After four hours of nonstop training, I finally released the little devils from their misery.
Physically, they were fine, well, more than fine since I was cheating and constantly regenerating their bodies to their peak forms. Which meant that they got a full day of rest every time they were near the point of passing out from exhaustion. Basically, what I did was I transformed what would have been twenty separate training sessions into one.
So while they were peachy on the physical side of things, the mental strain was starting to show.
They couldn't pay proper attention anymore, and doing anything else might prove detrimental to their growth. Plus, I did not want to traumatize them too much since it looked like today was the first time they ever pushed themselves this much. Especially Rias.
"Okay, people! We are done for today. Pack it up and go home." I clapped to get their attention and dispelled the six Takumis.
Instead of an answer, I got a symphony of groans followed by a few muttered curses aimed directly at me, or anything even remotely associated with me. I paid them no mind since I knew firsthand from my training with Red what it was like, and I've said worse to him.
But then again, my training was a lot harsher because he knew I could take it. What the little devils got instead was a watered-down version of what Red considered a warmup.
"Sensei… We're going to be doing this e-every day?" Rias asked, her voice shaking and a hint of fear and apprehension creeping in as she took a deep breath.
"Of course not. As your strength increases over the coming weeks, the intensity is going to ramp up alongside it." I told her with a grin, one she didn't like at all, from the look I got.
"Don't look at me like that. You're going to beg for it yourself, once the results start to show and you realize just how much stronger you are."
"I doubt that, sensei."
"Then we shall wait and see, no?"
"Then you might just wait forever. OH! By the way, we will need one day off next weekend. We're going to the familiar forest since Issei has none. I forgot to tell you at the clubhouse. "
"Isn't that the place where Tiamat lives?" I think Red mentioned that before.
"If she has not suddenly moved since the last time I was there, then yes."
"Hmm~ Then I will tag along."
"That might not be possible, sensei. There are only a certain number of spots."
"Don't worry about it. I'll figure it out." I waved her off with a wink. To which she just shrugged, too mentally tired to deal with me.
We said our goodbyes, I grabbed Asia, who was starting to yawn quite heavily, and went home. Today must have been taxing on her with everything that happened.
Somewhere along the walk home, we decided to watch a movie and have a pizza for dinner. But when it came to choosing what to watch, the choice ended up being entirely on me, since Asia had no knowledge about movies and quietly admitted that she had watched almost none when she was in the church.
So just to stay on the safe side, since my taste in movies would probably not mesh well with a sheltered nun, I put on Finding Nemo. Not that it mattered much in the end, because somewhere in between the pizza being gobbled up and Dory showing up in the movie, Asia was snoring cutely on the couch.
I left her there and quickly teleported to the Dimensional Gap, where Red was. I had to ask him about Asia.
"RED!" I yelled into the void, my voice enhanced with draconic power the same way Reds was.
The powerful yell back confirmed that he heard me and that he was flying to my location. Yes, flying, because Red rarely teleported anywhere. Said it took the fun out of traveling and made it incredibly boring.
"Takumi! Did you miss me already?" He asked with a giant grin once he was close to me.
"Hah~ Dream on. Nah, I need you to check on something for me. I found a girl this morning, and she makes me feel strangely comforted." I said with a chuckle, not really sure how else to describe the feeling Asia gave me. He'd have to feel it himself to understand fully.
"Are you really going to talk to me about your love life?" He looked really put off when he asked that.
"WHAT?! No, you dipshit… ugh. She has some strange aura or something. Come with me to my house, she's there, you'll see, or feel, I guess."
"Ah! Kidnapping. I see… Going back to your roots, huh?" He wiggled his eyebrows at me, and I oh so wanted to punch his stupid face.
"Are you fucking with me on purpose?"
"HAHAHA~ Yes." He admitted easily, and the shit eating grin never left his face.
"*sigh* You coming or not?" I pinched the bridge of my nose and weighed the pros and cons of starting a brawl right there and then.
"Sure, sure. Your house, right?" He put up his hands in mock surrender. Smart.
