this absurd experience eventually, but as she was, all she could do was get flung back and forth like some cheap toy.

"CANCEL!"

She was back to being right in front of him, and she seemingly didn't care, opting to focus on throwing up on the ground instead.

That was until the sword she was pointing at him from under her body extended like a spear.

Had he not stepped to the side, it would have gone through his heart.

That said, his finger had not been put down.

"TRANSFER!"

This time, only the space between them from the waist up had been doubled, hammering into her upper body while her lower remained stationary, forcing her enlarged and armored figure to backflip in place several times before she collapsed in her own bile.

"Hmmm." Issei looked at his finger as if finding it more interesting than the downed Sekiryuutei in front of him before shaking his head. "Nah. An interesting trick to do every now and then, but too much of a cost to use often in my normal move-set."

Karasuba struggled to get up, but her body, nerves, and senses were crippled from all the indirect ways she had been assaulted in the past few minutes. She couldn't find her balance, let alone see straight.

Yet, even so, she intended to fight to the end, growling maliciously and—

—Pausing as she felt a familiar sensation on her nose.

Chack. Chack.

"Boop."

o. o. o.

"You fail."

Karasuba groaned as she came into consciousness with a splitting headache. What she wouldn't give to still be under right now.

"If you want to have the smallest chance of me actually listening to you, keep it short and simple. Your nonsense gave me a bigger headache than normal."

Sitting on a pile of rubble nearby, Issei didn't look up from the notepad he was writing on. "If our fight was to test your combat ability, you'd get a solid B considering you're still getting used to your new power as a Devil, which isn't that terrible. But the reason why everyone's on your ass recently is because you're likely to be a team-killing nut the second you're let loose on the battlefield. I was looking at how you controlled yourself and worked with the environment in mind when you fought. And you were as reckless and careless as I expected."

"Didn't you literally disintegrate an entire skyscraper at one point?" She sat up and cradled her skull.

"And nothing else. This entire thing we have going is for you, not me. And in case you haven't noticed," he waved a hand to the freshly devastated city, "This is very much all you."

"A personal best, if I'm being honest. Too bad this headache is stopping me from enjoying it more. What's your point?"

"My point is that if you treat the Khaos Brigade anything like me, it's not going to take long for people to realize that pissing you off is the best way to work in the enemy's favor and do something stupid."

"Getting in my way is stupid. Getting in my way usually ends in death. That's the point of putting me on the battlefield in the first place."

"And we're dealing with chunni terrorist wannabes. Meaning they're going to at least try to use all the cheap tricks in the book at least once. More if they know it works."

"What. More stink bombs and pepper spray for scared little pissants that can't handle being out alone?" Karasuba snorted, looking at him incredulously.

"I mean the usual bullshit trick of kidnapping loved ones and hiding them in the middle of a shitshow without telling anyone until it's too late and you kill them in a bloodlust to drive you insane." Issei countered with an unamused expression.

Said expression didn't so much as twitch as a wave of killing intent rolled over him and cracked some of the debris there.

He went on. "Yeah, turns out there are bigger assholes than me out there. Imagine that."

"Then I clearly haven't made my point clear on what would happen if they—"

"For fuck's sakes, they're terrorists you idiot. They're already past the point of risking guaranteed death and torture for whatever stupid shit they've got in their heads." He cut her off before she could begin to list out how she'd make her victims suffer. "The problem is that before, you were solo. A potential asset. So they toed the line. Liberally and haphazardly, but that's all. Now you're a known threat. The gloves and rules are off and loved ones are on the hit list. Especially if it gets out that you're prone to being a team-killing shit show the moment your buttons are pressed."

Karasuba's ire spiked. "For someone that wants to be alone all the time, you sure love spewing that whole teamwork nonsense. Why do you even bother? You can do practically anything you want by yourself. You're practically the trademark image of a Dragon."

"You mean the stereotype of being short-tempered, angry, and perpetually hormonal to the point of rampant bouts of instinctual violence and stupidity?" Issei deadpanned. "There's a reason why I'm purposefully staying in the background when possible other than Ophis you know."

"You're alone." Her words soured his expression, if not genuinely angered him. "Dragons kill. We are born alone. We die alone. We have no culture. No clans. No works of art or philosophy. We just do and destroy and steal and rampage as we want."

