------Third Person POV ------
As the Sitri peerage members settled into their spots to watch Sam practice his new abilities. The first to speak was Nimura Ruruko as she commented on the group. "Are we just going to watch Sam? I know he's a good background image, but we could be doing something as well."
Her obvious tease at the girls for wanting to watch Sam rather than train themselves, but Yusa responds with an ever-so-slight blush of embarrassment after all, out of all the girls here, she and Meguri do the most training due to their physical fighting styles. "I'm simply watching Sam to make sure he's taking it easy; his wounds have just healed, after all."
Her response does little to convince Nimura, as she simply squints at Yusa in suspicion. "Likely story, but it's at least believable. I can guess Momo's, but what about you two?" She then turns to face Meguri and Kusaka. "Has our resident hero captured yet more female attention~."
In response to another tease, Meguri has no visible reaction as she responds. "Nope, he's not my type. Too big for my taste." And of course, that draws some curious stares towards her. While Kusaka responds quickly but quietly after Meguri.
"I thought it would be nice to talk with everyone, since it's been hectic the last few days." Luckily for Meguri, she is saved from explaining her preferences by Kusaka's mention of the ambush last week and its workload afterwards.
Nimura nodded at Kusaka's words but then clicked her tongue in displeasure. "Fallen Angels, huh? That isn't a good sign. Sona has been working with Rias to contact their families to get a response from Grigori, but I don't think they've heard anything else about it."
"Wait, Sona actually talked to you about it?" Meguri asked, suddenly feeling out of the loop. But Nimura's response quickly cleared that feeling.
"Not really, I just overheard her and Shinra talking in her office."
Seeing the conversation going slightly off-track, Kusaka spoke up. "It does spell trouble, but with all of us working together, we should be able to handle it."
At that, Meguri was the one to click her tongue, as she added, "If they didn't have that weird holy orb thing the last time, we would've had them."
And as if venting her frustration, she continued, "What even was that? It looked like something regular humans would use, but the holy energy was enough to make us recoil, but not hurt us. Who makes such odd things?"
All the girls, except Momo, nodded their heads to agree with Meguri's complaint about their opponents. Nimura, who isn't one to miss a tease towards her friends, spoke up. "Geez, Momo, you can at least pretend to be listening to the conversation."
Hearing her name, Momo looks towards the group. "Sorry, what was that?" This caused the rest of the girls to laugh.
"Is Sam really that captivating? I thought Yuuto was your goal; don't tell me you want your cake and to eat it too!" Nimura teased once more, seeing that her earlier one was ignored.
But instead of playing into the teasing nature of Nimura, Momo just nodded her head. "Yeah, he is. While I'll admit that I liked Yuuto before, he was like a distant prince, never really interacting with his admirers unless forced to. Sam, though, feels more... real.
He isn't perfect; he's awkward and a bad flirt, but when you catch him in his element, his demeanor changes completely. His awkwardness disappears, and it's like his confidence in what he's doing attracts attention."
All present were stunned by Momo's sudden words, especially Nimura, who would have never guessed Momo was daring enough to say all that aloud.
Luckily for the group, someone was bold enough to break the silence, that being Yusa. "Yeah, Sam's focused demeanor is admirable. Thinking back on our earlier training sessions, you never would have guessed that a human who has trained for roughly a month was able to take down a middle-class-level opponent by himself.
Men who work hard and show the work are all admirable in my books!"
Saji Genshirou, who was overhearing this entire conversation, was completely stunned.
'Seniors! What happened to the professional demeanor you had when training me?!'
Meguri nodded along with Yusa's words. "I will say, as someone who doesn't have feelings for Sam," she said as she looked between Yusa and Momo. "It is a total shift from his regular demeanor; I wonder why that is. My guess is that he's working his brain too hard to be awkward, and it has no choice but to be confident!" As Meguri's joke lands, a sudden yell from Sam interrupts their conversation.
"It's morphin' time!"
The timing couldn't have been better as everyone burst out in laughter. "Okay, maybe not hard enough. Must be because of the injuries." Meguri tries to give Sam something of an excuse, but he's too busy playing with his new toys (abilities) to realize that he embarrassed himself.
Their laughter quickly dies down as they look at Sam again to realize that he's in... armor?
"Wait, that's new." Yusa immediately comments as her curiosity is piqued by the reveal of Sam's armor.
Momo stops the group from rushing to Sam to ask questions. "He'll tell us later; he's training. Leave him be."
Nimura pouts at Momo as she adds, "I can't believe your betrayal over someone who isn't even your boyfriend yet."
Momo immediately turns red at this tease, and Nimura's pout gradually becomes a smug smile. "So it seems you can still be embarrassed about it. Good to know.~"
In return, all Momo gave her was a "Hmph." She returned to watching Sam practice.
The conversation seemed to hit a standstill after that, with everyone more interested in/enjoying the show of Sam's abilities as he spent the next half hour yelling things before an ability would activate.
Meguri was the first to break up the new silence as she commented, "Is that going to be his new thing? If it is, hopefully he picks better things to say; they aren't that cool."
Yusa responded with a smile as she continued to look at Sam, "I don't know, they have some charm to them; maybe I should start yelling things too."
Nimura turned to Yusa with a resigned sigh as she said, "You shouldn't, really shouldn't. Your naming scheme would probably be a thousand times worse than his."
Yusa immediately defended herself, saying, "No way, Super Annihilation Destroyer Fist would be a great name!" Which caused another fit of laughter between the girls.
Kusaka added after recovering from her laughter, "Maybe I should come up with one too..."
Nimura looked at Kusaka and let out another sigh. "I can't believe Sam unknowingly corrupted all my friends! Next thing you know, even the president will be naming her spells even more ridiculous things."
Saji, overhearing talk of Sona, decided to say something: "Sona wouldn't do something that embarrassing; she's too elegant for that." Looking quite proud of his compliment (?) towards someone who wasn't even there.
And unfortunately, all the girls gave him dumbfounded looks before Nimura said with a teasing voice, "Looks like the new guy has no idea how the president is; that'll be a nice surprise to see how he reacts later," which left Saji looking quite confused. Before the conversation could continue, a massive amount of energy started to spike from Sam, effectively stopping any conversation.
"Oh, what did he say? Did he name this, too?" Meguri said with surprise, to which Momo responded.
"He didn't say anything, but his energy is greater than what I ever felt from him before, definitely middle-class strength, potentially higher." As the girls internally agreed with Momo's words, Sam let loose the massive attack, causing over half the gymnasium to get scorched black from the high-voltage electricity.
Nimura, with a vein bulging from her forehead, shot up from her seat before seeing Sam turn towards the group, asking with an innocent face, "We can fix that, right?"
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Hiya, everyone!
Sorry for not posting yesterday; I did some major revising to this chapter and the next one, as they are very conversation-heavy.
But I'm here to ask for some opinions/suggestions. Mostly about the things I asked in the chapter comments of the previous chapter.
First up is a chapter dedicated to Sam's previous life. Some people are bashing Sam for being how he is, not some sort of Gigachad God from the get-go. And I do kind of understand? He's a mess atm.
Secondly, there are suggestions for conditions on his abilities. While I think "It's Morphin' time" is a funny thing, it does lose its charm quickly.
Last but not least is the Gacha itself. Do people want to know where each ability comes from? Just to warn you, not every ability is labeled from a specific source.
Also, some suggestions on what Sam's exoskeleton should look like? I got a few images myself, but they are nothing crazy.