Chapter 30 (Patreon)

“You’re awfully quiet today,” I remarked, watching the Sacred Gear wielder huff through his exercises with fierce concentration. “Gremory-san isn’t here, so where are your usual moans and complaints?”

“Hah… Oof… Hah…” Issei gave me a look that said he’d explain as soon as he finished this set.

Not bad. Not bad at all, I thought with some satisfaction, nodding as I watched him. The nod answered his look and expressed how pleased I was with both myself and this former member of the Pervert Trio.

When Issei and I first met as demons, he wasn’t fat. But you couldn’t really call him athletic, either. An active young man of average build, perhaps a little on the skinny side.

He still wasn’t built like a tank, but it was obvious Hyodo wasn’t half-assing his work with the weights. Trenbolone can go fuck itself; it has nothing on the training methods and pills of the cultivation worlds.

His abs were already well defined, his back looked impressive, and his chest muscles had developed nicely. His arms and legs no longer looked like sticks with a hint of muscle; they looked respectable. At this point, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to call myself his trainer in public.

And that dream of his…

“You know what, Issei?” I nodded to myself while Hyodo finished his set of barbell squats. The joke I’d recently played on the kendo club came back to me and gave me an idea for my classmate. “Go to the pool when you have some free time.”

“Huh?” He blinked in surprise but didn’t lose his rhythm.

“Consider it a training assignment.” I chuckled quietly and took a notebook and pen from my spatial bracelet. “I’ll write out a plan so you don’t forget the details.”

“An assignment?” Hyodo asked on an exhale as he set the barbell down. The set was over: one hundred squats done.

“Compare how girls reacted to you before with how they react to you now.” What better way to motivate a boy in the throes of puberty?

“Can I have the details?” Aww, look how attentive the former member of the Pervert Trio had become! He sat down on the weight bench, wiped away his sweat with a towel, arranged his face into a very, very serious expression, and obediently folded his boob-grabbing paws in his lap. A model of respectful diligence.

“You’ll need them,” I agreed with a nod, laughing to myself. “This weekend, you’re going somewhere popular with lots of girls. A pool, a water park… hell, go to the beach if you like. I’ll give you money for the trip and anything else you need to complete the assignment. But. All you’re going to do is swim and, between swims, lie in the shade under an umbrella for ten or twenty minutes. Talking to girls is forbidden. Asking anyone out is forbidden. Any kind of sexual or erotic activity is forbidden. Showing your perverted side is forbidden. I repeat: all you do is swim.

“If a girl approaches you, be polite and give her a nice smile, but end the conversation as quickly as you can. Use whatever excuse you like, though you should mostly say you just want to splash around in the water. If she asks you on a date, turn her down.”

Issei’s face grew so long he looked like a horse. He was as baffled and astonished as Raynare had been when she realized some demon brat really was beating her to a pulp—and she had neither the strength nor the skill to fight back.

“Yes, yes, turn them down. But keep count. How many times does a girl approach you first? How many times does one ask you to go somewhere together? And most importantly, how many come back after you’ve politely turned them down? That last one matters most. It’ll show how attractive you are to girls even after you’ve bruised their pride a little.”

“Uh… uh-huh.” Issei took the page I’d torn from my notebook, stared at the “assignment rules,” and went still.

“I may not teach you martial arts or be your mentor in the full sense, but we’re still classmates and friends.” Calling him a friend came to me easily.

The kid was still weak and very young, of course, but I liked how quickly he was improving. At first, I’d thought of him as nothing more than a clown. Now I could imagine that in a hundred years—or hell, perhaps even ten—this young reincarnated demon might become a man worth respecting. We’d see. At worst, one more lie, or rather a bit of shameless flattery, wouldn’t do any harm.

“Besides, as your… mm… fitness trainer, I want you to see your own progress. I don’t mean in the mirror. I’m sure your eyesight works fine. I mean the effect your hard work is having in an area that matters a great deal to Issei Hyodo.”

