Dragon Pride

Of course, they weren't fine with that. They hated it and could only feel rage when thinking about such a future. However, the fear that was inflicted on them was on the heavier side of the scale. So much so, that moving forward immediately went to the corner of their minds.

But that tiny glimpse of fighting spirit didn't escape Kisuke's eyes and he smiled, 'They're the people that Sona chose herself, after all. She has a good eye for people. Unlike Rias who has some strange ability to gather unusual people, Sona has an ability to gather steadfast people that would be able to work hard without many problems.'

However, Kisuke's smile only looked like a terrifying demon's judgment to them, so they started to panic again.

Without minding this, Kisuke sat down in front of them and asked, "This training, did you think that I designed it just to torment you?"

After much hesitation, all of them nodded.

Kisuke's smile grew even larger, which scared them even more, "That's great~ Because you focused so much on surviving and not getting hurt any further that you failed to realize what's really going on. But that also sped up your improvement without any one of you noticing."

They didn't know what Kisuke was talking about. If they were really improving, then they wouldn't be as helpless as when they first started. They gave up because they couldn't take it anymore, as the fear of getting killed got stronger each time their limbs were almost torn off.

Kisuke stood up and asked before walking towards the frozen dummies, "Can't believe me? Why don't you try it again?"

Immediately after, they started shaking their heads. If an outsider were to see these highschool girls, not only pity, but hate for Kisuke would come from them due to his maltreatment.

Serafall frowned at this but didn't interrupt him, as she already agreed with him. So instead, she unfroze the dummies and they started moving again towards the girls.

The girls screamed and scrambled to get away. But before the dummies could go any further, Kisuke stopped them and started tinkering with them.

After a few seconds, the dummies were standing in front of Kisuke without moving, before turning his sights towards the girls who're hiding behind Serafall, unwilling to come out.

Kisuke didn't think badly of this and just said, "Why don't you try it again? As long as you're brave enough, you're not going to get hurt."

However, he received no answers.

"Anyone? Just a try?" Kisuke then pointed towards Saji and Tsubaki, who're still fighting the dummies in the distance, "They can do it, right? Why can't you?"

Still no response.

"Besides, when did I lie to all of you? I told you that you're going to get hurt. This time, I'm telling you you're not going to get hurt. And if you're going to step forward, you can partially leave this hell. Isn't that great~?"

Thanks to his last words, he finally got a response. After a few minutes of great hesitation, Ruruko Nimura, Sona's pawn, stepped out.

Despite her innocent appearance, she actually had a brash attitude like Xenovia, so he already expected that she'd be the first one to step out of the bunch.

While looking at the ground with wobbly steps, Ruruko slowly approached Kisuke, "...I... I'll... t-try it," she muttered in a very soft voice.

Kisuke smiled and stepped aside, letting one of the dummies take a step forward.

But once she came face to face with her tormentor, the trauma from earlier instantly came back, even after suppressing it to the best of her abilities. Her legs started shaking, rooted in place, and her expression became terrified as she looked at the faceless head of the dummy taking a stance.

'I can't do this...! This is impossible!' She thought and stepped backward, turned around, and almost bolted away if not for Kisuke standing on her way, "P-please! Let me go! I can't do this!" she pleaded.

However, Kisuke just grinned and suddenly tossed a small candy towards her open mouth. Due to the suddenness, Ruruko inadvertently swallowed it whole and choked a bit.

While she was coughing, a hand suddenly grabbed her by her collar and threw her towards the dummy before hearing Kisuke's voice, "Of course you can~"

"Ki-chan!" Serafall shouted at him, but Kisuke just ignored her as he watched Ruruko drop and lay down in front of the dummy, ready to stomp her head to death.

At that moment, Ruruko could only watch the dummy's foot as it dropped down to her face in slow motion with her thought process speeding up. Her life flashed in front of her and she was very unwilling to die like this. Although she wanted to avoid it and fight back, she couldn't find the strength to do it.

However, just as she was about to resign herself to her fate, her heartbeat suddenly sped up and her eyes turned red. All the fear she was feeling right now seemingly and suddenly disappeared, and was replaced by her magnified rage and unwillingness.

It was then she was able to straighten out her thoughts and moved her head to the side just before she was stomped and grabbed the dummy's leg, twisting it.

The dummy lost its balance and dropped down while Ruruko used this chance to stand up and retaliate.

Of course, as a dummy that Kisuke programmed, it wouldn't be easily outdone. It immediately stood up and met Ruruko's fist with its arm guard before counter-attacking.

Ruruko saw this coming and immediately jumped to the side and threw her left foot towards it. It was then that she noticed that the dummy was moving slower than last time and was more predictable.

At that moment of realization, she suddenly heard Kisuke's voice, "Before you started, I didn't tell you one thing about it. As you improve, the movesets of the dummies also get better. You didn't notice since you were too busy protecting yourselves. And by the way, the current dummy has the same configuration that you started with."

Although rage was filling her mind, strangely enough, Ruruko was able to understand his words and finally understood it when he said they didn't notice it.

Still, despite this, she followed her feelings and started beating up the dummy, pouring out her frustrations on it.

'My~ It looks like it's working well~' From the start, this is what Kisuke wanted to test out, which also served as his backup plan, the candy he developed and named 'Dragon Pride'.

In the past, Kisuke already noticed something was influencing Aika's behavior when her Sacred Gear was activated. He suspected it had something to do with the draconic part of her Sacred Gear, but wasn't able to pinpoint exactly where.

After some time going through records and researching the topic, he not only discovered a state called 'Outrage' among the dragons, but also found a way to replicate it. However, even if he were able to replicate it, it was too dangerous to use and the chances of the user's mind-breaking was 9 out of 10 times, so he shelved this project until further improvements or discoveries were made.

Nevertheless, the opportunity to improve it didn't take too long to appear. When Sona, Koneko, and Aika were fighting off the Minotaurs, Kisuke saw a similar state in Aika, but on a much smaller scale.

Using that as his guidepost and the data he'd collected from Samael's blood, Ophis' power, and Great Red's flesh, Kisuke was able to create the 'Dragon Pride'.

Although it didn't improve the power of the user like Outrage could, it could temporarily disable 'fear' and magnify 'pride'. Thanks to his adjustments, its usage was not limited to those who're connected to Dragons, and with the right situation, 'Dragon Pride' would become incredibly useful.

In this situation, after Ruruko took a small dosage of 'Dragon Pride', she was able to push herself beyond an incredibly difficult bottleneck, and hopefully, even after the effects wear off, she'd be able to get over her fear properly.