Chapter 133 — Dirty Wings
Chapter 133 — Dirty Wings
Akeno
Sadly, for me at least, the next day training with Yuki-chan went without any hiccups.
We met again after our individual training to repeat most of what was done yesterday.
Gasper-kun and Asia-chan worked on their physical training.
Rias studied her notes and would join Asia-chan and Gasper-kun in their training.
She would also check on Koneko-chan and me to see how we were doing.
I noticed that she gave Yuki-chan a wide berth as she moved across the room.
Koneko-chan was practicing her Senjutsu and pummeling the wooden dummy.
She would coat her fists with Touki and strike the dummy over and over until the white aura around her fists would fade.
Then she would take a break and meditate until she was ready to go again.
Yuki-chan was sitting on one of the sofas at the edge of the room, just like yesterday.
She was switching into her altered state and staying in it as long as she could before it began to affect her too much.
She seemed to be doing a bit better than yesterday, but it was hard to tell while I was training too.
I could feel her gaze on me while she was sitting by the side of the room, practicing.
It could still give me goosebumps when I felt it on me.
The thought of egging her on while in that state crossed my mind once or twice since I had first seen it, but it probably wasn’t something that should be done quite yet.
My own training was to learn to use the power of my cursed side.
I was still upset with Azazel for pushing me to use the powers I had inherited from that man.
And I hated that the only way for me to get stronger was to use it.
That man had been the reason Mother died and now I was forced to rely on what I had inherited from him to grow strong.
I had tried to force those thoughts out of my mind as I trained.
When it was time for Yuki-chan to spar with Koneko-chan, I was excited to see what happened.
Mainly because the first two spars would be between those two, and the second two would be between Yuki-chan and I.
The first spar between Konek-chan and Yuki-chan was a mix of their first two spars from yesterday.
Yuki-chan was just as aggressive, but was more careful of Koneko-chan’s strength and hand to hand skills.
She managed to get in close a few times and tried to grapple Koneko-chan to the floor, but it didn’t work.
Koneko-chan saw it coming and even if she got caught in a lock or a grab, she was able to power through it with her [Rook] strength.
It ended in Yuki-chan’s loss, but she wasn’t as badly beaten as yesterday.
Asia-chan still had to patch her up, but she was ready to continue in only a few minutes.
She seemed much more relaxed going into the matches compared to yesterday.
The earlier attempts and our talk about it seemed to have helped her.
The second match was more interesting,
Yuki-chan was more cautious as she probed Koneko-chan’s guard as the match started.
That lasted a few moments until Koneko-chan moved forward to press Yuki-chan into fighting or backing up to the edge of the matts.
Yuki-chan managed to slip through Koneko-chan’s blows and trip her up, causing Koneko-chan to stumble.
Yuki-chan tried to press her advantage, but Koenko-chan grabbed her and took her to the ground with her.
The two of them tumbled across the floor trying to pin the other, but Koneko-chan quickly came out on top.
She tried to get Yuki-chan to yield once she had her pinned on her back.
Yuki-chan said something that made Koneko-chan’s cat ears twitch and her face turn a light shade of pink.
It was too far, and she said it in too low of a voice to pick up what it was, which was a shame.
Koneko-chan pressed her pin harder, causing Yuki-chan to yelp and then chuckle at her.
Rias had to call the match due to Yuki-chan refusal to yield.
Then it was my turn.
Rias had explained that it would be a match using only basic spells.
That meant no curses, Kitsune abilities, or holy lightning.
If Yuki-chan used her Kitsune abilities, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with her due to the utility she had between her abilities.
It was supposed to be a friendly spar, so it made sense, I would just get less out of it training wise than Koneko-chan did.
It also meant that I wouldn’t get up close and personal with Yuki-chan due to that being one of the reasons Rias gave to cancel the spar.
Which was probably a good thing.
I’d rather have Yuki-chan all excited when it was normal, and not a side effect of her power up.
The first bout ended up a contest of brute strength.
As soon Yuki entered her ability she created four magic circles and started rapidly launching fire bolts at me.
I answered with a shield of demonic power and a volly of lighting back at her.
She threw up her own shield, and from there it became a slug fest.
We launched spells at eachother without reprieve, and Yuki-chan barred her teeth in a snarl as she started to slowly push forwards towards me.
She was excellent with her spell work and efficiently, but I had the edge in being able to use lightning spells.
Yuki was specialized in curse magic, but I was specialized in lightning magic.
I couldn’t use my holy lightning, but it was still more than enough.
Without her curses she couldn’t keep up with me.
The match ended with her collapsing and falling out of her state after one of my spells finally punched through her defenses.
