As Alex and Shizuku faced each other they quickly became the center of attention on the ship, with even Shia returning to the deck to watch the sparring match. Since Alex knew his attacks would be too heavy for the current Shizuku to take, he adopted a more defensive stance and waited for her to attack. He didn't have to wait long before she activated her skill 'No Beat' and suddenly disappeared from her spot as everyone except Alex and a couple others lost her, before he made the smallest motion with his sword and blocked an attack from the side. Not surprised Alex was able to follow her speed, Shizuku didn't show any reaction to being blocked before suddenly disappearing once more and attacking from another direction. Only a few seconds ticked by and the ship was filled with nothing but seemingly never ending sound of the wooden swords hitting each other, both of which would have long since broken if they hadn't been fortified beforehand.
"Tch." Seeing that her attacks weren't getting through while Alex made barely any movements, Shizuku decided to try another approach even if she didn't care that much for it the day before. Less than a second later Alex caught something that was flying towards him from the right, while also shifting his sword to catch Shizuku's from the left. He smile as he held up the kunai for her to see and said,
"I take it you liked these as well, since you're already using them in a sparring match." Shizuku didn't say anything before moving once more, right before several more kunai came flying at him from multiple directions along with Shizuku's sword as well. A second later she was dumbfounded as he blocked her attack once more, with his sword in his teeth and all the kunai she threw in his hands. Shizuku along with both Hajime and Kaori twitched their brows as they imagined a certain green haired swordsman after seeing how Alex blocked her attack, with a smirk that showed even through the sword handle in his mouth. Ignoring their reactions, Alex spit out the training sword and said while handing over the kunai to Shizuku,
"We'll call it here now that I've seen what you can do." Shizuku nodded while accepting the weapons and said,
"Thank you for the honor of sparing with you." Alex shook his head at her words while also thinking he needed to get her to start acting cuter. He then said,
"Don't mind it since I'm just adding to the strength of our group, speaking of which I have a few ideas about how to improve your strength if you're interested." Shizuku nodded as she gave Alex an intense look, contrary to how she was avoiding gazing at him earlier due to embarrassment.
"I can see that you're trying to base your combat around your family's sword style and your high levels of speed, which means you need to focus on training both of those specifically if you want to improve. Luckily for you I specialize in training the body over skills." He then pulled out a couple of plain metal bands and held them out to her. Shizuku accepted them hesitantly since she didn't have the habit of wearing jewelry very much, due to the fact that it'll be a hazard during combat. This thought reminded her of something someone said to her in the past that she still recalled occasionally, 'you are a girl?'. She shook her head slightly to remove those thoughts and accepted the bands while saying,
"Thank you very much." Alex smiled at seeing her accept them before explaining,
"Fit them around your ankles and never take them off unless you're in real combat. It'll only take a few days of training but there should be some effect." Shizuku was suspicious slightly of Alex's words, a feeling made stronger due to the rest of the girls smirking slightly as she knelt down and wore the anklets. At first nothing happened so she walked around a bit to see if they did anything, before suddenly her feet felt like they were being held in place by something heavy and she nearly fell forward. Before Shizuku hit the ground however a muscular arm reached out and caught her, causing her to get a bit flustered in response as she stammered her thanks to Alex, seemingly forgetting about what just happened to her feet. The smirks on the other girls faces suddenly disappeared as they saw how contrary her appearance was to when she was being so formal a second ago. After she recovered, though her cheeks still had a tinge of red, Alex then explained about the anklets,
"Those anklets are made with gravity magic, increasing the gravity on the feet of the one wearing them by ten times. As you get used to them we can swap them out with stronger ones to further increase your speed. Though I'm not sure how effective this method would be on a normal human, you're one of the 'cheat-like' apostles so you should be fine." Shizuku frowned at his words and said,
"It feels like there's a lot there that I should retort at, but I suppose I'll just leave it at how you should have warned me before it nearly took my foot off, and also a thanks." Alex smiled at Shizuku and continued discussing training exercises, while the girls started muttering amongst themselves suspiciously and Kaori muttered in a voice that not even Hajime heard,
"Looks like spring came for Shizuku too, fufufufu."
***
'Is this heaven, or hell?'
Two days after the sparing match Hajime was thinking those words to himself as the sounds of the girls playing around reached his ears. He didn't dare turn around to look however, as they were all dressed nothing but swimsuits due to the heat of the desert they were flying over. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as not even Alex was that possessive of his women; however every time he glanced at any of the girls, Hajime would feel a chill going down his spine from Kaori glaring at his side, who was also dressed in a white bikini. Due to this he kept his gaze from wandering too much, showing a promising future as a whipped husband like Kaori's father.
Alex on the other hand was stretched out on a chair with Rias on one next to him in a simple pair of shorts, perfectly showing off his ripped body to those around them. His gaze was unashamedly passing over each girl as they passed the time similarly as if they were at the beach, Rias was tanning next to him in a dark red bikini, Shia was in a swimsuit that matched her hair while lounging in a hammock with an umbrella over her to keep off the sun, Anne continued to work on her writing while in her usual clothes(that actually had as much exposure as a bikini anyways) while Tio looked over her notes with interest in her black bikini, Yue was tricked into a one piece school swimsuit (that actually suited her fairly well) and was laying on a block of ice she conjured to keep cool, and finally Grayfia was watching over the children as they ran back and forth with a smile on her face in her white and black patterned bikini while she even went as far as tying an apron to her waist to maintain some cover and her position as a maid. Even Shizuku was no exception as she continued her training in the heat while wearing a black swimsuit with a cloth tied around her waist, while also trying not to gaze in Alex's general direction due to him showing off his muscles, something that wasn't missed by any of the other girls even though they seemed to be perfectly relaxing. The atmosphere was perfectly peaceful, then suddenly a cloud of mist appeared.
"IM BACK~NYAN!" A black haired nekomata came flying out of the mist and tackled Alex in an overly affectionate embrace. Almost everyone shot a glare at Kuroka for ruining the peaceful atmosphere, while Alex just started rubbing her head affectionately and said,
"Welcome back Kuroka, was your training successful?" Kuroka was rubbing her cheek against his chest as she answered,
"You'll just have to wait and see~Nya!" Alex was about to say something else, but then noticed that there was something distinctly different about Kuroka.
"Your tails increased!" Alex exclaimed in surprise while everyone else looked at Kuroka in shock at his words. Kuroka purred happily as Alex immediately noticed what was different and said,
"Yep~Nya, I trained really hard in the time manipulation training room and managed to get my third tail!" Alex was truly impressed with Kuroka's progress as each tail represented a nekomata's strength, the more tails the higher the strength. What impressed him even more however was that she stayed in the time manipulation room to do so, meaning that for her it could've been at least a couple months since she last saw him. Alex smiled and said,
"Then maybe I need to spend some time with my lovable kitten to properly congratulate her." Kuroka's smile widened as he scooped her up and started walking towards the main bedroom for some quality time together, and she continuously meowed cutely along the way. The girls rolled their eyes at the displayed, but secretly also congratulated Kuroka on her increase in strength as she was still their 'Queen', even though they wouldn't say it to her face. With the two of them gone everyone went back to enjoying their 'beach' weather, before a few hours later a large city wall appeared on the horizon.
(A.N. This is the last chapter before I leave on vacation because I got caught up in other stuff the last couple of days and couldn't write(fuck firewood!). And for the people who are saying they want the snow to come and trap me, keep in mind I still need to be able to leave the mountains and we are being forecasted for snow here while I'm camping, so here's hoping I don't get trapped up there!