Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor Highschool Dxd and I make no profit writing about them.
(AN): Die Neue These was great.
Lightning crackled between Sasuke's fingertips as he deflected another one of Raynare's jabs, but his palm still blistered from the contact with her sacred power. Fallen angel or not, she could still channel the holy light of heaven and it was enough to sting and sear.
"Get out of my way!"
Sasuke thinned his lips in denial, doubling down on his Chidori and using the electric spell as a bludgeon to drive Raynare back and away from the two humans. It wasn't the most effective thing in the world, since the Chidori was designed as a piercing assassination technique, but without his katana he had few other choices.
Despite being much stronger than Raynare was, Sasuke couldn't simply murder her. Even if they disliked each other she was still Akeno's sister, and the Uchiha knew first hand how deeply blood ties could bind even when both parties rejected them.
But neither could he let her murder Hyoudou or that blonde girl and go on her merry way. Naruto would have a fit.
So Sasuke was stuck, trying to wear out the fallen angel so he could disarm her without actually hurting her; which left him to take a dozen scrapes and bruises along the way. The only blessing he could count on was that Raynare seemed as reluctant to kill him as he was to kill her.
Raynare conjured up a second smooth spear of magenta crystal, lobbing it at Hyoudou while she moved to press Sasuke with the chipped lance in her hand. "Stop interfering! This has nothing to do with you!"
Clenching his jaw, Sasuke leaned back at the waist, his bare hand bracing himself against the stained floorboards as crackling angelic light sailed over his head. The other hand was wreathed in white lightning, which intensified as he shaped it into the form of a chittering Chidori Eisou.
Hyoudou shrieked like a little girl when pink and ivory sorcery shattered against each other in front of his face, showering him with fading motes but leaving him afraid and alive.
Furious at being thwarted again, Raynare hammered her extended elbow down and drove the point right into the exposed length of Sasuke's belly, forcing the devil to the ground.
Wheezing through the pain, Sasuke grabbed the collar of her robes and pulled her along with him.
They went down in a tangle of limbs, glass tinkling as Raynare's spear hit the hardwood and finally shattered into tiny fading pink stars. The growling of her frustrated voice in Sasuke's ears intensified as he took advantage of their proximity and rolled Raynare on her back, pinning her down with the full weight of his muscled frame.
"Calm down." Sasuke ordered coolly, jerking his head to the side to dodge the sudden wad of saliva Raynare spat up at him. "Enough." Grasping both her wrists with one hand as he held Raynare's arms down above her head, Sasuke used his other hand to force her head to the side so that her cheek was pressed right up against the floor, preventing her from any more attempts to spit or bite. "Enough."
"Go stick on a horse's dick and spin."
Rolling his eyes, Sasuke snorted. "Somehow I should be surprised, but I'm not. It looks like you're shaping up to be an even bigger bondage freak than your sister is." He felt her jaw tense angrily beneath his fingertips, but Raynare didn't have the strength to throw him off.
Satisfied that the situation had been deescalated, Sasuke looked up at the gaping Hyoudou kid. "Stop staring like a gormless fool and untie her." He ordered, shaking his head when Issei squeaked like a little chipmunk and hurried to obey. "How you didn't kill him instantly is beyond me."
Huffing at the implication of weakness, Raynare glared at the devil through the corner of her eye. "I would have if you'd stayed out of my way."
"Or if you hadn't played with your food."
For a long moment the only sound was the low murmur of whispered conversation between the two traumatized humans.
"Touché."
Naruto arrived like he always did, with a shout and an echoing bang. The redhead exploded through the church door, scattering broken shards of oak as he barreled into the room with his eyes blown wide. "Nobody move!"
A low moan of disgust slithered out of Raynare's mouth, and she went limp with resignation. Sasuke released his grip on her head in response, but kept her arms pinned down just in case she got any ideas.
"You're late, moron."
Once he was sure no one was stabbing anyone else to death in some hidden corner of the shadowed room, Naruto waved sheepishly at Issei and then plodded over to Sasuke. Yuuto and Akeno followed at his heels, silent in comparison to the Gremory heir's noisy gravity. "What's all this then?"
"Proof that fate is an abominable bitch." Raynare snarked, twisting her head to scowl at the newcomers. "Where are the rest of the little mongrels? Might as well make this a full fucking masquerade at this point."
