Life 4-1

If Noé had to describe the nature of the days since being "recruited", he didn't really have a good word for it. Boring, perhaps, would be the best way for him to describe it.

No thanks to his lack of a familiar, Rias had him starting quite literally from rock bottom in terms of Devil work: Passing out flyers. Or more precisely, running around town and dropping flyers into the mailboxes of humans around Kuoh who either pinged the radar or were repeated "customers" of the services provided by Rias's peerage. Quite luckily for Noé, such a thing was quick to do since he'd long since invested in acquiring and getting the license to drive a motorcycle since he was the proper age to do so in Japan. Were it another country he'd have gone right for a car, but such wasn't the case here at least.

But if Noé could say he liked effectively being a mailman for Rias in between his work with his dad, he'd be lying through his teeth. Not quite hate, but certainly nothing short of complete tedium. Tedium he took out when given chances, be it at the arcade… or in the current case, on a heavy bag he was hitting loudly enough to echo across the gym with heavy metal blaring in his earbuds. One within the gym in Kuoh Academy to be precise, currently occupied by the members of the boxing club.

And the pace Noé had set for himself didn't slow as someone plucked one of the wireless earbuds from his right ear.

"You must have had a pretty rough night if you're going that hard!" Out of the corner of his eye, Noé spotted another boy currently rolling the stolen earbud in his fingers; The captain of the boxing club and another classmate of his to be precise. "So, how's the club with Gremory been since she drafted you into it?"

"It's…" Noé paused between a rush of punches on the back, stopping and placing his hands on the target. "Annoying more than anything. 'Great Elder Sister' my ass!" and he punctuated the sentence with a jab that sent the bag lilting upwards, stopping it with a quick knee as it came back forwards. "Practically just running around town all dang evening checking out stupid rumors. You know how it is with this occult nonsense."

"Eh, Kuoh's full of rumors like that," The captain chuckled, tossing Noé his earbud back. "So, I guess it pays to have someone looking into them, even if they're all just random internet nonsense," Oh you have no idea. Noé looked to the side to hide his stilted expression. For a town basically out in the middle of nowhere and of next to no rapport, Kuoh had a surprising amount of supernatural activity to it. He chalked it up to the very fact it was so out of the way.

"I suppose you could say that," but play it off he continued to do. "So, what ya' need, Cap'n?"

"Well since you seem so intent to beat the piss out of this poor heavy bag here…" the teenager tapped the notable indent Noé's last punch had left in the object. "How about showing some of the first years how it's done hm? I know you're not an official member but you're damn good, so how about a friendly match?"

Noé turned and looked to the rest of the club off practicing on the mats set across the half of the gym they were using. It wasn't a very large club to be sure what with Kuoh's currently quite small male population when it came to the boy's clubs for certain sports. But it was certainly enough that over his attendance Noé was more than acquainted with several of the members and it certainly proved to be helpful in sharpening his skills for when he did need them. Considering the way he'd gone about it with the Boosted Gear, boxing had proved a rather useful set of skills to learn.

"Eh why not?" Noé shrugged as he pulled out his remaining ear bud. "Oi! If some of ya'll are done clear the mat! Me and Cap'n are gonna give the new kids a show!"

"Oi you heard him! Cap'n and Edelweiss are gonna spar, clear the mat!"

"Huh? Wait… isn't that guy that third year who runs all the gangs in town?!"

"I thought he was the Council's Hellhound!"

"… did a new nickname start going around?" Noé grumbled at hearing what had to be something new. Sighing, he turned to the first year who'd said so. "Oi! You, shrimp, where the hell did that one come from?"

"W-Well…" the student stammered, "W-We heard from this other guy about the time you saved the school festival last year! Th-The time you and some guys you know beat back this huge gang that wanted to make a mess of things! And that you did it with the permission of the Student Council!"

"Tsuno that little shit…" Noé sighed as he shook his head. "Look here! Word from your senior so listen up! Don't go listening to whatever wild rumors you hear, cause a lot of them are just made up by idiots!"

"But it is absolutely true that that's what happened last year," the captain said, Noé's brow cricking. "But Edelweiss definitely isn't the leader of all the gangs… they just respect him for kicking their collective asses year after year!"

"Can you not just add fuel to the fire?!" Noé snapped, the captain chuckling. "Peh, guess I can blow this off in the spar anyway! Let's go!"

Since the intent of the two was more to demonstrate rather than actually fight, neither teenager put on any protective gear since there was no intent to land a blow to begin with. Though for Noé it isn't like that would have been the issue anyway. He was thankful that he was quite good at keeping his strength in check, as being half-devil meant that as a pure baseline, he was far stronger than the average human by leaps and bounds.

Meaning that as he and the captain began trading blows in their demonstration spar, Noé was pulling his punches even more so than would technically be needed. Since quite frankly if he hit anyone in the room seriously, they'd be liable to end up on the opposite side of the wall.

But even then Noé allowed his body to simply flow through motions that by now he had practiced thousands of times over: Sliding dodges, weaving past jabs and hooks, being sure to make the motions of his return punches follow up from his legs to his hands first. All of it was practiced both in this gym and in his own off time before he applied it to the way he fought in actual situations. Of course, applying some of these ideas to fighting certain things was a far different task than others who were of a more human size.

The gym was silent except for the sounds of Noé and the Captain's exertion as they traded restrained blows, especially from the first years as they watched the two continue the spar. It was maybe only a few minutes, but it felt longer as punches were dodged and exchanged. And in a quick second, Noé spotted an ever so brief lag in the next punch the Captain was throwing. Daring to let a smirk flash, Noé's left arm flew up, deflecting the fist to the side, and with a quick twist of his torso, his right fist flew up and stopped just shy of the captain's nose.

"There it is!" One of the other third years cheered. "Edelweiss's signature Shield and Spear!"

"Does he ever miss that?"

"Don't go giving it some name," Noé scoffed, shaking his head as he slicked his now sweat matted hair back. "It's just a parry and counter, no need for any fancy title."

"And yet it never fails to win the match," The captain chuckled. "Seriously, you should've joined us officially ages ago. You're crazy strong and way too good at this to just do this for training. Or is street fighting more fun?"

"Hah!" Noé scoffed, "You know I help my dad out at work most of the time. The only reason I got poached like I did by Gremory was because we made an agreement. That and… well let's call it family related things. I couldn't say no if I wanted to."

"SAY WHAT?!" One of the club members shouted, being quickly quieted by two of the others.

"Sounds like complicated stuff we shouldn't dig into," The captain said, shooting a look at the shouter's way. "A shame at the very least. Anyway, give Daidouji some regards. If he wants to drop by and spar again, he's totally free… when he's not busy picking chicks up in town anyway."

"Hahaha, you're insulting his favorite pastime now," Noé chuckled as he sauntered over to his bag. And as he was undoing the wrappings on his arms, his phone giving a sudden buzz drew his attention. And his brow quickly furrowed when he saw it was a message from Rias. [Dammit… it's been almost a week, no way she's gonna keep my passing out these damn flyers for that long.] He sighed as he typed in a quick reply and grabbed his things. Better to see what she wanted than waste time muttering about it.