Chapter 7

The following days were great, Asia continued to grow on my parents. Mom now can't stop throwing hints about us marrying, it's like she doesn't stop to think that we are only high schoolers.

Dad has become very protective of her, he wasn't happy when the school's uniform arrived and she tried it out, she was gorgeous in it, but according to dad it was "Barely covering anything", which brought to question my previous actions.

I think that now father understands a bit why I was such a pervert, I had incentives all around me, not that he said anything. He only stopped mentioning Matsuda and Motohama, the last time being to make me promise to not let them get any opportunity to do anything to Asia.

All of this made the former nun feel more at home, she started calling my parents Kaa-san and Otou-san, which made them happier than I've ever seen. She also seemed to buy in completely to the idea of us marrying.

Whenever mom mentioned it, she'd get shy and move closer, if we were close enough we'd hold hands. I don't know what to do about her, on one hand, I'd love to date her, but I feel like I'm taking advantage of her, besides I also have to think about my promise to keep Issei's last wish, how am I gonna bring up polygamy with her? The church didn't like it, what if she doesn't either?

In the end, I just hoped for something to happen, but it never did. All I am is a boy who is giving her permission to think that we are intimate but is too afraid to talk about it with her. I have to think about this later, there are still a couple of days before she gets to go on her first day at school, I'll use that as a deadline for this talk.

Speaking of school, my fellow peerage members have started to open up a bit more, principally Akeno, our fight together served as a good bonding experience, I've started to notice that her attempts of getting a reaction out of me have started to become a little more romantic.

Whereas before she'd try to use her body for it, now she asks about her clothes, her hair, her accessories... She also learned that I'm weak at receiving compliments, so she uses them a fair bit. Thankfully Rias isn't joining in, but I'm afraid that it'll happen, it is becoming common to see her getting disturbed by my reactions to Akeno's teasing, so much so that she is often asking about how she looks and whose outfit I like the most, Rias' or Akeno's.

Now that I think about it, I am in the middle of a battle for attention between three girls, and they will confront each other in just a few days. I'm so screwed.

-O-O-O-

Other than this tricky situation, my work at ORC has been great, Mil-tan has finally accepted me as his contracted devil, so now I have to go to his house and help him and his friends, who also have contracted me, in learning magic.

It was hard since they are humans the magic system that works for them is different from the one that works for me, so I had to learn as I taught them. Regardless of that, I did it.

The first magic they wanted to know was transformation magic, specifically one that'd transform them into magical girls. We didn't find anything like that, but we did find one that made an illusion on their body so they could seem to be using a pair of clothing that they weren't using.

We paired that with some light-forming magic, and with some training they'd be able to recreate the transformation scenes from the anime that we used as a basis for that.

All the magic research helped me with my own, I found out that I'd have a hard time trying to make any elemental magic, I'd only be able to truly master the more basic forms of magic, so teleportation, strengthening, and some small illusion magics were all that became worth to train on.

I didn't mess around too much with demonic power, I was afraid of hurting those guys, as big as they were, they were still humans and I liked them, they were fun to be around.

Other than Mil-tan and his friends I made a new client, she was an American girl who came to Japan to go to our University, she said her name was Susan, I didn't get to see how she looked like because she claimed to be too shy, and thus she'd hidden inside a samurai armor every time I'd met with her.

Her first request was to accompany her to University to grab something that she'd forgotten. After that she'd normally call me to talk about her passion for Japanese culture, she loved the samurai and their era, she also loved some guy called Horii, and now we are coming up with a plan for her to confess to him, I think they'll form a very nice couple, he's a fan of medieval Europe, so much like her, he walks around in full armor, his being from some sort of medieval knight.

-O-O-O-

I also had some improvements in my martial arts training, Sadao-sensei had initially stopped me from using my legs, that happened after a mock spar between us where he said that "I couldn't handle punching and kicking at the same time, so I had to make one of them become an instinct."

