Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or High School DxD, and I make now profit writing about them.
(AN): The story, she grows.
Naruto's blue eyes tracked his aunt's movements as she leaned into the clash of sorcery. A blood red whip of conjured demonic energy swished through the air in vicious little cracks, smashing through the rolling spheres of his magic. Rias was closing the distance slowly, stepping carefully forward towards him while wielding her makeshift magical weapon as both sword and shield.
It was in its own way proof of Rias' natural genius. Naruto was pretty damned sure no one had ever trained her to use a whip as a weapon, yet after a few short swings she was managing to make it work. Her movements were those of a clumsy amateur, and more than once Naruto saw the Ruin Princess flinch back when the loose movements of the ghostly strap twisted too roughly for her, but she was managing to cut down his lazy volleys of spellcraft. A dumber devil wouldn't have been able to even figure out how to make the thing move with any amount of accuracy.
But if Rias was a genius, Naruto was a genius among geniuses. Or at least had fifteen years or so of experience on the battlefield over her.
Matching his aunt's steady creeping strides step for step, the redhaired boy started to move to close the distance. Deep blue eyes crossed with Rias' turquoise gaze more than once as their trading arcs of magical power intensified.
Saffron orbs collided and cracked, splintering into a dizzying show of brightness and power, but that display was still nothing but a sideshow compared to the real avenue of their conflict.
Naruto clenched his fists inside his shifting gauntlets of diabolical light, carefully measuring the shortening gap between them with his eyes. Despite the blinding clash of magic, the younger devil could still see his aunt's taller form, and he knew when to move. Perhaps it was a bit unfair, considering he'd lived a life as a shinobi and Rias had never been anything but a somewhat pampered noble girl.
While Rias was powerful for her age, she was no war hardened combatant, and it showed in the way she reluctantly struck out at him. She second guessed herself too much, only giving half an effort because she was afraid of hurting him. When she came at him the whip cut too slow and too low, coming in around Naruto's hip, and it was easy pickings for the former ninja.
Stepping into the incoming lash, Naruto grinned at the look of sudden astonishment on Rias' face. Then he swiftly sliced into the length of it with a sorcery enhanced chop. The slithering string of energy broke easily beneath Naruto's hands, denying his aunt's her chosen form of attack.
It had really been a bad strategic choice to rely on a weapon she had little experience with to try and take him on. Cutting up a whip like this was pretty basic training for a Konoha shinobi, though he would have generally used a kunai to do it in his previous life. She would have done better to keep relying on her typical methods of casting rather than gambling on something brand new.
Of course, to give Rias her dues, Naruto hardly expected that she'd have known anything about Konoha and what it taught him.
Naruto clenched a fist, splitting a fraction of the rolling force shrouding his hands off. A thought rolled the wavering magical energy into tight balls, which he launched at Rias' feet. The sudden bombardment forced Rias to take a handful of stumbling steps as she hopped to avoid the volley.
There was no point in dragging it out. She'd underestimated him from the beginning, and he wasn't about to let her get away with it. If she'd been in a real fight, not taking her opponent seriously might be enough to get her killed. He'd rather see her feel a little humiliated in the present than watch her get killed in the future. The quicker he could take her down, the better it would be for both of them.
"Sorry." Naruto apologized, dodging ahead and slipping under Rias' guard with a punishing punch. Wreathed in concussive sorcery and with all the weight of his small body behind it, the sheer force of his fist to her gut was enough to fold his aunt in half.
A trail of spittle escaped Rias' mouth as she groaned, losing control over her magic and letting the last remnants of her conjured weapon fade away into a spray of motes. Stars exploded in her eyes as Naruto followed up his gut punch with an elbow to the back of the head.
Rias collapsed to the sand, landing on her hands and knees with a painful crunch. Red strands of hair dragged through the dirt as Naruto leapt on her back and drove her face to the ground with a dull thump. Thin arms wrapped around her throat, and the voice of her nephew growled in her ear.
"You give?"
Pure indignation flared through her, and Rias defiantly grabbed at Naruto's grip around her throat. Clear coated nails scratched fruitlessly at the boy's skin, digging pink furrows that had Naruto wincing and tightening his chokehold.
