DxD : Emiya Shirou

And I sure as hell wasn't about to allow anyone I teach die in such a stupid way. Only the strong can afford to show chivalrous in battle. 

I'm convinced that the only reason why Saber survived for so long acting the way she did was because disadvantaged or not she had more than enough power to overwhelm anyone that challenged her.

...

I could hear Kiba actually growl in frustration when I didn't even bother looking away from Sona as I continued to dodge and deflect his attacks. 

He almost snarled as he redoubled his attacked, reinforcing a rather startling truth that I had ended up discovering during my time sparring with him. Kiba, it turns out, had one hell of a temper. Who would have figured that someone as polite as him had Wrath as a personal sin?

"I have no idea what you're talking about Kaichou." He gritted out through clenched teeth as he continued to press his attack, which only seemed to fuel his frustration when he failed to make any real progress. "The only ones that are having fun here are these two."

"Nya-ha-ha, Kiba-chi~." A voice cheered from above me. "It's not our fault you're not having fun. You'd be enjoying yourself too if you could just fight worth a damn. Nya-ha."

Then again, the source of his temper may not have anything to with his Sin, what with the heckler he seemed to have gained.

Kiba paused in his attacks to look up at my little passenger. "As if you can do any better." He pointed his sword up at her, "How am I supposed to take this fight seriously when you're riding on his shoulders Koneko?"

"Kiba-chi~," She drawled out her new pet name for him as she propped an elbow on my head, "it's called a handicap."

I felt Shirone pet me a couple times before she started ruffling my hair. "If you can't beat my little servant here with me in his way, then you'll just end up getting your pretty little ass kicked even worse without me, nya-ha-ha~."

Ok, now that that was a little harsh. That it was also true was completely irrelevant. I lowered my sword and looked up above me with a reprimand ready on my lips, only to pause as I found a pair of golden eyes staring back down into mine. They sparkled in the sunlight, filled with barely concealed mischief and amusement that I knew would only spell trouble for me.

From where she sat on my shoulders, with her legs hooked beneath my arms, Shirone grinned teasingly down at me before giving my head another couple of condescending pats.

"Shirone, how many times must I tell to stop teasing Kiba during our training?" I admonished her, "And when did I ever agree to become your servant?"

A smirk flashed through her face for a heartbeat before she quickly hid it behind a faux serious expression. She removed her hand off the top of my head to tap her chin a couple of times while she cocked her head in thought, "Well, you feed me don't you?"

I didn't hesitate in the slightest to nod adamantly in response. There was no denying that. She invited herself over for almost every meal these days. Not that I minded of course but holy crap could the girl eat!

If Serafall hadn't provided me with what was practically unlimited funding to spend while I was here, I'm sure that Shirone would have eaten me out of house and home three times over by now. She devoured more food in a single meal than the rest of my peerage could eat throughout the entire day. Combined.

"And you take care of me as well, right?" Propping her chin on my head as she asked. I felt a feeling of trepidation wash over me for a moment before I reluctantly nodded my head. I'm not sure why, but I had a bad feeling that I wouldn't like where this was going.

Sure enough, her next words confirmed my fears. "Well since you feed me, take care of me, and do anything I ask you to, then what else could you possibly be but my servant?"

"Wait wait wait! Since when did I ever do anything you ask me?"

I felt her shift around on my shoulders as she moved about and her legs tighten their hold on me before she pushed herself off my head and lean down over in front of me. Her upside-down face ended up suspending before mine, only a few inches separating the two of us, while her hair dangled down towards the ground.

The pair of white-furred cat-ears that she now seemed to continuously have out began to fold flat against her head, making her look ridiculously sad. Her golden eyes grew wide with surprise and they quickly began to turn moist as unshed tears began to gather in them. Her chin wobbled slightly for a moment as she whispered out, "You…you mean you won't?"

"I…no, that's not what…I mean…" I stammered out trying to come up with something to say as her eyes, her wide heartbreaking eyes remained locked onto mine and her chin's trembling continued to grow more pronounced with every passing second.

Ok, now that just wasn't fair! I knew that look. How could I not when Ilya kept using it on me whenever she really wanted something. As if that wasn't bad enough but now Shirone learned how to do it too? Did they have classes specifically for little white haired girls where they go to learn how to do this or was it just genetic?

However, it wouldn't work. Not anymore. Not with my new found Devil Pride to help me resist. My pride will never allow me to bow down and become anyone's servant, even if it was just in name alone. 

Not even if the person happened to be an adorably sad little girl whose broken hearted face made me want to hug her until all her pain went away and promise the entire world just to make her smile again.

