Chap 4

Night training, School

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Night.

A time that many consider the end goal of their daily routine. You wake up, go about your life, and then sleep sometime later.

I keep walking down the now quiet road, surrounded by a peaceful stillness that permeates the air. The cool night breeze brushes against my skin, invigorating my senses. A sense of calm and tranquility comes with the lack of noise as if the world around me is at a standstill.

And shake my head, I need to focus on one thing this night.

Extra training, for next spar.

After a few minutes of walking, I arrived at my destination - a secluded clearing not far from my house. where I would do training by myself.

Before starting my makeshift training, I made a few shadow birds, released Rei, and told them to look around before they could play.

To get started, I sprinted around the clearing as fast as I could, pushing my limits to see how long I could maintain it.

Once I felt it was acceptable, I picked up a bamboo sword and started practicing my swings. I began with simple overhead strikes, focusing on my footwork and endurance. making sure to keep my movements simple, keeping it basics before adding any extra movement.

As I went on, I added more power and precision to each strike, changing the angle for a more fluid motion, to make each strike count and be as precise as possible.

All while trying to remember what Masaomi does and how to counter it.

But even I know I can't count on the enemy to be easy to read, that's why I did the next best thing, I imagined many different scenarios in my head.

Will it work? probably not.

After my arm shook from too much swinging, I stopped for a moment and sat down, heavily panting as I slumped down onto the ground, resting my back against nearby fallen tree bark.

I took a deep breath and focused all my attention on my hand, feeling the energy inside me and let it flow freely, and soon enough a ball of destruction formed above my palm.

*Fzzsshhwowwm*

'I know how to draw on it, but not control it, Let's see if I can do more?' I thought while letting a little more into my hand, but then...

I cursed as the sphere went unstable and flew towards me. I ducked my head as the destructive sphere flew past, barely touching my hair. I turned around to follow its trail, where I saw it disintegrate a whole tree before disippating.

"I barely put energy into it." I stared in shock. At first at the destructive potency that seemingly jumped from making a hole to erasing an object, and second how focused I had to be for it to be stable.

"Woof!" I heard Rei bark out in concern.

"I'm okay!" I gave her a thumbs-up before making more shadow birds for her to play with.

"Okay, this is going to take more practice than I thought," I said to myself, still staring at the remains of the tree. I tried again, focusing on control and stability.

And I tried again, now focusing on control and stability.

After spending a bunch of time and failing a lot, I finally got the sphere to barely float in my hands. Every time I started to lose my focus, even just a little bit, the sphere would start to shake or go all wobbly, like it was going to fall apart or fly away. And I'm pretty sure it's only going to get harder to control the longer I work on it.

I shook my head and moved on to the last one: umbrakinetic creature creation, or "shadow creatures," as I like to call them, is a useful power to have when you want to survey places but can't for various reasons.

And with each summon, it became easier and easier to perform. And I'm confident I'll be able to create those humanoid summons in no time!

"Come on, create it! it's literally just a human-shaped shadow!" I said as sweat began to pool down my body like a waterfall. I could barely concentrate, trying to fill the container with what I wanted.

I growled as my mind felt the effort. Pushing my powers could be exhausting. I felt my head scrambling to fill the container, but I pushed on anyway.

"Haaaaaahhh!" I gasped as my concentration finally broke, and I fell on my butt. The halfway-created summons broke cohesion and dissipated into the air, leaving nothing behind.

"Ugh, it's so close," I groaned, feeling icky because sweat now covered my body. Thankfully, the cold night helps cool down my body while I catch my breath.

"Hmmm, yes, a more complex summon," I murmur while lying on the ground, trying to imagine...

'Wait, what am I going to do with it?'

'Think me!'

'Uhhh, training buddies!'

'Help with cleaning!'

'Good enough!'

I took a deep breath and let the peaceful stillness of the night settle in my mind. I smiled, feeling content with the progress I had made tonight.

I stood up and made my way home, ready for a good night's sleep. As I crawled into my bed, I looked at the clock.

...

It's four in the morning.

What?!

[Time forward]

It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining brightly and the sky a brilliant blue. The air was warm and comfortable—a perfect day for a spar.

'I should've bring an alarm clock,' I grumbled, struggling to keep my eyes open.

"Are you ready?" I hear Masaomi call out from some distance away.

I shake my head, trying to clear my groggy thoughts, my grip on the wooden sword tightened, getting into a stance with my feet shoulder-width apart and weight balanced between my feet.