"Come on already!"
"No!" Rias shrieked, digging the fingers of one hand furiously in the sand and shake intensified her efforts to buck Naruto off her back. She would not be beaten by a child. That would simply prove the stupid whispers that she wasn't good enough right. The dull ringing in her ears disturbed her angry attempts to grab hold of her core of magical energy. "I'm not losing to you!"
Nearly thrown off by the sudden fierce struggle of the older devil beneath him, Naruto grunted and heaved his weight back down. "Stop being stubborn!." A bead of sweat dripped down from Naruto's temples, carving a glistening line of stress, and he squeezed in an effort to get Rias to submit. "Just give up already, I don't want to hurt you!"
"Fuck you!"
Surprised at the uncharacteristic curse, Naruto nearly missed the sudden vermilion spark as Rias found her magic once more. What had been planned to be a friendly duel was becoming something far more violent, and if he didn't get a leash on Rias soon, things might escalate too far. Rushing to his own reservoir of power, the boy fumbled and attacked in a preemptive blast.
Naruto struck too hard, slamming both of them down in a dizzied heap with a smoky halo of crimson energy.
Rias crashed face-first in the dirt for the second time. A faint crack echoed through her ears as her face filled with hot pain. Wetness ran freely from her nostrils, soaking the sand maroon.
Spitting out a wad of blood that had trickled down from her broken nose, the Ruin Princess reached back and tore at her dazed nephew's hair with a taloned hand. A yelp broke through the heavy air before she finally tossed him away.
Rolling to a crouch, Naruto twisted at the hips before stopping with a sudden rush of guilt and horror. "Shit, Rias, I didn't mean to..." he choked off, watching as his aunt took a hand to her sand and blood covered face. Ichor smeared across the white skin of Rias' palms as she futilely attempted to stem the tide of blood dripping from her nares.
Sea-green eyes glared at the younger devil accusingly, twitching from time to time with unfamiliar pain when Rias prodded at the swelling skin of her face. Naruto was used to Rias looking a little jealous whenever he managed to cross a milestone in training at a younger age than she had, but he was shocked by the sudden boiling venom in his pseudo-sister's gaze.
"What is going on here?" Grayfia's voice cut through the tense silence with all the force of a drill sergeant. Both young devils flinched, turning their attention to the approaching form of Naruto's mother. A pair of servants trailed at the Queen's heels, the three of them forming a matching trio of maid outfits. Typically, Naruto's mother was an ocean of calm amidst the more energetic storms in their family, her silver hair and silver eyes a gentle break in the crowd of red hair and blue-green eyes.
If Naruto had to describe the harsh expression of his mother's face now, he certainly wouldn't have used 'calm'.
"Ahh, shit."
A feather dropped, ash grey with each filament thrown into sharp relief before Sasuke's straining vision.
"Found you."
Lightning exploded from Sasuke's skin, the cold white light illuminating the forest canopy even as the Uchiha scrambled to his feet. Familiar chirping filled the air, and in that moment, it was the most beautiful sound Sasuke had ever heard.
Baring his teeth in a beastly snarl, Sasuke threw himself into the fight. Anxiety and the shame at his own weakness fell away and everything he had in him was united in one purpose: survival. With his heart hammering like a jackrabbit, the Uchiha lunged.
"Chidori!"
Dohnaseek sighed and held his hand out. Cool blue light exploded from the middle aged fallen angel's palm. The spear of light stretched and solidified into an elegant half-pike. A lighter baby blue seemed to shimmer along the bladed edge, trailing faint streamers through the air as Dohnaseek twirled the conjured weapon and brought it up to parry away Sasuke's desperate attack.
"Come on boy. Show me how much you want to live."
Sasuke struck again, fist covered in wild screeching electricity.
Swaying away from the blow, the fallen angel clicked his tongue and brought his boot up in a half-hearted kick. A crack echoed through the clearing as the right side of Sasuke's chest caved in beneath the blow.
