Ch.38
Sunlight woke me up because I'd never closed the window.
Asia was still on top of me. Her head on my chest, her legs tangled with mine, one hand flat over my heart. Her blonde hair was across my shoulder and my arm and partly in my mouth. I pulled the strand free. She didn't stir. Her breathing was deep and even and she weighed almost nothing.
The room smelled like morning. Mountain air and tatami mats and underneath both of those, us. The evidence was on the futon and on my skin and on hers and I pulled the blanket up over her bare shoulders because the air from the window was cold.
She murmured and pressed closer. Her face burrowed into my chest and her hand curled against my sternum and her lips moved against my skin. She was dreaming about something. Her brow creased and released.
Her lashes against her cheeks. The faint pink still on her skin from last night, or from sleep, or both. A mosquito bite on her shoulder I hadn't noticed before.
She woke up in stages. The breathing changed first, getting shallower. Then her hand flexed on my chest. Then her legs shifted and her hips moved and she made a small sound and her eyes opened.
Green. Confused. Blinking at my chest from two inches away. The confusion lasted until the recognition hit and her entire body went rigid.
She was naked. On top of me. In my room. After.
The flush started at her ears and swept down her neck and kept going until it reached her collarbone and probably further but I couldn't see because the blanket was there. Her mouth opened. No sound came out. Her eyes went so wide the white showed all the way around the green.
"Morning."
She made a sound like a teakettle and buried her face in my chest.
I laughed. I tried not to. Her hair was in my face and her body was stiff as a board against mine and she was pressing her face into my chest hard enough to leave a mark and I couldn't help it. The laugh came up from my stomach and shook both of us.
"Ise-san, don't laugh, I'm- I can't- I'm not wearing-"
"I know."
"Last night I- we-"
"I was there."
She made another sound, smaller, and pressed her face harder into my chest. Her ears were crimson. Her whole body was radiating heat. She stayed there for a long time, forehead against my sternum, breathing fast, and I ran my hand up her back and felt the bumps of her spine under my fingers.
"We should go downstairs," I said.
"I can never go downstairs again."
"Breakfast is probably ready."
"I'm never eating again."
"Asia."
She pulled back. Her green eyes were wet and her face was red and her hair was a disaster, half matted from sleep and half tangled from my hands last night. She looked at me. Her mouth was pressed tight and her brow was furrowed but the corners of her lips kept twitching up.
I kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them the smile won.
She got off me and found the t-shirt on the floor and pulled it on. It was wrinkled and it hung past her thighs and her hair was worse than any hair I'd seen on a human being and she looked at me and said, "Do I look okay?"
"You look like you slept in someone else's room."
"Ise-san!"
I pulled on shorts and a shirt. She tried to fix her hair with her fingers and gave up. We walked to the door. She stopped with her hand on the handle and took a breath and held it.
"They'll know."
"Probably."
"Koneko-san will know."
"Koneko already knows everything."
She took another breath. Opened the door. We went downstairs.
The kitchen was warm and bright. Akeno was at the stove in an apron, a spatula in one hand, her black hair tied up in her usual ponytail. Rias was at the table with a cup of coffee, her crimson hair loose around her shoulders, reading through what looked like a tactical diagram on her phone. Koneko was sitting on the counter in the corner, eating cereal straight from the box, her gold eyes half-lidded.
Rias looked up when we walked in.
Her eyes went to Asia first. The rumpled t-shirt. The destroyed hair. The bare feet. Then to me. Back to Asia. Her jaw tightened. One second. Her blue-green eyes held on me and her mouth was a thin line and her coffee cup paused halfway to her lips.
Then she exhaled. Set the cup down. Stood up, walked to the cabinet, took out a third mug, filled it with coffee, and placed it on the table next to the other two.
She sat back down.
"Good morning," she said. Her voice was perfectly level.
"Ara ara." Akeno's voice from the stove, without turning around. "Asia-chan, your hair is different this morning."
