High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Yuki

By the third day, Lady Mireia stopped asking questions.

That was how I knew she had learned what I was capable of and now was looking for results

The first day had been diagnosis.

The second had been the basics of spell casting.

By the third, she no longer sounded interested in whether I was talented.

What mattered now was whether talent could be made useful under pressure, and what we could do with it.

And that had been a few days ago.

The training hall had become more familiar to me than my room in the main residence.

Dark stone under bare feet.

The faint, cool smell of books, ink, ozone, and old magic.

Narrow windows that let in measured light instead of warmth.

Rings etched into the floor, some designed for shaping, some for suppression, some for reinforcement, and some for things Lady Mireia still had not explained to me yet, but I had a few guesses as to what they were.

I had stopped to check on Kenoko twice since we had talked.

I didn’t want her to feel like I was crowding her, but I needed to make sure she was alright.

The first time I stopped by her training room, I asked her if she had started training her Nekomata side.

She had looked guilty and told me that she hadn’t yet.

I understood her hesitance and knew that one talk with me wouldn’t fix everything.

But she told me that she was going to try soon.

I encouraged her again before I had left her to her training.

The second time, it had been this morning, I had stopped by her training room and the door was locked.

“Koneko-chan? It’s me. Can you open the door?” I said.

It was silent for a moment, then I heard movement from inside. 

The door unlocked and opened a crack.

I saw Koneko look at me from the slit in the door and check both sides of the hall before she opened the door the rest of the way.

I was greeted with the sight of her white cat ears and tail as she stepped into the doorway.

“…Hello, Yuki-senpai.” She said after a beat. 

“Hello, Koneko-chan. I came by again to see how your training was coming while I took a break from mine,” I said. I gestured to her ears, “Does this mean that you’re training your Nekomata powers?”

She nodded.

“I started yesterday. I didn’t really train them for very long, but I’m trying. I just started again today. I’m going to try and practice longer this time.”

“That’s great, Koneko-chan. It’s progress, even if it doesn’t feel like much.”

“…I’m still mainly focusing on my physical training though. I’m still not comfortable with fully embracing that part of myself,” she said. Then quieter, “I’m… I’m still scared of becoming like Nee-sama.”

I frowned and stepped closer.

“You won’t. I won’t let that happen to you and neither will the rest of our friends. You can do it, Koneko-chan. Just go at your own rate for now.”

After that she seemed more determined, even if she was scared.

She went back to her training and locked the door behind her, and I headed back to mine.

During the last few days I hadn’t  had a chance to talk to Akeno yet, or Rias either.

I saw them when we would gather for meals, but that was really it.

With everyone having individual training there wasn't much opportunity to catch either of them alone.

And I didn’t even know if I would be able to get Rias to speak to me.

She was still avoiding me without making it too obvious to the others.

I would have to talk to them eventually, but I also had my own training to worry about as well.

The first day of my training, Lady Mireia had me show her what my curse spells actually were.

Stillmark, Baleful Bolt, and my skills with magic formula and structure.

So I showed her.

She had learned about my aptitude and how my deals affected me.

She suggested a state that I would enter in order to alter how my backlash affected me.

I had a goal for my training.

The second day, had been focused on the basics of spell work 

No targets.

No spectacle.

No satisfaction of releasing spells.

Only posture, pressure, breath, alignment, and the beginnings of the state she insisted I would eventually need if I wished to stop fighting my own curse work like an idiot.

The third day, she made me fail.

Over and over.

There was nothing theatrical about the way she taught.

She simply constructed situations where I would try the wrong thing, waited until I did, and then made me start again with one cutting observation precise enough to be annoying for hours afterward.

“Again,” she said.

I stood inside the innermost ring, hands at my sides, breathing slowly, demonic energy gathered to form a curse but did not release it.

I was supposed to be feeling how the energy moved through me and try to analyze it as I did.

I felt as though I had not made any progress by the end of the third day of training.

Each time I got close, something inside me made a mistake.

Too much resistance, and the state never formed enough to matter.

Too much eagerness, and it sharpened too quickly into something I could not hold.

If I leaned too far into it too quickly I would instinctively recoil.

Like I was about to touch a hot stovetop.

My body's natural reaction was to reject the state I was trying to enter, and I needed to overcome that.

The first physical changes had started appearing by then, but only in fragments.

Darker color touching the fur at the tips of my ears, then fading

My vision narrowing for a breath before returning to normal.

My nails drawing toward clawed points and then softening again when my control snapped.

Once, fine, deep red lines rose at the base of my fingers like veins made of demonic energy and vanished before I could fully register them.

Each failure left me hot with frustration.

Each time she made me begin again.

On the fourth day, I began to debate hating her.

That was progress too, probably.

She noticed my frustration before I had said anything

“You’re letting your emotions get ahead of you.” she said.

I was standing with one hand braced against the wall of the room, catching my breath after another attempt had collapsed under my seals’ interference.

She was right.