Wrinkles deepened on the fallen angel's face as Sasuke dropped to a knee, coughing blood and struggling to breathe. "Too much force." Dohnaseek mused, delivering a burning slap to the young devil with a lazy swing of his spear. The fallen angel hardly considered himself a member of the Grigori's top echelons, but just because he'd never risen high in the fallen angel military government didn't make him weak. He'd survived the Great War against the devils and angels after all. Sometimes he forgot his own strength.
Pain flared with every breath as Sasuke heaved back to his feet. Blood coated the back of the Uchiha's tongue, and his Chidori flickered weakly as he leapt backwards to open some distance between his wounded form and the predator frowning at him.
"No." The fallen angel reversed his opinion after a moment filled with Sasuke's quiet coughs. "It's not a matter of using too much force. You're simply too weak."
Dohnaseek moved faster than Sasuke's eyes could perceive. One moment the fallen angel was across the clearing, and the next stars were exploding in Sasuke's vision as the hilt of Dohnaseek's spear clobbered into his temple.
The Chidori died entirely as Sasuke was swept off his feet. Rolling desperately, Sasuke spit out a wad of blood and crawled painfully back upright. Cold blue eyes pierced the Uchiha's shaking form, disapproval written in the contemptuous curve of the fallen angel's lips.
"Will you run away like a frightened rabbit again?" Dark feathers swirled as the fallen angel began to slowly move forward, each step triggering Sasuke to move back. "You've seen the difference in our strength – you know that distance is useless, but still you're cowering back?"
Leather gloves creaked as Dohnaseek's fist tightened around his spear of hardened light. "This is why you low level creatures are such a nuisance. You have no pride. You can't even give a good fight."
Each word needled in Sasuke like hot brands, stinging his pride and stoking his anger. But the fallen angel wasn't wrong. Ten years a devil and Sasuke was still too weak. All the quiet pride in his successes seemed self-aggrandizing. Those years spent beating taijutsu into his unconditioned body seemed a waste. Every painful hour given up to force his weak magical reserves into reproducing the Chidori were worthless.
Closing the distance in a blur of dark feathers, Dohnaseek delivered more bruising strikes from the flat of his blade to the wounded Uchiha. Every slap was a humiliation that seared metaphorically and literally.
"What are you doing, brat?"
A whistling hammer to Sasuke's kneecap.
"This is pathetic."
A burning slice along the meat of his forearm.
"How many years have you spent as a devil, only managing to achieve this?"
A bone crushing slam to the Uchiha's bleeding foot.
"Why are you so weak?"
Lightning sparked weakly in Sasuke's palm as he made a desperate claw at Dohnaseek's eyes. The fallen angel backhanded the Chidori away with a snort before giving Sasuke a punishing axe kick to the torso.
The broken bones of Sasuke's ribcage ground sickeningly together as the young devil dropped back to his knees with a groan of pain. There was a queer sensation of ripping inside of him, and with a final gasp Sasuke began vomiting blood into the cradle of his lap.
Dohnaseek gave an annoyed click of the tongue at the display.
Bringing his spear of light up against the devil's cheek, the fallen angel pressed the sharp edge of the blade in just enough for it to open the skin over Sasuke's cheekbone. Blood ran unnoticed in a thin rivulet down the pale skin of Sasuke's face to mingle with the bruises and smeared blood over the rest of his body.
It was a bubbling and burning of his flesh reacting to angel light magic that made Sasuke drag his weary black orbs up to meet Dohnaseek's pitiless blue glare. Even in the face of death there was steel resignation in the Uchiha's eyes – the resignation of a man with a duty but very little actual passion.
"You know the answer as well as I do boy." Dohnaseek declared, pulling the spear just enough to open more of Sasuke's cheek without decapitating him. "You've just been fooled into refusing to see it. Perhaps some idealist got to you and encouraged you to abandon some hard won truth. An empty vessel like you are now – how could you be anything but a failure?"
"Open your eyes. You are weak. Why are you weak?" A cruel sneer worked its way onto the craggy planes of the fallen angel's face. "Because you lack hatred."
The change between one heartbeat and the next made Dohnaseek's heart begin to truly feel a thrill for the first time since the night began. Dull resignation was burnt up in an instant, eaten away by instinctive black rage. "Shut up!" exploded from the teenaged devil, droplets of blood spewing out with each denying roar. "Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!"