"..." Issei didn't immediately reply, quietly digesting her words. "That, is certainly an accurate description."

Karasuba allowed herself to smile, relishing the fact that she had finally gotten the idiot to admit—

"Of Evil Dragons."

… What?

"A near word-for-word definition, really. Suspiciously so, even. One might even wonder where you heard it from." Without her even noticing, Issei was now looming over her. No, looming over her left arm.

"Evil Dragons?" She vaguely remembered the term from her lessons with her mentor, but she doubted she paid much attention to them.

"Crom Cruach. Azi Dahaka. Apophis. Grendel. Yamata no Orochi. Ladon. Nidhogg. And Vitra. Notable dragons that went so mad in their greed, instincts, and lusts for power in one way or another that they eclipse the Dragon Kings, and were considered the closest to reaching the Dragon Emperors." Issei's expression didn't change in the slightest. "In many circles, they're also known as 'Broken Dragons'. Sounds oddly relevant given the circumstances, wouldn't you say?"

Yes. Yes it did. The not-so-quiet grumblings she heard from her Sacred Gear didn't help matters either. And for once that afternoon, her anger was being directed at someone other than the asshole in front of her.

"I wonder where you could have gotten such a peculiar idea from that ALL dragons fell into such a blatantly specific and self-destructive category. Especially when I know for a fact that the former Dragon King Tanin became a Devil specifically to sequester a territory where a specific breed of fruit grows for several species of Dragons to feed on. Said species are known to be territorial, but also communal. They raise their young and interact with others of their kind just as humans would. And they are not the only ones of that breed. Quite the exception to your original definition of Dragons, don't you think?"

Karasuba felt her stomach drop at the revelation. A species of dragons that live in communities? That care and live with one another naturally?

"Well? I'm waiting for an explanation, Dragon Emperor." Issei's gaze didn't waver. "Training your host to reflect that of the Evil Dragons instead of an Emperor's is rather embarrassing if I say so myself. Looks aside, at best, Gin-chan is a poor imitation of Chrom Cruach than you. Don't tell me you're secretly envious of the Crescent Circle Dragon. I've heard he's actually gotten to the point of matching you in your prime these days."

"Hopefully, you'll leave before verifying that." His Ddraig grimaced, speaking to his partner internally. "Ours only left you alone because you were still a child at the time."

"... Fuck. Thanks for the reminder." The young man couldn't help but hold back a shiver..

"Don't you dare compare me to that slave!" The gem on Karasuba's left arm shone furiously, clearly taking the bait. "That fool spent centuries as Balor's pet!"

"And you've spent a millennia as a trinket driving every host you've had mad like you were an extreme case of herpes." Issei deadpanned, unimpressed by the Dragon's rage. "Seriously? The best you could do was fool your hosts into becoming imitation Evil Dragons? Are you so insecure that you have to play it safe now? Or is it because that's how far you've fallen?"

"Infuriating whelp! You only dare to run your mouth because I am trapped in this prison!"

"No no. I call it like I see it. Prison or not. And the more I see, the more I'm convinced the only actual Heavenly Dragon in this world at the moment still worth the title is stuck here." Issei waved his left hand dismissively. "Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you and Albion here have really let yourselves go."

Karasuba was of two minds on the statement. On the one hand, the idiot was dismissing her strength and the trials she had gone through again. On the other, it wasn't often that someone absolutely and effortlessly tore through her Ddraig's pride like that, and she certainly wasn't going to stop him herself.

The air around Karasuba's left arm began to radiate with such malice that it began to ignite even without her intending or controlling it.

No. It went further than that.

Red malice frothed from the gauntlet, twisting and mutating the girl's arm further than even she had thought possible.

Blazing emerald gems warped with multiple irises. Twisted stretches of scales flared like tentacles. Horns that were teeth mutated and gnashed in the boy's direction.

"I am the Crimson Dragon of Destruction! I hunger for the Infinite and—"

WHAM!

"You've clearly seen the movie Akira. I'm so scared."

The mutating arm was slammed to the ground from the slap as Issei stepped on the warping limb with one leg and took out two bottles of unknown fluids before subsequently squirting it all over said abomination.

"Release me at once you insufferable little—GHAAAAAAAAA?!"

