Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Highschool DxD and I make no profit writing about them.
(AN): Turn on the cooker lads…
STOP.
Once more, you have encountered a smut chapter. The full version can be located on Ao3.
Ravel squinted at the clock, studying the vibrant red numerals that blinked a mocking 2:36 and trying to decide if she should crawl off to bed or not. On the one hand, her fluffy pillows were calling her. On the other, she was pretty sure that if she kept her nose to the grindstone she'd finish all her academic assignments for the next two months.
Decisions, decisions.
Nibbling on the worn plastic cap of her pen, Ravel decided she'd be better off to just get her homework out of the way even if it meant she'd be tired in the morning. She hunched over the desk, scribbling down rough but still legible kanji with the impatience of someone that could do better but just didn't care to. As long as the teachers could read the text she'd still get full marks anyway.
"I would say I'm surprised you're still up working away, but I'm not."
Ravel smirked sassily at the interruption, refusing to glance away from her paper as she plodded through inking out a hefty paragraph. "And I'd say that I'm stunned you're not working away, but that would be such a blatant lie that no one would ever believe it."
Then she looked up, and found her mouth running dry.
Naruto leaned against the closed door of Ravel's bedroom, his blue eyes dark with resolve as he studied her. His shoulder-length red mane glistened with beads of moisture left after a steamy shower, and the tan flesh of his shirtless torso burned pink with the memory of wet heat.
"Cat got your tongue?"
Her fiancé's amused barb broke Ravel's stupor, and a crimson flush raced over the ivory skin of her cheekbones. "What the hell is wrong with you?" she demanded, forcing her gaze away from the hard muscles that defined Naruto's stomach. The drab door of her closet wasn't nearly as interesting, but at least it didn't turn her brains to mush.
"Something I should have done a long time ago." Naruto murmured, his voice heavy with secret irony, as if he was quoting someone else. The corner of his lip quirked up, and he let his arms drop down to dangle loosely he approached.
Pretending not to care was one of the hardest things Ravel had ever done. She'd endured abuse at the hands of uncaring family members, isolation from her peers, and years of struggling for acknowledgement. But resisting the seemingly harmless urge to gawp at her fiancé while he approached her all glistening muscles and leonine grace like some Greek god was up getting up there.
Ravel would describe him as a modern Adonis, except she'd seen actual portraits of the man and he was vastly overrated.
"What are you doing?" Ravel hissed, holding up her hands in meagre defense and turning her face away. She thought he'd learned to stop wandering around half-naked months ago after Akeno had started throwing water balloons at him every time he did.
One eye Ravel kept open, guiltily peeking through the cracks between her fingers as Naruto approached. Sure, she was shocked and embarrassed, but that didn't mean that she didn't want to look or that she'd let her guard down.
It was almost a sad metaphor for her life, unable to touch but still craving sight and sense and security over social expectation.
Naruto braced himself on the desk, looming over the blonde with a conflicted twist to his brow. "I needed to talk to you." He stated slowly and clearly, leaning down so that only a scant foot separated him from Ravel's flushed features. "And I realized that it was better to do it now rather than later."
The fresh peppermint of Naruto's breath wafted towards her, his teeth freshly brushed but with a strong cloying undercurrent that made Ravel wrinkle her nose. "You're drunk." She accused, all traces of flustered surprise draining away in favour of exasperated resignation. "Simply amazing. I'm sure our teachers at the academy will be thrilled at the prospect of your hangover."
Absorbing Ravel's last barb patiently, Naruto just watched her. "I'm not that drunk." He eventually pointed out carefully. "I've just been thinking about a couple of things and decided to clear the air rather than let it drag on."
"Fine." Ravel hissed through her teeth, scrunching her eyes shut. While she might be willing to enjoy a bit of eye candy, the lack of space between her and Naruto was a little too overwhelming. "Just get out of my face and say what you need to say."
Warm fingers pinched Ravel's chin, gently but meticulously lifting her head. "You can look you know." Naruto offered lowly, waiting until her eyes fluttered open. "In fact, I'd really encourage you to."