Naruto squinted in thought, studying the fallen angel's petulant features like he wasn't quite sure if she was joking or not. "You can let her up I think. Unless this is what gets you off. Just like your sister I guess." He muttered, wincing when Akeno punched him in the lower back. "Okay, okay! There's no need for domestic violence."
Scoffing at the cringing redhead, Sasuke let go and started to rise.
"Wait don't!" Issei yelled frantically, limping forward with a hand pressed to his aching hip. Asia practically huddled behind the beaten and bruised boy. "She'll try to kill everyone again!"
Sasuke sighed explosively and sank back down.
The sudden pressure of Sasuke's full body weight landing back on Raynare's stomach made her give a displeased huff. Not for the first time he was really questioning his sanity in caving to Naruto's begging. At this point he was starting to feel like an anthropomorphized paper weight.
"Don't be so dramatic. I'm not going to kill everyone." Raynare denied sourly, rubbing her wrists and eying Sasuke speculatively as she responded to the human boy. "Just you. There's no reason for the rest of you to get involved."
The flickering pale glow cast by Raynare's smokeless magelights swelled across Naruto's face as he looked from Issei to Raynare and back again, an irritated pinch to his eyebrows. "Whoa, whoa. No one is killing anyone, so let's all just take it down a notch and cool off, alright? Everybody calm down."
"Calm down?" Issei demanded incredulously, clenching his fists until the knuckles whitened. "Calm down? There is no way in hell I'm going to calm down." Pure black hate bled into the brunette's eyes, his voice rising in fury. The revulsion twisted his expression until he looked less than human, ranting and raving as he explained how the fallen angel had tried to kill him all those months ago. "So either you kill her, or I will!"
Naruto's face had grown stonier and stonier as Issei's tale weaved on, and when the teen delivered his ultimatum his features might as well have been carved out of granite. But he kept silent, studying Issei as the boy trembled with the barely contained desire to murder. "I see." He eventually said, turning slowly to look at Raynare. "I thought you were better than this."
Beneath the chilly disdain that froze Naruto's tones, Sasuke could hear the faint thread of disbelieving betrayal. He supposed it should have shocked him that on some level Naruto had seen Raynare as a prickly but fundamentally good person, but it didn't. Despite learning his lessons in the ruins of Konoha he still wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt.
Bristling at the devil who seemed to think he could judge her, Raynare didn't even notice when Ravel and Rias finally appeared in the door. "Keep your moral hand-wringing to yourself kid. The business of the Grigori isn't for the likes of you. Now mind your own damn business and leave me be."
"And yet, you seem to want to conduct that business in our territory." Rias cut in bitingly, brushing the snow from her hair as she made her way up to the simmering conflict zone. "Kuoh Town and its environs are the jurisdiction of the Gremory clan. All business here is our business." Wordlessly, she settled a gloved hand on Sasuke's shoulder.
"That is at best a flimsy pseudo-legality and you know it." Pushing at Sasuke's chest, the fallen angel coaxed him to finally let her up now that they had her sufficiently surrounded. "You don't have anything close to true control here, and even if you did it's not formally part of Gehenna. Try again little girl."
"Old hag."
A peeved twitch spasmed in Raynare's eyebrow at Ravel's mumbled insult, but she was smart enough to know when she was outmatched. Having finally managed to get off the floor, she'd rather not be thrown back down by a dour Uchiha just because she tried to teach the girl a lesson in respect. "Or don't. It doesn't make a difference to me and I'm not going to just start spilling my guts just because you decided to give me a sad pre-teen pout."
Whatever cutting reply Rias gave was smothered by the sound of the windows blowing in, a dozen glass panes crumbling simultaneously and letting in the howling winter gale. Silver light glinted from the razor edge of a spear, promising unending retribution. "As much as I'd like to stand here and watch you animals keep squabbling, I have better things to do."
It took about five seconds for everything to go to hell in a handbasket.
"Get down!"
"Ashes!"
Akeno shielded her eyes from the rain of splinters, peeking through the cracks between her fingers at the spear that had nearly taken her head off. It was a gaudy thing, gilded with gold threads that flowed down from the tip in curving waves. The blade of it shone silver and sharp, ready to slice through flesh and destroy lives.
The edged point wasn't what really bothered her though. What really caught Akeno's attention was the sheer holy energy she could feel pouring off the lance, so potent that it made her head pound with pain and the threads of angelic ancestry in her marrow sing.
