High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Kusari

The worst part of pain was not the pain itself.

Pain could be measured. Sorted. Minimized. Worked around.

The worst part was what came after, when people decided it meant something about you.

Fragility. Weakness. Carelessness. Cost.

By the next afternoon, the backlash from yesterday had separated itself into categories.

My right hand still ached if I closed it too hard. My shoulder pulled unpleasantly if I lifted too fast. The line under my ribs had settled into a dull, patient reminder that the seals resented ambition.

And behind my eyes there was pressure.

Not enough to blur my vision yet. Not enough to make the room swim. Just the familiar warning that came after pushing Veil’s Sight too long or too hard: a thin ache at the back of the eyes, a gathering weight behind the brow, the suggestion of a headache waiting for permission to become real.

Manageable.

I stood in the clubroom with a wooden practice knife in one hand and tried to ignore the way my fingers wanted to tighten wrong around it.

“This is not a real match,” Kiba-san said.

“I understand.”

She smiled slightly. “Then stop looking as if I’m about to test whether you survive.”

I had not realized my face had done that.

My grip shifted by instinct, correcting itself.

The clubroom had been cleared enough to allow movement. Buchou sat at the table near the window, watching. Himejima-san stood beside her with tea already prepared despite the fact that we were in the middle of training. Toujou-san occupied her usual chair, chin propped on one hand. Argento-san sat near the edge of the room, concern visible every time she thought I was not looking. Hyoudou-san had been told to sit down twice already and was now pretending that slouching restlessly counted as obedience.

I could still feel his attention.

That was becoming irritating.

Kiba-san lifted her own practice blade and adjusted her stance. Even in something this light, she was graceful. Controlled. Efficient in the kind of way that came from confidence instead of fear.

“Begin,” Buchou said.

Kiba-san moved first.

Fast.

Not all-out, not trying to overwhelm me, but fast enough that anyone without proper footing would be forced backward.

She was holding back, to see what I could do.

I did step back.

Not because of panic. Because that was where the fight wanted to go.

Her shoulder turned a fraction before her wrist. The angle of the strike told me where the second one would come from. Her center shifted just enough to say that she wanted to drive me left and cut the retreat path after.

Veil’s Sight was not something as crude as seeing the future.

It was worse for the other person than that.

It let me understand where intention gathered.

And it always asked for payment.

The pressure behind my eyes sharpened as I let the sight deepen, the room’s ordinary edges thinning while motion and threat clarified into cleaner lines. Not infinite. Not perfect. But enough.

I tilted away from the first strike, checked the second with the practice knife, and turned before she could complete the pressure line she wanted. Her blade passed close enough to feel the displaced air against my sleeve.

Too close.

But close had always been safer than hesitation.

I redirected low toward her wrist. Not a true attack. A correction. A reminder that openings existed when people committed too cleanly.

Kiba-san pulled back in time and reset.

“Good,” Buchou said.

Hyoudou-san made a small noise from where he sat. “That’s weird.”

“Hush,” Himejima-ssn said pleasantly.

“It is weird.”

I agreed, though not for the same reason.

Fighting Kiba-san was strange because she did not crowd. She pressed. Measured. Adapted. Most people, when they saw someone slight, pale, and visibly tired, either pushed too hard or not hard enough. She did neither. She respected lines. That made her difficult.

She came in again.

I let the room narrow.

Wood. Floorboard. Weight shift. Wrist angle. Breath.

The ache behind my eyes deepened a fraction.

Her third attack would not be a strike. It would be a test of space.

I moved before it happened.

Not far. Not fast enough to seem unnatural. Just enough that her advancing step found slightly less room than she expected, and her timing adjusted around that lost fraction.

That was all I needed.

I tapped her wrist with the practice knife and stepped out.

Kiba-san stopped at once and lowered her blade.

“Hm,” she said.

Hyoudou-san leaned forward. “She keeps doing that.”

Toujou-san answered before anyone else. “Reading.”

It was the first word she had spoken in several minutes.

All eyes shifted to her.

Toujou-san looked back at no one in particular. “She keeps getting there first.”

Himejima-san’s smile deepened. “Ara. Koneko-chan is observant.”

Toujou-san ignored her.

Buchou folded her hands. “Again.”

Kiba-san and I returned to her place.

She did not smile this time.

Good.

A serious opponent was easier to read than a polite one.

We moved through three more exchanges. It was already harder to keep up due to Kiba-san holding back less. By the second, the pressure behind my eyes had become a true headache, light and persistent and growing meaner with every deeper read. By the third, my shoulder had begun to complain in earnest. By the fourth, Kiba-san had started testing false openings to see if I relied too much on the first line I read.

