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Pov Narrator.
It was a new day, and just as they had agreed with Makima, Isagi had to train Power so she could improve a little before the operation against Akane Sawatari and Katana-Man. The mission was to capture them and squeeze out anything they knew about the Gun Devil, so there wasn't much time to waste. That was why the two of them were standing in a spacious training ground, where the sound of blows was already beginning to break the morning silence.
"Originally, I was thinking about teaching you Red Scale so you could increase your strength, but your brain and IQ, equivalent to two acorns, couldn't understand what red and white blood cells are." Isagi said as, with a kick to Power's ankles, he knocked her down once again, sending her face-first into the ground.
The fiend let out an annoyed groan as she hit the dirt, kicking up a small cloud of dust.
Isagi's original plan had been to teach her the Kamo Clan's techniques, such as Red Scale: manipulating the blood inside her body, including its temperature, pulse rate, red blood cell count, and composition, to greatly increase her speed and physical power.
On paper, it was an excellent idea. If anyone could make use of that kind of technique, it was the Blood Devil herself. But Power hadn't understood absolutely any of it. She didn't know that blood had a temperature or a pulse rate, much less what white blood cells were.
In fact, the only part she had understood was the word "red," which completely ruined the entire plan Isagi had prepared, since most of the Kamo Clan's techniques depended precisely on manipulating all of those aspects of blood with great precision.
And Power, apparently, only knew how to create weapons like hammers, axes, small mallets, daggers, knives, and similar things. Every time Isagi tried to explain something more complicated, she would end up responding by creating another different weapon or bragging that she was already the strongest. Teaching her something new felt more like babysitting an hyperactive child than training a teammate.
"Grrrr! Scoundrel! This is absurd!" Power growled and then shouted angrily as she got back to her feet once again, grinding her teeth. She violently brushed the dirt off her clothes and glared at Isagi with eyes full of rage. "This is unfair! I'm supposed to be the Great Power, the Blood Devil, and yet a human controls blood better than I do!"
Power stomped the ground several times in frustration over the beating she had been taking for the past hour. The training field was already covered with small dents and footprints left behind by her constant falls.
She hadn't managed to touch Isagi even once; even when she had tried to ambush him during one of their breaks, the only thing she earned was a punch to the face that sent her crashing back to the ground before she could even brag about her brilliant strategy. That had only made her even angrier.
"Look, first of all, I understand that having a human body probably limits the amount of blood you can use, and that's why you get anemic so quickly." Isagi said, waving one hand with a slight mocking smile, which only irritated Power even more. He didn't even seem to be trying to provoke her; he was simply saying exactly what he thought as naturally as possible. "What's wrong, quack quack? It's the truth."
"Of course not!"
Power charged at him once again and, this time, created a spear made entirely of hardened blood. That seemed to be the only thing she truly mastered: hardening her blood into different kinds of weapons. Without wasting a second, she hurled the spear straight at Isagi with all the strength she could muster.
Isagi raised an eyebrow and, simply because he could, caught the spear with one hand. His fingers wrapped firmly around the weapon, stopping it completely. The sharpened tip came to a halt just inches from his face without even grazing him, while he continued looking at Power with the same relaxed expression as always, as though stopping that attack had required exactly the same amount of effort as catching a ball.
With a single motion, he backhanded Power, who had charged at him again. He struck her using the spear's blood-forged shaft instead of the sharpened tip. The impact was clean and precise, strong enough to completely stop her advance without seriously injuring her. Isagi had measured the force of the blow perfectly.
Power let out a pained groan and grabbed the right side of her ribs, exactly where Isagi had struck her. A powerful wave of dizziness swept through her body; her legs began trembling, her vision blurred, and she staggered before collapsing heavily onto the ground. Once again, she had run out of blood and was on the verge of anemia. Even lifting one arm seemed to require an enormous amount of effort.
"Ah..." Isagi sighed and let go of the blood spear, which slowly dissolved as Power's control over it faded away. "We've been here for an hour, and you still don't know your own limits. It looks like you still don't have a clear idea of how much blood you can use before this happens." He pointed at Power, lying on the ground, gasping for air with completely unfocused eyes. "You spend blood as if it were infinite. Not everyone is lucky enough to regenerate like I do."
His tone was calm, with no intention of mocking her this time. Rather than scolding her, he was pointing out the real problem. If Power kept fighting like that, she would weaken herself long before any enemy could defeat her.
Isagi crouched down to check on Power's condition. She looked like she was just about ready to kick the bucket and go join Grandma Coco. Fortunately, he had actually bothered to mentally keep track of how much blood Power could spend before ending up in that state.
Throughout the entire hour of training, he had been carefully observing how long it took for her to exhaust herself and how quickly her condition deteriorated.
Maybe he couldn't teach her Red Scale or Piercing Blood, but he could at least teach her how to make much better use of what she already had. After all, there was no point in learning new techniques if she couldn't properly control the abilities she already possessed.
"Have you ever thought about recycling? You create weapons using fresh blood when you could simply reshape the weapon you already have. That way, you wouldn't waste blood creating a new one." Isagi said thoughtfully as ideas gradually began coming to him. At this point, more than training Power, he was training his own ability to improvise on the fly.
