End Game Version R

by Kur0Kishi

There were very few things that could rile a 25 year old Naruto Uzumaki up. He was perfectly content to sit in his home, work his normal job, study at a normal school, and in his free time, tinker (read: upgrade in a potentially life endangering manner) with whatever happened to catch his interest. This obviously did not include Devils, or Angels, or Fallen Angels.

11. The Beginning: Part 1

End Game 10

The Beginning: Part 1

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Don't own Highschool Dragons of Dragons or Naruto. I do own the concepts and plots that I introduced into the story. Also, because of the connection between Highschool Dxd and multiple Religions and Myths, I am sorry if I have accidentally written something wrong and offended someone's belief/faith etc. I just did some basic research and filled the holes in by myself so it is only natural if I get something wrong.

Author's note

Right, apologies for the delay. I knew that this was going to be a particularly hard year considering the promotion and extra responsibilities I got at the end of the previous year, which was why I never specified how long it would take between updates like I usually did. Of course, I do appreciate the reviews and please update messages, but as a writer, I am perfectly aware that I do not have sufficient time to sit down and write as much as I want, and I do not need people to constantly remind me that they are waiting for my update simply because I am impatient as you guys are.

That said, I do have to apologize for that one time I blew up at someone for his please update messages since it's not his fault as I generally just read through messages, both good and bad. His simply came at a particularly bad time when I was particularly affected by real life.

So here's a chapter for you Utoplex.

Soundtrack List

Fate/Stay Night - Whirlpool of Fate

Yuki Kajiura - Cynical World

AKINO - PRIDE Nageki no Tabi

****End Game****

Morbidly, Stephan wondered if he had taken one sniff too many of his chemicals before coming home as he idly watched the tiny bunny looking thing painstakingly force feed a screaming disembodied head he recognized as Madara, a bucket load of rusty nails, aided capably by a little golden fairy.

When that was done, the fanged and clawed bunny with opposable thumbs bounded away, a giggling Avalon riding on his head, and Stephan had to force himself to duck as the head somehow exploded from the inside, sending rusty nails rocketing everywhere and shredding the head into pieces in the process.

From the corner of the room, behind a makeshift barricade, their two heads popped up and began to outright cackle at the carnage, even as Madara reformed again from the dust, one hole at a time, and bawling his eyes out the entire time.

The two of them bounded over to the head again and this time, he could see that the mutated bunny was carrying some sort of clanking duffle bag that had presumably contained the rusty nails, the explosives and all other sorts of implements that could be used in various painful ways.

His assumptions were proven correct when it pulled out an entire sheaf of explosive notes, the kind he knew a certain irritating blond used, and began to crumple them up into a nice little ball. Right as he could start shoving the paper balls up every one of the Uchiha's orifice, it finally seemed to notice that Stephan was still standing there silently and trying to process what his eyes were telling him.

The bunny waved jauntily.

"Hello."

At least it spoke Japanese, Stephan mentally noted as he idly waved back.

"Hello to you too."

"Stephan!" The massive mountain of a man then managed a smile as a happy Avalon launched herself at him, giving him the tiny fairy version of a bear hug to the nose.

"And hello to you too, Avalon."

Happily nestling in his hair, the two of them watched the red furred thing stuff what looked like several pounds of paper explosives up Madara's nose.

"You have opposable thumbs." Stephan observed a little blankly.

"Yes, yes I do." The red furred thing replied as it continued to happily stuff explosives into Madara, "I can rend and tear flesh with them, flick people's heads off when I'm squishing them into red paste, or even open jars. Do you know how hard it is to open jars without thumbs?" The little red furred bunny complained airily.

"No. No I don't." Stephan admitted as he tried not to wonder why the bunny would even need to open jars in the first place, "Incidentally, if you don't mind, could you do that outside? That carpet is rather expensive and I'd really rather not rebuild my house if I have to." Stephan requested mildly.

Then he looked around the place.

"Not rebuild my entire house from scratch if I have to." He corrected himself absent mindedly.

"Of course." The bunny replied gracefully. Stephan watched the bunny give the protesting head a solid thwack with a tail that sent it flying out an open window. Cackling gleefully, the bunny quivered as the head exploded in midair like a grotesque firework.

The large man watched the fairy and the bunny race outside when he felt someone approach him from behind.

"That didn't happen the last time I was here." A snowy white haired man commented placidly as he eyed the pieces of dusty skin and flesh floating down like snowflakes warily, taking care not to get it on his clothes, "You've been holding out on me."

"It's not mine." Stephan disagreed blandly, "In fact, I don't think I've meet a talking bunny until today. The benefits of having a nutcase over I guess."

"That actually explains a lot." His friend observed sardonically, as the two of them watched the crazy red furred thing praised every God in existence as it began to piss on the ashes.

"It's as bat shit crazy as its owner." The reigning Emperor of Rating Games observed dryly.

Stephan shrugged, "At least they're polite."