I nodded and teleported back home. Though I guess either my departure or turning the TV off must have woken up Asia, since the girl was now sitting on the couch, looking around quite confusedly.
"Sorry, Asia, did I wake you?" I asked quietly from the doorway.
"N-No."
"So, where is this girl you spoke about, Takumi?" Red, with his booming voice, of course, chose to appear smack dab in the middle of the living room, startling poor Asia, who did the only sensible thing and hid her face behind a blanket.
"Red~?" I called out to him very sweetly.
"Y–Yes?" He mechanically turned to face me, while goosebumps spread around his whole body.
"Apologize, or I won't play with you anymore. Kay?"
"Ehhh?! I'm so sorry, little lady!" He then turned to me, as if expecting to be called a good boy or something. Asia's little blonde head curiously peeked from underneath the blanket, and she slowly looked Red over.
"But Takumi, how did you find a dragon tamer in Japan of all places? They don't have real dragons here."
"Eh. Church's fuck up. Also, Asia?" I shrugged at Red.
"Y–Yes?!" She squeaked, like a little rabbit. Aww~
"You don't have to be scared of this dumbass. That's Red, he's a Dragon like me. Say hi, Red." I leveled him with a stare that said Be nice or else.
Though I probably didn't even need to do that, since once Asia uncovered her whole head, Red took one good look at her, sat down in front of her, and gave her a giant smile. The kind of smile he only ever had when we were having fun.
"Hello there, little tamer. You know, you are the first one I've met since the original Arthur Pendragon." I'm gonna shelve that information for later.
"H–Hello, mister Red. I'm Asia Argento." She said, still partially hidden by the blanket, but then even that safety was disrupted when a giant hand covered in red scales was thrust in front of her.
Asia took it clumsily with both hands and shook it.
"Okay, so from the name, I kinda get why she feels so nice. But I don't really feel tamed, though?"
"Please… if we could be 'tamed', the world would have been destroyed thousands of times by now. She makes us feel good, and we enjoy that feeling, which is why we don't harm their precious stuff. It's a mutually beneficial relationship, after all."
"Um? C–Can you please explain what you two are t-talking about?" Asia asked confusedly.
"We are talking about you. You are a dragon tamer. Which just means that dragons love being around you. I'm assuming that's a major reason Takumi brought you to her home. To her lair, so to speak, right?"
"Pretty much. She radiates comfort and calmness so strongly that I felt it in my soul, but since I'm not ancient like you, I had no idea why." I couldn't resist making a jab at him.
"I'm timeless! Thank you very much. But you do give off a nice feeling… Hmm. I might stop by from time to time." He said, stood up, and gave Asia one final smile.
"You're going already?"
"Yeah, I was kinda in the middle of something before you came."
"Oh, I bet you were." I said sarcastically and rolled my eyes. He just grinned.
"See ya." And poof, without waiting for us to say goodbye, he was gone. Leaving dealing with confused Asia to me.
"Come on, kiddo. I can see the questions written on your face. Ask away."
And boy oh boy, did she have plenty of those, and even though I tried answering them to the best of my ability, I was still drawing a blank on a few of them. Thankfully, most of the questions were about dragons, and with me being one, answering them was easy.
But she did become extremely red in the face, and tried to hide it by burning her head between her knees, when I was describing the feeling of her dragon-taming ability.
"W–Was that the only reason you helped me?"
"I'm not going to lie to you, but yeah, it played a big part in my decision to approach you. Without that, I wouldn't even know you were in town. I felt you first, and then decided to find the source of that nice feeling." She didn't look dejected at all when I told her.
In fact, the smile that was plastered on her face was the biggest one I've seen from her yet.
"Then I'm thankful the Lord gave me such ability, since I was able to meet a wonderful person because of it." Man… didn't that hit me right in my heart? But damn, I should probably not mention that Yahweh kicked the bucket then, right? Right.
"Thank you, Asia, but you are quite wonderful yourself." I grinned and ruffled her hair.
"Anyways, I'm going to step out for a bit, kay? Gotta go handle your school admission."