Thinning her lips, Ravel jerked her face away from Naruto's calloused hand. "Stop getting side-tracked." She scolded vaguely, because what else could she say? Even if he told her she could, Ravel didn't feel she had the right to. She'd spent years trying to get the redhead to see her as more than a child, and almost every romantic interaction they'd ever had was one she initiated.
At a certain point Ravel just got tired of forcing her desires on Naruto. It had started to eat into her self-esteem.
"I'm not." There was no teasing in Naruto's tone, only an earnest seriousness that required her attention. Against her will Ravel found herself gazing back into that painfully handsome face, and realizing that the Gremory heir wasn't finding some kind of sadistic amusement out of this. Instead he just looked tired and sad. "I want you to look."
Naruto took her limp shocked hand and pressed it against the firm muscle of his chest, directly over the heart so she could feel the quick and steady thrumming of his pulse beneath the pads of her fingers. As a speech the words were lacking, but as a gesture Naruto managed to convey something that made her eyes burn.
"You damn bastard."
Shadows flickered across her vision as Naruto practically lunged around the desk, trapping her in her chair with the bulk of his hardy frame. "I'm sorry." He declared solemnly, cupping her face between his hands and breaking her into a thousand pieces at the same time.
Softly and tenderly Naruto brushed the glimmering beads of tears from her lashes, the calm serenity of his expression shattering with sympathetic pain. "I'm sorry." He repeated, brushing his lips against her forehead like a benediction, moving down to kiss the tip of her nose. "I won't hurt you anymore." Then he pressed his mouth against hers, sealing his new oath and silently begging for absolution.
Ravel gave it to him, the way she always had and the way she was starting to suspect she always would.
'RAVEL grew to level 100!' flashed on the screen, and after a slow blink Konoko shuffled her newest max leveled magikarp into the bottom of her party list along with NARUTO and VALERIE. The trio of useless fish took up half of her loadout, and she was finally ready to challenge the Elite Four.
But that was for another time she decided as she saved and turned off her secondhand Gameboy.
Stretching until the joints of her spine popped, the Rook ignored the glare Sasuke sent her for daring to shove her bare heels into his side. "I'm bored." She brought up instead, relaxing and slipping her cold feet under the hem of Sasuke's sweater. "Amuse me."
"No." Sasuke denied instantly, turning back to study the grimoire on ancient Celtic magic that Rias had dug up for him. Over the years since his recruitment into the redhead's peerage he'd developed a bit of a taste for studying spell creation, refining his fire and lightning magic inch by ruthlessly efficient inch.
Everything from the dismissive turn of his head to the cold hunch of Sasuke's shoulders conveyed his desire to shut her out and focus on his book.
It was a bit pointless though, since they were seated on the same couch in the library and Koneko had no intention of letting him brush her off. Eventually he'd break.
"Amuse me."
"No."
"Amuse me."
"No."
"Amuse me."
"No."
"Your fly is open."
"No – what?" Reflexively Sasuke glanced down, and Koneko took advantage of his moment of distraction to lunge across the cushions and grab at the tattered tome he held loosely.
Koneko managed to pry the book away, clambering over Sasuke's lap and pressing a bony knee into a certain sensitive place that made him curse. Then she sent the grimoire floating away to some forgotten corner of the library with a sparkle of orange sorcery.
Shoving the nekomata off, Sasuke twitched his hand like he was resisting the urge to strangle her. "You just had to do it." He bit out, gingerly getting to his feet and hobbling around the room in an attempt to walk off the pain.
"It's just what you deserve."
Sasuke's face spasmed, like he wasn't quite sure what emotion he wanted to display. Eventually he settled on cool disdain. "You know, I've always wanted to give roof rabbit a taste. What do you say we find Yuuto and give it a try?"
"Barbarian." Koneko shook her head, her mouth twitching with humor. While it was always fun to nettle at Sasuke and see how wound up she could make him, she'd been hoping for something a little more exciting. "Let's go."
Huffing an explosive sigh, Sasuke slipped his hands in his pockets and shuffled after the short Rook. "Where?" he prodded after a few minutes of silently padding through the opulent corridors of the Gremory manse.
Koneko just shrugged. "Who knows?" Either they'd run into one of their friends and get roped into some group project, or they'd wander out into the streets of Kuoh and hopefully find something that caught her eye. Either was fine, since both sounded more interesting than lazing around the dusty library until dinner time.