Seconds later, the amalgamation of flesh, teeth, horn, and scales screamed out in pure unparalleled agony.

"... That some sort of torture porn lotion?" To her credit, Karasuba managed to almost keep a straight face at what just transpired. Even throughout all her nightmares and ordeals with her tenant, she had never seen the monster go THAT far off the deep end before. Or influence her arm to such a concerning degree while she was still clearly sane and in control.

"Industrial strength shampoo. Mostly for when I get dunked in really nasty shit by accident." Issei didn't seem to see anything wrong with this scene.

"And you actually used it on your Ddraig?" She could feel her Ddraig writhe and thrash about inside her Sacred Gear in order to get away from the pain.

"Ghost actually. Immortal super god person or not, he's actually worse than me and he damn well knows it."

The grey-haired girl grit her teeth before breathing out slowly. "... You know what? Fine. Just keep your crazy bullshit to yourself."

He lifted an eyebrow and looked down at her arm then to the bottles he was holding.

She rolled her eyes. "And the assholes that deserve it."

That seemed to be enough for Issei as he stopped his unique brand of torture and brought the arm up to his eye so he could stare without fear or shame into the emerald gem that was literally bulging and throbbing with pain and malice alike. "Do you want to try again? Because I can Boost this stuff."

Issei's words seemed to make the gem swell even larger. "I. WILL. END. YOU."

"Get in line." He looked down at the limb under his foot as though it was less interesting than a clump of dirt.

No. Not dirt. A mere chore.

It had been a long time since anyone had been this apathetic towards the Heavenly Dragon in his presence. And he didn't like it.

Chack. Chack.

The sound of Issei's Sacred Gear pumping made the world go quiet, and even the eldritch-horror limb went still.

"So is that a yes or no? Decide correctly in the next five seconds and you'll get a nice cleaning on the house."

"███████!" The malicious growl literally shook the debris around them to the point that some of the nearby concrete collapsed.

"Three. Two." Issei slowly lifted up his other hand, still holding a bottle of shampoo.

"Fine! Fine! You blasted mistake of a hatchling! You can have your useless life for now! Just stop with that insufferable liquid!" As if to prove his point, Karasuba's left arm slowly began to retract from being a "Lovecraftian reject" to being a normal human arm shaped gauntlet again.

"Just for future reference, the trick to keeping idiots like this in line is to have someone around that isn't afraid to call them on their bullshit anywhere and everywhere they want, but this one can't do anything about in turn." Issei lectured as he took out a new fluid and, before anyone could react or protest, started to rub it all over the Sacred Gear, cleaning it of the prior fluid. "The one thing these assholes hate more than being disrespected is being humiliated effortlessly in front of their peers without having any control or say in the matter. Pride and all that."

"I'll make a note of it." She certainly didn't want to rely on this idiot for much longer, but she did see the point in his words.

"Humph. So you wish to employ a coward then." Her tenant growled maliciously, though with far less intensity than before.

"More or less." Issei nodded, finishing his quick cleanup of her arm before wiping his hands on his pants… and realizing that his own Boosted Gear had yet to vanish. "Ddriag?"

As opposed to the local Dragon Emperor, the foreign one sounded less than interested in contributing to the conversation. "Haaah. I was hoping that this wouldn't happen, but I feel it is best if I participated in this conversation before all of you fools make everything worse. If you won't listen to the brat, listen to me. Stop embarrassing yourself. Pushing your hosts is one thing, but trying to turn them into miniature Evil Dragons is just humiliating."

"You would take the child's side over mine? Over your own?"

"Don't pretend we are saints. I have driven my fair share of hosts mad over the eons too. Some for fun. Some because the useless tools forgot who they were dealing with. Some because they were weak and could not handle the power they clung to like fools. But they were all my hosts. My representatives. The current face of a Dragon Emperor. I would not and will not allow myself to be represented by someone trained to believe they are standing for something less. I am the Crimson Dragon of Domination. And I am NOT an inferior Evil Dragon."

The infuriated Dragon balked as though he had just been slapped. "Since when did we need representation!? Our names should speak for themselves! Our might shook the world! Our power is renown!"