“Um… I see.” Issei nodded, looking a little less bewildered. “But why can’t I…”

“’Cause,” I cut him off without ceremony, smirking. “You’ll collect a bunch of girls’ numbers, line up dates, and then drop everything you’re supposed to be doing. Don’t argue—I know you well enough to be sure of that. All in good time. Once the school holidays start, go wild. Until then, no. Get ready for your Springtime of Youth. Practice being charming but unavailable. And work on your smile, by the way. If you drool while talking to girls, you’ll look like a dog that’s spotted a hunk of meat.”

“I don’t drool,” he muttered, offended.

“Oh, really?”

“I-I’m sure,” Issei said with a nod that suggested the exact opposite.

“Hmm… Hmmmmm…” I gave him a look full of doubt and pity. “Too bad you can’t see yourself when Gremory-senpai is around.”

“N-no way!!!”

“There’s another reason to learn some self-control.” I shrugged, keeping a faintly teasing smile on my face. “Now tell me what’s going on with you.”

“Do I really drool?” My classmate looked at me hopefully, but I gave him no answer. I just waited for him to open up. Purely out of curiosity.

I usually had something to keep me busy, but I’d finished everything urgent, and my longer-term projects could wait for now. Tonight I was due to break through to the next stage of cultivation—earlier than planned, thanks to the dragonfire.

I’d dismissed Tsubasa from training today… to get her out of my sight. She’d really tested my patience. I’d barely kept my temper, and only because her mistakes were forgivable: I hadn’t taught her the proper rituals yet. She’d probably picked up all sorts of nonsense online. Still, I could forgive her. She was getting ahead of herself, sure, but she was young. Besides, I’d almost cooled off already.

I wasn’t training myself at the moment, and my student was gone, so I had absolutely nothing to do. My demon work wouldn’t begin until sunset on Earth. School business, even club activities, was over for the day, and the disciplinary committee had nothing for me either.

The tribute for my dragon benefactor, who preferred the guise of a dimwitted little girl, was ready and locked in the cupboard. I’d stopped by my parents’ place that morning: cooked some healthy meals, checked on Mom and my unborn little sister, shot the breeze with Dad while he got ready for work, and left Grandpa a package with two kinds of tea. I’d have to call him in the next few days. We hadn’t spoken in ages, and the old man might take offense.

In short, everything was done, and Chiba Taro was, for all practical purposes, sitting around doing nothing. I wasn’t even meditating, in case I triggered my breakthrough ahead of time. Hell, I had so much time on my hands that I’d spent a while telling fortunes a couple of hours ago: partly to find the best date for the ceremony to formally accept my personal disciple, and partly to take a little peek into the future.

Unfortunately, this world had no Heavenly Mechanisms of Fate in… um… physical form. So I used the I Ching and its sixty-four hexagrams. Yarrow was easy enough to find, and infusing three copper coins with my qi was as easy as taking a piss.

I wouldn’t claim I’d ever been especially good at predicting fate. I’d seen all manner of lucky trash snap it over their knees often enough. Still, I could glimpse a few possible ways the future might unfold. Nothing on a grand scale, unfortunately. Following even an ordinary mortal’s entire life in detail was beyond me, but I could pick out a few hints about my own future.

That divination was part of why I’d asked Issei about his uncharacteristic silence. It had told me I might soon meet a powerful opponent who would defeat me in battle but leave me alive. All I had to do was stay close to a maiden with fiery red hair and a young man obsessed with her. Not much of a riddle, that. I could have read it wrong, of course, but Issei and his Mistress, Rias Gremory, seemed the likeliest candidates.

Naturally, I had no intention of doing anything that might damage my Mistress’s reputation. But getting a little involved in my classmate’s troubles and paying a visit to the Occult Research Club for a legitimate reason shouldn’t do any harm.

“Um… Ahem… all right.” Having given up on getting an answer about his drooling, Issei finally decided to tell me what was bothering him. “Rias-san wasn’t herself this morning. And… well… I think there’s some trouble at home. I’m worried.”