She let out a cry of pain as she fell, which caused Asia-chan to rush to her side.
She was only minorly injured and exhausted from the fight.
We took a half hour break for her and I to rest before the last match.
The match went very differently from our first one.
It started with Yuki-chan launching a fireball between us that obscured my vision.
I sent spells through the cloud of smoke to where she had been standing.
Before I could think to try and clear the smoke, Yuki-chan sent fire bolts at me from a different angle.
I had to quickly deploy a shield to defend against them, before sending a volly of lighting in the general direction they had come from.
The smoke had started to clear and I didn’t see Yuki-chan.
Then I heard more fire bolts coming at me from behind.
I quickly spun and barely got another barrier up in time to protect myself.
She had circled comepletely behind me and was still moving.
She had realized that since she couldn’t win in a contest of strength, that she would have to fight smarter.
I wasn’t going to let her set the pace of the match, so I fired a cluster of spells to try snd get her to stay still.
Yuki-chan ducked and weaved through them as she continued to move and fire attacks back at me.
This continued for a few more quick exchanges until a firebolt hit my side from behind.
Yuki-chan must have delayed one of her spells to fire after she had moved around me from it, and I had missed the magic circle in the midst of the fight.
It wasn’t enough to end the match, but I was sent tumbling to the ground.
As I went to get up, I saw Yuki-chan had closed most of the distance to us.
She had a dark grin on her face as she lept at me, like she wanted to tackle me back to the ground.
Before she could reach me I felt the sensation of Gasper-Kim’s Sacred Gear on me.
Then Rias, and Asia-chan were by my side and Koneko-chan and Gasper were near the still frozen Yuki-chan.
Gasper-kun had frozen both of us and the repositioned to only affect Yuki-chan.
The match ended there, and Yuki-chan apologized for losing control again.
I waved her off and we went about straightening the room now that training was over for the day.
I ignored the way her rushing at me like that had made my heart rate spike.
And now, as I was about to leave to head to my room to freshen up, Yuki-chan approached me.
“Akeno-san. Would you be able to stay and talk for a bit before we leave?”
I raised an eyebrow at her and glanced at the others.
Rias and Asia-chan were talking and about to leave.
Gasper-kun had left first, probably due to his rather minimal social battery running out a while ago.
And Koneko-chan glanced at us, before walking out of the room.
“Sure Yuki-chan. I already told you not to worry about the second match, but I’d love to get some alone time with you anyways.” I replied with a grin.
“I wanted to ask how your training has been going, with your Fallen Angel side.” She said, ignoring my small tease.
My smile thinned.
“I’ve made progress. I’m sure you’ve seen me practicing during our trading yesterday and today.” I said, trying to keep my voice sounding relaxed.
“That’s not what I meant, Akeno-san. I wanted to know how you are doing with it. I know that it must be difficult for you with what you’ve said before.”
I had talked to Yuki-chan about my Fallen Angel heritage before, vaguely, after I told Ise-kun about it at my shrine.
Though she seemed to have picked up more of the truth since then.
No doubt due to Azazel’s comments.
“I’m fine Yuki-chan. I need to use these powers to grow stronger. Even if I hate them and the reason I have them. Azazel-sensei was right. If I had used these powers earlier, then things may have been different,” I said, with a wry grin. “We may have defeated Riser Phenex, I may have been able to injure Kokabiel, and I might not have been frozen by Gasper-kun’s Sacred Gear during the Three Faction summit. I could have prevented you from being taken from the peerage after our first Rating game, and Ise-kun wouldn’t have needed to give up an arm to his Sacred Gear. You wouldn’t have tried to let Rias leave you behind to fight Kokabiel. And I would have been able to fight with you all during the summit.”
My voice became more strained the longer I spoke.
I looked down at my hands.
I had clenched them to the point my knuckles had gone white.
I relaxed them and straightened out my skirt.
“Those things may be true, but they’re all hypotheticals. What is true is that using those powers is something you haven’t fully accepted yet. You’re using them, but you still haven't accepted that part of yourself. It must be painful for you to use your powers that way.”
I scoffed.
“It doesn’t matter. I need to become stronger. When Azazel-sensei listed the strongest members of the peerage to Koneko-chan, I wasn’t one of the three that he listed.” I said with a scowl. “I’m sure that Ise-kun would be ahead of me on Azazel-sensei’s list too. Koneko-chan and I are the ones falling behind, but she is making progress with her Senjutsu and Youjutsu. I am our peerage’s [Queen]. I am supposed to be a strong piece that you all can rely on. So I need to use the power given to me by that man. I need to use them in order to be a valuable member of our group.”