I did not.

Not entirely.

But the cost of following all those lines while my body was still paying for yesterday began to gather.

She feinted high.

I saw the real strike.

Turned.

Blocked.

Pain shot through my palm and up my forearm, and at the same time the tightening ache behind my eyes pulsed hard enough to make the edge of her blade blur for one ugly instant.

The practice knife nearly slipped.

I caught it.

Kiba-san saw that too.

She disengaged instantly.

Buchou spoke before I could decide whether pretending had any value left. “Enough.”

I straightened at once. “I can continue.”

The room went quiet.

Wrong answer.

Again.

Kiba-san lowered her practice blade fully. “That wasn’t a request.”

“Yes, Kiba-san.”

My hand had tightened too hard around the wooden hilt. I loosened it before anyone could comment further.

Hyoudou-san was already half out of his chair. “See? She does it again.”

“Sit down, Issei,” Buchou said.

He sat.

Argento-san rose instead, carrying a small towel and the expression of someone trying not to look like she had been waiting for permission to worry. “Kusari-san…”

I took the towel when she offered it. “Thank you.”

Her smile was soft enough to hurt in a way unrelated to magic. “You’re welcome.”

I stepped back toward the table while Kiba-san set the practice blade aside.

“You don’t waste movement,” she said.

I looked up.

She had not sat yet. She stood with that same clean posture, expression mild, voice even.

“Most people who rely on perception overcommit once they trust what they see. You don’t.”

Praise was difficult enough.

Technical praise was worse.

It expected understanding in return.

“I have made that mistake before,” I said.

Her gaze rested on me a moment longer than comfort allowed, then she gave a small nod. “It shows.”

That was all.

No probing. No push for explanation.

She simply accepted the answer and moved on.

Useful.

Dangerous in a different way.

I dried my palm carefully and pressed my fingertips once, discreetly, against the bridge of my nose. It did almost nothing for the ache behind my eyes.

Hyoudou-san had not stopped watching me.

“You really can see that much?” he asked.

I looked at him.

He leaned against the table now, eyes bright with the same irritatingly honest curiosity as always. Not suspicion. Not caution. Not the careful interest of someone assessing utility.

Just wanting to know.

“Enough,” I said.

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the one available.”

He made a face. “You say stuff like that on purpose.”

Before I could decide whether to answer, Himejima-san laughed softly.

“I think Kusari-chan says many things on purpose, Issei-kun.”

There was no real mockery in it.

That made it worse.

I turned toward her.

Himejima-san stood by Buchou’s chair, one hand resting lightly against the teapot, dark eyes warm and watchful in equal measure. She always looked beautiful. That was almost irrelevant beside how attentive she was.

She could weaponize sweetness if she wanted.

I had already learned that much.

“Would you like tea, Kusari-chan?” she asked.

“Thank you, Himejima-san.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

My fingers paused against the towel.

Himejima-san smiled.

I disliked that smile.

Not because it was cruel.

Because it was not.

It only expected truth where truth was inconvenient.

“…Yes,” I said after a beat. “Tea would be welcome.”

“There,” she said, pleased in a way that felt unfair. “That sounded more like a person.”

Hyoudou-san made a quiet sound like he wanted to agree and thought better of it.

Toujou-san, somehow, looked more interested than before.

I took the cup when Himejima-san handed it over and kept both hands around it for the warmth. Argento-san settled again at the edge of the room, seeming relieved that I had accepted something without arguing. Kiba-san sat. Buchou remained in place, gaze moving over the room with that composed authority that made every small interaction feel observed even when she said nothing.

That should have been uncomfortable enough on its own.

It would have been, if not for the fact that the clubroom was becoming… familiar.

That was the dangerous part.

Not safety. Not belonging.

Pattern.

The space beside Toujou-san was the least intrusive seat when returning from training. The place near the window belonged to Buchou even when she was not standing there. Himejima-san liked movement while speaking, but never enough to crowd anyone she was not deliberately pressuring. Kiba-san respected silences. Argento-san filled them softly if they turned painful. Hyoudou-san broke them clumsily whether they needed breaking or not.

None of that should have mattered to me.

It did.

I drank the tea.

Toujou-san rose without warning, crossed the short distance between us, and held out a small cloth wrap.

I looked at it.

Then at her.

“For your eyes,” she said.

The words took a second to arrange themselves properly.

Not for your hand.

Not for later.

For your eyes.

It was plain. Clean. Probably cool to the touch if I opened it.

I stared long enough that Hyoudou-san shifted in his chair.

Toujou-san kept holding it out.

No pressure. No explanation.

Just presence.