"Stop staring into space and help me!" Raynare shouted in her ear, pulling Akeno to her feet with a wild light in her gaze. The mere fact that her elder pureblood sister would lower herself to speak to Akeno directly was what drove home how desperate their situation had really gotten in the last minute. Most days Raynare tried to pretend that Akeno didn't even exist.
"Fine!"
And then things took a turn for the surreal when Issei broke into a wide grin and ran towards the dark-haired spearman, dragging Asia along behind him. "Oh man am I glad to see you!"
"What, they know each other?" Naruto demanded incredulously, the Power of Destruction flickering into view around his clenched fists. The redhead had become subdued after realizing that he was going to have to try to mediate between his formal ally and someone that could have become a friend, but the prospect of a fight had him fired right back up. "You almost killed Akeno you crazy bastard! Who the hell are you anyway?"
Waving the two defenceless humans off behind him, the blue-eyed man frowned at the Gremory heir. "I suppose I can give you that much before I kill you. I am Cao Cao, descended in the right line from the King of Wei. Do you have any other pointless questions you need to ask?"
"Yes." Rias stepped forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her tense nephew. "As you saw, we intended on mediating the dispute between Raynare and these children. There's no need for you to escalate to conflict in their defence, so why are you turning to violence?"
"None of you are human, and that's enough." Cao Cao answered curtly, prompting Issei to regard Naruto with betrayed horror. There was no time to dwell on that reaction though, because Cao Cao vanished between one blink and the next.
A fist hammered into Akeno's side like a bullet train, and she heard the crack of her ribs beneath the blow that sent her flying across the room. The taste of iron covered her tongue, and she dimly registered that she'd bitten the inside of her cheek before she hit the wall headfirst and blacked out.
Searing flame tore through the air as Ravel counterattacked, orange and yellow sparks exploding from the palms of her hand in a gout that was hot enough to melt bronze.
It did nothing.
Cao Cao moved with easy - lazy - grace, taking his spear back up and using it to bat aside Ravel's sorcery like it was nothing but fluff. The sacred power running through his lance spread her demonic flare into rapidly curling embers.
Then without missing a beat, he turned on his heel to bring the point of his spear to bear against Naruto's charge, not even blinking at the sight of the raging Rasengan clutched in the devil's hand.
"Do you want to die?" Raynare snarled, barreling into Naruto's side and knocking them both away from the deadly tip of Cao Cao's Sacred Gear. A fresh wound opened along her side when Naruto was too slow in dispersing the chaotic ball of power clutched in his hand.
In any other situation she'd curse him for it, but at the moment Raynare's fear mattered more than her pain. "Or are you just dumb enough to think you can go toe to toe with the True Longinus?"
Rias and Sasuke circled the perimeter, his hand cradling a roaring Chidori while her Power of Destruction seeped from her fingertips like crimson mist. But Raynare's off-the-cuff insult brought a grey pallor to Rias' face, and she spared a worried glance for the fallen angel. "True Longinus? Are you serious?"
Snorting at the atmosphere of terror that was slowly filling the room, Cao Cao chuckled, his breath a white fog in the chilled air. "She is." He took a moment to bask in the curtained despair that rippled across Ravel's expression, and then finally started to take things seriously.
What followed was nothing less than complete and utter domination.
He moved too quickly and hit too hard for any of them to keep up with. Every landed blow broke bone and burnt flesh, and it was only Cao Cao's own unwavering confidence that prevented him from simply striking head on with the True Longinus and killing them one by one.
He had a show to put on after all.
Issei watched with shocked amazement as a mere human took down half a dozen supernatural beings without even breaking a sweat.
A casual backhand crushed Rias' nose.
A jab from the pommel of his spear to the middle of Ravel's back left her limp and paralyzed on the floor while her regenerative abilities tried to heal her.
A glancing slice to the thigh had Sasuke hobbling around while he tried to overcome the seething holy poison crippling his muscles.
In the end there was really only one way it could have ended, with the devils and the fallen angel strewn across the church like broken dolls while Cao Cao looked on. His eyes burned like cold stars with unshakable conviction, and when he looked back at Issei it was to make one thing very clear to the nascent Red Dragon Emperor. "Never underestimate humanity."
Naruto hacked up a thick mouthful of blood, spitting the gore out and whipping his mouth with the back of his hands. Then he forced himself up and through the pain until he was standing again. Based on the grinding in his left forearm he was pretty sure the bone was fractured badly, but he wasn't going to lie down on the floor and die.
