Ch.30
The Gremory magic circle deposited us on a hillside at dusk and the first thing I registered was the air. Cold, clean, pine-scented, the kind of mountain air that makes your lungs feel like they've been breathing the wrong stuff your entire life. The second thing I registered was that the villa wasn't a villa. It was a small mansion built into the slope of a forested mountain, two stories of dark wood and stone with a wrap-around porch and steam rising from somewhere behind it. The hot springs. Of course the Gremory family had a mountain retreat with hot springs.
"Home for the next ten days," Rias said. She was standing at the front of the group, her bag slung over one shoulder, crimson hair catching the last of the sunset. She looked at the villa like she was remembering being young here. "The training grounds are behind the east wing. The forest is ours for two kilometers in every direction. The springs are natural."
"It's beautiful," Asia said. She was holding her suitcase with both hands and her green eyes were wide and she was looking at the trees like she'd never seen trees this tall, which, having grown up in an Italian convent, she might not have.
"Dibs on the room with the view," I said.
"The rooms have been assigned," Rias said without looking at me.
"By who?"
"By me."
Akeno covered her mouth with her hand. "Ara ara, I wonder whose room is next to whose."
Rias's ears went red. She walked inside.
Mine was on the second floor, end of the hallway, corner room with a window facing the forest. Rias was next door. Akeno was across the hall. Asia was two doors down. Koneko was at the other end of the hallway, maximum distance from everyone else's rooms.
Kiba was on the first floor. His own wing. The guy had been unfailingly polite about the entire harem situation and the least he deserved was not hearing things through thin walls.
I unpacked. The room was simple. Futon on a tatami floor, a low table, a closet, a window that opened onto a view of dark pines and the first stars appearing. My bag had clothes, training gear, the cracked bread manga, and a notebook I'd been using to track Ddraig's training exercises. The notebook was getting thick.
A knock on the door.
"Come in."
Rias. She'd changed out of her school uniform into training clothes. Black athletic top, compression shorts, her crimson hair tied back in a ponytail I'd never seen her wear. The ponytail changed the shape of her face. Made her jawline sharper.
She had a folder in her hands.
"Training schedule," she said. She set it on the table. "Tomorrow, day one. I've assigned each member of the peerage to a training focus. Your schedule is separate."
"Because I'm not in the peerage."
"Because you're not in the peerage." She said it flat. "Grayfia approved your presence as an allied consultant. Sirzechs arranged it." A pause. "My brother is meddling."
"Your brother is helping."
"My brother is meddling helpfully. There's a difference." She sat on the edge of the table. Her legs were long and bare in the compression shorts and she crossed one knee over the other and the athletic top was tight across her chest and I didn't look away because I never did and she knew it.
"Stop looking at my legs," she said.
"Stop having legs."
Her mouth twitched. She picked up the folder, opened it, and started walking me through the schedule. Her voice was all business but the tips of her ears were still pink.
Day one started at dawn and didn't stop.
Kiba was first. We sparred on the training grounds behind the east wing, a flat clearing of packed dirt ringed by trees. He used a practice sword, wooden, and he still moved so fast that the first three exchanges ended with me on my back.
"You're telegraphing with your shoulders," he said. He was standing over me, hand extended, smiling the calm smile he always wore. "Your right shoulder drops before every strike."
"Thanks."
"You're welcome. Again?"
We went again. And again. By the seventh round I was reading his feints better and my guard was holding and on the eighth round I caught his wrist during a lunge and redirected him into a stumble and his eyes went wide for a second before the smile came back.
"Improvement," he said. "Significant improvement. When did you get this fast?"
I didn't answer that.
Koneko was next. Conditioning. She stood in front of me in her gym clothes, white hair pulled back with her cat-shaped clips, gold eyes flat, and she punched me in the stomach.
I didn't fold.
The impact was solid, her Rook-class strength compressed into a fist the size of an apple. A month ago it would have doubled me over. Now it landed and my abs held and I rocked back half a step and straightened.
Koneko blinked.
"Hm."
One syllable. She punched me again, harder. I took it. She punched me a third time and I grunted and she tilted her head and her gold eyes narrowed by a fraction and the "Hm" from before had gained a question mark.
"You're sturdier," she said. Monotone. She walked away to get a water bottle.
I took that as a compliment.
Akeno was after lunch.