Slowly, I set my cup down and took it. “Thank you, Toujou-san.”

She gave one short nod and returned to her seat like nothing unusual had happened.

The room stayed quiet around that in a way that made it feel more significant than it should have.

I unwrapped the cloth and pressed it lightly first to one eye, then the other.

Cool.

Useful.

No hidden meaning I could identify.

That made it stranger.

Buchou finally spoke. “Kusari-chan.”

I looked up at once. “Yes, Buchou.”

There. That answer again. Too quick. Too trained.

Buchou’s eyes narrowed by barely anything at all.

“Yesterday’s result was effective,” she said. “It was also excessive for a target of that level.”

Heat crept unpleasantly beneath my skin.

“I understood what was needed to defeat the enemy.”

“Yes,” Buchou said. “And you used more power than defeating it required.”

Silence.

There was no point pretending not to understand her.

She had seen it.

Of course she had.

The spell had not simply been cast to kill the thing. It had been cast to show. To prove. To place a fact in front of her so cleanly that it could not be ignored.

This is what I can erase.

This is what your three-Pawn acquisition can do.

Your new piece is useful.

A low-level residue spirit had not required that much force.

I had used it anyway.

My hand tightened once around the cooling cloth.

“My brother informed me of the seals placed onto you,” Buchou said.

I almost flinched at their mention.

“The seals worsened the backlash,” Buchou continued. “But that is not the whole reason you could barely stand afterward.”

No one in the room moved.

Kiba-san looked down into her tea.

Argento-san’s hands tightened in her lap.

Hyoudou-san was openly listening now, subtlety abandoned.

I bowed my head. “Yes, Buchou.”

There.

Wrong again.

I knew it the moment the words left my mouth.

Buchou exhaled once through her nose.

Not frustration exactly.

Not satisfaction either.

Something more complicated.

Then she said, calm and precise, “I do not object to you understanding your own destructive ceiling. I object to you spending that much of yourself to make a point during a minor assignment.”

There was no cruelty in it.

No raised voice.

That made it harder to meet.

Because she was right.

And because I had wanted her to see it.

Wanted, not needed.

I needed to be seen as useful. As something that shouldn’t be cast aside.

“You are allowed judgment,” Buchou said. “You are not allowed waste.”

The headache behind my eyes pulsed once, sharply.

I lowered them further. “Understood.”

This answer was slower.

Not enough to be natural.

Enough not to sound entirely automatic.

That, somehow, felt more exposing.

Buchou’s expression did not soften, but it did settle. “Good.”

She went back to looking over the documents on her desk and stopped upon seeing one in particular.

As she read it her expression slightly changed.

The whole room shifted.

Buchou’s gaze seemed to try and tear a hole through the paper.

That was all it took.

Her shoulders remained perfect. Her posture did not break. Her face stayed composed after her brief slip.

But the room changed anyway.

I knew that posture.

Not the outer shape. The meaning under it.

People trapped by rank learned to go still in a different way from people trapped by fear. Fear made motion jagged. Rank made it careful.

Buchou placed the document into one of the desk drawers and closed it with slightly too much force.

Then she grabbed her phone and stood.

“I need to speak with someone,” she said.

No one stopped her.

Of course no one stopped her.

She crossed to the hall and closed the door behind her with quiet precision.

Silence settled in her absence.

Hyoudou-san looked toward the door as if he could will it to explain itself.

Argento-san worried her hands together.

Himejima-san watched the closed door with a smile too faint to read.

Kiba-san said nothing.

Toujou-san looked at me.

I did not know why.

Then I realized my hand had gone tight around the cup again.

I loosened it at once.

“Buchou has been off recently,” Hyoudou-san muttered.

No one answered him for a second.

Then Himejima-san smiled very slightly. “That was rather direct, Issei-kun.”

“It’s true.”

“True things are not always safe to say carelessly.”

He frowned. “You say that like I’m wrong.”

“I say it like you are loud.”

That almost made Argento-san smile.

Hyoudou-san opened his mouth, then seemed to think better of it.

I kept my eyes on the closed door.

It was not my business.

It had nothing to do with me.

It had everything to do with me.

No—wrong.

Not with me.

With what I recognized.

Whatever it was that made Buchou react like that.

That must be why Sirzechs-sama placed me into her peerage.

Buchou returned a few minutes later.

If anyone less practiced had looked at her, they might have thought nothing had changed.

I was not anyone less practiced.

The pressure in the room followed her back in.

“We’ll end early today,” she said.

Argento-san blinked. “Buchou?”

“There are matters I need to attend to.”

Himejima-san’s eyes lingered on Buchou for one unreadable beat. “Of course.”