What a fucking clusterfuck. When he'd gotten that call from Issei Naruto was expecting to have to bust in and save him from some Yakuza debt sharks or something. Instead he got Raynare conducting a perverted bondage ritual while trying to kill Issei, and then fucking True Longinus getting shoved up his ass.
If there was ever a time for Lady Luck to lend him a hand, it was now.
Cao Cao meet Naruto's glare fearlessly, cocking up a dark blue eyebrow as he studied the defiant Gremory heir. The rest of the devils were groaning and climbing to their feet as well, but none of them were giving the spearman the sheer amount of venom Naruto was.
Clicking his tongue as he made his decision, Cao Cao readied his spear with a flourish, laying the tip directly against Naruto's breast.
The touch of blessed metal on devil flesh created a faint sizzling sound, Naruto's skin boiling and blistering around the point of contact. The redhead was too beaten and too exhausted to throw himself back into the battle, and he'd known from the first time he saw Cao Cao move that he was totally outclassed by the human's strength.
But if he was going to die, Naruto was damn well going to do it on his feet fighting against the fading of the light. "Bring it, asshole."
For the second time that night, fate's game was derailed by the explosive entrance of a new player.
But where Cao Cao blew out the windows and allowed the breath of winter to seep in through the cracks, Serafall Leviathan tore the roof off.
Naruto had about one second to smirk mockingly before Serafall hit the deck, driving back Cao Cao with a flurry of violent ice and screaming snow.
Cao Cao had defeated the young devils with the ease of a grown man taking candy from a baby. But True Longinus or not, the descendent of the King of Wei was totally outclassed by the Satan.
Six seconds after Serafall appeared Cao Cao fled the field, grabbing hold of Issei and Asia before diving desperately through a smoky swirl of teleportation magic. He left behind the better part of his left leg below the knee, the flesh frozen solid where Serafall had ripped it off with her bare hands.
Throwing back his head, Naruto barked with hysteric amusement. He laughed until he cried, a single trailing tear freezing on his cheek in deference to the sheer might of Serafall's ice-driven sorcery. "Oh man, you got him good."
Serafall shrugged one pale shoulder, unbothered by the cold despite her thin sleeveless green dress. "It was nothing." She demurred, one corner of her mouth briefly curling at the compliment. Then the Satan let her gaze sweep across the battered devils and frowned in concern. "That said, I will be calling Sirzechs to tell him about your recklessness."
The thick disapproval in her voice normally would have made him bristle, but this time Naruto decided to take his lumps. He kind of deserved it, seeing as how if Serafall hadn't appeared out of nowhere they'd all be vaporized into nothingness by the purifying power of the Spear of Destiny. It was a damn close call, and a kick in the teeth.
He'd forgotten just how outmatched they all were.
At that moment Naruto vowed he'd never get caught off guard like he had tonight again. "Fucking True Longinus, fuck." He muttered, shivering when Serafall's scowl deepened at his cursing. Last thing he needed was to end the evening getting his mouth washed out with soap by his self-proclaimed auntie.
The streaks of blood that had dried on Rias' chin made her look like a domestic abuse victim, but she'd managed to heal her broken nose enough that when she hobbled up to Serafall she could speak clearly. "Not that we aren't grateful for your help, but why are you here?"
Which was the million-dollar question when Naruto took a second to think about it. Serafall had pulled all their asses out of the fire, but that didn't change the fact that she wasn't supposed to be in Kuoh at all. If anything, she should be a dimension hop or two away, not standing in front of them dolled up and smelling of sweet perfume.
Yet despite that, it was Serafall that seemed the most confused out of all of them. "Why wouldn't I be here?" she blinked, her ink dark eyebrows climbing up her forehead. "Where else am I supposed to be? I'm always here around this time." Deliberately, she motioned at her dress.
Naruto squinted at the Satan's dress. It was good quality fabric he guessed, but not something any self-respecting noble would be caught dead wearing to a formal party. "Uh, I'm not seeing it. Unless you're cruising for a hot date tonight or something."
A slightly disturbed expression crossed Serafall's face, and she peered at Naruto like she was trying to peel away the layers and peek in on his inner thoughts. "While she's as cute as a button, I wouldn't say that dinner with my baby sister qualifies as a hot date, though perhaps you would." Violet eyes flickered suspiciously between Rias and Naruto.
"Absolutely not." Rias declared frantically, catching on quicker than her nephew did and shaking her head in frantic denial. "We just had no idea that it was Sona you were meeting!"
