High School DxD: Fox of Ill Omen

Kusari

Packing took very little time.

That was the first ugly thing about it.

The second was that I hadn’t expected it to.

Morning light came thinly through the old school building’s windows, pale and indifferent and clean enough to make the room look even emptier than it was. My bag lay open on the bed. Beside it was everything I intended to bring.

Two changes of clothes. Uniform pieces folded flat. Underwear. A comb. A towel. Basic toiletries. A small cloth wrap for my hand. A ribbon Argento-san had given me. Nothing decorative. Nothing with weight that was not useful. Nothing that would take long to abandon if necessary.

That was all.

I stood beside the bed and looked at the room once, as if more might reveal itself if I gave it the chance.

Nothing did.

A room in the old school building. A bed. A desk. The basin. Curtains. The faint impression of use without the fullness of habitation.

The room Rias-buchou had given me in the old school building.

It looked less like somewhere I lived and more like somewhere I had not yet been told to leave.

My hand tightened briefly around the ribbon.

Then I packed it too.

There was a knock at the door.

I looked at it, then at the bag, then crossed the room and opened it.

Argento-san stood there holding her own things with both hands, posture neat, expression soft and a little uncertain.

“Good morning, Kusari-san.”

“Good morning, Argento-san.”

She smiled first, then leaned a little as if she had expected to catch me in the middle of packing.

Instead she looked past me and went still.

“Oh,” she said.

It was a very quiet sound.

I knew exactly what she had seen because there was very little else to see.

Her own bag was fuller than mine by enough to make the difference plain without comparison being spoken aloud. She noticed the folded clothes. The nearly bare desk. The lack of anything personal left behind because there had been little to leave in the first place.

I stepped aside. “Please come in.”

“Thank you.”

She entered carefully, as if the room were more mine than it looked.

That, on its own, was strange enough.

Her eyes drifted once more to the bed, then to the open bag, then back to me.

“You’re already done?”

“Yes.”

“That was fast.”

“Yes.”

That answer was honest and unhelpful.

Argento-san’s fingers tightened slightly around the strap of her own bag. She did not say anything careless. That, too, was noticeable.

She had learned quickly that concern could become a weight if handled badly.

I picked up the last folded item and placed it into the bag. “Did Buchou send you?”

“No. I just thought…” She hesitated, then shook her head a little and smiled more carefully. “I thought we could go together.”

A kind answer.

One that pretended not to have noticed the rest.

I closed the bag. “That would be fine.”

Argento-san relaxed by a fraction.

Then, because she was Argento-san, the next thing she did was ruin her own composure by trying to be helpful too quickly.

“Um, I was worried I would have missed you. I took longer than expected to pack after the shower last night with Is—”

She stopped so hard that the whole room seemed to hear it.

Silence.

Argento-san’s face went red.

I looked at her.

She looked at the floor.

“I-I mean,” she said, and then stopped again because whatever she meant was clearly trapped behind the thing she had already said.

That explains her fluster this morning.

Not yesterday.

Not Hyoudou-san’s behavior at school before the meeting.

Only this morning’s added layer of awkwardness.

There had been two disturbances, then.

One before the confrontation, centered around Buchou and Hyoudou-san.

Another after, born from whatever idiotic and compromising situation Hyoudou-san and Argento-san had managed to create between the meeting and sunrise.

That was very much like him.

Argento-san covered her face with both hands for one brief, horrified second. “I’m sorry.”

I considered the options available to me.

The easiest would have been to ask for clarification and watch her die from embarrassment. The kindest would have been to pretend she had not said anything at all.

I chose the middle.

“I see,” I said.

That made her look up, which was useful because she was still deciding whether to continue apologizing.

Then, very carefully, I added, “That appears to be a different problem from yesterday.”

Argento-san blinked.

Then she understood what I meant.

The expression that crossed her face after that was strange enough to be worth seeing: relief that I had understood correctly, renewed embarrassment that I had understood correctly, and some smaller piece of gratitude because I had not pushed harder.

“Yes,” she said softly. “It is.”

A dry answer rose to my mouth before I could stop it.

“Then Hyoudou-san is having an efficient week.”

Argento-san made a sound that was too startled to be proper laughter and too breathless to be anything else.

Then she pressed both hands over her mouth, eyes wide.

I looked away and lifted the bag from the bed.

“I apologize,” I said.