“I see. A worthy reason for a loyal servant to worry.” I smiled at him, quite sincerely. “Then I won’t pry. This is clearly a matter for the Gremory clan. But if you need my help, you can ask for it. Word it exactly that way.” I raised one finger toward the sky to emphasize the point. “I’d be helping you, Issei—my friend and classmate. Not your Mistress. Understand?”

“Politics?” Issei guessed, furrowing his brow slightly.

“In a way. The affairs of the Underworld’s great noble Houses aren’t for us to decide. If the Gremory or Sitri clan needs help, that’s for our leaders to discuss, not us servants. Of course, that doesn’t apply if an ally is suddenly attacked or one of us is in mortal danger. And personal matters”—I waggled my eyebrows, putting extra weight on personal—“we can settle between ourselves.”

“Got it. Then, if anything happens…”

“Call me. Don’t be shy.” I nodded, pleased. “For now, off you go. Run. Same as always.”

“Yeah.” Issei let out a heartrending sigh and headed for the running track that circled the outside of my training grounds.

Looks like he’s calmed down a bit, I noted, hearing my classmate’s usual response to the prospect of more exercise.

Wasn’t I a good guy? There I was, giving the kid moral support. It wasn’t entirely selfless, sure, but Hyodo wouldn’t be the one paying for it. A righteous man, that’s me. Pure gold, through and through.

Chuckling to myself, I headed for the house to fetch a couple of canisters of tea for the Gremory clan. I hadn’t expanded my “plantations” yet, and I still had no servants, but… who would think twice about a servant of an allied clan dropping by with a few modest gifts? A perfect excuse to show my face at the Occult Research Club.

I usually sent Issei there myself, since his Sacred Gear left him short of the demonic energy needed to open portals. So I “kicked” him over from here. They already had a teleportation circle at their “headquarters” to receive the “cargo,” which meant I didn’t have to go along in person.

Today, though, I’d “ride along” with Hyodo. Tea gifts and all that. Even if Gremory-san objected—and I doubted she would, since I’d visited her territory before and had always been welcomed warmly—Himejima-san would cover for me in exchange for a couple of canisters.

Hmm… I’d bring a completely new drink, too. Still tea, but “more complex.” Tastier and better for you, too. I was sure it would be the “hit of the season.” I could even send some to Sona-san’s esteemed parents as a formal gift and a token of my boundless respect.

“New fingerless gloves? Did Taro-kun give them to you?” Momo had been glancing at Tsubasa for a while as she sat at her desk, turning the gloves over in her hands.

They looked unusual. Less like sports gear and more like weapons: metal pieces protected the striking part of the fist, while a fine metal mesh covered the back of each hand.

“Yeah.” Looking thoughtful, Tsubasa pulled one glove onto her right hand and made a fist. “I decided to play a joke today, and… well. A present. Chiba-sensei said they’re Earth-rank weapons. He made them for me himself. A while ago…”

“You don’t seem like yourself today. You came back from training really early.” The white-haired girl tilted her head. “And what’s this about a joke?”

“Chiba-sensei canceled it. As for the joke… do you know Kiryuu Aika-chan?”

“Taro-kun’s classmate? The one who gave him that bad manga and then felt guilty about it?”

“Manhua. But never mind. Kiryuu-chan and I talk sometimes, and about a week ago I bought a volume of martial arts manhua from her. Just for a laugh. Honestly, it was a strange read. I don’t read manga that often, let alone manhua—I’m more into movies and anime. The Chinese really surprised me with some of their characters’… habits and the things they do.”

“Did Kiryuu-chan give you something sketchy too?”

