DxD 0033: 10 Days Later (1/2)

As Abaddon looked at Koneko going at her work steadily, he stayed for a few minutes to make sure that there weren’t any issues with her and Sona. Koneko’s mechanical movements were easily visible to anyone. She was just working with Sona for the sake of working with her. She had no sense of trust that one would have with someone in a fight where they allow someone else to watch their backs.

Koneko would never let someone watch her back and it would be detrimental for her in the longer term when it comes to group conflicts.

After seeing that things were relatively normal after an hour or so, he left them to their devices and moved on to the two queens that he’d left to be tortured by Koneko for the past two days.

Reaching back into his Aether-concentrated room, he saw them both lying on the couch in exhaustion as they healed themselves up.

‘I’ll let Tsubaki rest for a while,’ He thought as he walked to the couch that Akeno was lying on. He kneeled in front of Akeno’s couch and put his hand over her head. He passed a stream of concentrated Aether directly into her body through her head. It worked to cool her down and rejuvenate her at the same time.

A few minutes later, Akeno opened her eyes and saw Abaddon looking at her, “Morning, A-kun…” Akeno smiled happily.

“Morning, Akeno,” Abaddon smiled, “Get up. We should do some one-on-one training for your lightning.” He told her.

“Where do we go?” Akeno asked after sitting up on the couch.

“Right here. Lightning isn’t as volatile as Destruction so we can just train on the couch.” He said as he took a seat beside Akeno.

“Okay…” She nodded and looked at him cutely as she waited for him to tell her what to do.

Abaddon couldn’t help but smile as he looked at Akeno’s serious expression and wrapped his arm around her waist before bringing her to his lap.

“Hm?” Akeno looked at him with a confused yet curious expression, “We’ll train like this?” She asked him.

“Yeah. I can make you recover quickly while also distracting you whenever I want…” He said in her ear as he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist making her release a gasp.

“Now I want you to bring your right index finger to your left palm,” He waited for her to follow his instruction before continuing, “Now create a circle to generate a thin arc of lightning that extends from your finger to your palm and then slowly pull them apart.” He told her as he rested his chin on her shoulder so that her actions were visible to him.

Akeno nodded and a red circle formed in front of her index that was resting on her palm before disappearing. She slowly pulled her finger away from her palm with an expression of utmost concentration on her face. As her finger and her palm separated, a thin arc of yellow lightning was joining them like a bridge.

“Good work. Now, keep pulling them apart, I wanna see how long you can keep it maintained.” Abaddon whispered in her ear. Akeno didn’t say anything and responded with her actions. A few seconds later, her finger and palm were almost a foot apart. But Akeno was practically shivering with how much of her mental energy was being consumed with this energy-control exercise. As she pulled her finger and palm further away, the arc broke and Akeno slumped back into Abaddon’s chest while huffing as the arc fizzled out of existence.

“Good work, Akeno…” He slipped his hand under her top and rubbed her belly while infusing Aether into her body through his touch. Akeno almost moaned in pleasure as she felt the cooling sensation of Aether running through her entire body.

“Next we’ll be doing something to increase your energy tank.” He told her as he held her palm, “This is something that I found with Seekvaira when we were out exploring different ruins from the time of old devils.” He pointed his finger at her palm and drew some obscure symbol. When he was done, Akeno looked curiously at the symbol, but she couldn’t decipher anything from it. The symbol seemed like it kept changing itself every half a second. The strokes automatically moved around in an unknown pattern, making it impossible for her to decipher.

“Pour your demonic energy into your palm.” He told her.

“What is this?” She asked as she listened to his words and brought her demonic energy to her palm as if she was about to cast a magic circle.

“I came across some very useful old magic when exploring an old ruin. This stuff is from before even the time of Lucifer and the old faction. Most of the information about that era has been lost as even the Bael clan doesn’t know anything about it. As old as my clan is, it’s not really that old in the grand scheme of things. This is Runic Magic. As far as I know, before the use of magic circles to channel demonic energy, the devils used Runes.” Abaddon explained to her as he saw her expression change into one of surprise as she felt her energy being sucked by that symbol.

She panicked and stopped the flow and was relieved that she still had control over her energy.