"But I always meet Sona every other day for dinner." Serafall pointed out slowly, reconsidering the two redheads. "She said she even invited you to open presents with us tonight."
Then abruptly the lightbulb clicked on, and Serafall crouched down in a ball, blubbering with fat thick tears streaking down her cheeks. "Unless she lied to me? Oh, my beloved little sister is so ashamed of me she won't even admit we spend time together to her friends!"
Raynare watched with disbelief as one of the feared Satans of Gehenna broke down into a weeping mess in the middle of a destroyed battlefield because of her sister's teenage rebellion. "Is this reality?"
After a minute she remembered just what kind of a fool her own father was and wondered why she even bothered to be surprised by anything anymore.
In the end, Raynare found she didn't have much of a choice. When the Leviathan told them she'd march them all right home, Raynare had no choice but to follow along like a whipped cur. She didn't think for a second she'd be allowed to slink away, and she wasn't dumb enough to think she could outrun the Satan if she tried.
So Raynare swallowed the indignity of it all and cringed along after her father's Big Mistake, watching her ponytail weave and bob as Akeno stumbled the way back to the opulant manse Zeoticus Gremory had tastelessly built in the suburbs.
"Alright, in you go." Serafall declared once they'd made it to the front door, turning and pushing the wounded crowd through the entryway one by one. She didn't even pause at Raynare, simply shoving the surly fallen angel in the rest of them. "I'm going to call your father, and your mother, Naruto. In the meantime, put some of those phoenix tears to work."
"What? No!" Naruto shouted, only for the Satan to shut the door in his face with a terrible finality. The redhead slapped the wood in frustration, visibly struggling with the urge to run back out in the streets and beg the much older devil not to spill the beans. Then he sagged in defeat, sending a look of resigned despair at Rias before turning and leading them deeper into the bowels of the mansion.
Raynare was the last to move, weighing taking her chance and fleeing right now versus taking advantage of the devils long enough to get properly healed before running off. Pragmatism won out over pride and she followed the tired but wholly regenerated Phenex girl through the hallways.
For a moment Raynare allowed herself to experience the old envy that came with not having been lucky enough to win the genetic lottery and inherit her father's power. Thinking of the things she could have done with that kind of power made her gnash her teeth with the loss.
But she brushed it aside, easily tucking the bitterness away in the back of her mind for another day. She had a lot of practice at repression after all. It was practically a requirement for any angel that had seen the face of God before being thrown from Heaven.
"Alright, Akeno to the front." Rias decided as soon as they walked into the kitchen, motioning vaguely at the stools while she stalked over to the pantry. "The blow to the head might have given you a concussion."
The halfbreed frowned mutinously, but when Sasuke made no move to dispute their King's orders she hunched her shoulders and plopped down on the nearest stool. "Bottoms up." She muttered, accepting the thin phial of phoenix tears from her mistress and downing it in one gulp.
Every displeased twitch in the muscles of Akeno's face struck Raynare with surreal familiarity ,and disliking the instinctive comparisons her mind drew she turned away to follow the Ruin Princess into the pantry and pilfer a few bottles of healing elixir for herself.
Her presumption drew a sharp glance from Rias, but the devil girl made no move to protest Raynare's blatant theft of the absurdly expensive tonic.
It must be nice to have such careless luxury the fallen angel scoffed inwardly, downing the salty potion with a hefty swallow. Even uncertain allies could access a ridiculous amount of largess through the Gremory clan.
Feeling the nicks and scratches along her ivory skin sizzle shut in an instant, Raynare rolled her shoulders to test for any lingering aches. One bottle was enough to fully heal and rejuvenate her, but that didn't stop Raynare from smirking at Rias and pocketing the other two. "My thanks." She stated with polite mockery, lifting the ragged hem of her white robe in a curtsy before spinning on her heel and departing the kitchen.
Unfortunately, Raynare didn't make it to the door before she heard the patter of that oafish Gremory boy racing after her.
"Hey wait a sec!"
Rolling her eyes up towards the gilded light fixtures, Raynare folded her arms over her chest and slowly turned to take in the still bruised redhead. At least he'd only come by himself instead of trying to make it a group intervention. "I have things to do. What do you want?"
The aloof irritation seemed to nettle the brat if the pink flush that stole over his cheeks was any indication. Raynare gave it fifty-fifty odds for him to either swallow his juvenile rage or descend into an apoplectic fit.