Asia's hand flew to her head. "I- it's- the pillow was-"
Akeno turned. The smile was there. The specific one she used when she was enjoying herself at someone else's expense, the corners of her mouth curled and her violet eyes warm. "The pillow. Of course."
"I just slept in a weird position-"
"Mm-hm."
"Akeno-san, please don't-"
"I'm not doing anything." Akeno turned back to the stove. "Breakfast will be ready in five minutes. You should eat. You must be exhausted from... sleeping in a weird position."
Asia's face was the color of a sunset. She sat down at the table and picked up the coffee mug and held it with both hands like a shield. Her eyes were fixed on the table's surface.
Koneko took a bite of cereal. Chewed. Swallowed.
"...Loud."
One word. Monotone. Without looking up from the cereal box.
Asia dropped her toast. It landed butter-side down on the table. She stared at it. Then at Koneko. Then at the table. She picked up the toast. Put it on her plate. Picked the plate up. Set it down. Her hands were shaking.
I sat down next to her. Took my coffee. The third mug was warm and the coffee was black and Rias had poured it without being asked. The two empty mugs already at the table meant Rias and Akeno drank together every morning. Now there were three.
Nobody said anything about it. Breakfast was eggs and miso soup and rice and Akeno had made extra, enough for five, and the kitchen was warm from the stove and the mountain sunlight came through the window and hit the table at an angle that caught the steam from the soup.
Training started at nine.
The clearing behind the east wing was the same as it had been all week, the grass worn down from days of sparring, the training dummies replaced twice. But today was different and I knew it was different from the first fifteen seconds.
My body was faster.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing anyone watching would notice. But when I moved, the delay was shorter. The gap between deciding to step and my foot leaving the ground, the fraction of a second between seeing an opening and my hand moving toward it. Shorter. Like a connection that had been running through a bad wire was suddenly clean.
Kiba came at me with a practice sword, a standard Knight-speed attack, the same combination he'd been running all week. I slipped the first strike and countered and my fist was there before he'd finished the second motion and he had to abort and twist away and he was fast, he was always fast, but I was keeping up in a way I hadn't been yesterday.
He stepped back. Adjusted his grip. Came again, faster. I blocked, redirected, punched through the opening, and the hit landed clean on his shoulder guard. He skidded back two feet.
"You've changed overnight." He was breathing hard. His blonde hair was damp with sweat and he was holding the practice sword at middle guard and his head was tilted.
I shrugged. "Good night's sleep."
He smiled. "Right."
We went again. Faster this time. Kiba was a Knight, speed was his thing, and on a good day he was the fastest person in the clearing by a wide margin. Today the margin was narrower. My reflexes were sharper, my reserves deeper, and there was a warmth in my core that hadn't been there yesterday, clean and steady, like a pilot light. The holy energy integration. Whatever Asia's Sacred Gear had done to the Boosted Gear was still doing it.
Ddraig was quiet. She'd been quiet since last night. But the Gear's gem pulsed green on the back of my left hand every time I moved fast, a soft steady pulse, and the energy it drew from my reserves was smoother than usual. Like a machine that had been running on two types of fuel and had just gotten a third.
I trained with Koneko after. She came at me with a Rook's direct-line aggression, punches that would crack concrete, and I dodged the first three and caught the fourth on my forearm and the impact rattled my teeth. But I stayed up. She hit me again. I blocked, redirected, stepped inside her guard, and put my palm on her sternum, controlled, a tap that said "this is where I'd hit you."
Her gold eyes looked at my palm on her chest. Then up at me.
"...Perverted."
"It's a fighting technique."
"...Pervert technique."
But she was breathing harder than usual and when we reset she adjusted her guard higher. She'd noticed the speed change too.
Rias found me after the afternoon session.
I was sitting on the bench by the tree line, drinking water, and the bruises from Koneko's fists were already blooming across my arms. The sun was lower and the heat of the day was fading and sweat was drying on my skin and my muscles ached from pushing hard enough to matter.
She sat next to me. Close enough that her knee touched mine. Her crimson hair was tied back for training and her face was flushed from her own drills with Akeno and she had that look she got when she was thinking about the Rating Game. Focused. Tight around the eyes.
