High School DxD: Scattered Cherry Blossoms

two months have passed since James turned fourteen. In the first month, James and Cu Chulainn chose not to do much. Other than basic training, they wanted to relax after finally being free of Scathach's hell mode training course. Instead of their own training, they focused on Mizore's training. Unfortunately, the disparity between their fighting strengths was wider than James would like.

In that month, James and Mizore also finished drawing Bleach. That took about three weeks. Although James wanted to draw another, He was unable to decide which to draw, so he put it on the back burner. At least until he was promoted to High-Class. He had decided, however, that he would not be drawing another battle manga for his second work.

Cu Chulainn joined some of the educational classes during this month as well. Focusing primarily on the Devil World's geography and political climate, he also took some refreshers on mathematics and sciences. He completely neglected the study of languages, however, believing them unnecessary. Especially after being informed that devils have the innate ability to understand all languages.

In the second month, James and Cu Chulainn raised the level of their training. Although it still was nowhere near the intensity of Scathach's training, they were still able to see improvements. And with their training intensity going up, so too did Mizore's. Sona and Tsubaki also joined in. And although James had heard that Akeno and even Koneko also wanted to join, but they were unable to. Due to the fact that James and Rias were still not on speaking terms.

The fact that James and Rias still were not speaking was actually not due to Rias' pride and avoidance. This time James was the one unwilling to see Rias. Although he is not conceited enough to claim that Rias would have been unable to recruit Akeno without his help, it cannot be denied that James played a role in her survival and subsequent recruitment. On top of that, Rias had treated him and the people around him poorly on more than one occasion. And the slap was the last straw. In short, he was just unable to forgive her yet.

On the bright side, James had not once spoken ill of Rias because of what she had done. In fact, he often inquired about her well-being through Sona. Learning of this, Leona, Venelana, and Rhea deduced James is using this period of avoiding Rias as a punishment. Showing her that her actions have consequences. Then again, James was only fourteen. So, they also considered that they may be thinking too much into the situation.

Underworld, Gremory Territory, Alaverus Estate.

Currently, James, Mizore, and Cu Chulainn are seated in James' studio. The three have been trying to decide where to go for their field training. As James and Cu Chulainn were nearly unbeatable against beings below ultimate-rank and Mizore could defeat most mid-level, middle-rank beings without issue, they decided that they would train in the field. Right now, the issue they are facing is a simple disagreement.

"What's so great about the U.S.A.?" Mizore asked with her face flushed from arguing for the last twenty-five minutes. "Most of the country is full of modern cities that you could find anywhere. At least if we went to Romania, we could see some old castles."

"Ha!" Cu Chulainn scoffed in reply. "Why would I want to look at some old castles? I bet they could never compare to Dun Scaith, anyway."

Caught off guard, Mizore had nothing to retort with. She realized that was probably the worst argument she could have made in her favor. Of course, those castles would never be able to compare to Dun Scaith.

'I need to think of something or I'm going to lose this argument. Come on Mizore, think!'

Meanwhile, while Mizore and Cu Chulainn were having their argument, James was drawing characters from random works in his memories. Without caring about the disputing duo in the room, James was muttering to himself, thinking about which manga should be his next work.

"I know I said I would wait until I was promoted to think about this problem, but I really wanna make a new one." James said to himself as he finished a drawing of Nagi Sanzenin from Hayate the Combat Butler.

Back to the argument, Mizore looked around the room while she came up with her next reason to travel to Romania. She then looked over the two young men in the room and remembered how much they both liked a good fight.

'That's it!' Mizore thought to herself in a moment of epiphany.

"But if we go to Romania, there's a chance we could run into a vampire."

With that statement, James' pen stopped moving and Cu Chulainn's eyes opened wide.

"Cu, we're going to Romania." James said with a note of finality in his tone.

"Sounds good to... Wait!" Cu Chulainn stopped in the middle of his sentence and questioned James. "What the hell did you just call me? Cu?"

"Cu Chulainn is too long." James said nonchalantly.

"Yeah, but Cu makes it sound like you're talking to a kid or a small animal." Cu Chulainn refuted.

Hearing Cu Chulainn's rebuttal, Mizore could not help but imagine a corgi with facial features similar to his.

"*Giggle* I think it sounds cute." Said Mizore, unable to hold back a giggle.

"You're imagining something weird, and I don't like it!" Cu Chulainn growled.