The back of her head burned with the invisible force of Sasuke's angry gaze, but Koneko brushed it off as she prowled through the halls. At one point Ravel fluttered on by with pink cheeks and a dazed glaze, but Koneko decided that was none of her business. The latest bit of drama leaking out of Naruto's harem wasn't something she wanted to get into.
"I see." Sasuke mused, smirking slightly when Koneko looked back in confusion. The arrogantly pleased look on his face was enough to make Koneko demand he tell her what was going on, but the Uchiha just hummed and hawed and pretended to be oh-so-mysterious.
Giving up with an angry huff, Koneko narrowed a stern amber glare at the dark-haired devil, changing her direction and leading him directly towards the parlour she knew Rias would be relaxing in. If he wanted to play it that way, fine, she knew just how to handle him.
Koneko breezed into the studio, sparing a glance for the retro mecha anime that was blaring on the widescreen TV before leering cattily at the redhead. "Do you still need a hand with that new vampire cosplay? We're bored and don't have anything else to do."
"What? No!"
Very slowly Rias shifted her curious teal regard from her Rook to her Pawn, and then back again. "I might have just the thing."
October brought dark nights and darker chills, but Issei just grinned and tightened the collar of his jacket around his throat with one lazy hand. Sure, it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but it was good enough to take the edge off while he stood in the neighborhood park waiting.
Rubbing his palms together to create a bit of warmth, Issei cupped his hands over his mouth and breathed out. The wet warmth of his exhale floated through the cracks in his fingers, white streams of smoke escaping to float away into the ebony night sky.
"What's the hold up?" the brunette wondered, hunching in on himself to try to fight the cold. If Issei had something to distract himself with it wouldn't be terrible, but when all he had to focus on were his own thoughts the cold night found it pretty easy to take a pound of flesh.
"Issei-kun!" A high-pitched happy voice called out to him, and Issei spun on the spot to offer a welcoming smile.
"Hello, Asia." Issei greeted easily, peering through the shattered shadows that the electric street lamps created so that he could watch his new best friend approach. He'd only known the blonde nun for a few months, but every time he spoke to her he found his heart melting a little more. "How's things going?"
Shrugging her shoulders, Asia crossed over a slightly damp sandbox to take a seat on the park bench. "Things have been well for me, what about you?" she still spoke a bit awkwardly, but after a few months in Japan her accent and word choice had improved quite a bit.
"Eh, same old, same old." Issei deflected, eying the rusty swingset and considering its faded red paint. Months ago Yuuma had pulled back the curtain and made it very clear that there really were monsters hiding under his bed. But after so long without any other sign of the supernatural, Issei was slowly starting to relax.
He would never assume it was a dream, but maybe Issei could afford to be a bit less paranoid. In fact, Asia was one of the biggest reasons that he was letting down his guard. Sure, the first few times he'd been suspicious at running into her and thought maybe she'd be the next magical murderer trying to take him out.
But as the weeks rolled on Issei decided that Asia was exactly what was written on the tin. She appeared to be an innocent and shy blonde nun that really was too good for the world, and that was exactly what she was. There was no way that someone could pretend to be so sweet and kind. If she'd intended to try to kill him she had plenty of chances to do it.
So no, Issei felt that Asia really was what she seemed to be.
"That said, I have been trying my hand at a few crafts. Nothing really complex, just building birdhouses and other cheap stuff like that, but it's been fun."
Asia beamed at Issei, folding her hands in her green-clad lap and squinting at him with a cheery emerald stare. "That's wonderful." She chirped, shivering slightly at the chill and hunching her shoulders in. "When I was a little girl my sisters and I used to spend hours and hours knitting scarves. I still do it sometimes. It's not exactly the same, but um…"
Noting how the cold seemed to bite through her jackets, Issei very carefully shuffled closer across the bench so their hips were pressed together. It wasn't exactly lewd, but it still brought a hot blush to his cheeks that he laughed off. "Ah well, it's close enough, you know? At least I think so. Either way you're making something."