Diehauser chuckled as he remembered the first time he had met the boy, "So long as they want something from you and can't be bothered to use force or blackmail you that is."

The Head of House Sitri sighed heavily, "I need a drink."

"As long as you share." Diehauser agreed amiably as he clapped his old friend on the back, "Now come on. It's not every day you get a letter asking for some advice from the premier nut job in the Underworld, and I want to do this before it gets too dark."

"They're probably upstairs. I can feel him in his room." The large man replied despondently.

"He has his own room here?" the much older man observed curiously, "Is he really here that often?"

"Not really. He just won a bet with me. Bet number 3 to be exact." Stephan shrugged mournfully, "He got tired of sleeping in the library at the time, so he bet me that he could eat more ramen than me. Let's just say that we're both currently permanently blacklisted from every single ramen store in the Underworld and in return he got a room with a bed in it."

"You always were a sucker for stupid bets." The current patriarch of House Belial noted cheerfully as they climbed the stairs.

Stephan snorted, "You would know. You've won half of those bets. Besides, just look at him. Would you think that the bastard could guzzle damn near every drop of ramen in the city in two hours? I don't even think he chewed, he just inhaled everything like it was pure liquid pleasure." Stephan protested grumpily, "And people think I'm a big eater."

"You are a big eater, and one with a competitive streak a mile wide my old friend." The white haired man threw out with a chuckle as they reached the landing to the second floor.

"It's not even remotely fair that he can pack away that much crap and still be so lean." Stephan grumbled under his breath as he opened the door and promptly froze in the door way, prompting his friend to walk face first in the wall of frozen flesh that was Stephan.

"Ow, what? What did you suddenly stop for?"

There was no reply as the man stood there like he had turned into part of the wall.

"Stephan?" Diehauser tried again exasperatedly. Even though he was rather tall for a devil, just a touch under seven feet tall and well-muscled for someone as old as him, Stephan all but dwarfed him at an impressive nine feet tall and he was built like a shit brick house to boot, which meant that the older man couldn't even see what was happening beyond the doorway.

When his pokes and jabs turned out to be rather futile against the blankly staring flesh mountain standing in the doorway, Diehauser finally couldn't bear it anymore and curiously peered under Stephan's arm to see what the larger man was staring at.

He bit down hard to suppress an undignified giggle.

"Oh."

"Yes. Oh." Stephan finally replied with a dead hollow tone.

"I suppose you'll be wanting that drink now?"

"It's in the usual place." Stephan replied with an eerie calm.

"I'll bring you an extra-large tankard of the most potent stuff I can find." Belial promised with great amusement.

"Thank you."

"Please don't maim him too much. I'd like to speak with him before you do anything permanent at least."

"It will be painful and it will be slow." Stephan promised with a quiet growl, his eyes never leaving the bed.

****End Game****

How did he get in this situation again?

All he remembered was happily falling asleep while Kurama exercised his newfound body, on his newfound chew toy.

Then he woke up, and the first thing he noticed was the fact that he could not move.

The second thing he noticed, was the heavy lump of something that had found its way into a comfortable crook in his arms and fell asleep there as it made feminine sounding little snoring noises.

The third thing he noticed however, was what got his attention.

Namely, Stephan's dark eyes glowering at him as the Ultimate level Devil's fingers twitched uncontrollably.

Naruto pursed his lips as he tried to remember how Serafall had gotten on top of him given how the last thing he remembered was falling asleep in his room at the Sitri's place with no one around. He had even locked the door with his customary seals due his typical paranoia.

And no, that didn't really explain why his arms were wrapped her waist, or why she was cuddled up with him, but that was beside the point.

The point was that Stephan looked ready to murder someone, and the only thing stopping him from carrying out the threat burning in his eyes also happened to be the reason why he was probably about to die a fatherly rage induced death in very short order.

So he did the only thing he could.

"Good morning?"

"Good morning," The large gorilla replied back with a surprisingly even tone despite the murder in his dark eyes, "Would you mind explaining what is going on? Because as far as I can tell, when you asked me to let you use my family's Ritual chamber, you failed to mention this."

"Will it help if I point out that I have no absolutely idea how she managed to get pass all the security in my room?"

"She probably froze the hinges on your door and removed the door entirely before putting it back." Stephan replied neutrally, "She's been doing it ever since she was little, mostly because she's too curious for her own good."

"Ah." Naruto blinked blearily, "So…. Does this mean I get to live?"

"Barely."

"Really?"

"Just barely."

"Oh."

The large man's shoulders finally slumped a little, "I also happen know that my dear daughter is only doing it to mess with me." He glanced at the snoring lump of dark hair curled up on the half nervous, half asleep blond and added exasperatedly, "You can stop pretending now. I can hear you struggling not to giggle from a mile away."

The woman waved lazily and burrowed further into Naruto's chest, prompting a gulp from the blond, and a violent twitch from her father.

"On a completely unrelated note, I saw Avalon riding on some weird looking rabbit." Stephan noted dryly after a pregnant pause, "A maniacally cackling rabbit."