"Well, what should I call you then? Setanta?" James asked, as he put the finishing touches on his drawing.

"Setanta?" Mizore questioned in confusion. "How did you come up with that? It sounds a little feminine, doesn't it?"

Hearing Mizore's innocent question, Cu Chulainn's eyebrow twitched in irritation.

"Well, Setanta is his given name." James explained to the ignorant yuki-onna. "Cu Chulainn is an alias."

"Oh, well I guess I can understand why he took an alias." Mizore said, mischief swirling in the depth of her eyes.

"Enough!" Cu Chulainn shouted. "From now on just call me 'Lancer'."

James rolled his eyes at Cu Chulainn's choice and thought, 'That was predictable.'

"Fine, Fine, whatever." James said, waving his hand dismissively as he was growing weary of the topic. "Lancer it is."

Cu Chulainn nodded in satisfaction.

Putting down his pen and drawing pad, James stood to his feet. Looking at the two future members of his peerage, he began to speak.

"The destination is Romania." Said James as he made eye contact with Mizore and Cu Chulainn. "I assume we are in agreement."

"Yes." Replied Mizore.

"Hell yeah." Replied Cu Chulainn.

"In that case, make your preparations." James ordered. "We depart in two days."

Mizore started to giggle. Then she said, "James, the commander and chief role really doesn't suit you."

Blushing slightly, James barked back, "Oh shut up! Go, get ready to go."

James' studio was filled with the trio's laughter until they separated to make their travel preparations.

===Six days later===

Human World, Romania, Outskirts of Bucharest.

"Hey Lancer." Said James as he looks in Cu Chulainn's direction.

"Yeah, What's up?" Cu Chulainn replied casually.

"Remember that time you question the title I gave you?" James asked just as casually.

"Which title?" Cu Chulainn asked with uncertainty.

"The man whose bad luck has no equal." James replied.

"Oh! Yeah, I remember that one." Cu Chulainn said as he nodded his head.

"How do you feel about it now?" James asked.

"OH, my luck sucks." Cu Chulainn said nonchalantly.

"Why are you two so nonchalant about this situation?" Mizore asked in exasperation.

Currently, James, Mizore, and Cu Chulainn have been surrounded by a group of twelve vampires, as they protected a vampire girl who was around their age. While Mizore was exasperated by their nonchalance, she knew them well enough to know they were focused and ready for anything. On the other hand, the young red eyed, silver haired vampire girl was confused.

'Maybe I made a mistake asking them for help.' The Vampire girl thought to herself.

===Flashback; Six minutes ago, ===

Just outside of Bucharest, Mizore had just finished a battle with a low-level, middle-rank stray devil, with James and Cu Chulainn observing her progress.

"Good job, Mizore." James complimented. "I might have under evaluated your combat prowess a little."

"*Pant* *pant* What do you mean?" Mizore asked while trying to catch her breath.

Instead of James, Cu Chulainn was the one that answered.

"With your focus heightened in real combat, your prowess is a notch higher than what you show in training." Cu Chulainn explained.

"Okay, let's head back to the city." James said as he started walking toward Bucharest. "We need to send in the report on the extermination. Unfortunately, until you're reincarnated into a devil these kills won't go toward promoting you."

And with that, the trio began making their way back to the city. Before they could get very far, however, they saw a group of men chasing a lone girl in their direction.

"Well, looks like we got trouble incoming." James said with a sigh.

"As long as we don't get involved, we should be fine, right?" Mizore asked uncertainly.

"We'll just give them space to do their own thing." Cu Chulainn said, resting his spear on his shoulder. "What's the worst that could happen."

"*Sigh* And I can see the flag waving high in the sky." James said despondently.

"What?" Cu Chulainn asked in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"*Sigh* He's saying you raised a flag." Mizore replied, also unable to resist sighing.

At that moment, the girl noticed the trio and shouted.

"Please help me. I'm a vampire who escaped from the Tepes faction. They want to sacrifice me to bring the vampire progenitor back to life."

"Damn it! Now we can't ignore this even if we wanted to." James said dejectedly.

"Yeah, they'll never let us live now that we've heard that kind of information." Cu Chulainn replied.

James deadpanned, then looked at Cu Chulainn and said, "I blame you. This is your fault."

===Flashback End===

"And where is Sir Okita? Isn't he supposed to be protecting us and handling diplomatic issues?"