"And we were still defeated and made tools all the same." Issei's Ddraig calmly stated the one lone fact that his counterpart did not want to acknowledge. "Now, while our names are still feared, mine is still revered. I am still the Heavenly Dragon regaled for its might. The crimson disaster that all Dragons look up to as a representative of what it means to be the apex of their kind. What of you, though? I have seen and heard enough. The world treats you like a mad beast. Wary of your power. Not exalted, but reviled. Your hosts, treated no better due to your tantrums that turned them into useless low-class drakes. And worst of all? I can see how I could have fallen to such a deplorable state had I been careless."

"Don't lecture me about hosts! Yours has potential even I cannot deny, yet he languishes about lusting over women and does nothing about it half the time and acts like a fool the rest!"

"That has nothing to do with me. He came broken like that. I assure you, efforts were made to fix him, and they all failed spectacularly. In a twisted way, he's more stubborn than either of us when something grabs his attention." It really was impressive how completely straight and serious Ddraig managed to be while saying that.

"Love you too, buddy."

"But broken or not, I still taught him properly so that when he came across Albion, he wouldn't embarrass me too much."

"I still did."

"IN A FIGHT." They could all hear the Dragon grit his teeth and breathe fire while speaking in order to keep his calm. "And at least in THAT regard, he exceeded expectations time and again. In a simple contest on utilizing Boosts to their fullest potential regardless of power, Partner has eclipsed the both of us. Don't pretend otherwise."

"We met as kids and he kept on bugging me for fights, and I kept on smacking him around until we became friends in spite of Albion's protests. Ddraig gave up on controlling what I did the day we met." Issei translated factually.

"I will never admit that mad fledgeling to be my superior in anything. Anyone can tell that without his tricks my host is superior." The mere idea of it clearly infuriated the local Ddraig to no limits.

"And using Boosts in itself isn't a trick in itself?" Issei rolled his eyes.

"So you confess that I'm stronger than you?" Karasuba hummed curiously.

"Obviously. I'm a healer. Not a fighter. I just know more shortcuts to not getting hurt and knocking people out. Don't fuck with the white mage and all that. Killing stuff that annoys you is easy. Keeping the people you like alive when shit's going down is hard. Plus, there's more money in being a medic. It's as simple as that."

His answer didn't make her feel better. "You could have fooled me."

"My point is that purposefully having our hosts act as little more than rampaging beasts time and again for a fight that has long ended has lost its value to me. We are dead. Albion is dead. But our names are still alive. I'd much rather see what my hosts, now and later, achieve with my powers and dominate the world in their own way in my name to the point where it will strike as much an impact on the world as the Biblical God's."

Issei opened his mouth.

"Correct me and I will make you regret it."

Issei closed his mouth.

"As for Albion, he has already shown interest in this new game I seek to play, though he admits that there is no point in attempting any form of competition with my current fool of a host seeing as getting him to behave or act to another's desire for longer than five minutes is a lost cause."

Issei nodded in complete agreement, the backhanded insult going straight over his head.

"Establishing dominance other than in fighting, to be revered? Like a… God?" Karasuba's Ddraig balked at the idea as though tasting the words as it left his mouth. "Heh. Heheheh! HAHAHA! How absurd! Your host's madness has clearly addled your head, my other! Surpassing Ouroboros was always on our list, but to do so in her own game? To take her very position?! HAHA! How foolishly interesting!"

"Great, now he's going to try the same thing and get even worse." Karasuba grimaced with disgust.

"Sounds like a reckless idiot to me." Issei nodded with certainty.

"You're the last person to have any right to say something like that." His partner flatly stated. Issei was the sort of person that charged headfirst into anything that caught his interest without the slightest bit of hesitation before anyone could react. Usually to do research into it first, but the point still stood.

"Hey, I do my due diligence… now."

"I'm guessing he's a 'trial and error' sort of idiot." Karasuba noted dryly.

"Fortunately, we managed to iron out most of the dumbest errors when he was young." The Dragon did not deny it in the slightest.

"Still nowhere near as dumb as training your host to be an Evil Dragon wannabe." Issei riposted his partner's counterpart with no hesitation.

"Careful brat. I'm in a good mood from your revelation. Do not ruin it."

"Then don't give me a reason to." He wasn't scared in the slightest. "Like it or not, Gin-chan's probably going to be the best host you're going to get in centuries with the resources she's got on hand. If you continue to fuck up her training, you're just pouring shit on… well silver I guess. You're just being wasteful at this point."