My gaze was drawn to the person who was still a pain in my ass, and I nodded in response, eyes still glued to his deceivingly simple stance.

Without a further word, Masaomi made the first move, crossing the distance with lightning speed, his sword arm extended forward, the tip of the blade aimed directly at me. I had only enough time to react, quickly stepping to the side and dodging the strike by mere inches.

The sound of the wooden sword slicing through the air echoed in my ears. I didn't hesitate for a second and counterattacked with a series of swift strikes, trying to take advantage of his momentarily exposed position.

He effortlessly parried each blow, and the loud sounds of wood clashing could be heard throughout the field.

I pushed on, determined to gain the upper hand. Constantly changing up the rhythm, trying to catch him off guard.

But Masaomi was always one step ahead, predicting my every move, and little by little I felt frustration building inside of me as I struggled to find an opening.

With that failing, I backed up, trying to gain some distance. But Masaomi wasn't going to give me any breathing room and trying to push me into making a mistake that he could use to end the spar in one hit.

His blade collided with mine. I could feel my sword being pushed, and he started hammering on my defense. I could feel the force of each strike pushing against my blade, the pressure building as Masaomi increased the pace and power of his attacks. each blow harder and faster than the last.

Parry left.

Back away from the swipe.

Block three times. Watch out for the fourth slash attacking my wrist.

I heard him clicking his tongue and saw his legs blur. I could feel the wind brushing against my face as I bent down, avoiding the first one, but the second one quickly followed and connected, almost throwing me to the side, but I held on, and he left himself open for a split second, Without hesitation, I lunged forward, my blade flashing towards his vulnerable side.

And hitting—He twisted his body and brought his own sword up to deflect my attack and disengage.

"Tsk!" It was my turn to click my tongue.

"Not good enough!" He called out, already recovered, carelessly waving his sword, intentionally open to attack, trying to provoke me. I could still feel his intent to hurt me on full blast, the pressure making me falter briefly.

"Is that all?"

"As if!" I scoffed, ignoring the pressure as best I could and charged at him.

I closed in on my opponent, feeling newfound determination, and—

[one more loss later]

"Everything hurts..." I whi-groaned.

"Huh, we might go too intense in some places," I heard Masaomi commented as he inspected the splintered remains of once-wooden swords.

"So, you know what the problem is?" Masaomi squats near my bruised body, conveniently blocking the sun's rays from assaulting my eyes.

"Ouchie-ow!" I groaned some more as Masamomi lightly hit one of the bruises.

"You've done so well at swordfight but are lacking in dodging, so maybe I need to do that more." Urk! "Who knows? Maybe you can borrow my sword if you get a clean hit."

"Really?" I look at him and start seeing him in a new light. My voice is hopeful.

His face immediately scrunched up. "Just don't do anything to it," Masaomi said. "I don't want to see you fiddling with the dangerous exorcist tool."

"But it's a laser sword! I wanna see the inside of it—OW!" I tried to reason with him but got smacked again before I could finish my sentence.

"It's a tool for a real exorcist to deal with actual threats," he reprimanded me.

"I swear I won't do anything to it!" I promised.

I heard Masaomi sigh "Okay, fine," he finally said. "If you can beat me in a spar, I'll give you some reward."

"What kind of reward?" I asked, intrigued by the possibility.

"Who knows? You haven't beaten me yet," he shrugged.

Fine then, beat up Masaomi, get mystery reward, easy.

"Oh yeah, where's Father Touji? I didn't see him watching us." I asked, raising my head from the ground and noticing certain spectator wasn't there.

"He's around." Masaomi looked at the church. "He's busy today, worried about raising a child."

"Aww, that's nice," I said.

"Yeah... it is," I heard him whisper the last part, and with that, it fell into a comfortable silence, his eyes still staring at the church.

And then I start asking, "So... is the old testament thing true?"

"Do you ever fight Yokai?"

"What about vampires?"

"Is there a vampire?"

"Can you stop doing the pressure thing? It's getting annoying."

"what about wrestling? Is Jacob wrestling an angel can be taught? Or Did I just pray so angels are sent so I could wrestle them?"

"Okay!" he stops me before I can ask more. "First off, the Bible is also very much not literal. It's called being poetic in their descriptions. No, I've not fought a Yokai. Yes, vampires are real. Yes, I've fought them. It's called a "killing intent," and it stays on during spar and unfortunately, Jacob wrestling style is not a curriculum."