“No, nothing like that. I just kept getting completely floored by the characters’ logic. The villains especially. Say they tried to kill the heroine and she fought back, and then they’d go, ‘We’ll avenge this humiliation! You’ll pay!’ I couldn’t make sense of that at all. Otherwise… it was fine. The art, the plot—even the romance was there, though that part was incredibly stupid. All these pretty boys kept fawning over the heroine, but they were complete weaklings. Maybe some people have a fetish for weak men, I don’t know, but I hated reading it. I wanted to beat the shit out of those worthless pretty boys. There was only one decent man in the whole thing, and he was the heroine’s old mentor. At first I thought he was a complete bastard, but then it turned out… Oh, never mind!”

“Uh-huh. So what was the joke?” Momo prompted, having understood almost none of her friend’s explanation.

“Well, I read a bunch of stuff about masters and disciples in that manhua, and I thought: Taro-kun is crazy about all that Chinese stuff. So I went online to learn more. I watched a couple of videos, bought some red paper, and made a di tie. It’s a request for a master to take you on as a disciple—a note in a bright-red envelope. If he accepts it, that means he approves of you as his personal disciple… Anyway, it’s complicated. I didn’t fully understand it myself. I just thought it would be a funny joke.”

“Let me guess. Something went wrong?” Tsubaki smiled as she took a sip of tea.

“Something like that, Tsubaki-san. At training today, before Issei-kun arrived, I played my joke. I bowed and handed Taro-sensei the di tie. Only he didn’t see the joke at all. He got dead serious and looked at me so… intensely, I guess. It was a little scary. He looked at me, then at the envelope in my hands, then back at me, then at the envelope again. We stood like that for about three minutes. Honestly, I even started to sweat. It didn’t feel funny anymore.”

“Taro-kun takes things like that very seriously,” Sona observed. She had set her papers aside and was listening too.

“I didn’t really think about that at the time…”

“Oh, it turned out fine in the end anyway.” Tomoe waved a hand. “Tsubasa-chan got those cute gloves, didn’t she?”

“Yeah… My master accepted my di tie. Though he made me perform three kneelings and nine kowtows.”

“He made you what?” Momo asked.

“Well, he said he doesn’t have a martial arts school or sect right now, so he could simplify the ceremony for accepting a personal disciple and stick to the bare minimum. Some joke that turned out to be. I had to kneel and bow to the floor three times. Then do that two more times.”

“Um… couldn’t you have just refused?” Momo asked, surprised.

“You didn’t see his eyes.” Tsubasa shook her head, her expression dead serious. “I’m a hundred percent sure that if I’d said it was a joke, he’d have been terribly offended. Or he’d have put me through a sparring session that took me a week to recover from. Or both.”

“Still, you got some awesome gloves out of it,” Tomoe said with a chuckle. “They look cool.”

“They really are awesome.” Tsubasa pulled on the second glove and lightly knocked her fists together. “If I channel qi into them, the power goes up a lot. It’s not that I get physically stronger, it’s… Well, I turned a huge boulder into gravel with one punch. Without the gloves, I could only split it into a few pieces. And I haven’t even figured out how to use them properly yet.”

“Impressive.” Sona nodded, pleased. Knowing Taro’s secret—not that he went to much trouble to hide it—she wasn’t at all surprised by her Rook’s account.

For an ancient cultivator, what Tsubasa had done was no laughing matter. And judging by the reaction she’d described, the girl had probably made a serious mistake somewhere. It was quite possible Taro had wrestled with himself before accepting her di tie.

“What’s that scroll?” Momo asked, glancing curiously at the desk where Tsubasa sat turning her gifts over in her hands.

“Oh, this thing’s terrifying.” The Rook gave a crooked smile and unrolled the scroll Momo had noticed. “He wrote it in blood, right in front of me. First he took out a blank scroll, a brush, and a bowl. Then he cut his left hand, bled into the bowl, added a few drops of something from a little vial… and wrote these instructions. He says they’re written in his blood in every sense.”

“Do we have to drag every detail out of you?” Tomoe craned her neck to look at the red characters. “What does it say? ‘Honor your master,’ that sort of thing?”