"OH, Sir Okita won't show up unless we're about to die." James answered casually. "Anyway, there are twelve of them. Let me see... Two high-rank, one high-level and one mid-level, four middle-rank, one high-level, two mid-level and one low-level, and six low-rank, two mid-level, and four low-level.

"So, how are we gonna split 'em up?" Cu Chulainn asked, while licking his lips with a battle hungry smile on his face.

Hearing that question, James began dividing roles quickly.

"I'll take the high/high-rank, one of the mid/middle-ranks, and two of the low/low-ranks. Lancer, you take the mid/high-rank, the high/middle-rank, the other mid/middle-rank, and a low/low rank. Mizore, everyone else is yours."

"Got it!" Replied Cu Chulainn, flourishing his spear.

"Understood!" Replied Mizore as ice covered her hands, taking the form of claws.

James then spoke to the group of vampires in a mocking tone, "I really appreciate the fact that you let us strategize. Now that we're ready, we're gonna put you all down, now. Okay?"

Hearing James taunt, the vampires were naturally angered. As they were about to start firing back insults and scathing remarks, James acted.

"Scatter, [Senbonzakura]!"

James drew Ochiru Sakura just as he spoke the trigger words. Once the blade was broken down fully, he sent the petal-shaped blades all around, separating the twelve vampires into their assigned groups of four. Killing the two low-ranked vampires he was in charge of taking down in the process.

Once the vampires were split into groups of four, Cu Chulainn immediately dashed toward the four assigned to him. Rushing into their midst, he performed a sweep with all of them in his trajectory. From this, the low-level, low-rank and the mid-level, middle-rank lost their heads with no resistance. The high-level, middle-rank was flung back about 13 feet (approx. 4 m) when he tried to block with his own spear. The bones in his arms breaking in the process. However, the high-level, mid-rank vampire was able to stop the strike, with his greatsword, with little issue.

Thinking the result satisfactory, Cu Chulainn withdrew his spear, then rushed toward the downed middle-rank vampire and thrust the spear through his heart, before returning his attention to the remaining high-rank vampire.

"Well, that was a disappointing warm up." Cu Chulainn remarked, as he retook his stance. "I hope you'll be able to entertain me a little more."

"You damn brat." The vampire said as he dashed forward.

With no feints, the vampire aimed to cut Cu Chulainn from head to crotch in a single strike.

"You're really looking down on me, huh?" Cu Chulainn muttered to himself, as he parried the downward slash, knocking the vampire off balance. Then, before he could regain his balance, Cu Chulainn thrust his spear forward, piercing his foe's heart. He then quickly retracted the spear and swung it horizontally to decapitate the still breathing vampire.

"Master would have had a field day if she had seen their poor weapon skills." Cu Chulainn said to himself as he flourished his spear before resting it on his shoulder.

Meanwhile, Mizore made quick work of her opponents, as well.

Once the enemies were separated, she used her racial ability, to manipulate and create ice, to sprout ice spikes from below the group of vampires. Killing the three low-ranks instantly, with the middle-rank jumping away from the surprise attack. But as soon as he landed, Mizore, using her ice to propel herself forward at high speed, appeared before him with her ice claw stretched forward. In the next moment, half of Mizore's arm was protruding from the vampire's back.

Pulling her arm out of the vampire's corpse, Mizore complained. "How am I supposed to improve if they give me such weak opponents.

"It looks like James is rubbing off on you, Mizore." Cu Chulainn said with a laugh as he made is way toward Mizore after finishing his own fight.

"I'd rather he just be rubbing on me." Mizore said to herself.

"What'd you say?" Asked Cu Chulainn as he was unable to hear her mutterings.

"It's none of your business!" squeaked Mizore with a blush on her face.

"Well, I guess we're all done."

When Mizore and Cu Chulainn turned their heads in the voice's direction, James was walking toward them, sheathing his Ochiru Sakura. Once the click from the handguard meeting the mouth of the sheath was heard, two heads simultaneously fell from the sky and smashed into the ground. Looking closely, you would notice they belonged to the high-level, high-rank and mid-level, middle-rank vampires he was fighting.

"Well, now that that has been taken care of," James said as he turned his attention to the vampire girl who brought this altercation with her. "Want to tell us what's going on, Miss?"

Staring at the trio with her eyes wide open, the vampire girl only had one thought on her mind.

'Who in the world are these three?'