Genichi knew perfectly well there was a gulf between him and Rias.
As the next head of House Gremory and a pure-blood high-class devil, her strength was not something an ordinary peerage member could compare to.
But it was only when the special training truly began that he experienced, in his bones, just how despairing that gap could be.
Moonlight draped the training ground in a cold silver veil.
There was no small talk. No rules. Not even an opening stance.
It was only a shift in her eyes.
Rias erased that faint, petty-victory teasing from her face. Her emerald gaze turned deep and cold, like polar ice.
There was no earthshaking surge of demonic power. She did not even manifest her devil wings. She simply stood there, and an invisible pressure smothered the entire field, thick enough to choke on.
Genichi braced instinctively. The Boosted Gear manifested at once. The Boost effect kicked in immediately. Demonic power roared through his body as his senses sharpened to the limit.
And then—
He saw it.
No, he felt it.
The trajectory of death.
Rias's figure melted into the moonlight, vanishing at a speed beyond what his dynamic vision could track, then reappearing from an angle that violated common sense, in the absolute dead zone of his awareness.
There was no dazzling spell. No savage claw strike. Not even a clear rush of wind.
Only two slender, pale fingers, pressed together like a blade, gently tapped the side of his neck, right on the artery.
Cold. Precise. Lethal.
Time seemed to congeal.
Genichi's whole body locked up. His heart nearly stopped.
He could feel the power held at her fingertips. The slightest extra force would sever his life cleanly.
The strength he gained from Boost felt pathetic in the face of absolute speed and technique.
In the very first exchange, he did not produce a single effective response.
He had already died.
It was not exaggeration.
If Rias had not held back, he would be a corpse on the sand.
"Too slow."
Rias's voice reached him, close enough to brush his ear, cool and carrying a faint disappointment.
"Your sensing of hostile intent is dull. Your prediction of speed is missing. Your body's reactions cannot keep up with the warning in your mind. Genichi, you have power, but you do not know how to use it. And you do not know how to protect yourself in a real fight."
She withdrew her fingers. Her figure drifted back, and she was suddenly several meters away again, as if she had never moved.
The cold on Genichi's neck faded slowly, but his back was already soaked with sweat.
That sensation, standing on the edge of death with no ability to resist, carved itself into his memory.
What followed was less "training" and more a one-sided lesson delivered through overwhelming suppression.
Rias moved like a ghost across the field, flickering in and out of existence.
She did not use heavy magic. She relied only on the most basic things: high-speed movement, precise strikes, efficient body control.
But in her hands, those "basic" things became an unscalable cliff.
Genichi tried to counter. His red demonic bullets never even brushed her hem.
He tried to predict her line of movement, only for it to break logic at the final instant.
He tried to defend, and her attacks always slipped through from the most vicious, most unexpected angles.
Thud.
A seemingly gentle knife-hand landed on the back of his neck. The force was controlled perfectly, just enough to make his vision black out and nausea surge.
Snap.
A fingertip struck the joint of the Boosted Gear at his wrist. A trick of force ran through him, and his entire arm went numb in an instant.
Sizzle.
A thin thread of demonic power grazed his cheek, leaving a burning line of blood as a reminder of what distraction cost.
Genichi was a leaf-boat in a storm, toyed with in the palm of her hand.
Boosted strength, against her fine control and crushing speed, looked clumsy and ridiculous.
Every exchange ended with him thrown down, killed effortlessly.
Rias's control was immaculate. She made him suffer, covered him in bruises, drained his demonic power, battered his spirit, but never caused truly serious harm.
Yet that total, hopeless suppression struck deeper than any physical pain.
After what felt like a long time, Rias casually swept his leg with a light kick. His knee buckled. Genichi stumbled down to one knee, breathing hard.
Sweat mixed with dust as it slid down his brow.
The constant high-intensity output, plus the burden of repeated Boosting, had ground fatigue into his bones.
Rias stood before him, looking down. The satisfied, faintly smug smile had returned to her face.
Whatever lingering irritation she had carried earlier, clearly, had been worked out. She looked refreshed, almost cheerful.
"Well, Genichi? Do you feel the difference now?"
Her tone was light.