"Give me an honest assessment."
I looked at her. Her blue-green eyes were steady. She wasn't asking for reassurance.
"Of your chances against Riser?"
"Yes."
I took a drink of water. Wiped my mouth. "Your peerage is too small. He has fifteen pieces. You have four fighters and a healer. Even if every one of your pieces takes out two of his, that's ten down and he still has five plus himself. And the five remaining aren't going to be his weakest."
She didn't flinch. She held my gaze and her jaw was tight and her hands were on her knees and she listened.
"Riser himself is the real problem. Phenex regeneration means anything that doesn't kill him outright doesn't matter. He heals. Everything. Fire, physical damage, lightning. Unless you hit him with something he can't regenerate from, you're fighting a war of attrition you can't win because he literally never gets tired."
"Holy-element attacks disrupt Phenex regeneration."
"Temporarily. And the only person in your peerage with holy-type potential is Akeno, and she hates that part of herself enough that she won't use it voluntarily."
Rias's mouth thinned. She knew that.
"What about you?"
"I'll be stronger by the day of the Game. But I'm one Pawn. Even boosted, my ceiling right now is Mid-Class. Riser is High-Class with a broken healing factor and fifteen years of combat experience. I can't solo him."
"I'm not asking you to solo him."
"I know."
She looked at the tree line. The sun was in the branches and the shadows were long across the clearing and somewhere in the villa Akeno was running another drill and the faint crack of lightning reached us.
"Then we make each one count," she said.
Her voice was quiet and her jaw was set and she was looking at the trees and not at me. She stood up. Brushed off her training shorts. Walked back toward the villa with her spine straight and her crimson hair swinging behind her.
I watched her go.
Two days. The Rating Game was in two days.
Asia found me at the bench twenty minutes later. She had her healing kit and she sat beside me and held out her hands.
"You're bruised."
"Koneko hits hard."
"She does." Asia placed her palms on my forearm. The green glow of Twilight Healing bloomed from her rings, warm and steady, and the bruise under her fingers started fading from purple to yellow to nothing. She moved to the next one. Methodical. Gentle.
Her hands reached my chest. She pushed my shirt up and spread her fingers over the bruise from Koneko's straight punch, the one that had nearly cracked a rib. The warmth of the healing sank into my chest and her fingertips were light on my skin and she paused.
Her fingers were where they'd been last night. Over my heart. Her palm flat against my chest.
She was staring at her own hand on my chest.
"It still tingles," she said. Quiet. "Where we... where you..."
She couldn't finish. Her ears went crimson and her gaze dropped to her own fingers and she swallowed.
I covered her hand with mine.
She looked up. Green eyes. The flush on her face. The evening light on her blonde hair. Her hand warm under mine on my chest, the healing glow soft between our fingers.
She left her hand there. The healing continued, slower, the green light pulsing gently, and the warmth spread through my chest and her fingers curled against my skin under my palm and she didn't pull away.
The sun dropped behind the mountains. The clearing went gold and then amber and then the shadows reached us on the bench. Asia healed the last bruise on my shoulder. Took her hands back. Placed them in her lap. The glow faded.
"Two more days," she said.
"Yeah."
She looked at the villa. The lights were coming on in the windows. Akeno's lightning had stopped. The mountain was getting quiet.
"I'll be ready," she said. "I'll keep everyone healed. Whatever happens."
"I know you will."
She stood up. Smoothed her skirt. Took a breath that was a little too deep and let it out slowly.
"Goodnight, Ise-san."
"Night, Asia."
She walked toward the villa. At the door she stopped and turned and looked at me and the light from the kitchen caught her face and she smiled. Then she went inside and the door closed and I sat on the bench in the cooling air and the mountain was quiet and the Rating Game was in two days and Rias's peerage was outnumbered and outgunned and I was sitting here with holy energy in my veins and a dragon in my head and a plan that depended on ten seconds I hadn't earned yet.
A bird called from the tree line. Two notes. The same bird I'd been hearing all week.
I went inside.