22

Escaping Castle Tepes was as easy as getting into the place. A single step pulled the group outside the castle and another step pulled us to where Lavinia and I arrived in Romania. From there it was a simple matter to teleport everyone back to Japan. When I got back to Kuoh, I decided it might be a good idea to check in on Rias' training camp.

While I was at the camp, I Bound Issei, since I hadn't gotten around to that already, and gave him a few suggestions of things to train on. He also got a version of my King essence without the bloodline, which should help his growth tremendously. The Blank essence had already awakened Ddraig, so Issei had something new to focus on for the duration of the trip.

Issei's reaction to seeing Alcina for the first time more than made up for the effort I was putting into enhancing his potential. I would've done it anyway because I promised Vali a good fight, but the way Issei's jaw dropped at the sight of Alcina's titanic mommy milkers was priceless. The rest of Rias' peerage wasn't much better, but that is to be expected when the subject of attention is an eight foot tall woman with a body that could kill gods.

Issei dropped to his knees, his belief in the power of oppai vindicated. I couldn't contain my laughter when he genuinely started praying. His prayers were too fast for me to catch everything but I heard the words "Goddess" and "oppai" thrown around more than once. Grabbing Issei by the scruff of his neck I dragged him away from the mommy milkers.

"Nooooo!!!" he cried as I dragged him to the training field.

"Alright, enough of that," I said, "What've you done so far?"

Issei didn't reply. He had gone catatonic after I removed him from the presence of vampire oppai. Snapping my fingers in his face didn't work, so I had to resort to drastic measures.

I sighed, "Tell you what, if you focus on training with me today and for the rest of the camp, I'll get you a titty pic from her."

The mention of titty pics perked Issei up immediately, "Alright! Let's go!" He had struck a pose with his fist to the sky.

Chuckling at his antics, I said, "So? What have you got?"

"Huh? Oh! I found out what my sacred gear is! It's the Boosted Gear! Apparently it's like super powerful or something, so I thought we could train that."

"Yeah, it's one of the 13 Longinus. They're Sacred Gears with the power and potential to kill gods. That's little 'g' gods though. Have you activated it?"

"He has." Ddraig's voice came from the red gauntlet that appeared on Issei's left hand.

"Oh yeah, this is Ddraig. He's the dragon that lives inside my gauntlet. Say hi, Ddraig."

"Hi Ddraig," Ddraig deadpanned in a monotone voice.

I chuckled, "So, how many boosts can you handle?"

"Only 10 times so far," Issei scratched his cheek sheepishly.

"Don't worry, we'll work on that. First though, I want to get a general view on where you're at for myself. We're going to spar. No limitation on using your Sacred Gear, just try and beat me."

"Boost"

Issei stood there like an idiot waiting for his next boost. I gave him a telekinetic cup check to show him how bad an idea that was. He bent over, holding his balls in pain, "Not… Cool… Taylor-senpai."

"Oh, I barely tapped you. Don't stand still and expect your enemy to just let you charge your ultimate attack. Move around, make you opponent work to land anything."

Issei didn't reply. A second or two later he recovered and charged straight at me. A straight punch came flying at my face. I swatted his fist away. Good, I nodded, at least I wouldn't have to teach him how to throw a punch.

I feinted a high kick and changed it to sweep Issei's legs from under him at the last second. Unfortunately, I would have to teach him about keeping a solid foundation. Issei fell to the dirt with the air knocked out of his lungs. I could feel his watered down King's essence working though. Issei had always had a lot of willpower in canon, and the essence only enhanced that.

He got back up, squared his footing and brought his fists in front of his face.

"Boost"

Instead of allowing him to get used to his boosted state, I ducked in close. Issei reacted by keeping his gauntleted hand in front of his face and twisting his body with his right hook. I didn't make it easy for him to catch me though, I enhanced my body with my will, the telltale black of Armament Haki forming on my legs, and increased my speed.

The sudden acceleration caught Issei off guard and his right hook missed. Thrown off balance by his swing, it was easy to grab Issei's extending right arm and judo throw him over my shoulder.

We continued like that for a few more exchanges, Issei doing his best to land a punch, and me knocking him on his ass as punishment. I could visibly see Issei improving as we fought. His stance flowed more naturally, his punches came faster, he even started moving his feet instead of standing planted in one spot.

After two more boosts, I disengaged from Issei. I wanted to see how he did against ranged attacks. He didn't have any direct counters to spells or other ranged options yet, and I wanted him to develop one so he could become more well rounded as a fighter.

A bolt of Warp lightning crossed the distance between us in a flash. Issei yelped and jumped over the bolt. I punished him for that by sending a follow up bolt into his downward trajectory.

"Jumping is not the best option if you want to dodge, Issei. A skilled opponent will easily read the trajectory of your jump, and, unless you use your wings, you're stuck in that trajectory."

He groaned, lying in a smoking heap where he landed, but he still got up. I was impressed by the tenacity Issei was showing. Sure it was all because I promised him titty pics, but still. It was easy to see how he became the "Strongest Red Dragon Emperor" in canon.

The next bolt of Warp lightning was actually dodged by Issei. His side-jump out of the way was kept low to the ground and quick. He began trying to close the distance between us. I let him make a little bit of progress before smacking him with telekinetic force.

Issei went flying, landing a good 15 meters away. And still, he got back up.

I called out to Issei, "Use your wings. You can literally fly, ya know?"

Instead of listening to my advice, Issei chose a different option.

"Explosion"

The force of the released power sent Issei flying at me like a bullet. Thanks to combat precognition, I knew to get out of the way, but without it, I may actually have been hit. Issei was just moving that fast after directing the explosion at the ground.

I couldn't help my incredulous laugh. This mans just did a fucking rocket jump, didn't he? Issei obviously wasn't able to stop his momentum, and there was a colossal 'boom' as he impacted a nearby tree. The tree trunk had an Issei-shaped hole in it. Issei sat up on the other side of the hole and gave me the thumbs up.

"I'm ok!"

I shook my head. Issei may not have been skilled yet, but the boy had the spirit. I started mentally designing a training plan that focused on hand to hand combat and dealing with range attacks as a close range specialist.

Walking back to where the rest of the group was getting to know each other, I patted Issei on the back.

"You weren't as bad as you think," I said. He looked disappointed that he wasn't able to land a hit on me. "For a beginner, you've got a good basis in hand to hand, and that explosion strategy was inspired, man. You got brass fucking balls, pulling that off."

Issei grinned, "Yeah! Yeah, that was pretty awesome, wasn't it?"

Alcina took one look at how dirty Issei was, and cleaned him with a spell. Darkness seeped out of the ground and his shadow and engulfed his body. When the shadows retreated, Issei was clean and looked a bit shell shocked.

"Oh, you poor baby," Alcina cooed. She pulled Issei's head into her mommy milkers and I could see the exact moment Issei.exe stopped working. I envied his position, but he deserved a reward for not giving up even as I was continually smashing him into the ground. The rest of us left Issei to his pampering, and began to work on training regimes for everyone else.