A Chidori shrieked back into existence, chirping brighter and burning fiercer than anything Dohnaseek had seen from the boy since the chase began.
Sasuke slammed his lightning coated hand into the fallen angel's spear, light and electricity screaming for dominance and mingling into a hot blue radiance. Vibrations trembled up the length of the half-pike, twitching the conjured weapon violently until Dohnaseek pulled back with a breathless chuckle.
"That's it boy. Show me!" the fallen angel taunted, spurring the devil into a frothing rage as he bobbed and wove just out of reach. The blue spear of light hammered against Sasuke's Chidori again and again, each collision forcing spiderweb cracks through the conjuration's glassy surface. "What kind of power is your anger giving you? How much stronger are you when fueled by hatred?"
This fallen angel was saying all the things Itachi had once said to goad Sasuke down the path of revenge. Just where did Dohnaseek get off sounding like a B-tier villain version of his brother? What kind of divine mockery was this supposed to be? Just a last 'fuck you' for Sasuke in his last hour in this fucked up second life?
"Shut up!" Burst from Sasuke's lips with a spray of blood, and the Chidori coating his hand surged even brighter. "I'll kill you!" he vowed in the midst of bloodlust and rage before slamming the lightning magic against Dohnaseek's spear in a blow that destroyed the conjured weapon with the tinkle of shattering crystal.
Dohnaseek leapt back, leaving Sasuke standing alone for a moment. Sweat mingled with blood along the contours of his bony limbs. Tremors wracked the Uchiha's beaten form, and the Chidori gave one final squeal and died.
"Better." The fallen angel appraised, voice gone entirely neutral. The was no mocking in that face. No emotion. Just pure efficiency. The battle loving maniac was gone. The arrogance had all drained away. There was no contrived hunt any longer. "Now it's time to end this."
If Sasuke had thought Dohnaseek was swift before, that speed was nothing compared to their true difference in ability. The Uchiha didn't even have time to register anything but the sudden explosion of pain that shredded his heart. There was no dramatic conjuration. No flow of dark feathers and movement. Just the sensation of pain when a spear of enchanted light suddenly appeared in his flesh.
Sasuke hadn't even been able to comprehend it until the conjured weapon was fully lodged inside of him and cooking his internal organs away with holy light.
"Goodbye boy."
Crumbling to the ground in a splatter of mud, Sasuke tried to draw in a breath. He tried to reach an arm up to pull the deadly spear from his flesh. He tried to curse at the futility of it all. All he achieved was a tiny scrabble of his nails in the forest loam as darkness rapidly rushed in from the corners of his vision.
There was no frantic hammering of the heart or slowly stuttering beat. There was nothing at all, because Sasuke's heart was gone.
I'm dying.
Shit.
Dark streamers strangled all the colours out of his vision. The last thing he felt before his senses failed was a slick lukewarm sensation of sinking slightly into a patch of mud created from the mingling of soil and his own blood.
"Do you want to live?"
Her haughty tone was familiar. It was almost fitting, that the only companion he'd made in the new world would be the last thing conjured up by his dying brain. She might as well be asking for cookies.
"Do you want… power?"
The void yawned, endless oblivion hungered.
Yes.
"I have never been so ashamed - of either of you."
In a way, the quiet disappointment in his mother's voice was worse than if she'd had a loud screaming fit. Naruto chewed the inside of his cheek, sneaking a glance at his aunt out of the corner of his eye.
Magic had healed her broken nose and chased away the swelling and bruising, but the memories of those injuries was still there. Injuries that he'd given her, because he'd come at her too roughly and treated her as more skilled than she was. He could still summon the image of her toxic teal stare when he closed his eyes, and combined with the heavy steel glare Grayfia was giving the pair of them, Naruto felt sick to his stomach.
"I thought I'd raised you both better than that." Grayfia sighed, folding her arms over her chest. She'd dismissed the crowd of servants and healed Rias' nose herself, but that wouldn't stop the talk that was going to come out of the little scuffle. "I did my best to teach you to think before you acted. But instead of taking whatever dispute you had to Sirzechs or Zeoticus to solve, you scrabbled it out like a pair of lowborn commoners in the dirt."