Asia's answering giggle was like the chime of church bells, clear and ringing and enough to rouse the soul. It was a pure and clean sound that someone like Issei, with the shadow of supernatural massacre hanging over his head; didn't really deserve to hear. But despite that he drank it in, never quite able to get enough of the blonde's uplifting optimism.
Considering the evil that he knew lurked in the corners of the world, Issei didn't have any business lowering his guard and letting himself be soothed by a soft little foreign nun. But she gave him hope anyway, and that was alright, wasn't it? He was only human in the end.
Gasper sighed when the printer gave an electric beep, signaling that the ink had run dry. He'd been hoping to get another few days out of it. Oh well. That was just how the cookie crumbled he guessed.
Flipping up the plastic lid, Gasper waited until the little cartridge carrier buzzed into sight. It only took a moment for him to pry out the empty container and replace the black ink with a brand-new cartridge, slapping the lid back down and pressing a flashing button to resume the print job.
The printer hummed back up into operation, spitting out page after page of his completed term paper. With that set back in motion, the blond leaned back against the wall and folded his bony arms across his chest, staring down at the floor silently.
Counting the hardwood floorboards wasn't the most interesting thing in the world to do, but Gasper supposed it was better than trying to talk to Valerie.
The other dhampir was lazing in Gasper's leather office chair, her head thrown back as she gazed numbly at the ceiling, the white column of her throat crowned with a delicate little silver pendant. She was also waiting for her assignments to print out; an empty folder tossed carelessly on the desk in front of her.
Neither of the Bishops made an effort to talk to the other, which was probably for the best. Gasper didn't know what he'd have said to her anyway. For most of his life Valerie had been his only friend, the person he trusted and loved more than anyone else. But once they'd moved to Gehenna and been reborn as servants of the Gremory clan, they'd drifted apart.
To be fair, it hadn't been immediate. Living in a new place with new people had made them huddle together just to be able to feel something familiar. But once they'd gotten comfortable with Naruto and Rias and all the rest, they'd branched off into different circles. Gasper had started looking up to Yuuto and Sasuke as older brother figures, and Valerie had gotten more and more obsessed with Naruto.
Gasper would be lying if he said he wasn't a little bit sour about that. He'd also be lying if he tried to blame it all on Valerie though. She'd stopped reaching out to him, but he'd never tried reaching out to her either. Then the Konoha drama was dropped in their laps, and the break had been almost total. Valerie's fixation on Naruto after that kept growing more intense, and Gasper had thrown himself into the arms of Rias' peerage.
At this point Gasper wasn't sure how to rebuild his relationship with Valerie. He didn't even know if it was possible. Had they just gotten too different over the past couple of years? Did a road back even exist? And if it did, did Gasper even really want to walk that road?
That uncertainty was what really scared him.
Massaging at the slight dark bags of sleeplessness that hung under his eyes with a thumb, Gasper glanced back down at the printer. Three more pages to go and then his printing would be done, and Valerie's would begin.
"How much longer?"
"Oh." Gasper blinked at the sudden question, rubbing at a corner of his pale green hoodie with anxious fingers. "A minute or two I guess. It's printing your stuff now."
Valerie just grunted in acknowledgement, letting the curtain of silence fall back down between them. The disinterest nettled Gasper's pride a little, and against his own instincts he cut through the hush himself.
"How is class going?"
That threw Valerie off balance a touch, and the older blonde turned to stare at him with befuddled crimson eyes. "It's fine. Boring but fine. Why do you ask?"
"No reason." Gasper smiled faintly until Valerie seemed to lose interest and turn her attention back to staring into space. Blood and ashes this was painful. They couldn't even have a conversation about school without everything feeling stiff and awkward.
Still, at least Valerie and Ravel had stopped trying to murder each other with their eyes on a daily basis. That had been awkwardness on a whole different level. Even spending most of his time in the basement hadn't kept Gasper out of the line of fire for that particular death match.
The last inked page fluttered into the receiving tray. "It's done."
"Finally."
The wind was in the west, howling across the north face of the Chugoku Mountains with the frigid promise of winter. The first moon of November hung in the dark sky, sending pale luminous rays down that dappled the bark of the trees silver.
It was pretty in a desolate way, and some nihilistic painter probably would have found something worth recording about it. Maybe one day the mystery artist's work would even find itself in a museum, where some tired middle-aged curator would extoll it as an example of existential loneliness.