"Not gold?" Karasuba snorted sarcastically.

"Eh. You're not up there yet, and you already have the silver thing going for you." Issei tilted his hand side-to-side, not ashamed at all at playing with the pun with her name.

"Wasteful? And how would you do better? The Monkey King may have taught my host how to fight like a human with those silly pieces of metal, but her true might has always been with my power."

Given that Issei had just played with her with said power, his unimpressed expression was expected. "Mhm. And did you teach her to use a Dragon Gate?"

"..."

The silence was damning.

"A Dragon Gate? You mean a teleportation seal? Haven't you been paying attention? I can't use magic. Heck, I only just got demonic power." The swordswoman frowned in confusion.

"Can you use Ki and Senjutsu?"

"... You're kidding."

"Nope. You've been able to use Dragon Gates for a while now. Your Heavenly Hemorrhoid was just too lazy to teach you. Or he conveniently forgot." Issei waved it off.

"Or he's just being a spiteful little shit." Karasuba gave her left arm a dirty look.

"Oof. Probably going to have to wait a while before making any headway on that whole 'becoming revered as a God' plan here." Issei taunted.

"You little bastard! If I had a body I would have torn you apart for your insubordination! If you were my host I would have destroyed your mind a millionfold!"

"Trust me. You don't want any part of this one's mind." Issei's Ddraig snorted in dry amusement. "And you have no one to blame but yourself for this one, my other. Personally, I'm surprised that the girl didn't find out about using Ki to power her Gates sooner. I thought Yu-Long was drinking buddies with the Old Monkey."

"They are, but he doesn't want anything to do with Ddraig for obvious reasons. That extends to his hosts." Karasuba sighed, realizing that her tenant had screwed her over in yet another way over the years. "So I'm guessing that's your next lesson of the day?"

"Sure. So long as you promise that you'll tone down the rampaging when you fight and double your meditation."

"Yes mom." She rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious." Issei frowned. "These Khaos idiots are the sort of petty bastards that'll hide the people that matter in places that'll get caught in the crossfire in order to set you off. Or with bombs strapped to their chests. Or leave them injured in places out of reach and lure you out knowing you'll go alone and nobody wants to risk being with you. You need to temper down that shit if you truly care about your folks and want to minimize the odds of them dying because of something stupid. The people around you may be weak at times, but they can still do important things that you can't. Now more than ever seeing as you've decided to tie yourself to a Peerage."

Karasuba breathed in deeply through her nose before releasing out her frustrations through her mouth. "Fine. Fine. Your friendship speech is abysmal, and you're still a raging hypocrite, but I get your point. I'll try to play nice when the weaklings are around and not kill them when fighting. No promises on results though. Now are you going to teach me how to use a Dragon Gate, or will this take another dozen lectures to get right? As much as I'd hate to admit it, I'm willing to bet you're still a better teacher than this one here."

"Careful with your words, Hatchling. I can't do anything about the boy, but you are still stuck with me." Her Ddraig growled dangerously.

"And I know he still has a bucket of salt on him, so until he's gone you're still going to play nice." She smiled sweetly.

"Shirou, I am so sorry for the shit shows this girl will land you in." Issei looked up at the sky apologetically before returning to the world. "I'll give you the fast version of the lesson for everyone's sake. Give me your hands."

To her credit, Karasuba didn't hesitate in the slightest approaching him and knelt down where he was already preparing the spell.

Moments later, he had his hands on top of hers pressed onto the ground.

"Follow my Ki. Memorize how much I'm using and how it flows with your own. Then try to power it yourself as I pull away. I'm going to use a basic version of my Gate. The general design is the same for most dragons at the beginning. It's the insignia at its core that stabilizes it and makes each one distinct and forms naturally with each user. The more theory you know, the more protections, security, and tricks you can use to make it harder to block and trace."

"I'm not too familiar with sigils and circles. It's going to take forever to memorize… this…" Karasuba frowned as the Dragon Gate materialized itself beneath them. She could feel her power flowing into the spell naturally as if it were her blood. She was no doubt using her Ki, but there was a more draconic flavor to it that she hadn't noticed before, making it more prominent.