The fight at the church served as a big boost to getting to that point, now I was learning a bit of kickboxing, more like, I was learning how to balance myself while stretching one of my legs high enough to hit someone else's face. I'm sure this was the hardest part, but my sensei had none of it, he said that for him this was the easiest part, something that almost made me stop learning the art, but I won't be that weak.

Sadao-sensei helped motivate me in showing how great it was to put together a combo of punches and kicks, with the momentum created by one impulsing the other to hit harder, after that lesson, I even started training at home, doing some stretches and trying to put my leg as high as possible.

Onto other training talks, my runs were progressing greatly, I decided to increase the distance whenever I found myself ending a run with some gas in me. I've never tracked the distances and times I made, but my improvement has been incredible, I'm able now to complete two runs whereas at the beginning I barely made one.

This improvement was noticed by Sadao-sensei, and now we train harder, my classes doubled in time, with me now doing strength training at the beginning.

I thought that he'd say something about my strength, what with me being a devil and being able to lift much more than a human my age should be capable of lifting, but he never mentioned it, he only made me keep on increasing the weight until he found a point where I'd improve with the repetition.

At first, I was afraid of talking about it with him, there had to be a reason he didn't mention anything, right?

It was at the end of the training session that I found out why.

"Sadao-sensei, could we talk for a second?" I started the conversation.

He answered by motioning for me to sit with him. After I did so, he waited for me to continue.

"I'm sure that you saw that I am really strong… You don't want to ask about it?"

I expected many reactions from him, interest, confusion, fear, even joy, but I didn't expect him to look at me with the same face as he looked when I'd make a silly or an obvious question.

"You don't have to tell me because I already know the answer to that." He said mysteriously.

That didn't make any sense, I'm sure that he is a human, Rias had checked up on him after I mentioned my training and his dojo, and she had found nothing amiss.

My confused face amused him.

"Do you want to know how that is possible?" Now he is treating me like a child…

He waited for me to answer, this old guy…

"Yes, please." His smug face angered me a bit, too bad I couldn't win in a fight against him.

"Then, wait here for a moment." I didn't get to say anything, he had left too quickly for an old man.

He didn't take long to come back either, only now he was with Miki, thankfully her presence made him look more serious.

"Hello Issei-san, it has been a while since we talked, has it not?" She sat beside her husband, both facing me.

"It has been Miki-san since I entered the dojo." I looked at my sensei and continued, "So… Will you tell me?"

His cheeky grin came back, and as if to mock me, he said, "No, I won't."

However, before I could protest, Miki interfered.

"Sadao, stop angering the boy." After that, she turned to me, "Issei-san, this is something that we didn't want to tell anyone, but you've been a great presence in the dojo. We don't know if we can trust you not to tell this to anybody, but we'll give you a chance."

This sounded much too serious, what could they possibly have to say?

It wasn't something she said that surprised me, instead it was the pair of white fluffy ears that showed atop her head, as well as the five thin white tails that spread out behind her. She was a catgirl… A youkai.

By my reaction they understood that I knew what she was, it was expected, after all, I am a devil and they probably know about it.

"I see that you understand what these mean." She said pointing at her ears and tails. "I am a nekomata." She finished.

"So that is how you two knew that I was a devil?"

This time it was Sadao that took the initiative to answer me, "Yes, Miki sensed you a while ago, at first she said that you smelled like a dragon, and once she observed you for a bit she chose to have us move here. We got lucky that you decided to come to our dojo, but by that point, you had already turned into a devil."

I didn't understand how smelling like a dragon made them want to move closer to me, if anything I'd think that it would be the opposite, so I decided to ask them.

"How come you two decided to move closer to a dragon? Shouldn't you try to avoid them?"

Miki smiled gently at me, it was as if she was dealing with a child.

"Well… It's simple, dragons attract a lot of people, not only those that can sense them but all kinds of people. That being the case, if we moved closer to you our chance of getting people to enroll into our dojo would be higher."

Oh… That makes sense, I guess.

"Yeah, as Miki said, it was all business. We didn't expect you to become one of our clients, when we had a look at you we saw that you weren't the type to get in a dojo, lucky for us you proved us wrong because no one else wanted to stay here."