"I AM HAVING FUN!"

"FORWARD MY STEED!"

"MYEYES!THEYBURN!"

Stephan pursed his lips, studiously ignoring the sudden explosion in the distance, "They were playing with Madara."

Naruto copied the older man's wince at that, fully aware that playing was basically another way of saying that Kurama was either doing his level best to set the disembodied head on fire as many times as he could, in as many ways the fox could dream up, some of which he hadn't even thought was possible before, clawing/boiling/gouging its eyes out, or humping every possible orifice, and not necessarily in that order.

He would forever be scared by the fact that he now knew the answer to the age old question of 'was it possible to hump someone's eyes so hard that they fell out the back of his head before the flames consumed all their skin and pain receptors'.

Yes.

Yes it was.

"Yeah… that's sort of my fault." The blond hedged nervously.

Stephan stared at the boy inscrutably for a very long moment before sighing mournfully.

"My life used to be so calm and peaceful before you came appeared, and my daughters were both so innocent and pure…."

Naruto pointed at his eldest daughter, who happened to be grinning unrepentantly up at the both of them, no longer even bothering to feign asleep because watching the blond squirm was so much more fun "Pure? This one? She dragged me here in the first place. I was perfectly happy doing my own stuff up until then."

Both of them sighed simultaneously in a mournful manner while Serafall finally deigned to look up with an insulted huff, "You two are acting as if I destroyed your lives or something when all I did was make things a little more interesting."

The massive dark haired man slowly looked down to stare blankly at his eldest daughter.

"When I came home from the Parliament, I was expecting a nice warm bath, possibly even dinner and maybe if I was lucky, a hug from my allegedly busy daughters." He remarked evenly.

"Instead, the first thing I see when I come home is a psychotically cackling bunny gnawing and abusing a decapitated head with extreme prejudice, not quite unlike some sick perversion of a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. So let's just say that Interesting wasn't exactly the word I had in mind." Her father finished dryly, his penetrating stare never leaving the woman who was now giggling uncontrollably.

Then he turned to the embarrassed blond, "Incidentally, your fairy is disturbingly blood thirsty for such a small, innocent looking thing even if she does have a mutated, talking killer bunny egging her on." The mountain of a man noted blandly, "You also owe me a new couch. Several new couches, tables, and a whole new living room to be exact."

Naruto winced again, "I'll clean everything up." He promised fervently, "I'll even fumigate your house if I have to."

"You'd better." Stephan growled homicidally, "Now get away from my daughter before I change my mind."

Naruto didn't even bother to push Serafall off, he simply disappeared with a poof of smoke, leaving Serafall to fall with a yelp as she suddenly found the space between her and the bed to be devoid of nice, warm, toned flesh.

"And Diehauser is in the kitchen, he wants to talk to you!" Stephan roared after the fleeing blond.

The sound of running feet paused briefly.

"Diehauser? As in Diehauser Belial? That Diehauser?"

"Yes boy! Now MOVE!"

"YES SIR!" came the fleeting reply as the blond did his best to put space between him and the Ultimate level demon.

"Papa!" Serafall pouted at him.

Stephan twitched violently again before visibly forcing himself to calm down, "I really do not care what you do, and with who you do it to. I like to think that I'm fairly open minded," the large dark haired man ignored her incredulous snort, "but I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it if you spared me the knowledge that you were doing ANYTHING AT ALL."

"Papa, I'm already 700 years old, which is perfectly fine for a beautiful young lady even if Naruto likes to exaggerate and call me 3000 instead," Serafall muttered icily under her breath, "and the last time I even bothered dating anyone was 300 years after the end of the Great War," Serafall reminded her father, "Most devils don't even last half that long before they settle down. Hell, Sirzechs got married when he was only 200 years old," She pursed her lips thoughtfully, "Though I'm not entirely sure if that was his decision or if Fia just got annoyed with his indecisiveness and decided for him. I never really bothered asking."

"Probably because you were too busy teasing him." Stephan pointed out dryly.

"Touche." The fourth Satan conceded reluctantly.

"Ultimately, it doesn't matter. This isn't about getting married early or what not," Stephan sighed and sat down heavily on the bed beside her with an affectionate if faintly nauseous smile at the thought of her doing… that, "This is about you and the fact that when you get your own daughter, you will realize that it doesn't matter if she's 700 or 70, she'll always be 7 to you."

Serafall sighed softly and moved over to hug her father, "And we'll always love you papa. No matter how old we get. We'll always remember how hard you tried to support us even without mama, and when we get our own children, you'll know that you and mama taught us the way to let our own children grow."

Stephan smiled thinly, "At least I did something right I guess."

Serafall smiled evilly, "On a completely unrelated note, I'm looking forward to having this conversation again when Sona is home."

Her father winced.

****End Game****

Play Fate/Stay Night - Whirlpool of Fate

Diehauser looked up just as he finished pouring a massive tankard of some really rare Arabian wine from Stephan's secret stash, just as a wild eyed blond burst into the kitchen. His blue eyes landed on the tankard, and before the ancient devil could even say anything, the blond darted forwards and began to guzzle down the tankard with great gusto.