“No!” Argento-san said at once. “No, that was—” She caught herself, then lowered her voice. “That was a little funny.”

A room with almost nothing in it. A bag with almost nothing in it. And Argento-san standing in the center of both, trying not to laugh because she had accidentally confessed to showering with the same boy who had been acting wrong the day before because of another girl.

This peerage was absurd.

I should have found that more reassuring.

Instead, all it did was make them more difficult to dismiss.

We left together a minute later.

At the doorway, I glanced back once.

The room remained what it had been before I entered it. Bed. Desk. Curtains. Basin. A space prepared for use.

If I did not return, there would be almost no proof that I had stayed there at all.

That thought should have been ordinary.

It was.

That was the problem.

I pulled the door closed and followed Argento-san into the corridor.

The others were already gathering by the time we reached the clubroom.

Hyoudou-san was there first, of course, looking like someone who had slept badly and decided stubbornness was an acceptable replacement for recovery. Kiba-san stood with her travel things arranged neatly, posture composed, expression calm enough that she looked almost unaffected by the previous day until you paid closer attention. Toujou-san sat with a small bag at her feet, as if she had been packed and ready for some time and found the rest of us inefficient for needing more than that. Himejima-senpai was checking a larger bundle that I strongly suspected contained half a kitchen. Buchou stood near the center of the room with a magic circle already prepared beneath the edge of the carpet.

The room felt entirely different in the daylight after yesterday.

Simply busier. Directed.

Buchou’s gaze moved to each of us in turn, measuring readiness without wasting words. It paused on Hyoudou-san for just a fraction longer than the rest, then continued.

“Is everyone prepared?”

“Yes,” Kiba-san said.

Argento-san nodded. “Yes.”

Toujou-san gave a short, flat, “Yes.”

Himejima-senpai smiled. “Of course.”

Hyoudou-san adjusted the strap of his bag. “Yeah.”

I answered last. “Yes, Buchou.”

Buchou gave a single nod. “Then we’ll leave now.”

There was no speech.

No grand declaration.

That would have wasted time.

The magic circle brightened.

Heatless crimson light spread across the floor beneath us and climbed the edges of the room. The old school building vanished in a rush of demonic power and spatial distortion.

A moment later the mountain replaced it.

The air hit first.

Cleaner. Colder. Thinner in a way that made the lungs work differently. Trees climbed high around us, dense and dark green. The ground beneath our feet was packed earth and scattered stone rather than polished school floorboards. A narrow mountain path cut upward between the slopes, and higher up, almost hidden by distance and branches, I could just make out the roofline of a large house.

Vacation home, in the same way a hunting lodge might be called a retreat.

Hyoudou-san looked up the mountain.

Then looked higher.

Then looked at the luggage.

Then back at the mountain.

His expression was almost satisfying.

“We’re climbing that?”

Buchou did not bother to disguise her answer as sympathy. “Yes.”

Akeno-senpai smiled over the weight of her bundle. “It’s good training before the real training begins.”

“That sentence shouldn’t exist,” Hyoudou-san muttered.

Kiba-san lifted one of the larger packs with easy practicality. “Then don’t waste energy complaining before we start.”

Argento-san shifted her bag higher on her shoulder. “I-I’ll do my best.”

Toujou-san had already started walking.

That, too, was useful.

I released my fox traits.

The clear mountain air felt good against my ears and tail. Getting to leave my Kitsune traits out would be the most enjoyable aspect of the trip. 

The rest of us followed.

The path was steeper than it looked from below.

Mountain climbing in ordinary circumstances already exposed the difference between people who were accustomed to physical effort and those who were not. Doing it with luggage only made the distinctions sharper.

Buchou moved at the front with infuriatingly little strain. Himejima-senpai followed as if walking uphill with supplies were just another graceful domestic task. Kiba-san matched their pace without fuss. Toujou-san was small and silent and somehow made the slope look insultingly manageable with the massive bag she had on her back.

Argento-san tried hard and showed it.

Hyoudou-san tried harder and showed that too.

I stayed slightly behind the front group and slightly ahead of the rear, where I could adjust without being asked and keep track of the party at once.

The mountain air did my eyes favors the school never did, but the long walk still forced the old ache through my hand and shoulder if I moved carelessly. I kept my grip even and my steps efficient.

Hyoudou-san did not.

