EPIC: Path of Demons and Dragons

After spending three—going on four days holed up in his room without leaving, Vahn wasn't too surprised when, as he was giving Yoruichi a naked, deep tissue back massage, a sense of urgency washed over him out of the blue.

(It would appear Riko is attempting to prove to the other children that you will come if she blows her whistle) revealed Sis, confirming Vahn's suspicion that he was being summoned.

Though it wasn't the reason he had 'enchanted' her whistle, Vahn didn't hesitate to lean forward, planting a kiss on Yoruichi's left shoulder before whispering, "I need to take care of something. Let's continue this when I return..."

"Hooo~? You're leaving...?" asked Yoruichi, turning her face sideways to meet Vahn's gaze, her yellow, cat-like eyes reflecting more curiosity than disappointment.

"I have a promise to keep..." stated Vahn, kissing Yoruichi's cheek before dismounting her and donning his clothes. By then, Grayfia had arrived to take over for him, leading Yoruichi to deliberate briefly before permitting the scantily-dressed Devil to straddle her butt and continue where Vahn left off...

...

..

.

"I'm telling you...we have a special connection..." grumbled Riko, looking pouty as she clutched her red whistle with both hands and willed Vahn to arrive sooner. Fortunately, at nearly that exact moment, Vahn materialized out of thin air, his right brow rising as he arrived to find Riko, Fran, Wendy, Tanya, and a girl with shoulder-length, chestnut-brown hair affixed with a small flower hair clip, recognizable by those who watched or read Toaru Kagaku no Railgun as the main protagonist, Misaka Mikoto. Her eyes were a similar shade of brown, and since she and the other girls were having a sleepover, she was modeling a glossy, pale pink pajama top and matching silk shorts with white and pink socks.

Shifting his gaze to Riko, Vahn adopted a smile tinged with wryness as he asked, "You called...?" in a faint, humming tone.

"See!? I told you he would come...!" exclaimed Riko, beaming from ear to ear and eyes closed as she puffed out her nearly non-existent chest and sat smugly with her hands on her hips.

"So you called me just to prove a point...?" questioned Vahn, causing Riko to startle slightly and tense, a bead of sweat forming on her right cheek at the realization she might have inconvenienced him.

"It was my fault for challenging her. I apologize for the inconvenience..." asserted Tanya, wearing a long, pale blue nightgown with frilly white lace around the collar. Vahn found her presence there mildly disconcerting due to her past as a middle-aged Japanese Salaryman. However, as she had since spent the past ten years struggling to live and grow as an orphaned girl in a militaristic pre-war German Empire and only had vague memories of her previous life, he felt it would benefit her mental wellness to have at least a few friends near her physical age.

"More importantly, you shouldn't just appear in a girl's room," said Mikoto, a faint blush tinting her cheeks as she didn't even allow her dad to see her in her pajamas. More to the point, Vahn had a habit of wearing outfits that flaunted his chiseled chest and abs, forcing her to avert her eyes lest she sneak a peek and risk being caught gawking...

"You're one hundred percent correct..." confirmed Vahn, nodding before shifting his gaze to Riko, exhaling faintly from his nose as he appended, "Ordinarily, I would knock and enter via the door, but since I enchanted Riko's whistle to be used in emergencies, I came as quickly as I could..."

"Sorry..." muttered Riko, hanging her head and pressing the tips of her fingers together bashfully.

"Don't be..." responded Vahn, taking a knee and tousling the sincerely apologetic girl's head as he smiled affectionately and asserted, "This is actually a good thing because now you know for certain that the whistle works. Just don't misuse it too much, okay? It's fine if you do so every so often..."

"Mmn...okay..." responded Riko, her face flushing to the tips of her ears as she glanced at Tanya with an 'I told you so' kind of look, causing the latter to roll her eyes. Afterward, Vahn politely refused the invitation to stay and play some sleepover games, leaving the gaggle of young girls to their own devices in favor of returning to Yoruichi's backside...

...

..

.

[Day 83]

Though he could have remained in his room nigh-indefinitely with Grayfia there to accompany him, Vahn eventually introduced her to the remaining thirty-seven Ascendees at a banquet and returned to his rapport-building and training. By then, he had earned most of the additional stats he could acquire by defeating unique monsters, but he, Himmel, Ruijerd, and many of the other male Ascendees would periodically meet up to spar and trade pointers with each other using the increasingly popular Training Rooms.

fwoosh dink dink dink dink dink fwap

After kicking off the ground with enough force to tear up a large section of grass and soil, Ruijerd unleashed a flurry of spear strikes that produced numerous afterimages. Having a trident thrust at his face and torso filled Vahn with nervous tension, but his expression appeared calm and focused as he deflected or directly intercepted each thrust with the tip of his own spear, refusing to give ground.

Stepping back and spinning, his form appearing to flicker out of existence for a brief moment, Ruijerd attempted to sweep Vahn's feet or slice him at the ankles, but the latter intercepted him by angling his spear downward, producing a loud metallic clank as the two weapons crossed. In the same series of movements, he attempted to kick Ruijerd's forward hand, but the emerald-haired immediately stepped back, controlling the space between them before transitioning into another sweeping attack, this time directed at his face.

Since he knew from experience that blocking such a high and forceful attack could knock him off balance, regardless of how comparable his and Ruijerd's strengths were, Vahn flourished his spear in a swift spinning motion to deflect it up and away from him before spinning on his heel and countering with thrust comparable to a projectile fired from a high-caliber rifle.