Lightning-resistance drills. She would hit me with increasingly strong bursts of elemental lightning while I practiced channeling demonic energy into a defensive barrier. Akeno Himejima enjoyed hurting things. Her definition of "calibrated training intensity" was whatever made me flinch.
"Ready?" she said. She was in her shrine maiden outfit, the red hakama and white top, and her ponytail was hanging over one shoulder and her violet eyes had the gleam they got right before pain. The sadist smile.
"Do I have a choi-"
She zapped me.
Yellow lightning arced from her fingertip and hit my chest and every muscle in my torso locked and my teeth clenched and the barrier I'd been building shattered and I was on one knee with smoke coming off my shirt.
"Ara ara." She walked closer. Her sandals were quiet on the grass. "That was only thirty percent."
"Thirty?"
"Ufufu. Shall I go lower?"
"Higher."
Her eyes widened. The sadist smile turned real and her violet eyes went bright. "Higher?"
The second bolt was stronger. My shirt ripped across the chest, the fabric burning away along the lightning's path. The impact knocked me back a step but I stayed standing this time. My chest was marked. Red lines where the electricity had traced, branching patterns on my skin, Lichtenberg figures etched in burns.
Akeno stopped smiling. She closed the distance between us in two steps and her fingers were on my chest, tracing the burn marks. Her touch was cool. Healing energy flowed from her fingertips, green and warm, and the burns faded under her fingers but the red lines stayed.
"Ara ara," she said. Her voice was lower. Her fingers were still on my chest. "I left marks."
She didn't sound sorry.
Twenty feet away, Rias was watching. Her arms were crossed.
Akeno's fingers lingered on my chest for three more seconds. Her violet eyes were on the marks and then on my face and her mouth was curved and her hand was warm and the healing energy had stopped flowing but she hadn't pulled her hand away.
I caught her wrist. Gently. Moved her hand off my chest and let go.
"Save some for tomorrow," I said.
"Ufufu. I always do."
She turned and walked back to her starting position, ponytail swinging. Rias's arms were still crossed. Her blue-green eyes tracked Akeno across the clearing and then came back to me.
Asia appeared from the side of the clearing carrying a first-aid kit she'd assembled from the villa's supplies. "Issei-san! You're hurt!" She knelt beside me and her green eyes were wide and worried and her hands were already glowing with Twilight Healing and the warmth spread across my chest where Akeno's marks were.
"It's fine, Asia. Just training."
"There are burn marks on your chest." Her hands pressed against my bare skin. Her fingers were small and her palms were warm from the healing Sacred Gear and she was touching my chest with both hands and her face was six inches from my pecs and her cheeks were pink and she was very focused on the healing and not looking at my face.
"Thank you," I said. Quiet. Just for her.
Her fingers pressed a little harder against my skin. The healing warmth intensified. She still wasn't looking at my face.
"You're welcome, Issei-san."
Evening. The hot springs.
The men's bath was separated from the women's by a tall bamboo partition. The water was hot and mineral-heavy and my muscles were screaming from the day's training and the steam was thick and the sky above was full of stars I couldn't see from Kuoh Town. I sank into the water up to my chin and closed my eyes and the heat soaked into every bruise Kiba had given me, every impact zone Koneko had tested, every lightning mark Akeno had left.
On the other side of the partition, voices. Murmured. Female. The splash of someone entering the water.
"Three of them," Ddraig said. Amused.
"Three?"
"The Gremory, the half-breed, and the nun. The cat is on the roof watching all of you."
I opened my eyes and looked up. The villa's roof was visible above the partition. In the fading light, a small white-haired figure was perched on the edge of the roof, legs dangling, gold eyes looking down at the hot springs with the patient surveillance of a cat watching a fishpond.
Koneko saw me looking. She ate a piece of dried squid. Looked away.
On the other side of the bamboo, Rias's voice: "The water is perfect."
Akeno's voice: "Ufufu, isn't it? Though I wonder if anyone is listening."
A splash. Asia's voice, higher, flustered: "Akeno-san! Don't splash!"
I leaned back in the water. The stars were out fully now, scattered across a sky that was darker than any sky I'd seen in Japan because the mountain was far from any city. The steam rose around me and the water was hot and the bamboo was thin and ten days stretched out ahead of me with all of them in this place.
My muscles were shot. Tomorrow would be worse and I was looking forward to it.
I grinned.