Dimensional Gap, Team DxD Base.
After a morning of grueling training under Scathach and Chiron's supervision, the members of Team DxD, minus James, Irene, and Erza decided to take a bath to get rid of the sweat and fatigue from the morning. Naturally, the males and females separated into their own respective baths.
In the women's bath, all the girls washed their bodies. Then, as they were finished, they all took a dip in the hot spring to relax.
"Ahh... That's the good stuff." Rias said after she sat down and spread her arms on the side of the bathtub. "This training is torture. But taking a bath like this makes it all worth it."
"You act like you wouldn't just take a bath like this whenever you feel like it." Sona said, dismantling Rias' statement.
"That's not the point, Sona." Rias said, not even getting agitated by Sona's jab.
"Rias is right, though." Asia said with a sweet smile on her face. "The bath really does feel good after training."
"See, Asia gets it." Rias said with a smile.
"Kya~!" Asia suddenly yelped.
After hearing Asia's yelp, everyone looked in her direction. When they did, they all saw Akeno sitting behind Asia while cupping Asia's breasts in her hands.
"Ara, ara, Asia-Chan." Akeno said with a smile. "It looks like you've been growing nicely over the last few months. I wonder if Issei-Kun has anything to do with it?"
Immediately, Asia's face, which was already blushing due to Akeno's groping, grew as red as Rias and Mio's hair. Having Akeno mention her sex life was more than the still innocent girl could handle.
"Aww... You're so cute, Asia-Chan." Akeno said after seeing Asia's reaction.
"A-A-Akeno, could you please stop." Asia' stammered.
Meanwhile, after hearing Akeno mention that Asia and Issei were in a sexual relationship, Irina, who was also in the bath, frowned, jealousy clear in her expression. A moment later, as they often do, Irina's wings and halo appeared, and they began to flicker.
"Although teasing Asia and seeing Irina erupt in jealousy is fun..." Rias said, her expression turning rather serious. "... I think we have something important to discuss. At least those of us who are with James do, anyway."
With that, Sona, Akeno, Mizore, Moka, Flora, Scathach, Shuna, Ayame, Roseweisse, Mio, and Shion all looked at Rias. Naturally, Yasaka would have also focused on Rias' next words, had she been present, as well.
Even Koneko, Ravel, Kuroka, Kahlua, and Evangeline stopped their own conversations to see what it was that Rias was about to say.
"What is it, Rias?" Sona asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.
"We still need to decide who will be James' first wife." Rias said in a serious tone. "Honestly, it should probably be either Sona or I, since we are the heirs to noble houses. But I doubt James will really care about that."
Hearing that, everyone, even those who were not romantically interested in James looked at Rias In a strange way. Naturally, after a few seconds without a response, Rias noticed the strange gazes being shot her way.
"what's the matter?" Rias asked curiously.
"*Sigh* Rias, your selective memory amazes me sometimes." Sona said while shaking her head gently.
"What do you mean?" Rias asked with real confusion on her face.
"I guess you put it out of your mind because it doesn't benefit you." Sona said, looking Rias in the eyes. "But we've already settled this. At least we've settled it between us, anyway."
Rias' confusion only grew at Sona's comment.
"Do you remember our [Rating Game] back in the summer?" Sona asked.
"Yeah." Rias replied, not understanding what Sona was getting at.
"You lost that [Game]." Sona said. "And we had a bet riding on that game. Remember?"
Stopping to think, Rias remembered something like that. However, no matter how hard she tried, she could not remember the contents of that bet. Just as Sona said, she had completely put the result of that bet out of her mind. Not because it would not benefit her as Sona said, though. More like it was because she could not bear the thought of not being James' first wife. So, for her own mental health, she chose to lock that memory away.
After the memory resurfaced, however, Rias paled immediately.
"I guess you remember." Sona said with a triumphant smile on her face. "So, like you said, James probably won't care about noble lineage when picking his first wife. But you have no part in this conversation, regardless."
With that, Rias fell silent, unsure of what to say. Meanwhile, the rest of James' girlfriends decided to continue the conversation that Rias started. Without her, of course.
Human World, Hanging Neck Island.
After the dice roll was completed, a tall, well-built man with blond hair and broad shoulders who wore a white, sleeveless, half jacket and white baggy pants jumped into the ring. Then, he made his way over to Kintaro's body that had yet to be removed from the ring. Upon arrival, the muscular demon looked down at his dead teammate's corpse with disdain.
"Don't get cocky." Kuro Momotaro, the blond demon, said without looking at Hiei. "Makintaro was the weakest among us."
As he spoke, Kuro pulled Hiei's sword from Makintaro's skull with one hand. Then, when the blade was extracted fully, he mercilessly kicked Makintaro's corpse off the ring.
"Say, this is a pretty nice sword." Kuro said as he examined the sword. "It's almost a waste to use such a nice sword on such a weakling."
Then, to everyone's surprise, Kuro dragged the sword across his other forearm, drawing blood that dripped onto the ring. What surprised everyone even more, however, was the expression of euphoria Kuro wore after feeling the pain.
"Oh, yeah, now that's what I'm talking about." Kuro said with his eyes rolling back.
"Eww." Juri said with agaze full of disgust.
"I agree, he's rather disgusting." Hiei said with a nod of agreement.