I was already worried about what had happened between Rias and I, as well as Akeno and Koneko’s situations during training.

And now I was getting frustrated about my failures in my own training. 

Normally I would be much more patient, but I think that the state I was trying to achieve was having an effect on me.

I was quicker to become angry and wanted to lash out more.

“I believe that some frustration is warranted.”

“It could be, but you should be focusing on improving, not being upset over your failures,” she replied.

I looked at her.

Lady Mireia stood beside one of the shelves with a book closed in one hand, posture unruffled, expression exactly as severe as always.

I had started to understand her better by then.

She was not cruel.

She simply considered indulgence a form of disrespect.

She was solely focused on the pursuit of improving magic.

That made her easier to endure than many kinds of people.

“My frustration can still be useful,” I said.

“No,” she said. “Your frustration is a distraction. Precision would be useful.”

Then I looked at the nearest training circle again and forced myself to straighten.

The fifth day was when she first made me stay close to the threshold for longer than I wanted.

That was worse than simply failing to enter it.

At least outright failure ended quickly.

Holding the edge of it meant standing in the place where the state wanted to happen and refusing both cowardice and recklessness.

It meant feeling the seals distort the alignment in my body.

Feeling the curse energy settling into a more natural and more dangerous posture.

Feeling my body begin to answer it but having to hold it back.

That was the day I learned the earliest stages of the mental pull.

It didn’t make me lose myself or cause  sudden madness.

Only a gradual removal of caution and hesitation.

Restraint thinned first.

Then embarrassment.

Then the space in which second thoughts usually lived.

I could still think.

The state did not make me stupid.

It made certain instincts feel louder and more justified than they should.

The longer I held close to it, the easier it became to imagine acting first and deciding afterward.

Lady Mireia noticed the shift immediately the first time it surfaced.

“Stop,” she said.

I did.

Barely.

“Did anything change?” she asked.

I frowned.

“I felt… different. It felt wrong for a moment.”

That made Lady Mireia nod with a serious expression.

“I see. So the effect of the state is mental, as I had thought I may be. In addition to the small physical changes that have occurred to you while we have been practicing. Though it is interesting that the mental changes happen as soon as you enter the state rather than when you cast a spell. We will have to test this further.”

Lady Mireia nodded once.

“My understanding of it is that the mental effect of these types of altered states can either influence or enhance parts of the user’s self. What did yours feel like?”

“I still felt like myself, just.. less restrained, I think.” I replied.

“Considering your Youkai nature, it may feed your instincts and cause you to act on them more readily. And if you say you feel less restraint, then I’d imagine you’ll still be like yourself. Just if you had removed the metaphorical brakes.”. 

I did not know if that meant controlling it would be easier or harder.

I could only sigh as I went back to training. 

The sisxth day was more of the same.

While I practiced I tried to think of what to do regarding Rias.

I didn’t know if she was still upset, or disgusted with me, or had decided to pretend the whole thing hadn't happened.

I could only make guesses until I talked to her, but I only knew that I had done something wrong.

But I had stopped trying to seek out openings between us.

When she wanted space, I gave it to her.

That was all I could do that did not make me more of a problem.

I would wait until she was ready to talk to me again, and if she wanted me to apologize or pretend those moments where things had ventured further than we had agreed upon hadn't happened, I would.

So, on the sixth day of our training camp, I did the only sensible thing and gave everything I had to the training.

Lady Mireia had rearranged the hall before I arrived that morning.

The main circle was still there, but the outer rings had been narrowed and reinforced, and a second, smaller set of marks had been added near the center like a trap waiting to close.

She stood there already when I entered.

“No greeting?” she asked.

“I’m tired.”

“Then work through it.”

That was how the fifth day began.

She made me spend the first hours without casting at all.

I would gather my demonic energy, but not release it.

Then she had me build the earliest structure of Stillmark and stop.

Then the same with Baleful Bolt.

Then both in alternating sequence until my arm, chest, and head had each begun to ache with a familiar pain.

“Your body is still trying to choose between bracing and adapting,” she said.

I was breathing harder than I wanted to.

“That sounds like the sort of sentence meant to sound wise without being useful.”

“It is both wise and useful. Again.”

I did it again.

By the time the light through the windows had shifted toward afternoon, she had stripped the whole process down to three rules.

Do not suppress the state before it could form.

Do not indulge it when it did.

Do not ignore how it changed how I thought.

The last of those was the one that kept catching.

Because it wasn't just one thing that it affected in me.

When I tried to enter the state it sharpened my attention, almost to the point of tunnel vision.

I felt a predatory confidence.

The part of myself that kept my more selfish desires at bay grew quieter.

The idea of acting how I pleased was harder to ignore.

And behind all that, a quiet, seductive thought that suggested everything difficult would become easier if I only let the state settle all the way.

That was what I had to fight against if I wanted to master it.

If I didn’t, I wouldn't remain myself when I used it.

It made me think that I could become the sort of monster Koneko had described when she spoke of her sister.

And right now I was trying to enter the state.