—
Today was finally Friday, and Sirzechs couldn't wait for the work to be over. There was just one small stack of documents left for him to go over, and then he was done for the day.
When Serafall came over two days ago, gushing about making a new friend, who, much to her excitement, shared her, let's say, enthusiasm for magical girls, nothing prepared him for what he saw on a video she showed him.
Because there she was, that terrifying, incomprehensible monster, Takumi Akabane, standing on a kitchen table, dressed in a light blue, extremely skimpy, magical girl outfit, dancing her heart out to some kind of popular pop song.
But that wasn't the end of it, oh no, far from that actually, because in the next video he saw, she was once again dancing, once again in a magical girls outfit, but that dancing could only be described as highly seductive.
And when he spoke with Takumi, she didn't shy away from admitting that she sought only women for her love-finding quest.
That worried Sirzech quite a bit. Serafall, after all, fell into the same category, and if those two somehow managed to get together, he couldn't imagine the consequences it would have on the Underworld, politically speaking, of course, since personally, he did not care about what kind of partner his fellow Satan chose to pursue.
And when he asked Serafall if she knew what kind of being Takumi Akabane was, she just cheerfully said: Duh, Taku-chan is a Dragon God. I thought you knew that, Zechs?
Then there was Ajuka, his best friend, who had somehow also managed to meet with her during the week, when he came to Kuoh to personally pick up some kind of prototype left behind by Azazel.
He then, in his typical Ajuka fashion, analytically asked him about what he should offer her to guarantee her participation in his, sometimes frankly, insane experiments.
Sirzechs told him that she doesn't want anything other than to find a mate or mates, as is often the case with dragons, and well, most of the supernatural races really.
With that information firmly lodged in his mind, Ajuka left his office muttering about how, yes, right, he did have a niece, and Sirzechs knew that from the look he got on his face, he would not be able to talk sense into his friend. All he could do was silently wish the girl luck.
All of those thoughts went away though, because the woman, the problem, and the potential savior of his sister, was right there, in his office.
"Hello, Sizechs, this will be brief, but I hope you will help me. I have picked up a girl, she is special to me, and she wishes to attend Kuoh. This is her application, please accept." He got hit with the biggest feeling of deja vu he's ever gotten. This was exactly like with Great Red last week!
"*sigh* Akabane-san, could we discuss this in more detail, please?" He was just repeating what he told Red.
"Sure. The girl's name is Asia Argento, an excommunicated nun, who was possibly going to be another victim of that Sacred Gear extraction machine the Fallen had hidden in Kuoh. I don't care about her past with the church, and you shouldn't either, by the way, because that girl is very important, and both Red and I will protect her at any cost… And I think that's pretty much it?" She just rattled off one earthshattering piece of information after another.
If she truly was so important that Dragon Gods were willing to protect her, it could only mean one thing: the girl was a dragon tamer. That's pretty rare, and the church definitely must not have known about that, but that wasn't a big surprise, since to find out, you kind of need a dragon willing to tell you, and no dragons were ever affiliated with them for some reason.
"If the church asks, I will send them your way then, is that agreeable?" He had no real reason to refuse her request, and winning some proverbial brownie points was always a plus.
"Of course. I have a bone to pick with them for her treatment." She said with a deep frown.
"Oh, and by the way, I started training your little sister and her peerage for that Rating Game, so she might start complaining about that." She added as an afterthought, but Sirzechs had to bite his inner cheek to stop himself from doing a happy dance.
"Y–You did? That's wonderful news, Akabane-san. Wonderful news. So, how did Ria-tan— ehm… How did Rias do?"
"Hmm~ Pretty well all things considered. I think that by the time the Rating Game comes around, she should be able to destroy Riser completely." Aaand the biting failed. He broke out into an insane fit of laughter, and not even the strange look she was giving him was able to stop him for quite some time.
"Akabane-san, that is the best piece of news I have received in the last five years, maybe even more."
--------------------------
Here are some more pictures of Takumi( I have like, waaay too many of those).
Also, I'm quite sad that nobody caught the hint about Takumi's in the last chapter.