Yasaka wouldn't have blamed the humans for looking at it that way. Their senses were limited and closed to the thrumming pulse of the world. They saw only dying trees and dead stone. They weren't able to perceive the golden thread of chakra thrumming its way north and east towards Kyoto like a furious mesh drawn out from the heart of the sun.
Drawing her plain veil closer around her face to better disguise her memorable features, Yasaka turned to the west. If she wasted her time admiring the view she wouldn't be able to complete her inspection and be back in Kyoto by sunrise. She'd left the city in secret without telling anyone but her closest advisors, but the fiction of her presence might not hold up if they suddenly had to cancel hearings for the day.
The blonde kitsune inhaled an icy breath, enjoying the sting of cold clean air, and began to truly move. West and ever further west, dancing across the ley line as it wound up and down mountains and across fields until she came at least to the ocean, peering over the ebony glass waves as the ley line continued along the sea floor.
As one of the few youkai in Japan that could claim to have true mastery of all aspects of senjutsu, Yasaka was deadly anywhere in the world. But she was deadliest when fighting above one of the dragon veins, and so it was paramount she know the exact course they moved across the land. Ley lines only shifted slowly year by year, but they did move, and Yasaka hadn't been west of Tottori in a century.
It was good she'd thought to come now, because comparing the present to her memories revealed that the lines had become distorted dramatically past Hiroshima. They were dozens of miles northwards of where they'd once been, and standing just outside Shimonosenki Yasaka could see that the shift was even more dramatic out in the Tsushima Strait.
It wouldn't surprise her if the ley line made land fall in Busan.
Which could become a concern if politics on the mainland were shaken up. The last time this particular line had crossed through Korea had been at the end of the sixteenth century, and that conflict had even spilled over into the human world. If the lines were converging again, there might soon be poison in the well.
Still, perhaps Yasaka could take advantage of that. It was food for thought and potential action twenty or thirty years down the line. She had more than enough time to focus on more immediate problems before she had to worry about bloodying her hands with the Sandalwood King again.
Turning away from the salt spray, Yasaka tracked the moon and guessed she was in the hour of the Ox. Later than she'd hoped, but not worrying so.
The kitsune tightened her disguising cloak and illusory spells around her body, locking away anything that might identify her to curious onlookers as she began the trek back home.
Yasaka made it barely three steps before a rock clattered and the air was full of a painfully familiar scent of tea and sake. "Ah." She said, straightening proudly at the spine despite the worried curdle in her gut.
"Ah indeed." The other kitsune replied, a soft little smile on her lovely face. She offered Yasaka a small saucer of sake that was politely accepted before she continued in her otherworldly musical tone. "Yes, my dear one. You have been caught. Did you think I wouldn't notice when my chosen voice snuck out of my city?"
The sweet burn of alcohol blazed down Yasaka's throat, tasting like a thousand memories. It was painfully nostalgic, bringing her back to remembrances she couldn't truly recall. They were recollections of a mother's milk and a father's laugh that were probably more fiction than fact.
But despite the pain Yasaka drank to the dregs, because when she'd put on the mantle of priestess she'd sworn an oath never to run away from who she was.
When the sake was gone the saucer disappeared in a flicker of ghostly blue foxfire, vanishing like it had never been, and then the interloper began to change.
Ivory skin tanned, a round jaw squared, and bones shifted. The only thing that remained the same was the long flaming orange hair and the mischievous golden eyes.
Where once stood a buxom and beautiful woman that practically exuded bountiful fertility there was now a rough and calloused working man, his hands scarred with the long toils of labor. "Well in any case, I'm not inclined to obstruct what you're scheming to build." Inari grinned, and in his smirk was the promise of war and industry. "In fact, I think I'll even help you along."
(AN): 5100 words here. Been a long while, but that's what happens when my review count isn't high enough bruddas.
Anyway, there's not really a whole lot to say in this AN. Finally tied up the Naruto harem conflict in a way that isn't "everyone was happily every after" but did put him firmly in the driver seat. Threw in that Valerie/Gasper scene to clarify their relationship. A few timeskips and muh Issei, and even some laydown for the Kyoto arc.