"And you two don't mind me being a devil?" I asked to confirm.

Miki was the one to respond, "No, we don't. We are in devil territory so it'd be expected to have some relations with your species."

Now that she mentioned it, I don't think Rias or Sona knows about them, after all, Rias sent her familiar to keep eyes on them, and she didn't find anything, she'd have told me otherwise.

"Do the devils that control the city know that you two are here?" There was a chance that she knew and kept quiet, I had to check.

"No, we only wanted to spend the rest of our lives taking care of the dojo, preferably away from the supernatural, but now that you are here we will have to change our plans," Sensei said.

Were they thinking about leaving? I don't think that would be necessary…

"We want you to be our bridge to the girls that control the city, we know that you are the servant of one of them, so it shouldn't be too troublesome for you to do that." Miki finished.

That's better, they are nice people, I'll just have to be careful with the kings, they might want to recruit them, and I don't think they'd receive positive answers to the invites.

"I'll talk with Rias-sama, if she agrees, would it be okay to bring her here tomorrow? The faster we get this over with, the quicker you two lose the status of trespassers, even though your family has been here for longer than them."

Both nodded approvingly, I guess they already talked about this between themselves.

After that, I went home. Tomorrow will be an interesting day. I hope that everything goes alright, I don't want to have the Chino couple as enemies, I don't think we'd win against them.

-O-O-O-

The following day came, and it turned out to be an interesting one. For one it was the first day of school for Asia, along with that, I'd talk with Rias to arrange a meeting to discuss the Chino couple.

Our class began early, the first order of business was the presentation of Asia to the rest of class, she was nervous, I could see how she always searched for my eyes, I believe to get some encouragement.

She managed well, our classmates were all talking about how cute she is and how great it was for the class to get another beauty, the perverted duo was also quite excited, Motohama had already calculated all of the girl's body, and was discussing opportunities to see her changing clothes.

That didn't last very long, I sat near them and could easily hear their plans. It was easy to imagine what happened next… I gave them a very polite threat, I knew their secrets, and I knew where they drew the line.

"She's off-limits, don't you two do nothing to her, or else you'll have to deal with me." They understood, which made me grateful, there was a chance that me leaving the group made it so they wouldn't care about those that I tried to protect, but it worked out in the end.

What furthered the idea of Asia being off-limits was the way that she interacted with me. We were very close, our time at home and my parent's ideas made it so she didn't care how others saw us, and thus began the gossip that we were dating.

Immediately when lunch break started she took my hand and demanded a tour, quite bold of her, mother's influence seemed to be good.

Our walk was calming, students were murmuring when we passed them, but no one interacted with us, that is until we crossed paths with Murayama and Katase, the kendo duo that shared classes with us.

"You are Argento-san, right?" Murayama, the brown-haired girl asked.

Asia hadn't paid attention to the people that formed our class, so she was confused as to how they knew of her.

"Yes, that is me."

At her answer, Katase, the pinkette, pointed at me and said, "You should be careful about this one, he said that he isn't scum anymore, like his other two friends, but we don't buy that. So if he ever does something perverted to you tell us and we'll give him a beating."

They were a part of the group that didn't believe in my change. I was going to correct them, but Asia was faster.

"I don't believe you. I've been with Issei-kun for a while now and he didn't do anything like that… He's a nice, caring person and I won't let you two bad mouth him!"

They were surprised, but not as surprised as I was. Who are you and where did sweet, shy Asia go?

"Asia-chan, don't be too harsh on them, I did make some bad decisions in the past, so they have a reason to believe that I'm not a good guy." I successfully calmed her down a bit, now I had to deal with this pair.

"As for you two… I'm sorry for all the times that I peeked at you, I shouldn't have done it and I won't do it again. If there is anything that you two would like as an apology gift just say it and I'll try to make it happen." I apologized properly, with a ninety-degree bow and everything.

I only looked up when they accepted my apologies with remarks of not doing it again and promising to make Yuuto Kiba visit their club more often, those were feasible requests which made it easy for me to accept them.