"That's for Stephan you know." Diehauser pointed out with great amusement, "And I see you managed to escape with your life."

"Escape my foot. I nearly got scalped by that ape even when it wasn't my fault." Naruto pointed out sourly after he finished downing the tankard, "I think that qualifies for a drink."

"So if it was your fault, you wouldn't mind if your victim tried to scalp you?" the older man inquired curiously.

"Meh. It's sort of expected in that case. And most of the time, they're too busy trying to scalp me to notice that I've planted a few little presents on and around them."

Diehauser shrugged, "True enough. But when he comes looking for that wine, I'm not bailing you out."

"I doubt he'll realize. He's got plenty left hidden around the place." Naruto remarked dryly, "In fact, he's got so many of them that I'm not even sure if he remembers where all of them are."

The aged white haired man blinked and looked mildly offended, "Wait, so this one," He began, patting the cabinet filled with fancy looking bottles, "Isn't the only one?"

The blond snorted, "Hardly. The stuff he keeps in there is diluted with just enough water so that it's not immediately apparent to the people he serves them to. Then when they're good and drunk, he just summons more water and turns them into cheap wine and feeds them that instead. The good stuff is hidden in secret little stashes all over the place. I've only found 8 so far, and those are the easier ones to break into mind you."

The Patriach of House Belial pouted, "Bastard's been holding out on me."

The blond grinned, "You're all devils, and you're telling me that it never occurred to you that he'd be hoarding the better ones for himself?"

"Considering how half of his stash was contributed to by me, not really," Diehauser admitted before whispering the blond conspiratorially, "My daughter's a bit strict about how much I drink, so he helps me keep my stash. We usually meet up here to get as drunk as donkeys whenever she's visiting her friend Erza or the human world."

Naruto smirked, "The big scary Emperor is afraid of his daughter? Now that's interesting."

"Have you actually met her yet?" Diehauser merely returned the smile with a cocked eyebrow, "She might look sweet and soft, but there's a damned temper beneath that sweet smile of hers." Diehauser smiled gently, "Just like my wife."

The blond merely rolled his eyes, "Either way, what did you need to speak to me about?"

Diehauser cocked another sarcastic brow at him, "You're the one that sent me that letter asking me to speak to you."

"I didn't really expect you to come in person." Naruto noted glibly, "Given your position I was actually just expecting a brusque reply or something."

"Tell me, do you know how many letters or missives I get?"

The blond raised an eyebrow, "Why would I?"

"I'll tell you then." Diehauser settled down in his chair comfortably, sighing with some relief as he relaxed his tired old spine, "I get nearly about half a thousand every day. Half again if it's been raining, and every single one of time tend to be the same. It'll start out nice and polite, then it'll spend the next few pages telling me how honored the sender would be if I could attend one party or another, then it'll hint that I should bring my daughter because some nephew or son or some other appropriately arrogant noble jackass male will be there, etcetera etcetera."

The old man waved one hand airily, "Your letter on the other hand was delightfully short, not that two sentences one a piece of paper obviously torn out of a note book which was then somehow snuck into my bedroom next to my pillow qualifies as a letter." Diehauser paused for a moment to squint at the younger man, "You didn't even bother to mention where you'd be, or how I could reply."

Naruto chuckled a little sheepishly, "Like I said, I wasn't really holding out much hope on it."

So you didn't bother." Diehauser concluded sardonically, "In a way, it was extremely refreshing I guess, knowing that there are so many security problems in your ward scheme that some little brat can waltz right through it any time he wants."

"You should really consider warding against mice." The blond replied offhandedly.

"Mice? Mice specifically?"

"Well…." Naruto hedged, "Any living being really."

"My wards cover every imaginable square inch of my grounds, they do not discriminate against any living being whatsoever, be it mice or birds or even another devil. As long as it has energy or holds ill intent, there's no way for it or them to get through." Diehauser pointed out.

"Even if said mice only has just enough energy for a clone to transform a single time and then be left with nothing more but a drop that will only last long enough for it to pass a message?" Naruto countered conversationally.

Diehauser's mouth shut with a click as he tried to compute what the blond had just said and came to one startling conclusion.

"Cheeky little bastard."

"Awesome cheeky little bastard, thank you very much."

"Should I or any of my grandchildren be worried about any of your presents lying around?"

"Not really." The blond replied with a faint smile, "I just wanted to talk. Not piss you off or hurt someone unrelated."

"And here I thought you were a blackmailing bastard with an unfortunate habit of blowing random houses up as some of my colleagues have been complaining about lately. My only consolation I suppose." Belial replied dryly, "So? What did you talk about?"

Naruto shrugged depreciatingly, "Word was that you're incredibly familiar with the mechanics behind the Demonic Arts. One of the best, if not the best. Period. I've managed to do some rudimentary modifications to simpler spells like Quake or Fireball, but because of how different my understanding is of the spell arrays, the results tend to be grossly inefficient or impractical in the grander scheme of things." The blond admitted reluctantly.