Genichi raised his head. There was no humiliation in his dark eyes. No frustration.
Only a deep, calm stillness, and a clear understanding.
He rose slowly, brushed dust from his clothes, and faced her.
"Buchou. That's enough."
His voice was rough from breathing, but his tone was firm.
"If we keep going, it won't help."
Rias lifted an eyebrow.
"Oh? Giving up already? What about Balance Breaker? Didn't you say you were one step away?"
She said it that way, but the edge of battle in her eyes had dulled. She had already vented what she wanted. Her mood was smoother now.
"I admit defeat."
Genichi did not dodge it. Then he shifted the point.
"But that's not why I'm stopping. I'm stopping because I realized this method won't get me to Balance Breaker."
Rias's smile pulled back a little, turning into a listening expression.
"I understood it not long after we started."
Genichi spoke with the same calm analysis as always.
"You are far stronger than me, and you did not go easy. But you still cannot truly kill me. There's no lethal threat that drives me into absolute desperation. No moment where I'm genuinely one breath from death, where my soul would have to ignite."
He looked directly at her.
"Without that, my will cannot be pushed far enough to resonate with the deeper layer of the Sacred Gear and break the Balance Breaker threshold."
He paused.
"So even if we repeat this a hundred times, a thousand times, the result won't change in essence. It can polish my combat habits. It can make me more familiar with fighting a superior opponent. It can make me suffer plenty…"
His eyes flicked briefly to the bruises and dirt.
"But it cannot provide the key that unlocks that door."
Rias listened in silence. A complicated light moved through her emerald eyes.
She had to admit he was right.
She could punish him. Crush him. Make him swallow pain.
But as his master, she could not and would not truly finish him.
Without the absolute edge of life and death, drawing out the ultimate potential of a Sacred Gear was far harder.
"Then why did you still endure it?"
Rias asked at last. Her tone was unreadable.
Somewhere along the way, Akeno had quietly approached the edge of the training field.
Her smile was still gentle and proper, but her amethyst eyes shone with something knowing as they moved between Genichi and Rias.
With her intelligence, she had clearly seen through the nature of this "training."
From the start, Genichi had likely not expected to break into Balance Breaker this way.
He had proposed the session and then endured Rias's one-sided "education" as a silent return, a mutual step.
He gave Rias a reasonable excuse to maintain her authority and her pride, while also giving her a clean outlet to vent.
At the same time, he reaffirmed, through action, that he was focused on becoming stronger and had no intention of stepping into ambiguity. It was another quiet reinforcement of the boundary he had already drawn.
After all, Rias had helped him repeatedly. She had even offered benefits that went beyond a normal master-servant relationship. Genichi did not want to respond emotionally, but he was not ungrateful.
So long as his core objective stayed untouched, enduring some pain to soothe the temper of a sponsor and master who expected a great deal from him was, to him, a necessary and cost-effective investment.
Rias looked at his calm face. The post-vent satisfaction in her chest settled into something more complicated.
This guy was frighteningly deep in thought, rational to the point of cold.
"Fine."
Rias waved her hand. Her aura fully withdrew, and she became the elegant Buchou again.
"If that's your conclusion, then we'll stop here today. But your lack of battle experience is real. Training like this won't be rare going forward. Prepare yourself."
"Yes. Understood."
Genichi nodded.
"As for Balance Breaker…"
Rias's brows knit slightly.
"Maybe what you need is a true life-or-death fight, not sparring with safeguards. But arranging that kind of thing…"
She did not finish, but the meaning was clear.
Setting up a lethal battle was too risky, and relying on natural encounters with dangerous enemies was hard to control.
"I have my own plan."
Genichi said evenly, already committed inside to the decision to go to Orario.
The Dungeon there could provide exactly what he needed: real, relentless survival pressure.
A special training session that had looked like public revenge ended in a way both of them understood without having to say it aloud.
Genichi traded some pain and a complete loss for Rias's anger dissolving and a degree of understanding.
Akeno walked up with a clean towel in hand, offering it with a warm smile.
"You worked hard, Hyoudou-kun. Here, wipe your sweat."
Genichi took it and gave a quiet thanks.
(End of Chapter)
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