Halfway up, he shifted a heavier case from one arm to the other and made a noise somewhere between a complaint and a dying confession.

Akeno-senpai glanced back. “Ara. Issei-kun, are you already tiring?”

“I’m carrying half the kitchen!”

“That is not true,” she said. “Only the important part of it.”

“That’s worse!”

Argento-san looked from him to the case and then to Akeno-senpai. “Should I help?”

“No,” Hyoudou-san said immediately, too fast. Then, seeing her expression, he added, “I mean—I’ve got it.”

Still overcorrecting.

Their shower together had, apparently, not improved anything for him.

Kiba-san looked back over one shoulder. “If you drop it, you’ll carry it twice.”

“That is the opposite of encouragement, Yuuto-san.”

“Then don’t drop it.”

Toujou-san, without turning, said, “Weak.”

Hyoudou-san made a wounded sound.

For a few minutes after that, no one spoke except to breathe.

The mountain narrowed people usefully.

It stripped conversation down to the degree each person needed it.

Buchou used silence like momentum. Himejima-senpai used it lightly, as though walking and smiling and keeping pace all at once required no decision. Kiba-san watched the group without intruding on it. Toujou-san conserved everything. Argento-san quietly measured herself against the climb and refused to complain. Hyoudou-san alternated between muttering, gritting his teeth, and trying very hard to be more durable than his own body wanted.

I watched all of it.

And, against my better judgment, found the act of moving as a group stranger than the mountain itself.

Not because it was difficult.

Because it was shared.

This was not a mission site. Not a room arranged for hierarchy. Not a fight.

It was travel toward something that belonged, for now, to all of them.

That idea sat badly against old instincts.

The house came fully into view only near the end of the climb.

Large. Traditional in shape. Built into the mountainside in a way that made it feel expensive and isolated at once. The surrounding air was quiet enough that every footstep on the last stretch of path seemed louder than it should have.

When we finally reached the entrance, Hyoudou-san nearly collapsed against the nearest support beam with the dramatic gratitude of a man spared execution.

“We made it,” he said.

Buchou looked at him once. “The path was the first step, Issei.”

“It was an awful path.”

Himejima-senpai laughed softly. “Then I’m relieved it didn’t kill you before we started.”

The inside of the house was cooler than outside and far larger than the exterior suggested. Rooms opened off a central corridor with polished floors, clean walls, and enough space that none of us had to crowd one another to move through it. The whole place felt temporary in the way expensive family properties often did—well cared for, properly equipped, and impersonal enough to be used by many hands over time without belonging to any single daily life.

Good for training.

Good for isolation.

Not especially good for pretending this was a vacation.

Buchou set her bag down in the central room and turned to the rest of us.

“Choose your rooms first,” she said. “Do not take long.”

That immediately made the house feel less neutral and more like territory being assigned.

Hyoudou-san looked around with visible calculation, which in him meant panic disguised as hope. Akeno-senpai’s smile sharpened as if the rooming arrangements were already entertaining. Kiba-san, practical as always, simply picked a likely room and moved toward it. Toujou-san followed her own logic without consulting anyone. Argento-san hesitated, then looked in my direction for just long enough that I noticed and just short enough that she could pretend not to have.

I waited.

Of course I did.

Let the others choose first. Occupy the smallest remaining space. Cause the least inconvenience. It was simple.

“Kusari-san?”

Argento-san had stopped in the doorway of a side hall.

I looked at her.

“There are a few rooms here,” she said. “If you haven’t chosen yet.”

Kindly offered. Not demanded.

A trap in any other house.

Not here.

Or not enough of one to refuse without making it stranger.

“That is fine,” I said.

Hyoudou-san, who had been staring at one corridor as if an all-female bath might spontaneously appear there, blinked and looked between us. Then he seemed to remember he ought to be paying attention to more relevant things and straightened badly.

“I’ll just take whatever room’s left,” he said.

“Then you may keep the one farthest from the bath,” Akeno-senpai said sweetly.

“I wasn’t even thinking about that!”

No one believed him.

I took the smallest room in the side section of the house. That was the easiest answer. Argento-san took one nearby. Kiba-san and Toujou-san were positioned more centrally. Akeno-senpai chose as if she had already known the layout beforehand. Buchou, of course, occupied the room from which the rest of the house would most naturally orient itself.