She could feel Issei's power below her, and she looked at the sigil at their feet. It almost appeared to be a crown with twelve points with each one waved like the tip of an ember.

What caught her attention more was that the Gate's design and function seemed to somehow imprint into her mind. As easy as if learning a new word, but not being able to properly pronounce it yet.

She let her power flow more and more, overtaking Issei's with each passing second but not enough to overpower the spell itself. The twelve-pointed crown slowly began to morph into a bird-like shape in flight with some undefined designs beneath them. Still vaguely incoherent, but clearly there regardless.

"This is… magic?" Almost hypnotized by her progress, she barely noticed Issei slowly take his hands away from hers and walk back outside the Gate.

"Of a dragon brand." Her twin's counterpart nodded quietly, no hint of scathing mockery or negative connotation at all in his voice. "You should be able to feel the trigger in the center. I've set it to take you outside to the entrance. You just need to set it off and you should—"

In a flash of crimson and silver light, Karasuba vanished.

"... Be able to return and experience using it yourself. Sure. Fine. I get it. Don't stay for the last second warnings so you don't slip into the Gap."

"You knew this was going to happen. Don't act surprised." Ddraig deadpanned.

"It's like nobody has ever watched or even heard of 'The Fly' before!"

… Or knew that the movie was loosely based off of the story of a teleportation spell gone wrong that was taught to practically every magically-inclined species in the Underworld when learning the craft in the first place.

"Her loss. I guess that means you're not going to follow her?"

"And skip out on getting some actual peace of mind? Hell no." Issei retorted bluntly, just as a massive piece of debris from one of the nearby wrecked buildings collapsed nearby.

"Peace of mind?"

"You know what I mean. Jerk." The teen pouted childishly as he looked around before reaching into his pocket and took out the red scale he had been examining earlier.

So her sigil was a bird, huh. That was unexpected, but convenient.

With a minute application of his own draconic energy, knowledge of draconic biology, and the Sacred Gear system, the small piece of material in his hand glowed, warped, elongated, until…

"Hmmm. Not bad for a first time." He pondered as a moderately long silver and crimson feather spun between his fingers.

It wasn't that surprising all things considered. Feathers and scales were made of the same material in the end. And since it was made from a dragon's scale…

His wrist flickered and the newly made plume shot out, puncturing through a concrete wall and piercing halfway through a steel bar behind it.

"..."

"... You were aiming for the building next to it, weren't you?"

Gimmicks and tricks aside, Issei's hand-eye coordination at long range was kind of terrible. He could barely hit a dart board at half distance for the life of him, regardless of how hard he practiced.

"Shut up."

"So when are you going to tell her all the ways you came up with to improve herself?" His partner ignored him. "You made quite the list when she woke up."

Issei huffed and took out his notepad again.

-Basic physical examination in Balance Breaker form.

-Extended training in Balance Breaker form to extend duration.

-Physical training in Balance Breaker form to increase muscle mass due to altered and enhanced muscle and bone structure.

-Scale-to-feather conversion.

-Partial transformation.

-Generic physical structure conversion and versatility testing.

-Training with demonic energy. Measurement. Quality. Quantity. Application. Affinities.

-Meshing demonic energy with Senjutsu. Probably with Kuroka.

-Training with larger custom swords in Balance Breaker form. Probably with Shirou.

-Training with mystical swords in either form to practice dealing with gimmicky opponents. Probably with Shirou.

-Finding a mystical sword that she has an affinity with. Definitely with Shirou.

-Generic tactics. Generic teamwork comps. Her role in them. Running her through traps that she's likely to encounter.

And under that list was one not for training ideas, but observations.

-Her destructive style is clearly intentionally made. It's designed to keep people away in general, friend or foe. May be unaware of it.

-Projectile scales act as spears and shotgun-style blasts. High general damage, low precision. Sloppy.

-Skilled with a sword, but lacks a mastery that others have. Not technical. Fights with experience, but a technique that can best be described as brutal.

-Her Balance Breaker's full-body transformation may allow easier influence compared to conventional variants. Investigate.

-Still retains cognitive functions while in Berserker state and agitated. Capable of moderate tactics but lesser situational awareness. Must investigate and improve.

-Quick to lash out at irritants and try to prove superiority, even when the difference in power is blatant. Inferiority/superiority complex?