Kiba-san nodded once.

Toujou-san said nothing.

Hyoudou-san looked like he wanted to ask a hundred questions and knew all of them would be the wrong ones.

I stood immediately. “Then I will put the training materials away.”

Buchou’s gaze shifted to me.

For a moment, I thought she might stop me.

Instead she said, “Very well.”

That was simpler.

Safer.

I moved at once, gathering the practice blades, the cloth pads, the moved chairs. Kiba-san helped without comment. Argento-san collected the cups that needed taking back. Himejima-san stopped her halfway and waved her off with a soft laugh. Toujou-san remained where she was. Hyoudou-san hovered, clearly uncertain whether helping or staying out of the way would cause less trouble.

I understood that feeling.

When the room had nearly settled back into order, Buchou was already standing near the window again, one hand resting lightly against the back of her chair.

Looking at her from the side, I knew with perfect certainty that whatever waited beyond that conversation was not optional.

That certainty settled badly under my ribs.

Not because I cared.

Not because that would be dangerous.

Because I had begun, without permission, to distinguish between power that commanded and power that cornered.

Buchou had always shown both.

Today, I saw more of the second one.

And I disliked it.

That, more than pain, more than training, more than Hyoudou-san’s irritating attention, unsettled me most.

As the others began preparing to leave, Hyoudou-san caught my eye.

He jerked his chin slightly toward Buchou, not enough to be rude, but enough to ask a question without saying it.

I looked at him.

Then at the floor between us.

Then back at him.

He frowned.

Good.

Let him.

I did not owe him answers to questions he could not even form properly.

Still—

When I passed him on the way to the door, I said quietly, “It is not just a mood.”

He stared.

I kept walking.

Behind me, I heard him inhale like someone who had been handed half a map and told the other half was his own problem.

Correct.

Let him work for it.

Even so, as I stepped into the hallway, the truth sat unpleasantly in my chest.

I had not needed to say anything.

I had wanted to.

That was worse.

Koneko Toujou

Kusari-senpai moved like someone who expected kindness to turn into leverage if she held still too long.

That was annoying.

Not because she was wrong.

Because she was right often enough that nobody could call the habit stupid.

I watched her from the chair beside the table while everyone else pretended not to pay too much attention.

Issei-senpai was obvious. Asia was transparent. Akeno noticed everything on purpose. Kiba-san noticed things politely. Buchou noticed more than all of them and said less than most.

I found my eyes drifting to her fox ears before stopping myself.

Kusari-senpai noticed the room itself.

Where people stood. Who spoke first. Which chair belonged to whom. Who had to ask before moving and who did not.

She was learning the clubroom the way strays learned a house—carefully, ready to leave if a hand came down wrong.

That was also annoying.

Her eyes hurt.

She hid it better than she hid most things, which meant almost nobody noticed. But she blinked too carefully after the longer exchanges with Kiba-san, and once, before I got up, she pressed her fingers against the bridge of her nose like she thought nobody would catch it.

I caught it.

That was why I brought the cloth.

When I handed it to her, she looked at it as if I had offered her a test.

Not a gift. Not help. A test.

She still took it.

When Buchou started talking about yesterday’s spell, Kusari-senpai changed more than she had while sparring.

Not outside.

Inside.

Small tension. Stillness that meant bracing. The kind that said she knew she had done something on purpose and knew it had been seen.

So I listened.

Too much power for the target.

Too much spent to make a point.

That made sense.

The spell yesterday had not felt like panic. It had felt like a statement.

This is what I can do.

This is enough to matter.

It was stupid.

Useful.

Understandable.

When Buchou left the room for the phone call, Kusari-senpai’s posture changed by almost nothing.

Almost.

Her fingers tightened around the teacup. Her eyes followed the door once and then stopped.

Most people in the room worried for Buchou.

Kusari-senpai recognized something about her.

That was different.

Useful too.

Maybe dangerous.

Definitely familiar.

When everyone started moving to put things away, I stayed where I was and watched Kusari put the training room back into order as if usefulness could smooth over the headache behind her eyes, the ache in her hand, and whatever she had seen in Buchou’s face.

That was stupid.

It was also something I understood better than I wanted to.

She passed by my chair on the way out.

For a second, I thought she would just leave.

Instead she paused.

Not long.

Just long enough to say, quietly, “The cloth helped. Thank you.”

I looked up at her.

She did not meet my eyes for more than a heartbeat.

Then she moved again.

There were a lot of loud people in the peerage.

A lot of obvious ones.

Kusari-senpai was not obvious.

But she was starting to lower her guard.

That was enough.

For now.

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