"I'm not as good as some others who actually do specialize in theory crafting such as Mephisto and Halifax," Diehauser replied with a modest smile, "I only really got into it as a way to up the potency of my spells, mostly since I didn't have a signature ability, so to speak, at the time. Unlike how the Sitri line has a tendency to produce insanely talented water elementals, or how the Bael have their Power of Destruction, the Belial line typically only has slightly stronger than average energy pools."

Diehauser paused, "Well that and an unfortunate tendency to literally transform into berserk monsters, but there you go."

"That must be terribly useful." Naruto noted with a grin.

"It depends on how you look at it." The snowy haired man replied dryly, "If you just so happen to need your brains and wits for whatever you're fighting at the time, then that's actually a pretty bad thing believe it or not. Either way, I can see where this is going, but I want something in return first."

"As long as it is within my power." The blond replied calmly, completely unsurprised by the request. After all he was dealing with a devil.

"It's nothing much." There was a fervent gleam in the man's midnight blue irises, "After watching your match with Phenex boy, I've been trawling through some of my books for some insight on your abilities. I've noted that they're very similar to human Shinto techniques, and while I've discovered some parallels, there was nothing concrete about how your hand signs work, about how one could formulate elemental spells with simple bio-matrices within their body, or how your seals worked with just simple chakra empowered writing. It was truly fascinating and while I've met a few other onmyoujutsu and ninjutsu users with similar abilities, in the past none of them have same width and breadth in application as you have repeatedly shown."

As Naruto regarded the Belial silently, he was curiously reminded of several other mad scientists he had had the misfortune of being acquainted to, something Diehauser seemed to notice as well and visibly calmed himself down with an apologetic shrug, "Sorry, if I scared you, I tend to get a little carried away when it comes to stuff like this sometimes."

"Don't be." The blond noted as he watched the man with a penetrating stare, "I'm… as excited as you to be honest. And it's not a feeling I'll admit to being used to."

Diehauser blinked, "Really?"

"What you are asking is not that different from what I asked of you." Naruto pointed out with a faint smile as he took a sip from the wine left in his tankard, "I simply thought it was rather ironic that I actually agreed with you."

"Oh? Why?" Diehauser prodded for an elaboration.

The blond chuckled quietly, "To be honest, during my younger days, stuff like this was never really something I wanted to know. All I needed to know, all everyone needed to know really, was simply the sequence of hand signs, the effect inspired, and how to apply the aforementioned effect, typically in combat. It was really only after I…" the blond paused. He couldn't exactly mention that he had actually met his ancestor, or at least a representation of him, in person, now could he?

"After I met someone who had read some documents left behind by my ancestor that I started to wonder what the ability I had, what we all had really meant. Ninshu, or the teachings of the Sage of the Six Paths, was based on the understanding of ourselves, of the power we contain within each of us, of the force that flows within every living being, of the thread that surrounds everything and connects us to each other on one level or another."

Diehauser watched the blond formed a sequence of hand signs with an intense gleam in his eyes, burning with determination and sincere resolve, his fingers nearly a blur with the speed they were moving at, and then he blew out a small gout of fire, "To illustrate, Fire type jutsu, universally begin with the Tora hand sign, while the subsequent hand signs merely describe the manner in which the fire element energy gathered within our bodies is to be expelled."

He clasped his hands together with his pointer and middle finger pointing upwards together to show Diehauser what the Tora hand sign looked like, "The Tora hand sign, is considered a symbol that represents fire itself, and it helps your chakra to focus and form fire natured chakra. That much is common knowledge for my people, but why that happens, I still haven't figured out. Why does our bodies react in that way? With some experimentation, and reading, I noticed that the more I know about how fire is created, its attributes and inherent nature, the easier it is for me to form fire natured chakra. That answers the how, but what I'm truly interested in, what ninshu wants to show me, is why?"

The gleam dulled a little as the blond leaned back into his chair and took a gulp from the tankard, "To be honest, things were a little hectic back there to really learn much. All I could do was roll with what I already had. It was only after I came here, with the amount of time I had on hand that I started to delve into the mechanics of my abilities, partly out of boredom, and exactly like you, to increase my efficiency and as a result and make a greater impact with the limited chakra pool I have, and partly to understand what my ancestor was trying to tell me. The… documents imparted some of his knowledge, but…" The blond spread his hands with a hapless smile, "It's not even a drop of wisdom he had. Even one of the most fanatical ninja I knew, one that devoted himself entirely to learning every jutsu in existence, and supposedly one of the most talented ones, didn't really care for this particular branch of knowledge as far as I know."

Naruto pursed his lips in thought. It was not that he doubted that Orochimaru was unlearned in the mechanics behind each jutsu, but during his own research, he had realized that even shifting a single hand sign away from the original could drastically alter the result, typically for the worse.