Hearing those two comments snapped Kuro out of his blissful state. Then, with the same smile he wore when he jumped into the ring, he tossed Hiei's sword back to him.
"Alright, now that your have you weapon, we can start the match, right?" Kuro asked, not even trying to explain himself.
"Yes, let's." Hiei said, his expression not changing either.
"Wow, I think that guy's worse than Ayame." James said with a mildly disgusted expression from ringside. "I mean, Ayame likes other people to inflict pain on her, but this guy likes to hurt himself."
"Who's Ayame?" Kuwabara asked curiously.
"Just one of my girls." James replied nonchalantly. "She's a pretty hardcore masochist. And she's a bit disgusting."
Dimensional Gap, Team DxD Base.
While the girls, other than Rias, discussed who would get the position of James' first wife, Ayame suddenly began to shudder while her face reddened. Although most people noticed her change, they paid her no mind, thinking it was just another one of her episodes.
'I can feel it.' Ayame thought to herself with a perverted smile on her face. 'James-Sama is thinking something bad about me. He might even be telling someone how disgusting I am.'
With that thought, Ayame began to pant like an animal in heat.
Seeing that Ayame was starting to drift off into her own world, someone grabbed Rias, who was still completely immobile, as the group moved to the other side of the hot spring pool to continue their discussion.
Human World, Hanging Neck Island.
"For the second match, Kuro Momotaro from Team Uraotogi will face off against Hiei from Team Urameshi." Juri said, gesturing toward each fighter as she introduced them. "Now, let the match begin... Fight!"
As soon as Juri began the fight, Kuro reached down to the waistband of his pants and pulled a lacrosse ball sized ball off his belt. Then, he held it up toward Hiei and explained what it was.
"This is what is called a Steaming Sphere." Kuro explained with a smile. "Once I crush it and inhale the steam inside, I will be immune to any kind of damage I suffered prior to inhaling that steam. So, in other words, your sword will be useless for the rest of the fight."
Then, just as Kuro was about to crush the sphere in his hand, his eyes widened as Hiei vanished from his spot.
"Although that is rather interesting." Hiei said, appearing behind Kuro. "I really couldn't care less."
With that, just before Kuro could crush the Steaming sphere, Hiei's sword cut through his neck. Then, before Kuro's blood could spray, Hiei disappeared and reappeared in his starting location.
An instant later, the pressure from Kuro's blood caused a geyser of blood to shoot out from his neck, causing his head to fly up into the air. Then, at the same time, both Kuro's head and body fell to the floor.
"The winner is Hiei from Team Urameshi." Juri said while looking away from the rather graphic sight of Kuro's headless body gushing blood from its neck while his decapitated head looked in her direction with shock etched on its face.
Originally, when the day started, Hiei only wanted to fight so that he could test his new level of strength after increasing his mastery over the Darkness Flames. However, with all of James' mockery, his aim changed, significantly.
Instead of just wanting to fight, Hiei felt like killing everything in front of him. Unfortunately, Kuro and Makintaro ended up being the ones to soothe his raging emotions with their own deaths.
"Roll it again." Hiei ordered as he sheathed his sword.
Not wasting any time, Shishiwakamaru tossed the dice onto the ring for the third time. And when they stopped rolling, Hiei clicked his tongue before walking toward the rest of Team Urameshi.
The reason for Hiei's unhappiness was actually a simple one. His name was not on the face up side of the dye that represented his team.
This time, the names that showed up were Kurama for Team Urameshi and Ura Urashima for Team Uraotogi.
"Match three will be between Kurama of Team urameshi and Ura Urashima from Team Uraotogi." Juri announced as the two fighters hopped into the ring.
While walking toward the center of the ring, Kurama studied his opponent. Ura Urashima was a short demon with a short, stocky torso and a round face. His limbs were normally proportioned for his height, though. He had jet-black hair that was slicked back, much like Yusuke's and he wore what appeared to be a Japanese fisherman's attire. Another thing that Kurama noticed was the sinister smirk that was present on Ura's face.
"You're not gonna tell him to make it quick?" Hiei asked James as they watched the fighters make their way toward the center of the ring.
"Nope." James replied with a shrug. "Like you said, it won't make a difference in the long run. That annoying habit is never gonna go away."
'Until he spends sometime training with Master, anyway.' James thought to himself with a slightly devious smile on his face.
"You should have just accepted that from the start." Hiei said in a smug tone.
"I don't know why you two always want to change Kurama." Kuwabara said in a confused tone. "I mean, he always wins, doesn't he?"
"As someone who always loses, I can see why you'd think that way." Hiei said in a tone of derision.
"What was that?" Kuwabara asked angrily. "Why don't you say that to my face? Just wait a second, I'll geta few phone books for you to stand on first."
"Fool." Hiei muttered, not paying attention to the young teen.
Meanwhile, Kurama shivered slightly as James thought of putting him through the ringer that is called Scathach's training.
'It feels like someone is plotting against me.' Kurama thought as he continued to walk toward the center of the ring.
Then, once Kurama and Ura reached their starting positions, Juri held up her microphone once again.
"From Team Uraotogi, Ura Urashima." Juri said, gesturing toward both fighters. "And from Team Urameshi, Kurama. Now, let the third match begin... Fight!"