"Aww..."

"Shouldn't you head home?" Masaomi glanced down at me. "I thought you said we had to finish training early because you had school stuff to do. Was that an excuse?" He menacingly waved his bamboo sword.

"I forgot!" My stamina miraculously returned, and I ran like the wind.

As soon as I got home, exhaustion hit me like a truck, and I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I collapsed on the floor and fell asleep instantly, not caring where in the house I was as long as it was in the house area.

Hours later, I was jolted awake by Mom, who told me to change my clothes and prepare myself for the appointment at the education office.

Mom does most of the registration at the office. I was only there because I had to go through an interview to find out which school I would be in.

After a short answer and ask session, I was congratulated on getting into school.

All in all, it went well.

And then we went home to pick up Natsuko and Issei and went shopping for school supplies.

We visited a local flea market with Mom, searching for clothes and school uniforms, including school hats, shoes, tracksuits, and backpacks, while the three of us checked out the other stalls.

After a fierce haggling session, Mom finally managed to get everything for a very low price for each of us, which made her very happy.

With some leftover money, the three of us were allowed to purchase something from the market, with Issei immediately using it to buy toys.

I think I put the money to good use by purchasing a toolbox from an old man while Natsuko is buying...

"What you got there?" I look at the thing in her hands.

"Game...boy?"

Then at the seller, who was holding the price tag on a piece of paper.

Then look at it again, then at the seller with my eyebrow raised.

"Can you just... look for another?" I tried to ask but was suddenly met with the full force of her puppy eyes.

"...."

"Fine, but you know the payment." I "smiled" nicely, grudgingly paying for the book.

Natsuko looked me in the eye, her eyes flickering between my eye and my hands, letting out a whine before presenting the side of her face so that I could extract said payment.

Too bad I wanted both of them!

"You think it's worth only one, huh?" My fingers pressed against both sides of her cheeks, applying pressure on them!

"U-uwaaaah!" Natsuko let out a pitiful cry, frantically waving her arms in an attempt to get Mom's attention, but too bad she was distracted looking at a set of cooking pots at a low, low price of 500 yen!

While walking home, I saw Father Touji carrying a bag full of equipment with his wife, cooing and trying to calm a child roughly issei's age.

When the mothers looked at each other, they stopped walking to greet each other and started gossiping, much to Natsuko's chagrin—tugging at mom's shirt and making cute little irritated noises.

We continued to walk home, now together with the Shidou family. When I got home, I opened the toolbox and showed Mom that I knew what I was doing. After a brief demonstration, I was given free rein to fix some things around the house.

I chuckled with a smile as a new idea for what I could do to the house came to me.

And it starts with soundproofing some parts of the bedroom!

[Time forward]

It is the first day of school. I went to school accompanied by Mom, Dad, Issei, and Natsuko. They wanted to see me on my first day.

Kuoh Public Elementary, blocky buildings, walled compound, basically a typical school that have everything from elementary, to junior college, and are always compared to that all girls school for some reason.

When we arrived at the primary school building, mom started embarrassing me, acting dramatically, and crying about how she would never see me again and how her big boy had grown and left her with a bunch of troublemakers, causing said troublemakers to give her a flat stare from behind.

Afterward, I went to my class, took a random seat, and looked out the window. I saw mom pinching dad's ear as they walked home.

Soon, a teacher entered the room, looked through the students, and nodded when she saw that everyone was present. She introduced herself and then requested that the students do the same.

The rest of the day went by in a flash with nothing happening really, just me walking around and seeing stuff.

"I'm just saying samurai is better at fighting than European knight" I heard a girl said at lunch.

"Oy oy! what the hell are you saying?! Knights were literally more armored than any samurai!" Then a boy.

"So? armored or not they can't emulate the samurai's finesse and precision with a sword"

I bet I could add some more fuel to it.

"Cowboy better!"

"What?!"

"who said that?!"

The room was quickly filled with kids shouting and shoving each other, mimicking the fighting styles of their favorite warriors, with some doing karate moves, sword-wielding, or even pretending to shoot guns. It was a sight to see, and I couldn't help but smile at the chaos unfolding before my eyes.

Hehe.

When I got home, I heard a familiar voice from the entrance, but I couldn't remember who...

Then I heard what the voice said, confirming what I thought. Grandpa is visiting.