“Nope.” Tsubasa chuckled and adjusted her grip on the scroll. “Taro-sensei said he wouldn’t write down that kind of crap. Any fool knows it already. These are… uh… serious instructions that could save my life. Ahem. First: never act aggressively toward strange children, old people, or handsome guys.”

“Strange?”

“Well, Master said it’s wrong to hurt children or old people in general… for no reason. But by ‘strange,’ he meant unusual people you meet in unusual places. Anyway, I don’t quite get it yet. The second rule is clear, though: don’t trust people who squint.”

“Oh, yes, that’s important,” Tomoe laughed. “Step outside on a sunny day and suddenly everyone looks suspicious.”

“Tch. He doesn’t mean people squinting because the sun’s bright. Master told me not to trust people who always keep their eyes narrowed to slits. He says they almost always turn out to be S.D.B.s.”

“You’re just begging me to ask another question, aren’t you? Fine! What’s an S.D.B.?” Tomoe rolled her eyes.

“Sly Dirty Bastards!” Tsubasa proclaimed with solemn conviction. While Tomoe and the others stared at her wide-eyed, she added, “And if one of them smiles all the time, he’s a Secretive Sly Dirty Bastard.”

“Very funny.” Tsubaki frowned in disapproval.

Her disapproval lost some of its force when Tomoe doubled over laughing and Momo giggled into her fist. Even quiet Reya wore a shy smile. Sona herself hid the lower half of her face behind some printouts so her Queen wouldn’t see her amusement.

“Anyway, all the instructions are like that. Don’t trust ghostly old geezers who promise you power, money, and fame. If you can, punch them in the face right away. If you can’t, or the fight might be too dangerous, tell your master. Also, don’t argue with ordinary mortals who claim they’re thousands of years old. Be polite and end the conversation as soon as you can. Or this one: if someone ever tries to force me into a marriage I don’t want, I shouldn’t suffer in silence. I should go ‘tattle’ to sensei immediately. He’ll decide whom to speak to politely and whose asshole to stretch over their head. That’s a direct quote, by the way.”

“And how many of those are there?” Momo asked with a snort.

“The scroll’s full of them,” Tsubasa sighed. “Here’s another one: if my enemy is mortally wounded and coughing up blood, I have to tear out his heart and cut off his head. Preferably burn the body afterward. Just to be sure. Or this: if my enemy falls off a cliff and I’m certain the fall killed him, I have to climb down, find the body, and follow the previous instruction. If there’s no body, he survived and will come back for revenge. And here’s one: if I beat someone up and they threaten to get even…”

“Tear out his heart and cut off his head?” Tomoe guessed.

“No. I’m supposed to wait until he recovers, find him, and beat him up again. Then beat up his brothers and sisters, any children he has who aren’t too young, his parents, his aunts and uncles, and finally his grandparents.”

“Um… why the old folks? That’s a bit… harsh,” Momo said, shaking her head.

“Ahem… Because… ahem… it’s written pretty crudely here.”

“Oh, just read it.” Tomoe flashed a toothy grin. “The Mistress will protect you from Tsubaki-san.”

“Hmm.” The Queen shot the laughing Knight a disapproving glance but said nothing.

“I’d be embarrassed to say it out loud in front of the Mistress anyway.” Tsubasa handed the scroll to Tomoe. “Here. Read it yourself.”

“Pfft! Well, there’s some truth to it. I’d even say I see a glimmer of profound wisdom.” Tomoe was still laughing as she read what Taro had written.

“Let me see,” Sona said, holding out her hand.

“Um…” The Knight’s laughter subsided a little. “Sona-san, it really is quite crude.”

“I won’t go blind.” The Sitri heiress flicked her hand, and the scroll flew into it, carried by demonic magic. “Hmm… yes, a little crude.”

She tried to put on a frown, but a chuckle escaped her. An ass-kicking knows no age. Unlike Tomoe, Sona saw no glimmer of profound wisdom in it, but it was unmistakably her Taro, contradictions and all.