Learning every jutsu in existence was already a near impossible task.

Trying to learn every variation possible, effective or otherwise, simply made it a stupid one.

By that logic, trying to learn every single variation for every single jutsu was a pointless task and one he wasn't in any hurry to try, however if you took it to the other extreme, it simply meant that so long as he could grasp the underlying principles behind each hand sign, to learn and understand how each hand sign affected the energy within one self, then it was not impossible for him to modify and adapt a jutsu to his needs, even during battle.

Long story short, most of his experimentations, or the Uzumaki jutsu series as he called it, typically fell into one of three categories.

Awesome shit, possibly awesome shit and chronically stupid ways to commit suicide.

Across the table, Diehauser smiled thinly. It was well known that when he was young, he had struck out on his own to grow stronger and match the Lord of Magicians. What wasn't so well known however, was the fact that he had bumped into the Lord of Magicians himself in a dingy bar somewhere in Asgard by sheer chance. Showing none of the typical arrogance or pride inherent in most young devils at the time, he had pestered the old man into teaching him.

Most would consider that a little hyprocritical considering his stated goal, but Diehauser liked to think that he was being pragmatic.

Under the Lord of Magician's mentorship, he would learn the arch mage's own arts, and then surpass them. In the process of doing just that however, he had been somewhat surprised to discover within himself a great thirst to learn and understand his heritage.

To be perfectly frank, while he was overjoyed to realize that his children and their own children had inherited the Belial bloodline's gifts so strongly, he could not deny feeling a little disappointed that none of his grandchildren really showed any interest in spell craft, preferring to advance their mastery over their bloodline.

Mira, the sweet girl, had tried of course, and like most other things, she had excelled at it through hard work and determination, but he was well aware that she was only doing it to make her grandpapa proud and not because she loved it like he did. The fact that she didn't like going berserk at all and having other options in a fight didn't hurt either.

But to hear that someone else had such interest in spell and theory crafting, a young man with such resolve and interest in his art, be it spell or jutsu, it caused a similar gleam to glow in his own ocean green eyes and a warmth in his chest.

"From what I saw of your hand signs, and the ones you used in the match, I could only ever identify twelve hand signs," Diehauser observed, "While that runs parallel to many of the scrolls I have, especially the ones related to the Chinese Zodiac and the Japanese Shintoism, I'm wondering, does that mean you have twelve main elements? How does the arrangement of the hand signs influence the ah… jutsu?"

Naruto smiled, wide and almost childlike, "There is only twelve hand signs like you observed, but only 5 main elements. Though it's possible to use two or three simultaneously to structure a sub-element like ice or dust, but my knowledge on that is rather limited for obvious reasons. Your other question was another focus of mine. For example, let's say I start with the Ram hand sign, the symbol for the Earth element, followed by the exact same hand signs used for that Fireball jutsu," He repeated his earlier hand signs slower and then grimaced before coughing and spitting out a small spray of mud.

"The hand signs try to apply the same description to the Earth element energy," The blond explained hoarsely after he cleaned out his mouth, "In this case, it took a few tries but I realized that it doesn't quite work because spitting out a ball of fire and a ball of mud are two very different things."

The blond paused to adopt a thinking pose, "The focus, the spread, the speed and the direction tailored to spewing out a ball of fire with enough strength to decimate a wall would simply result in a poorly shaped spray of mud which honestly isn't really useful for anything other than inappropriate dinner jokes or choking yourself to death if you were so inclined." Naruto shrugged, "That's actually why a great portion of my jutsu aren't really fit for modification with my own limited understanding of our hand signs. Due to our warlike culture, a good number of the jutsu I have are already basically at their most efficient and effective for traditional battle so there's really very little space for improvement in the majority of my arsenal."

Diehauser who was still watching him with great interest nodded with mounting excitement, "You are limited by the fact you only have 12 possible variables. It's like making a sentence, even if you can make a great number of sentences with those 12 words you will eventually reach a limit with those 12 words. Not to mention that there is a point where the modifications become stupidly bulky and unwieldy just trying to make it come out right. It's rather simple in theory, but the sheer breadth of what you are talking about is…. Mind boggling."

"And we haven't even covered the exceptions to that rule," The Uzumaki noted dryly, "of which there are many, and will definitely be something I'll want to work on later when I have more time. You're far more experienced than me with these kind of things. Normally I'd have gone to my mentor but…." The blond trailed off with a brittle little smile and a shrug, "I can literally feel it in my bones that everything has a sense to it, a logical method that results in a precise answer but I just don't have the proper frame to work it out on, I don't have the expertise to properly convey what I'm trying to express nor the training to truly understand what I'm trying to do and come to an answer."

Naruto sighed quietly, "I'm having the same problems with my seals really. Most of what I do is based of memorizing and understanding what select components can do, resulting in a hodge podge kind of seal that would probably traumatize any real seals master that laid their eyes on it, and would be more likely to blow up on me rather than work, but without proper guidance, there's only so much I can do on my own."