"Ass or Tits? This is a question for you young'uns to think about. We, as humans, are constantly searching for an answer to the ultimate question. Some people use their brains to advance their philosophies by inventing things like golden ratios and the like, but allow this old man to impart this wisdom: Boobs are awesome. Like shoes, they come in various shapes and sizes, making each pair unique. There are small, large, saggy, and perky. You get the picture. " He nodded to himself.

Maybe I could sneak to the stairs?

"Ah, little Seiji!" Whoops, he sees me.

"Come here! You almost missed my story!" he said, patting the space beside Issei.

Hyoudou Jūzō, or the pervert as I called him, is well... a pervert. He's Dad's dad, but somehow more open in his perversion.

"My issue with tits is that they can be deceiving," he continues. "Girls without it will do various things to compensate for their lack of them. They spent more money on special bras and proceeded to deceive people," he sighs sadly before continuing in his tirade.

He told us many things that were supposed to be adult topics. But, instead of beating him up, everybody became exasperated and shook their head, so it was decided that I take the burden of beating my own grandpa.

But it's like they have a beating a pervert's sense (or grandpa being beaten is a reoccurring thing?). The second they saw me walk up to him, they stopped me and made me listen!

"...how else do you think Julius person can be seduced Hm? "

At least Issei is in rapt attention. Good for you.

"Little Seiji," He grabbed my shoulder and locked his gaze on me. It was the first time I heard him speak seriously. "You see, we Hyoudous are connoisseurs. You may not be my son's offspring, but you are now family. In short, go for a harem and make the most of your youth."

"But why a harem?"

"Well, you see, it's quite simple. If one woman equals happiness, then, of course, many women will make you the happiest person on earth!"

.....Huh.

"Now, which body part is for you, little Issei? Bah, don't tell me... Yes, of course, boobs indeed... now, Seiji, which body part?"

"Um... Hips, I guess?" I said randomly, being caught off guard by the question.

"Ah, I see....still acceptable, now!" He clapped his hands. "What was I doing? Ah! In the beginning, before humanity invented lingerie, we people..." and began another anatomy review and history.

[Skip to midnight]

'One hundred, one hundred one, one hundred twooo?' I stumbled at my swings and felt a familiar feeling in my head.

I immediately stopped what I was doing, checked on it, and found that I gained not one, not two, but three charges!

And all of them are waiting to be used.

Shadow creatures are a must, maybe soul manipulations and intuitive aptitude, but there is still one more.

"But what if I upgraded them all? I could make them to five now" I thought out loud

"!!!" and suddenly, after the words were out of my lips, I felt a chill run down my spine. my gut telling me it was the worst thing I could do at this point in time.

something about limit, and... death?

...Okay then, maybe like this first?

[Intuitive Aptitude 3/5

Soul manipulation 3/5]

And I felt it.

Another familiar set of knowledge crammed into my head, a continuation of soul manipulation.

To gain access to the immortal record of a soul—the totality of one's soul laid bare—to see and to change...

'Record of Seiji Hyoudou' I could sense it saying.

I inspected it and saw...

"..it's a boy!"

"C-can I?…"

"Of course. Here".

The moment I was born, I could practically feel the silver-haired lady's sheer happiness while looking at me...

Before...

"Nope, not going there," I said, furiously shaking my head before that train of thought could continue.

"!"

Hmm? I turned around to see Rei behind me. She barked excitedly, tilting her head with a curious expression in her eyes.

"So, I can read souls now?" I said to her as she rested her head on my lap, giving me the opportunity to scratch her ears and pet her big, fluffy head.

I should try to read that soul piece that Rei managed to get from that stray a while ago...

I wonder what I will get from it...

I hope my practice of soul manipulation didn't mess it up.

Well, here goes!

...

'Oh wow, it's fragmented,' is the first thought that comes to mind as I tried to inspect the soul fragment more thoroughly, slowly as I carefully read the fragmented soul piece, trying to find a memory connected to being a devil and how they live day to day.

And what I found is not that much really. I found mention of being high class. It's the most often repeated word I could find next to rating games, peerage, and king.

When I tried to gauge the emotion connected to being reincarnated into a devil, I could feel only resentment and regret. Scratch that, Huge resentment with a capital H.

It's like the stray hated every moment of it.

I tried to find the source of resentment. And I found that it's connected to the word "king," followed by a sense of satisfaction and even gratification.