Sadly, the former won out, and the frustrated redness drained away from Naruto's cheeks. "What I want is some kind of explanation for what you were doing tonight. I don't know about that blonde girl, but she seemed alright, and Issei is a good kid. You can't just try to murder them and expect me to just ignore it. And I don't care if you don't think it's my business. I'm making it my business. So, either you answer me, or I'll go higher up the chain and find someone who will."
Raynare viciously repressed the urge to give the nosy little prick a backhand. Not only would he probably block it, but it would be counterproductive. The last thing she needed was rumors about making an enemy of the Gremory clan floating around the Grigori. Even being Baraqiel's daughter wouldn't save her from censure.
So backed into a corner as she was, Raynare dug the sharp tips of her nails into the pale flesh of her arm until she was sure that little trickles of blood had to be seeping up. "Fine." She conceded, the surrender tasting like iron on her tongue. "I was trying to get rid of Hyoudou because he's the Red Dragon Emperor."
Naruto's face slackened with shock. "Are you fucking serious?" he shot back, running a hand through his hair before shaking his head with exasperated amusement. "Two Longinus in one day? Fuck me." But then he remembered who he was talking to, and his voice went hard again. "But that doesn't explain why Issei had to die. He was just some kid, even if he had a powerful Sacred Gear."
"He had to die, because the White Dragon Emperor is Lord Azazel's son." Raynare sneered at the sickening righteousness that Naruto was judging her with. Was this boy really the future of the Gremory clan? His blind morality was going to destroy his family if he ever took the reins. "And they're fated to battle. It was better to get rid of him before he became a threat to Vali."
Scowling at the fallen angel, Naruto cracked his knuckles like he was weighing giving her a bit of a slap around to get his point across. "Fuck fate." Well if he decided to descend into violence like a patriarchal barbarian, Raynare was ready. She hadn't expected any better from a devil anyway. "What about the girl then?"
"Asia?" Raynare cocked an eyebrow at his persistent interest in a nun he'd probably never met before. "Thinking with your dick, are you?" she mused, smirking poisonously when the boy's fists clenched. "Nothing, I wasn't going to kill her at all. It was a strengthening ritual. Or at least it was, until Hyoudou stuck his nose in."
Little white lies never hurt anyone, and Raynare was confident nobody except Lord Azazel and maybe Ajuka Beelzebub had the skill to decipher a ritual as complex as a Sacred Gear extraction at a mere glance. Once she went back and destroyed the last traces of her effort, no one would be able to accuse her of anything. So there was no reason to give the brat a reason to think worse of her. "Now if you're done interrogating me, I have to report to my superiors."
It seemed her little confessional had drained the energy out of Naruto.
Or so she thought, until a hefty chunk of metal was thrown at her face. Catching the onyx pendant before it broke her nose, Raynare narrowed her stormy violet eyes at the bitterly smiling redhead. "What are you doing?" she left off the 'mongrel', but from the way Naruto's mouth tightened Raynare suspected Naruto sensed the insult anyway.
"Next time you get so scared you decide to start murdering innocent people over what might happen one day if half a century, maybe you can cuddle this at night instead of going on a killing spree and then expecting someone else to save your ass."
The edges of the necklace dug into Raynare's palm, smoky tendrils of pure power seeping out between her fingers at the slight touch of her own magical energy. "And what exactly is 'this'?"
"Your boss called it Uplifted Star. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind."
(AN): 5200. At long last the end of the arc. No more Issei, no more Asia, no more Raynare. Going forward expect a gear shift as the romance focus moves from Naruto to Sasuke. And also timeskips. And also old friends and old enemies.
So there has been a bit of discussion on the discord server.
Firstly, I should mention that I changed my mind a while back about Naruto's pairings. Rather than Naruto/Kuroka, it will be Naruto/Roygun Bephelgor. If you want to blame anyone for this change, blame Raiyoukai.
Secondly, the dynamics of Rias' peerage itself and how that ties into Sasuke's pairings.
What defines the interactions within Rias' peerage (which will intensify as the pressure mounts) is codependency. This translates to making the harem 'easy' in the sense that even if Rias and Koneko didn't initially view each other romantically it's easy for them to level it up as another expression of their unhealthy attachment. However, this also makes me think that it would be a great idea to make it even more free-wheeling and add Gasper to the mix. Yes, even Sasuke/Gasper. If you want to blame anyone for these thoughts, blame Magery.
(And no, before you ask, Yuuto is not on the table here for this pairing development. His character arc - without giving too many spoilers - has a level of escape velocity and drifts into other orbits)