78 Issei's Sacred Gear Awakens

Human World, Japan, Kuoh.

Two weeks have passed since the second years came back from Kyoto. In these two weeks, James, Rias, and Sona began pushing their peerages even harder in training. However, unlike the rest of Rias' peerage, who trained under Rias' supervision, Issei has been training with James. As James had noticed that Issei's [Sacred Gear] was emitting dragon aura, Rias asked James to train her new [Pawn].

Issei's [Sacred Gear], however, has still yet to awaken. So, James and Ddraig decided a more Scathach-like method would be implemented. And today is the day for it. Today, a Saturday, James took Issei out into the mountains to push him past his limit. James and Issei, both dressed in their gym clothes, stood opposite each other while James spoke with Ddraig inwardly while taunting Issei.

"Are you ready?" James asked Issei as they both stood in a clearing surrounded by trees.

"If I said no, would you let me go home?" Issei asked nervously.

"Nope." James replied as a blood thirsty smile found its way onto his face. "You better put everything you have learned to use, Issei, or there is a good chance you will die."

"Wait... What? Die?" issei asked with fear in his tone.

"Haha!" James laughed without losing his blood thirst. "I said there was a chance. Now, take your stance."

"[Laying it on a little thick, aren't you?]" Ddraig asked.

'Probably.' James replied internally. 'But I'm expecting this to be great stress relief. So, I'm kinda letting myself go a bit.'

"[Just make sure not to break him.]" Ddraig said while shaking his head.

'That's the last thing I'll do.' James said with an inward grimace. 'Satan knows I don't wanna hear the tantrum Rias will throw if I break one of her toys.'

"[Haha!]" Ddraig laughed loudly at the thought. "[I think it would be fun to see from the outside.]"

'The problem is I've always seen them from the stage.' James grumbled internally. 'Oh, he's starting to finally raise his guard. This will be fun.'

Feeling nervous because of the smile on James' face, Issei slowly took a standard Muay Thai stance. As soon as he was ready, James disappeared from where he stood with a burst of pure speed. Issei had yet to reach a level that could deal with the [Flash Step]. When James reappeared, Issei's fist was already heading toward his face. Calmly, James redirected Issei's jab with his forearm, causing the punch to graze his right shoulder. Without losing his rhythm, Issei followed up with a right elbow aimed at James' jaw. Tilting his head back slightly, James avoided the strike. Taking advantage of the shift in James' viewing angle, Issei threw a low kick with his left leg aiming to slow James by striking his right calf.

Expecting Issei's follow up, James raised his right leg and positioned it to block. The pain from his shin striking James' knee throwing off Issei's rhythm, finally. At that moment, James began his offensive. Lowering his right leg quickly, James raised it into Issei's abdomen, causing him to bend over James' knee due to the force. After lowering his leg again, James side-stepped to the right and swung a powerful left hook to the same spot.

*Boom!*

"*Cough!*" Issei sprayed a mouthful of saliva and all the air in his lungs after receiving that punch.

After that James stepped back and gave Issei the space needed to recover. As Issei greedily sucked air back into his lungs, James spoke coldly.

"What the hell was that, Issei?" James said with a scowl. "I thought I made it clear before we came out here that this would be true battle training."

"*Pant* I know. *Pant*" Issei said between ragged breaths.

"Then why the fuck are you holding back?" James shouted angrily. "Or have my compliments about how much you've improved gone to your head. Or maybe you think you're such hot shit that you can put up a fight against me while holding back?"

"*Pant* No, that's not..." Issei tried to explain in a panic but was quickly interrupted.

"Just stand the hell up and come at me for real." James said while taking his stance. "You better come at me with the ferocity you would attack one of those strays you've been hunting with Ri Ri and her peerage, or the chances of you dying are gonna go through the roof."

Issei, struggling to breathe, stood up and took his stance again. James could see the struggle between fight or flight swirling in his eyes. Issei, to his credit, pushed the fear he was feeling down and charged at James with his hands up. Then, when in range, he threw a jab that James evaded by tilting his head to the side. Without retracting his left arm, Issei followed that with a right straight, which James evaded by tilting his head back. Then, Issei used both outstretched hands and wrapped his fingers around the back of James' neck.

'Not bad, but instead of leaving his left hand extended, he should have stepped in to facilitate the clinch.' James thought briefly.

Then, when Issei's fingers were locked, he pulled down with both hands and raised his right leg, knee first toward James' face. James, using both hands blocked Issei's knee strike then raised his arms with force, dislodging Issei's clinch. When he straightened up, James threw a combination of punches and elbow strikes. Jab, straight, left hook, and straight. Issei was able to block these blows with his raised guard, however James then threw an uppercut that split his guard and landed on Issei's chin. Disoriented from the blow, He was slow to react to the spinning back elbow that followed.

Receiving the elbow to the chin, Issei stumbled backward. After shaking his head a bit to get his wits about him, Issei looked up to see that James was throwing a roundhouse kick with his left leg. Quickly raising both arms to the right side of his head, Issei successfully blocked the kick. However, the force behind it sent him flying. After crashing into the ground, Issei stood up quickly while struggling to breathe.