Diehauser sweat dropped at that, because while seals weren't his primary discipline, he had more than passing knowledge of it by virtue of simply spending time in Mephisto's presence. He was either going blind, because the few seals he had seen the blond construct practically on the spot were some of the most insanely complex and mathematically beautiful things he had ever seen, or the blond seriously didn't understand exactly how good he really was at using them.

"Out of curiosity, why didn't you ask the big lug for help first? Why not even Mephisto himself?"

Naruto blinked, "Big lug? You mean Stephan?" the blond scratched the itchy yellow unshaved fuzz on his jaw, "I did actually. He said that he wasn't knowledgeable enough about this since most of what he does is based more off his insanely precise chakra control, experience and instinct. In fact, he was the one that recommended you. That really only reinforced what I already knew about you and your past as a spell master, so I figured that there was no point beating about the bush and just sent a letter to you right away." The blond explained with a simplistic shrug.

"And you're not afraid that I might have my own agenda? Because you are being extraordinarily more forthright than I expected given your previous attitude."

"Of course I'd really rather not reveal a good part of my arsenal to you before I do find out you what you really want," the blond remarked sardonically, "but it's a fair exchange for that kind of knowledge. Not to mention, my previous attitude is precisely why I'm being so forthright." The blond shrugged uncomfortably, "Think of it as my way of saying sorry I guess. Besides, my only other option was Mephisto, and considering that the only thing I could find on him outside of his legendary expertise with all sorts of magic, was his equally legendary habit of wandering around randomly like a lost hermit, I'd probably be wasting my time."

Diehauser sweat dropped again, "So true."

He didn't say anything else because he, better than most, knew how utterly random his old mentor tended to be, even at the best of times, and how much of a pain in the ass it had been to pry even the tiniest bit of knowledge from the cranky old arch mage.

Not noticing Diehauser' reaction, the blond continued to wave energetically, "Anyway, what I really had in mind was to see if I could derive a combination spell from both systems. For example, in the Quake spell, I noted a few components that described how the impact is amplified to shake the ground, but rather than do that, can I switch the element and make it so that rather than hit the ground, could I get the same force magnification so a Fugadan, the Wind bullet jutsu, not only pierces but shreds everything on the way out without losing out on its original potency? Is it possible to take the amplification portion and apply it to my own Fireball jutsu to amplify it into a Grand Fireball jutsu without sacrificing range and speed like the actual Grand Fireball jutsu? Those are the questions, the mechanics and the underlying principles that I wanted to know."

"I see…." Diehauser's midnight blue eyes began glinting in the exact same way, "Because your language only has twelve alphabets so to speak, what you are really interested in is seeing whether our language can give your language a more diverse reach and fill out a few holes. And in return, you'll see if you can help us as well." The white haired man finished for Naruto, "But how could that be achieved? Your spells are created internally while our spells are shaped by the spell array external to our bodies with a few exceptions. In order to get them to mix, you would need a bridge, a platform so to speak, where the two languages can interact with each other."

"Exactly!" The blond crowed, "Even after five years, and thousands upon thousands of clones, I've only deciphered so much of my own heritage and sometimes the results are more than disheartening. I'm forced to see how limited my jutsu really are. There's a lot they can do, but there are still limits especially in their application seeing as how they're originally weapons of war. Then this comes along and beneath the less than flashy exterior, with the kind of utility the Demonic Arts offers, I see so much raw potential."

"So much raw awesomeness…" Diehauser murmured breathily.

Both of them slowly begin to giggle with disturbing smiles plastered on their idiot faces.

Outside the door, a curious Kurama and Avalon who had come to see who were laughing even louder than they were, slowly backed away.

"Should we… do something? Master is being scary-giggly again."

Kurama considered the question for a moment before shrugging, sending Avalon flopping around on his head, "Why? It's not like they're doing anything wrong, it's just some research and studying after all."

The fox paused and began to grin widely.

"Research that will result in horrifyingly destructive and mind breakingly painful jutsu that I will eventually learn somehow, just so I can use them on Madara."

Then the former nine tailed fox started giggling too.

Back inside with the two giggling adults, when they finally stopped drooling on their thoughts impending destruction and havoc, the younger of the two sighed, "Either way, that's just some of the basics and ideas that I want to work with you on, but I'll need to schedule some sort of appointment with you because I need to get to class now."

Diehauser gaped at him.

"Class?" the older red head frowned heavily, "Class in university kind of class?"

"Nope. High school."

"Are you insane?"

Diehauser paused, "Wait. Wrong question, of course you're insane. There's no other reason why you'd be wasting your time and skills in a human high school of all damned things. You're not even of schooling age anymore, not to mention there's so much more stuff, the best kind of explody, insanely awesome stuff you can do outside of it. Such as this project."

"It was a good idea at the time." Naruto noted with a sweat drop, the old man was seriously laying it on thick, "I didn't have a background, no certificates, no support, nothing. When Sirzechs appeared out of nowhere to persuade me to accept a scholarship, I didn't really have a reason to refuse, so I took it because I figured that having a high school cert would at least help me settle in a little easier. Devils, or Angels, weren't really a factor at the time."