"We weren't brawling." Rias disputed, a rebellious fey look in her eyes. The angry clench of her jaw worried Naruto. "We were having an informal duel. It was nothing to disturb the household over."
Grayfia's brows drew sharply together as Naruto's mother pressed her lips together. "That doesn't make it any better. A duel is not a game. What if one of you had managed to do serious damage to the other? You're much older than he is, and Naruto is..."
"Much stronger than I am?" Ice filled Rias' voice, making Naruto wince and look for someone to say to diffuse all the tension. The nails of Rias' clenched fists bit into her palms. "Is that what you mean to say?"
The Strongest Queen hesitated, spurring Rias to roll her eyes spitefully. "Whatever then, I'm done with this." The redhaired girl shoved on past her sister in-law, ignoring the woman's demands for her to come back.
"Just leave it mom." Naruto sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. What a fucking mess. "This is more my fault than hers. I'm the one you should be mad at." Most of the time Naruto was willing to take the heat for people he cared about. That he'd broken Rias' face half an hour ago only made him more determined to take the punishment. It was his way of making amends.
Bitterness twisted Grayfia's lips as the silver haired devil stared down the corridor her sister-in-law had stomped through. "You're not as good a liar as you think you are, Naruto."
Naruto frowned at his mother's back, stepping up beside her and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don't see how it's not my fault." the ten year old grunted, looking up with steely blue eyes. "I was the one that decided it was best to get it out of the way now, without anyone knowing about it. Neither of us was gonna seriously hurt the other, but Rias needed that fight. It's not easy growing up with someone younger than you that everyone loves to call a genius."
A queer expression crossed the taller devil's face as she finally turned to stare down at her son. "Sometimes I wonder about you. When your father is around you can act like quite the fool, but when he's not you can act surprisingly mature. if I didn't know better I'd think you were much older than you actually are."
"I can act the fool all the time if you like. How do you feel about mud under the sheets at the foot of your bed?"
"Do you want to die?"
"Ouch, mom. You're gonna make me cry."
A unladylike snort escaped her, lips twitching in reluctant amusement. "Haven't you heard? I take sustenance from the sorrow and tears of others." Grayfia settled a hand over Naruto's shoulder, humor falling away. "While I understand what you tried to do, you may have actually made it worse."
Wincing, Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I know." An 'official duel' presided over by one of his parents or grandparents would have been recorded in public record, and they'd need a a few witnesses on hand to make sure things didn't get out of control. But they could have controlled the narrative a little better. Instead, his effort to keep it all secret meant then when his mother and maids walked in, it was to the sight of him beating the stuffing out of Rias. What would have been called a mere victory instead would get called an utter massacre.
"Your grandfather may not have any choice in the matter after this."
The news spread like wildfire. Leaping from mouth to mouth, household to household, clan to clan. Naruto Gremory had viciously beaten Rias Gremory in a duel, and because of that victory, he was to be named the heir to the clan. The ten year old himself denied that the victory was as one-sided and violent as they implied, but his protests were lost in the wind of gossip.
As for Akeno, she was a little busy packing away a pair of socks to listen to the latest burbles of speculation. A grim frown pulled at the Queen's lips when she followed the black knee socks with a pair of red lace panties. At a different time she might have been a little amused at the outright sexuality of her underwear - she came by it honestly through her mother - but Akeno was a little too consumed with worry.
With Naruto confirmed as heir a few days ago, Rias' tiny peerage had kept their heads down. While devil society was more gender equal than medieval human ones considering that women could attain equal magical power, it was still to a degree patriarchal. The gender imbalance after the Great War that left pureblood nobles on the verge of extinction only further decreased their independence. Without the protection of the heir position, the Ruin Princess was suddenly much more vulnerable to politics within the aristocracy.
A clan would refuse to sell their heir's hand cheaply, but Rias was just a spare now. Her only remaining political value was in her bloodline and the womb that would pass it on. It was probably too early to be worried about threats of engagement, and the Gremory clan was a little more soft hearted than most, but they were still a clan. Rias, Akeno, and even Koneko hadn't wanted to cause too much fuss and give anyone any ideas about getting rid of a troublesome former heir presumptive.