After they left, Asia held me so we couldn't continue our tour.

"Is it true that you used to peek at them?" Now she was embarrassed, she was looking down, both of her arms in front of her with her hands holding each other in front of her stomach.

"Yes… I did, but I stopped and I won't do it again, not to them, not to anyone." I expected this answer to satisfy her but it didn't. Alas, she didn't say anything back, so we continued our walk.

We made a full circle, going all the way to the old dormitory, where our base was located. Somehow we made it back before class started, and since it was Japanese history, I decided to pay attention, Asia following after me.

When classes ended, we left for the ORC club room. Today would probably be a party day celebrating Asia's recruitment, I'd also try to teach her as much as I learned during the few weeks that I've been a part of it.

We had a fun afternoon, the other four were nice and they tried to make her as comfortable as possible, well, excluding the times when Akeno teased her, but those weren't that effective, any attempt at sexual innuendos were ignored simply because she didn't understand them.

What did get her, and made it uncomfortable for me, was when she'd tease about her living with me. Her reactions made the older duo see her feelings for me. I think only Koneko didn't notice it, but she was focused on the food.

That prompted a sort of three-way dispute to get my attention, with Rias and Akeno leaning more to the sexual side and Asia being unconsciously cute. It was a fun time.

Unfortunately, I had to end it. I wanted to make Sadao's and Miki's situation clear as soon as possible, so when I saw that the party was cooling down I talked with Rias.

Our talk wasn't as long as I expected it to be, I started by mentioning the dojo, she knew about it and it made the conversation start on a more relaxed subject.

When she mentioned not finding anything worth investigating in it I broke out the information that they knew about the supernatural and that they wanted me to help them get permission to stay in the city.

She was favorable towards it, but she wanted to know how they knew, and if I had been the one to tell them about it.

That was when I told her about Miki and her five tails.

She was surprised, but not in an angry way, which was good. Instead, she wanted to recruit them, as I had predicted.

I told her that they wouldn't want to become devils, and even if they would, I didn't believe that she was strong enough to turn them.

She got mad at me for that, but after thinking for a bit she agreed with me.

It was surprisingly quick, but she did accept the meeting, however, she said that Sona should also be present. I didn't have anything against it and the couple hadn't mentioned anything against such an ordeal.

That prompted us to go grab Sona and leave to the dojo. Asia went with us, but once we got there I was ordered to take Asia back home and not go back until the next day.

I got a little worried, it would be only Sona and Rias against the experienced Chino couple, I didn't understand why they didn't want me in the meeting, they being both Rias and Sadao-sensei, however, I wasn't in a position where I could interfere between them.

-O-O-O-

The next day couldn't come any quicker, I was too anxious to think about school. I had to know what happened and if the Chino Dojo was still standing.

My state of mind was such that I made a decision, maybe it was a bad one, but I had to do it. I went to the dojo before going to school.

It was a safe plan, I'd only pass in front of it and if it was open I'd ask how it went, If they were closed... I'd knock and see if they were there, hopefully, they were.

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary during our way there, no battle marks, nothing that could indicate that a fight had broken out.

To my utmost relief, they were open, and they were well.

Miki had seen me and waved warmly for me to get inside.

Once I did, I didn't wait for her to begin, "How was it? Did you two convince them? There wasn't any trouble, right? You two won't have to move away, right?"

She looked a bit overwhelmed, but with a placating smile, she answered me.

"Yes, everything went well. They did try to recruit us, but we refused and they didn't push it too much… We will have to help train you all whenever you come to us, but it won't be free, so we became a sort of private dojo that both peerages will use to get stronger, and as a payment for it we'll be allowed to stay in Kuoh."

That was great news! Nothing changed, and now I'd probably have more people to train with. I couldn't wait for that, I just hope that the other devils don't choose to be lazy and skip this opportunity.

After her good news we were once again sent away, this time it was because we'd get late if we didn't start going to school.

Thus, with a happy ending of sorts, I continue my routine, now with a cute blond partner who had promised to give the dojo a try.