Lady Mireia knew exactly when I started to succeed.

I noticed that the fur along my tails had started to darken from its normal color to a deep black.

My vision narrowed as my eyes changed as well.

The room sharpened as the change in my vision settled.

“Hold,” Lady Mireia said.

I held.

The urge to move had become strong. 

But it wasn’t random.

It was towards Lady Mireia.

It gave me a sense that if I crossed the room and pressed Lady Mireia backward into the shelves, I would learn something meaningful from the expression that would finally appear on her face.

I hated that thought.

That helped me control myself.

“Do not ignore how it is affecting you,” she said.

I realized I had let something of the reaction show.

“I’m not.”

“You are. Stop it. What do you want?”

The answer came so quickly I almost broke out of the state out of shame.

“To close the distance to you.”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because it feels—”

I stopped.

She waited.

I forced myself to say it.

“Because it feels easier in this state to act on impulses and it’s much harder to hesitate.”

“Good,” she said. “Understanding that is useful.”

I was starting to understand why she insisted on honesty.

If I was embarrassed or squeamish about it, then she wouldn’t be able to help me understand it.

The next attempt was the closest yet.

I stepped into the inner marks of the magic circle I used to practice.

I breathed and began to gather my demonic energy.

I started to form a curse, but kept it in the beginning stages as I let that energy gather in me. 

I moved the energy through myself and let it brush against my seals. 

I continued this until something aligned.

My vision began to sharpen again.

My fur began to darken into a pitch black shade. 

Heat spread behind my eyes, and when I blinked I felt the world reassemble through a different focus.

My nails grew into claws.

I felt my canines pressed heavy at the back of my lower lip.

When I moved my arm I noticed faint lines of dull crimson energy flowing beneath my skin.

The mental effect of the state came down over me all at once.

I could feel the energy from the curse I had started to form no longer fight me in the same way.

My seals didn’t push back against it. 

For one perfect, terrible second, the difference was almost euphoric.

My aura deepened.

The weight of it spread through the hall.

My eyes fixed on Lady Mireia and I saw, with nauseating clarity, every small sign of breath, every inch of skin visible at her throat and hands, every small shift in her body as she watched me.

The mental drawback followed immediately.

The first seconds of it were normal.

Then inhibition began to burn away.

The longer I held it, the more natural the idea that I could take whatever I wanted became.

I felt my need to act on my own selfish desires begin to build as the reasons not to act on them faded away.

And that was only the first handful of seconds.

I knew then, with cold certainty, that this state would grow worse the longer I remained in it.

My own thoughts were still there.

They simply had become more predatory, selfish, and cruel.

“Exit,” Lady Mireia said.

I tried.

Nothing happened.

Panic hit low and made my stomach twist.

I quickly realized that I could still exit the state, but I wouldn’t be able to do so immediately.

I had to focus deliberately on dragging myself away from it and back to my normal self.

For one horrible second, I wanted not to.

I realized that leaving required resisting how right it felt to stay.

I managed to force myself out.

The state released me in pieces.

My fur lightened.

My hands softened.

The pressure in the room ebbed.

My breath came back too fast and rough in my throat.

I was shaking.

Lady Mireia looked almost pleased.

“Again,” she said.

I stared at her.

“That was enough.”

“No. That was just a taste. Again.”

I hated her at that moment.

I readied myself and tried again.

The second time came faster.

I knew the path now.

Worse, some part of me wanted it.

The state wrapped me again, and this time I understood the escalation more clearly.

The first ten seconds were fine.

The second ten would be worse.

The mental drawback was not a fixed thing.

It deepened.

More hunger.

Less shame.

More willingness to close distance, to press, to take, to turn desire into action before it had time to be reconsidered.

And beneath it all, the steady knowledge that I would have to focus if I wanted to leave.

This time I lasted longer by only a few seconds.

That was enough.

The moment I could no longer tear my gaze away from Lady Mireia’s throat, I tore myself out again.

When the state finally let go, my knees almost buckled.

I stayed standing because I was being watched.

Lady Mireia crossed part of the circle then and stopped just inside it.

For the first time in five days, she looked openly satisfied.

“There,” she said.

I was too tired to ask what she meant.

So she said it anyway.

“You have crossed the threshold. The state exists. You can enter it. You can exit it.” Her eyes narrowed slightly in approval. “Not elegantly. Most likely not safely around others. But you can do it.”

I let one hand rise and stared at it.

It looked normal again.

That felt stranger than it should have.

“The drawback worsens the longer I stay in it,” I said.

“That makes sense.”

“It strips away inhibition.”

“You will have to focus then.”

“I have to concentrate to leave.”

She folded her hands behind her back and tipped her head.

“And now,” she said, “you no longer need to create it. You only need to learn to use it.”

I looked up at her.

That sentence should have been reassuring.

It wasn’t.

“So, what will you call it?” She asked.

I was quiet as I thought about it.

I looked at her before I spoke.

“Malediction’s Embrace.”

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