Yeah, if Power learned to recycle the blood she had already drawn from her body and give it multiple uses instead of wasting more blood creating a different weapon every single time, she wouldn't become anemic nearly as quickly. It was a much simpler solution than trying to teach her overly complicated techniques and, knowing her, it would probably also be much easier for her to understand.
Besides, he would also have to teach her how to fight... although that brought up one small problem.
Isagi didn't actually know how to fight.
In fact, almost everything he did consisted of blocking and punching wherever he spotted an opening. Those flashy movements he sometimes pulled off were more about looking cool than because he actually knew any martial arts. In other words, he simply acted with enough confidence that everyone assumed he knew what he was doing, and so far, that strategy had worked surprisingly well.
"Change of plans. I'd better teach you not to waste the amount of blood you can use, which would be about three or four liters in total. That's the same as four one-liter bottles of Coke. Of course, it could be as much as six, but that's when you become anemic, so at most you can only use five." Isagi said, fully activating his mathematical side as he counted on his fingers, convinced that this comparison was the best possible way to explain it. "And I'll also teach you how to dodge and attack, because I don't know how to fight either... Power?"
Isagi turned his head and saw that Power was already completely unconscious, her face resting against the ground and showing no reaction whatsoever to anything he had just said. Silence took over the training ground for several seconds.
"Damn it, she passed out right at the best part, and I was just getting fired up with the explanation and the ideas. I was having a burst of inspiration."
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Hours later...
A solid thud. Power fell onto her back once again, kicking up a small cloud of dust upon impact. She remained completely motionless for several seconds, breathing heavily as she stared up at the sky. Isagi had already lost count of how many times he had knocked her down throughout the day.
Even so, the improvement was noticeable. Now Power used her brain a little more and actually dodged some attacks instead of simply charging straight ahead like a wild animal every time she saw an opening to strike.
Since Isagi didn't know how to fight, all he could teach her was how to dodge properly and strike wherever she saw the biggest opening. Curiously, that seemed to be working better than he had expected. He had also tested his blood recycling idea.
It was possible, but it still took Power around thirty seconds to dissolve her hardened blood and reshape it into something else. At least she was no longer wasting so much blood by creating an entirely new weapon every single time.
Thirty seconds might not sound like much, but in those thirty seconds Isagi could have killed Power seven different ways if he had wanted to. In a real fight, that amount of time was an eternity, so there was still plenty of work to do before that technique became truly useful.
"Very good, that wasn't bad. In fact, you've improved. I think taking so many hits activated the only neuron you've got." Isagi teased as he pulled out his phone and checked the time. It was five in the afternoon. Whew... they had been training for hours without even realizing it. "Alright, training's over. It's already five, I'm bored too... and my stomach's growling. Let's go! Lunch is on me."
Power remained sprawled out on the ground. She didn't even have the strength to get up anymore, much less walk. She barely lifted one arm lazily, as if trying to prove she was still alive.
"Scoundrel... I don't think I can move..."
"So what? That means you trained to failure, dog. You're gonna stop being an IQ of 25. Now all you need are eight eggs and you'll see results." Isagi replied with a grin of complete satisfaction, crossing his arms while nodding to himself, convinced that the training had been a complete success.
After all, according to his logic, if someone ended up unable to move, it meant they had trained properly.
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After a long day of training—or rather, beating the hell out of Power for almost the entire day—Isagi sat back down in front of his "Doesn't Adapt" plans because he wanted to solve the problem with the bull and its ability. The desk was covered in poorly drawn sheets, rushed notes, and little sketches that barely resembled a Shikigami but, to him, represented hours of trial and error.
"I've got it! Or something like that... While I was beating up Power, I remembered the Binding Vow we made. That's the solution!" he said, drawing the Bull Shikigami in an incredibly crude way and tracing a circle around it several times, as if reinforcing the drawing with more lines could somehow make the idea work. "A Binding Vow. I'll use a Binding Vow to slightly alter the Ten Shadows Technique, more specifically the Bull."
Isagi raised his hand, and cursed energy slowly began covering it. A bluish aura with black edges wrapped around his palm and fingers, rippling with restrained intensity. The room seemed to fall silent for a moment as the energy gathered around him. It would be a Binding Vow with himself, so he had to phrase it precisely.
"In exchange for the Bull only being able to charge its attack three times a day, I want its damage accumulation ability to remain usable even if it doesn't run in a straight line. The ability will continue charging while turning or running in circles, and because I've limited it to only three uses per day, the Bull's ability will be strengthened to 130%."
The air grew heavier for a brief moment.
[Ding]
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[Binding Vow with the user... Accepted]
[Binding Vow - 3 Charges per Day]
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The Binding Vow was accepted, and Isagi immediately felt the change within his innate technique. It was a strange sensation: a clear limitation had been established, but at the same time, he could sense a far more refined enhancement in the Bull's ability. The technique had adjusted itself to the new condition, as though a misplaced piece had finally found where it belonged.
Isagi smiled as he felt that modification settle into his cursed energy. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was a genuine improvement. Now the Bull could continue accumulating damage even while turning, making it far more flexible in combat.
"Perfect..." he muttered to himself, setting the pencil down on the desk with a satisfied smile. "I'm one step closer to facing Mahoraga."
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End of the chapter.