"OUT!" As I exit, I felt the world invert and warp, the sudden change in my surroundings was disorienting and I stumbled, trying to regain my balance. My vision blurred and the sound of the outside world faded in and out. and the headache came with a vengeance.

"Ugh, my head," I groaned, clutching my head and scrunching my eyes as I tried to reorient myself. I felt exhausted, and it was made worse by the fact that it was the internal head stuff that was affecting me. I couldn't ignore it.

"C'mere buddy, I need a pillow," I called out to Rei. and I collapsed onto her while still holding my pounding head.

"Mmm, comfy," I mumbled, already feeling the headache slowly start to dissipate. Rolling over, I tried to wrap my arm around the giant fluffy pillow. It was too comfortable to move. I could have slept all day.

Then I remembered it wasn't a pillow, and I groggily looked up at Rei, who was looking at me. Her white eyes showed no emotion.

Lick

Wet? in my face??

She licked me!

"Grrr! Youuuuuu-" I tried to flail about, but my still present headache, combined with the exhaustion from training, caused me to wiggle from the comfort, falling face-first into the ground.

As I tried to get up, I felt something heavy climb onto my back.

"Wha—hurk! Noooo whyyy?! "I tried to ask as dirt went into my mouth and let out a muffled groan.

'Wait! my shadow creatures! Maybe I can upgrade and make those summons roll her over!' I think critically and immediately use a charge to upgrade shadow creatures.

[Umbrakinetic Creature Creation 3/5]

And fill the container with what I want. Instead of feeling a headache building, I could feel it going through, and I felt a connection forming in the back of my mind—a wildly different feeling than getting a charge.

Gaining a charge gives me a sense of urgency as if it wanted—no, begged—to be used, but this? It felt like it was waiting for orders and would treat them as absolutes, even if it meant detriment to itself.

..It's so over the top. I love it!

Absolute orders? Even if it means a detriment to itself?! It's so noble! so knightly!

Wait, it is a knight! Even if it isn't, I'm going to make it knight-shaped!

I could feel that I could take over my summon and control it myself, and my vision blacked out when I did.

I opened my eyes at the sight of a snoring green dog.

'Woah... I'm tall now' I marvelled at the feeling. The ability to see in the dark carried over, and I felt I could see more because of the height.

I looked down at my (Summon's) arm, opening and closing it. There was no sense of discomfort. It felt like my hand, but there was an obvious feeling of disconnect: I was controlling it and could relinquish control at any time.

Then I tried to take a walk.

'One step'

'Two steps'

'This is so cool!' I screamed in my head, making my body(summon) jump giddily.

For a while, I did a thorough movement test, and as the amazement faded away, I remembered what I was going to do and turned around to see a big green ball of fur where my body was supposed to be, sleeping, as if there wasn't a body under it.

"Okay buddy," I tried to speak while glaring at the big sleeping dog, but no voice came out from where the mouth was supposed to be.

'Well, it seems that I can't speak through my summon,' I shrugged and then started to push her off my body.

A few tries later, the heavy weight on my back suddenly lifted, I relinquished control and opened my eyes to see my shadow creature had succeeded in flipping Rei over.

I coughed out the dirt from my mouth and sat up, rubbing my sore head. "Thanks, you," I slurredly praised my first humanoid summon, who was now proudly standing guard.

With my body now half asleep, I decided that training was over and had to groggily tell my summon to carry me home, and with a silent nod, my summon gently lifted me and began taking me back home.

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Author Comment

I'm back, yay.....

got meself some time, when this uploaded I'll just started on chap 5, hopefully it'll be smooth sailing.

earned from this chapter

1 for a new chapter

4 for 4k words

spent : 3

Unspent : 5

power :

Umbrakinetic Creature Creation/shadow creature 3/5 (Active)

Summon can now go to far distance without dissolving, If humanoid, summon proficiency on X is based on the user's own skill.

User now can control summon, and gain increased spatial awareness for every summon in nearby vicinity (effected by distance).

Intuitive Aptitude 3/5 (passive)

Faster learning speed, Implement and adapt teachings at a faster rate than human, unconsciously know how most mundane things work.

Gained increased preception.

(magical stuff he can theorize, but needs the context on how the magical energy is used for optimal result)

Soul Manipulation 3/5 (Active/touch only)

no risk of attribute manipulation, now can edit the existing attributes of others,

Automatically record new attribute and gain access to soul history (own is instant, other people need time).

Little rant:

Word bank can't speak-talk like brain do! RRRAAAGGGHHH!