"Are you *Pant* trying to kill me? *Pant*" Issei asked with difficulty. "My head *Pant* would have popped right *Pant* off if that had landed."

"Well, if you don't want that to happen, don't let it hit." James said smugly. "Now, quit your bitchin' and put your guard back up."

Issei, feeling himself growing angry because of James' flippant attitude, raised his slightly numb arms. Then, while circulating his demonic energy, he raced toward James.

"Good, looks like you're finally ready to put in the effort." James said with a smile. "I thought I'd accidentally kill you before you decided to take this seriously."

Then, for the next five minutes, James and Issei exchanged fists, elbows, feet, and knee strikes. After five minutes, however, James began to raise his output. At the ten-minute mark, Although Issei was not fighting evenly, he could still keep up and counterattack. After fifteen minutes, Issei could still follow enough to guard and counterattack occasionally. When twenty minutes had passed, Issei could only struggle to guard himself. After twenty-five minutes, about a quarter of James strikes were landing. After a couple more minutes, after taking so many of James' heavy blows, Issei's fatigue was making it so that his body could no longer keep up with his reaction speed.

"Is that all you've got, Issei?" James said as he landed a left hook to Issei's abdomen.

After Issei hunched over because of the blow to his stomach, James clinched and raised a knee toward Issei's face. Frantically, Issei put his hands between his face and the knee strike. When James' knee landed on Isseis hands, to Issei's surprise, he was lifted off the ground. In that instant, he flung his left leg at James' torso, thinking that he would get a moment to recover when James dodged. James, however, was not having it. Instead of stepping back out of the range of the kick, James side stepped to his right. As issei's kick lost momentum, James grabbed his leg and drove the younger boy into the ground on his back.

*Boom!*

"Cough!"

Once again, Issei was left breathless at James' mercy. This time, however, James had no intention to retreat and let Issei gather himself. Taking advantage of the fact that Issei was completely disoriented from the takedown, James positioned himself in a full mount. Seeing this, even in his foggy thoughts, Issei raised his guard. James then began to rain down punches. As he did, Issei did everything he could to dodge and block the incoming flurry of.

'I think now would be a good time.' James thought to himself while throwing punches at the downed Issei.

"[Are you sure?]" If your timing is too early, he'll just break.]" Ddraig said nonchalantly.

'I'm going in.' James said, confident in his plan.

"Well, I guess that's all you got." James said with disappointment in his tone. "I guess a harem would be too much for you, after all."

With that, Issei's swollen eyes opened widely. James could see the flames of anger raging inside.

"What the hell are you talking... Ugh... about." Issei roared, taking a fist to the face in the process. "How does getting the shit kicked out of me have anything to do with having a harem?"

"Ha!" James cackled while continuing his barrage of punches. "Do you think weaklings get to have harems? Wake the fuck up!"

Issei was surprised at James outburst. During that surprise, two more punches landed on Issei before he was able to get his guard back up.

"Why do you think only High-Class devils and above have harems?" James asked sarcastically "Because it takes a certain level of strength to protect your women. But then again maybe you're into that. I guess you like NTR, huh?"

Hearing that, Issei imagined having his harem in the future just for someone stronger to come by and steal his women. Worse still, his imagination showed him an image of that same strong person fucking his women in front of him while he could do nothing about it. At that moment, Issei felt as If something inside of him was waking up. And it definitely was not a fetish for being cuckolded. At that moment, Issei was covered in a dark luminance and the pressure he released began to skyrocket. Once this phenomenon began, James jumped away from Issei.

"Fuck that shit!" Issei roared indignantly. As the dark radiance vanished, Issei stood and roared once again. "Hyoudou Issei is not and never will be a cuckold!"

When Issei stood, although his attire had not changed, he was now sporting a pair of pitch-black scaled gauntlets that covered his forearms. On the knuckles of each hand, two claw like blades extended forward. A substance that resembled waving shadows extended from the knuckle of his middle finger, up the back of his palm, wrapped around a bright blue jewel embedded in the back of his palm, then running up the rest of the gauntlet.

"[So, it was him.]" Ddraig said with nostalgia in his tone.

'So, you know who that aura belongs to, huh?' James replied inwardly.

"[That's right.]" Ddraig said with pride lacing his tone. "[That aura could belong to none other than Skiadrum, The Shadow Dragon King.]"

'Skiadrum?' James thought in confusion. 'Never heard of him.'

"[Skiadrum usually kept to himself.]" Ddraig said, the nostalgia returning to his tone. "[His favorite thing to do was to slip into a shadow, then take a nap. I don't think he ever interacted with humans or any other beings for that matter. Other than that little hobby of his. For some reason he liked teaching magic to children every once in a while.]"

'Sounds like a pretty chill dude.' James thought. 'Then how did he end up in a [Sacred Gear]?'

"[No clue. We'll just have to ask, if his soul is...]" Ddraig started to say, but he cut his words short.

"Who the hell are you?" Issei shouted to a voice that only he could hear. "Huh? Skiadrum? Shadow Dragon King? What does any of that shit even mean?"

"Well, I guess that answers the question I was about to ask."