So they'd leave. Out of sight and out of mind.
Centuries ago the previous Duke Gremory had an arranged marriage with a noblewoman from the Balam clan. Rather than do something as politically unwise as elope with his lover, the devil had simply taken many concubines. For his favourite concubine, he'd built Starling Hall. It was a relatively remote estate, constructed for a single woman and her children, and perfect for Rias' peerage. Like any other home made for the nobility, it sprawled, but it lacked the sheer vastness the aristocrats traditionally favoured.
Rias was partial to it because of the exquisitely constructed observatory it housed. A single vacation there as a girl and the Ruin Princess was hooked on what she called her 'star chamber'.
Akeno would just be happy to get out of the estate the rest of Rias' immediate family was currently living in. She was hardly a therapist, but she hoped the distance from the hovering servants and visiting clansmen would take some of the conflict out of her friend's heart. It was difficult to watch Rias alternatively mope around and seethe with envy. It was not a good look for someone she knew was usually tender hearted.
Stuffing a box of earrings into one of her suitcases, Akeno gave her room a last cursory look over. There were a few potted plants and old books she'd collected over the years scattered over the shelves, but nothing really stuck out at her. While Akeno might look like a high maintenance woman that needed to be spoiled, she wasn't attached to material things. Living on the streets for a year and a half made her more focused on utility than luxury. A few pieces of her mother's jewelry were probably the only things she owned that she considered irreplaceable, and those were carefully tucked away already.
"Seems fine to me." she decided, waving a hand over her luggage and casting a levitation spell with a a swirl of yellow runes. The suitcases roses into the air and floated along after her as Akeno left her bedroom and stalked through the corridors. Koneko was likely already waiting in Rias' bedroom, and once Akeno got there they could teleport away like thieves in the night.
The image made her chuckle grimly.
Stopping three doors down from her own room, Akeno knocked and let herself in.
"Slow." Koneko greeted from the bed, the nekomata curled up with her knees to her chest.
Pulling down an eyelid, Akeno stuck her tongue out at the younger girl. "Bleh. Not everyone lives out of a cat basket. Some people actually have to pack some of their favourite bed sheets. Behave, or I won't get you any more wind up mice."
The nekomata just shot back an irritated glare.
"Where's Rias?"
"Saying goodbye."
Akeno made a wordless noise of sympathy. They weren't 'moving out' really. For powerful devils like Rias' family, teleporting over to see her any time they wanted was child's play, and they'd just be lodging in another one of the Gremory clan's many properties. But even Sirzechs still lived under the same roof, despite being a centuries old Satan and lord of the slowly rebuilding Lucifer clan territory.
For such a close knit family, a teleportation circle away was both right next door and another country.
She wondered if her human Himejima cousins were just as tightly bound, or if they could cut ties with each other just like they'd cut ties with her.
"Good, you're here." Rias muttered as she slipped into the room. Faint dark circles lined under her turquoise eyes, and not for the first time Akeno wished that her friend wasn't hiding away from the family that wanted to help her.
The half-breed wasn't enough of a hypocrite to nag at Rias considering she abandoned her concerned absentee father, but up and leaving might not be the best choice. It wasn't like her parents weren't willing to understand their daughter's emotional turmoil. They'd certainly let her leave to 'find herself' and 'have her own space' with little enough protest after extracting promises to visit and tell them if she ever needed to talk.
Instead of leaning on her family, Rias was retreating from everything that had purposefully or accidentally caused her pain. Almost all staff at Starling Hall had been let go prior to Rias deciding to move there, so besides the odd visiting cleaner it would be practically empty. A mistress and two members of a peerage did not a village make, and there would be no clansmen nosing into their training progress or servants gushing over little master Naruto.
But Rias was not built for solitude, and Akeno worried about the long term impact of her self-imposed isolation.
"Are you ready to go?" Rias prodded tiredly, waving a hand and creating a small teleportation circle in the corner of the bedroom. The Ruin Princess' luggage floated over to linger by the red runes. "If not, now's the time to speak up."
"Of course."
"Yes."
"Then let's not waste any more time."
(AN): 1600 words originally, 3000 in the second draft, 5000 now.