So no, unlike with Ilya I didn't cave into her demand right way. I've changed. This time I was able to resist for a full six seconds before I folded like a stack of cards.

"…Fine." I slumped over slightly as I stopped resisting and gave over to the inevitable. I could feel my broken pride weeping in a dark corner of my soul from the beating it received. "I give, I'm your servant, whatever, just cut the damn puppy eyes out."

At my words her frown disappeared and was instantly replaced with a cheerful smile. "Nya-ha-ha-ha," She laughed as flipped herself back up again. "See? What a good boy you are my little servant."

Then she began to fondly pat the top of my head again as if were a dog as all the while she smirked impishly down at me.

You know, the longer I began to hangout with Shirone the more certain I became of a certain truth. It was official, she was an Evil kitty.

I must that have said that out loud because the next thing I knew Shirone broke out in another string of laughter, "Shirou~. Didn't you know? All cats are Evil. We're just cute enough to get away with it, Nya-ha~."

Before I even got the chance to so much as think of a retort Kiba attacked, trying to take advantage of my distraction and sneak a blow in. It didn't work of course but that was the closest he came to hitting me all day.

With Shirone on my back I couldn't duck the blow as I usually would have, not without her getting hit in my place. So I blocked the blow with the flat of my blade instead. 

It wasn't an elegant solution but it worked, and with the power advantaged granted to me by my Queen Piece to his Knight, I was able to easily halt him in his tracks using brute strength alone.

We ended up standing face to face, with swords locked in place between us, before I broke the stalemate. Digging my feet into the ground I flexed my legs and pushed forward, forcing Kiba back and trying to knock him off balance. 

It didn't work as instead of fighting me, Kiba went along with my action. He leapt backwards and used my push to help propel himself away faster and soon he was a fair distance away from the reach of my sword.

He leapt back a couple of more times than he needed to, stopping only when he cleared a wide stretch of open space between us. As he skidded to a halt he immediately held his sword in before him, in the classic two handed grip, in preparation for any counter attack I may attempt. He didn't need to bother as I just held my ground instead and waited for him to come to me and, to my mild surprise, he did the same.

The Kiba in front of me was a far cry from what he was when we first started training. Even as little as a month ago he would have never been content to sit back and wait. 

The old him would rely completely on his speed and reflexes to get him through a fight, rushing in and trying to overwhelm his opponent at the first opportunity.

And to his credit it would work pretty well most of the time. Even for a Knight Kiba was scary fast and at times even I had trouble keeping up with him without reinforcing myself. 

He would have been able to finish off most opponents before they even realized that they were being attacked but against someone of a higher caliber than him, his recklessness would doom him.

But now he was already different, all I had to do was watch his eyes for proof. They weren't locked onto me like they used to. They were slowly drifting left and right, scanning the terrain around us in addition to myself.

He had already attempted all of his regular lines of attack over our weeks of sparring and they all failed. Several times in fact. So he had been forced to learn how to use his brain rather than just his skills when fighting me.

To learn how to observe the field of a battle as well as his opponent was a skill that would have been worthless in a regular sword match but utterly invaluable in the battlefield. That is the difference between fighting a single opponent in a sparring match and fighting several opponents in a constantly shifting battlefield.

And that was why I left him to it uninterrupted. That was what I had been trying to teach him all this time so there was no way I'm going to interfere now that he was finally getting it right. So I lowered my sword slightly and took a semi-relaxed stance, waiting for him to finish and see what he came up with.

Kiba didn't really need me to teach him any sword skills. Other than his lack of flexibility it was already near flawless for his age. Not surprising, seeing as he had a first class instructor helping him train. Souji Okita was one of the greatest living swordsmen in the Underworld and, if Kiba was anything to go by, an equally skilled teacher, if a little old fashioned.

So no, I didn't need to bother teaching him any sword skills. What I tried to teach him instead, other than observing the entire battlefield, was something that only I as a fellow crafter of multiple swords could teach. How to fully utilize the advantage that our swords granted us.

Right now he was only the using the direct application of his sword's abilities, which was a complete waste of his true potential. 

What he needed to realize, just as how I did long ago, is that it was not the abilities of ours swords that made them powerful, but knowing how and when to use them. The pure flexibility and versatility is our fighting styles' greatest asset, and the sooner he figured that out the better.

He was learning of course, if rather slower than I'd have liked but he was progress was progress and he getting a little bit better every single day. But he was still too rigid to my liking, to predictable. 

I wanted him to do something unexpected, something that I wouldn't see coming-

"I," He intoned, his voice cutting clear across the clearing and dragging me from my thoughts, "am the bone of my sword."

…What the hell?

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Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)

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