Having retracted his spear, Ruijerd blocked Vahn's thrust by holding his weapon sideways at a forty-degree angle. He successfully intercepted the attack with his weapon's haft, but due to the force behind it, he found himself pushed back several meters, his heels leaving deep trenches in the ground. Despite this, his balance and footing remained unbroken, his scarred expression a focused glower as he calmly asserted, "At the rate you're improving, I won't be your match for much longer..."

"It will be a long while before I catch up to your skill..." contended Vahn, sporting a somewhat cheeky smile as he appended, "I just happen to be stronger and faster."

"With enough of both, techniques lose their meaning..." countered Ruijerd, relaxing his stance and guard as he and Vahn had been going at it for the better half of an hour, and his bones were starting to ache from enduring increasingly heavy blows. He was already past his prime at more than five hundred years old and hadn't encountered any significantly powerful foes in the past four hundred years, so Vahn's youthful vigor, rapid growth, and ostensibly boundless stamina weren't kind to his aging muscles and joints.

"Are you okay...?" asked Vahn, resting his Legendary Spear on his right shoulder and exhibiting a look of concern. Ruijerd had appeared almost insurmountable the first time they exchanged blows, but the man's age and vulnerabilities became increasingly apparent with time.

"I will be..." affirmed Ruijerd, offering an approving nod as he stepped forward, briefly clasped Vahn's shoulder, and departed to find a place to rest. At the same time, Kakashi approached with his hands in his pockets, his expression an aloof deadpan as he stopped roughly ten meters from Vahn's position, a palpable tension permeating the atmosphere between them.

fwish

Using the Body Flicker Technique, Kakashi appeared behind Vahn with a short, silvery white tanto in hand, attempting to slash him across the nape of his neck. Instead, his body promptly dispersed into a cloud of smoke, leaving behind a small log as Vahn intercepted him by thrusting backward with the butt of his spear, kickstarting their seventh spar in earnest...

...

..

.

[Day 120]

With less than a day and only twenty-nine of the original one hundred Ascendees remaining in the Tower, Vahn was helping to plan a parting celebration and gifts for everyone when he noticed two people on the Master List he hadn't met or interacted with, a boy and a girl from the same world, named Sora and Shiro respectively. There were plenty of people who left early that he never had the chance to interact with, but he found it odd the duo had stuck around to the end without their paths crossing at least once.

Curious, Vahn left Grayfia and the others to complete the preparations for the parting celebration and made his way to the room where the duo had been staying together since the first day. There, he pressed the buzzer a total of seventeen times, interspaced by several minutes, before a tall and skinny man with spiky, red-tinted black hair and distinctive, pale red eyes, underscored by heavy bags, finally answered the door.

'Oh, wow...' thought Vahn, suppressing the urge to reach up and cover his nose as a potent blend of male and female musk struck him like a wave of pressure. It wasn't a wholly unpleasant smell due to the latter, but he got the distinct impression that the man before him, modeling a yellow t-shirt over a dark blue, long-sleeved shirt and jeans, hadn't bathed more than a few times since his arrival.

Exhaling from his nose, crossing his arms, and adopting a calm, confident smile, the red-eyed man remarked, "So the Final Boss has come to launch a direct attack against the Hero's Sanctuary. And here I was beginning to believe we had slipped under your radar completely..."

"Hero...?" repeated Vahn, tilting his head slightly and sizing up the man, who had to be Sora based on the fact his female counterpart was called Shiro. As far as he could tell, there was no mana, ki, chakra, or any other notable energies flowing through his body, and with how skinny his arms, legs, and general build were, it was difficult to imagine him exerting more than an average human's level of power.

"So? Why have you come here so late in the game...?" asked Sora, leaning cockily against the door's frame as a notably petite, pale-skinned girl with very long and messy white hair—curiously tinted blue, purple, pink, green, and yellow—peered out from behind him with large and impassive red and yellow-gold eyes. Less notably, she appeared to be wearing one of Sora's shirts, bluish-purple stockings, and not much else.

'That would explain the smell...' thought Vahn, inferring that the duo had been spending their free time in much the same way as him. However, as Shiro appeared on the younger, a frown marred his face as Sis confirmed she was a mere eleven years old.

Fortunately for Sora, Sis subsequently explained that while the duo had been sleeping and even bathing together, they regarded one another as siblings and hadn't done the deed despite Shiro evidently endeavoring to tempt her older step-sibling numerous times.

Deciding to withhold his judgment until he understood the duo's situation better, Vahn adopted a smile and answered, "We're going to be throwing a parting celebration tonight with delicious food and gifts. I noticed that the two of you hadn't come out of your room since the day the Tower opened, so I figured I would come over to meet and invite you directly."

"Gifts? What kind of gifts...?" asked Sora, his brows perking as his sister, Shiro, continued staring directly at Vahn as if attempting to see through him. There were no notable emotions in her gaze, but even though it was their first meeting, Vahn got the impression she possessed an exceptional intellect.

"Well, since I never got the opportunity to know the two of you, it will likely be Tower Points or stat-boosting fruit and vegetables," responded Vahn, shrugging as he added, "Everyone else will be receiving weapons, armor, or items that should prove useful back in their original worlds."

"Yeah, well, me and my sister aren't exactly what you would call people persons," appended Sora, grinning as he added, "More to the point, since you're already here, can't you just give us our gift now? I can't guarantee anything, but that could motivate us to interact with you and others more if we decide to return."

Catching Sora by surprise, as he expected Vahn to try and predicate their gifts on them attending the celebration, the latter's smile broadened as he affirmed, "I hope so..." before proposing trades and gifting each of them a thousand TP...

...

..

.