None of the devils felt like it had been a win. Junichiro had controlled the fight from the moment it started and quit rather than continue until he'd won. He turned to face Rias, "Come by my place tomorrow to do the transfer. I'm going home and trying to forget all this happened."
He stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walked away without another word. This left the devils looking at each other awkwardly while they collectively tuned out Koneko's tunneling. Sona cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She had no idea what to say and it was so awkward. How could she congratulate her friend on winning the bet when she won because the opposing side quit out of boredom!?
'Congrats! You... won?'
Come on! There was no way she could say that. Despite Rias technically winning, it was still her loss as far as Sona could see. It was like someone forfeiting a game of chess against her when they were a single move away from checkmate. It was... insulting.
No one said anything until Koneko broke through the floor and looked around for Junichiro. Not seeing him, she turned to look at Rias, "We win?"
Rias let out a growl and stomped out of the gym while Sona held her forehead and sighed. Koneko looked from person to person until she got to Sona who explained what happened in detail. When she finished, Koneko tilted her head, "So... won the battle. Lost the war."
Sona slowly nodded, "That about sums it up, yeah. I don't think you all stood a chance from the beginning. His use of Sword Birth is both unique and genius giving him a plethora of unknown abilities and tricks at his disposal. That, alone, makes him a formidable fighter. Then taking into consideration that he appeared to be as skilled with a sword as Kiba..."
She trailed off and turned to Kiba for confirmation. Kiba shook his head, "He isn't quite as good as myself, but he isn't far off. However, it's not his skill that gives him an edge over me, or his tricks, it's his style. From what I could see, he's trained in at least two, possibly three, different sword styles. This gives him a flexibility and adaptability that I lack. Add on his unique use of our shared Sacred Gear and it will be my loss nine out of ten times with the one being pure luck."
Sona looked to Koneko next, "What about when you tried to punch him?"
Koneko frowned as she thought, "First punch, normal. Second... too soft."
Sona sighed, "So he really did absorb the force of your punch and send it back at you?"
Koneko nodded but didn't say anything else. Sona turned to the last remaining member of Rias's peerage in the gym, "What about you Akeno."
Akeno just shrugged her shoulders, "You saw what I saw. Casting magic at him seemed like an exercise in futility with how easily he could absorb and then reuse our magical attacks. We'd have to use something other than elemental magic on him, but I haven't really studied that."
Sona nodded in agreement. Each of them had a specialty and, except for Rias, it was elemental in nature. Sona herself specialized in water magic and she'd seen how useful that would be in a fight against Junichiro. That is, not at all.
From there the groups split up. Sona and Tsubaki to attend their duties, Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko to find their King now that she'd had a chance to calm down.
As Junichiro exited Kuoh Academy, he looked down at the rings adorning his fingers with a wry smile. The majority of the rings showed cracks and were near the point of completely shattering, "Damn those girls pack a punch."
He dismissed the sword-rings and smiled brightly. He didn't want to go all that hard on Rias or her peerage. He'd wanted to see where he stood when put against them and he was pleasantly surprised. He could beat them, easily, just using his Sword Birth. Though the victory didn't come down to raw power but flexibility and creativity. With the right sword from his Sacred Gear he could counter anything they could throw at him in a friendly match.
Even if it was a match to the death, he was still pretty certain he could win with just his Sacred Gear. Using Avalon against them in a serious manner was just completely unfair, no way they could handle that kind of thing. He wasn't even sure if they could handle the power of Avalon years from now after they gained a ton of power and experience. Avalon's defense is no joke when it can let a Devil tank a blow from a God using one of their major weaknesses!
Still. The only thing they had that his Sacred Gear couldn't counter was the Power of Destruction and he was certain he could dodge any attacks launched by Rias. She was definitely like her canon counterpart in that she liked to fire big powerful attacks to go for a one hit kill. While effective, to a point, it's useless against someone faster and with his Sword of Speed, the Katana he first summoned, Junichiro was faster than Kiba! No way was Rias ever going to hit him without restraining him first.
Hopefully the demonstration of the power hidden within Sword Birth would give Kiba some hints to gaining even more strength. He'd honestly only found one limit to the power of Sword Birth, the item created had to be recognizable as a sword. Everything else he'd tried was fair game!
He also hoped the other things he'd mentioned would help them, as a whole, to gain more flexibility and look into different options. Especially Akeno. Her being a Queen piece without using all of its enhancements was such a waste. Frankly, he knew he'd make a better Queen than Akeno since he fought both at range and in melee thus letting him use all of the enhancements to their full effect. Though, he would settle for being a Pawn so he could use promotion to make himself a Queen.
He wondered if his performance was good enough to make Rias interested in recruiting him. He was almost certain it was, he'd clearly been closest to winning before he quit. Still, there was no telling how Rias was reacting or what she was thinking.
He was looking forward to seeing her tomorrow when she came by to claim her prize.