“Don’t worry, you can make it release the energy that was absorbed back into you whenever you want.” Abaddon chuckled as he still kept rubbing her smooth belly.

Akeno tried to release the stored energy and felt it return back to her, “This is so cool, A-kun…” She commented.

“I know. And its capacity is enough to help you store all of your energy multiple times over.” He told her as he nuzzled her neck, eliciting a giggle from Akeno before she asked, “That much? Do you also use it as a backup energy storage?” She asked him.

“No… Your energy capacity is actually abysmal in front of even an average high-class devil, let alone me. This thing won’t be able to help me in fights. Then again, I don’t really need something like that.” He said with a little laugh.

“You shouldn’t be so arrogant A-kun…” She said with a little laugh as she poured her demonic energy into the Rune.

“It’s not arrogance if it’s true.” He chuckled as he slipped his hand a bit lower while rubbing her belly. Slipping into her leggings and moving to her pelvis, touching the waistband of her panties. He sent some Aether to her pelvis while massaging her and that resulted in a gasping moan coming from Akeno’s mouth due to the cooling sensation in her core, “A-kun~”

“Empty out your tank… The real training starts after that.” He told her as Akeno nodded with a blush on her face. Especially since she noticed the amused looks directed toward her from Rias and Seekvaira.

…

“Now for some one-on-one training for the two of us.” Abaddon grabbed Koneko’s arm and hoisted her up from the couch to stand up.

“Rest more…” She said as she looked at him expressionlessly, but there was a hint of fatigue in her eyes.

“Nope. Being tired is good. Helps develop your Touki better.” Abaddon didn’t listen to her and dragged her out of the room while passing some Aether into her body to make her feel better.

When they were in a relatively open area, he handed her a corset, “Put this around your waist.” He said to her.

She looked at him suspiciously as he said, “Just wear it.” She reluctantly listened to him and put the metallic-looking corset around her waist. A magic circle appeared on the corset as it tightened up and fixed itself on her waist.

Abaddon got close to her and put his arms around her waist, “Hold tight.”

Before Koneko could even react, his wings extended out of his back and he took off into the air. Instinctively, Koneko tried to bring out her devil wings and take flight, but they were stuck under that corset that Abaddon wrapped around her waist. As she realized her predicament, she wrapped her arms tightly around Abaddon as he flew up into the air.

He could feel her tense state and chuckled. This was why he brought her to the air. Her entire body had tensed up and training in such a state would have immense benefits.

As Koneko looked down, she realized that they’d already left the barrier that he’d cast for their training and were very far up in the air, to the point where it wasn’t very easy to breathe due to the thin air here.

“The rest of our training will be done here.” He told her as he looked down at her as she pressed her face against his chest.

“Sadist…” She commented in a tone that made him chuckle.

“That’s what makes my training so effective. I will make platforms for you to stand on. Most of them will be Destruction energy platforms that will hurt like a bitch if you stand on them for more than half a second while, though some of the platforms will be safe, the catch being that you don’t know whether the platform is safe or not. Each time you jump, the platforms will shuffle so that you can’t work by memory after finding a safe platform.” He said nonchalantly as even Koneko revealed a horrified look.

“What? Do you think Sairaorg reached the heights that he’s on by himself? That guy went through far worse training to get to where he is now.” Abaddon said with a laugh as he rubbed Koneko’s head.

“Who?” She asked as she didn’t know who Abaddon was talking about.

“My brother. He’s the second-strongest young generation devil after me.” He said with a proud smile on his face. He was proud of his brother.

“Oh…” Koneko’s eyes betrayed her underlying admiration behind that expressionless and flat reply.

“Your goal is to catch me.” He told her with a little smile as he formed a huge magic circle under them both before hundreds of identical platforms formed all around them. They were all very small, only enough that Koneko could put a single foot on them.

“Oh, and also,” Many walls formed all around the platform field, “You have to break all these walls before you attempt to catch me.” He told her as he unceremoniously threw her away to one of the safe platforms.

Koneko let out a little yelp as she balanced herself on one foot on the platform, realizing that it was a safe one.

“Senpai, do the platforms change their positions too?” She asked him.

“Not yet. That’s the next round.” He chuckled as he heard her groan.