-Basic use of Senjutsu towards reinforcement. Test sensitivity to determine estimated range of potential. Sun Wukong wouldn't stop at teaching a student only this much.

-Not stupid. Just insufferably impatient.

"Eh. I'll get to it eventually." Issei shrugged carelessly, and stored away the notepad into his Sacred Gear. "She passes off to me as a 'one thing at a time' sort of person. If I unload all this on the poor harpy, she'll just ignore it all and give up on it all together."

"So you forgot."

"Yes. That too." He admitted it without any shame.

"Feh. I suppose I can let you get away with it this time considering how distracting and degraded my other was. To warp the Boosted Gear like that… it didn't even resemble that of a Dragon."

"Give it a bit. Prick or not, we are on the way to fixing it." Issei had been playing with the idea of hinting what he found to the other Sekiryutei. The more he spoke to the pair, the more he was confident that they would benefit more after the deed was done.

"Mmm. I cannot say that this world has been entirely appealing. Seeing our counterparts here, it's akin to looking at one of those abandoned carnival mirrors. A distorted image that is unpleasant more often than not."

"Sometimes even cruel." Issei thought back to his counterpart here.

Weaker.

Shorter.

Blatantly dumber.

… Happier.

He shook his head. There was no point in dwelling on pointless things like that. "Regardless, we're here now. And we got a job to do if we want to get back home."

"Indeed. Witnessing and encountering another user of myself with their subspecies Balance Breaker was an interesting distraction, but ultimately pointless. You still have resources to gather for the Faction meeting. And then there is still Ophis to consider."

Issei nodded in defeat, feeling more tired than ever. He just wanted to rest and watch porn again. He hated this political bullshit and pointless destruction.

His eyes gazed over the destroyed surroundings. At least a third of the imitated city was either on fire or slashed to pieces. It was nothing short of a warzone, and reminded him of events and images that he'd rather pretend never transpired.

"... Balance Breaker, huh?"

"You're not serious. Here?" Ddraig was genuinely surprised by what his partner was contemplating.

"It's been years since I used it. Nobody else is around. Might as well take the opportunity."

"But you… are you sure you can handle using it in your current state? You're still nowhere near recovered. And considering what that cloak does." For once, the Dragon sounded genuinely concerned for Issei.

"No, but… at least I'd be aware of how it affects me these days. Heck, for all we know it might calm me down."

Ddraig knew a lost argument when he saw one, but it didn't mean he had to like it. "Just be careful, you fool. I'll knock you out myself if I have to. The others would say you are being too cruel with yourself doing this."

"Thanks." Issei breathed deeply and slowly for what felt like over a minute before he felt at peace with himself, looking over the city with surprisingly soft eyes.

Yes. This place would be suitable enough to have some meaningless fun.

Rich velvety dark crimson flames ignited around him.

Flames that took hold, dominated, and expanded the infernos that already littered the city.

Embers of all sizes and intensities flickered up to the sky.

Dancing.

Playing.

"Balance Breaker."

A new layer of unique sounds littered the world. It was chaotic, yet lively, all the same.

"[Chorus Regalia]."

The world burned anew.

And Issei cut loose for the first time in years.

o. o. o.

Issei knelt before Serafall and Shirou in a seiza, crying like a child that got caught and apologizing repeatedly.

Both knew that it was a gamble allowing him and Karasuba into the private dimension without supervision for a fight.

Nobody expected that Issei would actually irreparably obliterate the imitation world after teaching the latter how to teleport.

He had completely forgotten that, more than anything, his subspecies Balance Breaker was impossible to properly control unless there was something to target and focus on. Intentionally or not.

Damn it. And he had just paid off his debt to Shirou too!

Rating Game dimensions were expensive!

Can dragons play nice, you ask? Maybe, but today's not that day and tomorrow ain't looking so good either. Good news is there appears to be at least some progress being made by this not so stellar matchup. But you can tell me what you think about that in your comments and reviews along with what you liked/disliked or any neat ideas you might have for future chapters! And don't forget to check out my Pat reon for news, scene samples, and other cool stuff by becoming a patron! Last thing, stop in next time as our heroes prepare to go to the frontlines along with handling a couple other internal affairs! 'Til then.