“I understand that you feel the need to become stronger. We all do. We will be facing stronger opponents during our Rating Games against the other young Devil peerages,” Yuki-chan said. “And I understand that you don’t like your father.”
I glared at her when she referred to that man as my father.
“But,” she continued. “You aren’t him. Whatever he did to make you hate him so much, it shouldn’t affect your view of yourself even if your powers are inherited from him.”
I was silent for a moment.
“I hate him, because he is the reason my mother is dead,” I said quietly. “He did not do it himself, but he was the reason she was killed. It’s because she fell in love with a Fallen Angel and had me, that she was murdered. And he did nothing to protect her. So I hate the powers and the dirty wings that I inherited from him. I refuse to accept that part of myself, even if I use it to become stronger.”
Yuki-chan moved closer to me.
“And that is something that is related to him, not you,” she said. “You weren’t the reason that your mother was killed. Your Fallen Angel wings aren’t the reason for it, and your powers aren’t either. You did nothing to her, and there is nothing wrong with your powers.” She took one of my hands before continuing. “When… When my parents were murdered, I thought it was because of me, because of my traits as a Kitsune that others were afraid of or didn’t understand. But I didn’t hate those parts of myself. I didn’t hate those parts of myself because I realized they weren’t the reason my parents were hurt. It was the ones who burned down my family’s home who I hated. The ones who didn’t understand me and chose to vilify me into a monster they had the right to kill. My traits are a part of me and a tool. They are not the actions of those who saw them as something wrong.”
I looked at my hand that she was holding, then up at her.
“So you think that I should just accept my Fallen Angel half and ignore the fact that I only have it because of Baraqiel?” I asked.
“Like you said, it’s your Fallen Angel half, not his.” She said, as she squeezed my hand and let go. “If you want to get into specifics, your mother is part of the reason you have those powers as well, but you don’t think to blame her. At the end of the day, you are not the one who hurt her and your powers are something that you decide what they will mean and be used for.”
I let out a sigh.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to look at it that way, Yuki-chan.” I said.
She gave me a small smile.
“I’m not telling you that you have to, Akeno-san. I only wanted you to know that I could relate to how you feel about your powers. I just wanted you to know that you can rely on me and the others in the peerage. We care about you and don’t want you to be miserable. If you need to talk about it further, I am always willing to listen.”
I gave her a small, but genuine smile.
That was rather sweet of her.
She was truly kind under her composed and quiet exterior.
It was understandable why Koneko-chan had a crush on her.
“Thank you, Yuki-chan,” I said, then my smile grew more teasing. “But if you talk to me like that after getting me alone, I’ll think that you might confess to me, Yuki-chan.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I think that we should get cleaned up for dinner. You might need rest if you’re tired enough to think that.” She said as she turned to leave.
“Oh, Yuki-chan, you really are shy. First you pretend not to be interested in Ise-kun, and now me. If you want to grow closer to your Onee-san, I wouldn’t mind.” I said as she walked away.
She didn't turn back and shook her head as she walked out of the room.
I smiled to myself as I watched her go.
She was too much fun not to bother.
It was one of the reasons she had started to catch my attention more and more.
I left to head to my room.
I could tease her again and maybe make Koneko-chan jealous during dinner.
That brought a larger smile to my face.
_________________________________________
The rest of our training passed quickly as we settled into our new routine.
We continued to practice with Yuki-chan in the afternoon after our individual training.
There were no major incidents like the first day.
Yuki-chan did manage to pin Koneko-chan one more time, but she was able to come out of her ability before anything more could happen.
Koneko-chan was still flushed after wards, but it wasn’t due to anything more than proximity to Yuki-chan when they were tangled on the floor, and probably something that she said while under the influence of her state.
I wasn’t certain, but Koneko-chan seemed somewhat disappointed when Yuki-chan came out of her state so quickly while she was on top of her.
We made a few other changes to our training as well.
We paired up and faced Yuki-chan two on one.
She seemed to tend to focus on one enemy at a time and we realized that was another issue she would have to overcome.
We also had Gasper-kun spar with her, to give her another opponent, and she reacted rather strangely to him.
She managed to grab him in their spar, and we all moved forward to try and help, but she pulled him close to her chest and made a growling sound at the rest of us, like she was guarding him.
Afterwards, Gasper-kun was flushed completely red and hid into a cardboard box he had brought to the room.
He muttered something about being close to a girls chest as he hid.
Yuki-chan mentioned that it might have to do with her thinking that Gasper-kun should be protected due to how nervous and shy he was.
Beyond that, there was nothing of any real note that happened as we continued our new routine of training.
The days passed quickly and it soon became time for Ise-kun, Yuuto-Chan, and Xenovia to return.
It was almost time for our Rating Game.