When I set my bag down in mine, it looked even smaller than it had in the old school building room.

Or perhaps not smaller.

Merely equally easy to empty.

I did not stay long enough to think about it.

When we returned to the main room, Buchou was already standing there waiting.

That was the real beginning.

She looked at each of us in turn, no longer as students or club members or household strays, but as pieces of a peerage about to be tested.

“This is not a leisure trip,” she said.

No one mistook it for one now.

“We have ten days. That is not enough time to become strong from nothing. It is enough time to improve what can be improved, correct what must be corrected, and make sure none of you enter the Rating Game unprepared for what waits on the other side.”

Her gaze went first to Hyoudou-san and Argento-san.

“Issei. Asia. Your improvement is the most urgent.”

Hyoudou-san straightened automatically.

Argento-san nodded.

Buchou continued, calm and exact. “Issei, your physical base is inadequate. Your stamina is poor. Your control is poor. Your judgment under pressure is worse. That will change.”

He looked as if he had been stabbed with honesty and had decided to endure it.

Akeno-senpai smiled with her eyes closed. “Buchou is very kind today.”

“She is not,” Hyoudou-san muttered.

Buchou ignored him.

“Asia, your demonic power adapts quickly, but you do not yet trust it. You will continue healing practice, elemental shaping, and support positioning. You are not to drift where Issei moves simply because he moves.”

Argento-san flushed. “Y-Yes.”

That was revealing.

Then Buchou’s eyes moved to the rest of us.

“Akeno, you will continue power control and large-area coverage support. Koneko, close-combat suppression and forward-line pressure. Yuuto, sword training, tactical movement, and direct sparring.”

Kiba-san nodded once. Toujou-san did not answer verbally at all, which from her counted as agreement.

Then Buchou looked at me.

“Kusari.”

I stood a little straighter without meaning to.

“Your perception and curse output are both useful,” Buchou said. “That is exactly why I will not allow you to waste either. You will train control, pacing, and battlefield reading. You will not overcast merely because you can.”

The room did not react much.

It did not need to.

I bowed my head. “Yes, Buchou.”

This answer was easier than the one yesterday.

Still too fast.

Buchou let it pass.

“We will also train formations,” she said. “Offense. Defense. Retreat. Combination work. You will all learn where to stand, when to move, and how not to die because your emotions outran your judgment.”

This time her eyes went to Hyoudou-san very directly.

He had the decency to look chastened for almost half a second.

“The schedule begins after a short break,” Buchou continued. “Mountain runs, physical conditioning, sparring, demonic power control, strategy study, and night drills. Meals will not be a break from the training. Rest will be used properly or not at all.”

Akeno-senpai’s smile turned softer. “How strict.”

“I am not interested in losing,” Buchou said.

That settled over the room more cleanly than anything else had.

The mountain house had fully changed shape now. Not a large temporary residence. Not a holiday place. Not a scenic retreat.

A training ground.

A preparation site.

A house where all of us, whether by blood, choice, or stranger arrangements, were now gathered around the same future battle.

I could feel that shape settling into me whether I welcomed it or not.

Hyoudou-san seemed to feel it too. He looked tired, embarrassed, still carrying last night and yesterday and everything Riser had made visible in the clubroom—but beneath all of that, there was resolve.

Argento-san looked frightened.

Still here.

Kiba-san had already gone practical in the way she did when given a structure she could use. Toujou-san looked perfectly willing to turn the next ten days into violence if Buchou ordered it. Himejima-senpai looked as though she might enjoy doing the same while smiling.

And Buchou—

Buchou no longer looked cornered.

Pressured, yes. Angry, certainly. But not cornered.

Direction had replaced helplessness.

That was the first truly reassuring thing in more than a day.

“We will take a short break now that everyone has a room and knows what is expected of them. So get some rest,” Buchou said at last. “You’ll need it.”

There were acknowledgments after that. Movement. The room loosening by small degrees now that a structure had been imposed on the fear.

I did not move immediately.

Not because I wished to stay.

Because something unpleasantly simple had become clear.

The house was large. The rooms were chosen. The plan was set. The 10 days shape already existed.

And whether I wanted that to be true or not, that shape already included me.

Not only as a tool to be brought along.

Not only as a useful addition.

As part of the formation itself.

That should have been satisfying.

Instead, it felt dangerous.

Which was probably how I knew it mattered.

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