The older man grinned slightly, "You make it sound like you planned on become part of this world, and yet you never really stopped training either." He pointed out, desperate to get to work on their project.

The blond shrugged again, "I did so partly because I didn't want to let it go to waste just like that, and partly so that I could keep reminding myself that the road that brought me here wasn't all just a hallucination. Which actually brings up something else I wanted your advice on."

"Oh?"

"To be perfectly frank, I was a terrible sensor back then. Never felt a thing until someone knocked me upside the head first," The blond admitted candidly.

"And even then, you'd have to hit it pretty hard because of how thick his skull was, or he wouldn't feel a thing," Kurama added to the conversation as he and Avalon bounced in to the room. The little fox scrambled up Naruto's legs and flopped down on top of his head like a big red furry hat, while Avalon who had happily turned Kurama into her own personal pony, albeit a mutated, fanged, clawed and grumpy one, giggled happily.

"My point is, I didn't become a sensor until after the furball and I started working together." The Uzumaki remarked dryly, jerking a finger at the grinning fanged rabbit happily nesting on his head, "Even then, it was more of an instinct rather than actual ability. It was only about a year or so after I arrived here that I finally fine-tuned my Sage Mode enough to consider myself an actual functioning sensor. The strange part was that in all the time I've been here, I've never felt anyone even remotely strong nearby, but I still kept it up mostly out of habit even if I felt that it was redundant and a waste of my time. It was only after I talked to Azazel, particularly about how he's had people watching me since I arrived, and how this city is actually something of a hub for Devils and Fallen Angels, that something strange occurred to me."

"You never realized that you couldn't sense or even notice all the Demons, fallen Angels or Angels around did you?" Diehauser noted with some realization.

The blond nodded, "Not even when Sirzechs was talking to me face to face, and it's pretty hard to miss a beacon like him no matter how good he is at suppressing his presence."

Diehauser considered the blond for a while as he rubbed his beard, "And yet after meeting Rias-chan, you were suddenly able to sense them perfectly fine?"

"Pretty much."

"In other words, you think someone might have been blocking you?"

"It was one of the options I'd considered, but is that even possible?" Naruto wondered, "I've read through the Sitri family's entire library, but there's nothing like that anywhere. Plenty of ways to suppress and fine-tune your own presence, but not to block someone's ability to sense others."

"Something like that would probably be more of an illusion rather than spell. Not that I'm not particular familiar with those." Diehauser admitted, "I can do it, and I would admit to being fairly proficient at them, but it's just not my way. I find that blowing someone up or just cursing someone until he can't leave the bed without wetting himself that much more interesting." The old man admitted.

Kurama snickered, "The best kind of illusions are the ones that make your opponent stop fighting entirely. Blowing them up, or making them puke their innards all over the ground while you take your time tearing their body apart sounds like they're working just fine."

Diehauser's dark blue eyes glimmered with amusement as he nodded at the little fox, "You are one disturbed little bunny."

"You mean the whole setting a decapitated head on fire and then humping the ashes didn't already clue you in?" The blond noted blandly.

"Fuck you, Naruto. I was happy doing my own shit, like stomping on cities, causing tidal waves and laughing when those little ants tried to swim when that little shit stain summoned me and directly caused me to get sealed in your goddamned great grandmother when she was 30, who lived to be 180no less. And if that wasn't already bad enough, I then get stuck in your mother for another 30 years. Then just when I finally think I'm freed, I get stuck! Again! In you this time, for another 25 miserable years. That's a grand total of 205 years' worth of staring at a stupid wall, and 205 years' worth of revenge to burn, so as far as I'm concerned, I can do whatever I want to his undying body and it still wouldn't be enough to express how much hate I have for him. AND IF YOU CALL ME A BUNNY AGAIN I'LL RIP YOUR THROAT OUT!" the bunny roared. or yipped. It depended on who you asked.

Diehauser roared with laughter, "So that's why you were pissing all over his ashes. I approve."

Kurama regarded the snowy haired Devil with gimlet eyes, "I like the people you hang out with nowadays brat. They've got their priorities right at least. Not like that dick shadow user you hung out with all the time."

Naruto regarded the chuckling Kurama with a disturbed look, "I've told you again and again, we dug the bastard out of that hole so we could interrogate him. Not to see if he has a brain by pissing in one ear and seeing if it leaked out the other."

Kurama scoffed, "What's the point of defeating an immortal and then not humiliating the idiot for being dumb enough to die to a weakling shadow user?"

Diehauser grinned bloodthirstily, "Your friend here is quite right. Besides, I might not know this immortal person, but nothing is stopping you from interrogating that aforementioned immortal after you've had your fun no?"

The fox regarded the devil for a long moment before displaying a blood thirsty grin, "I like you. I really like you."

"That's not even remotely fair." Naruto grumbled under his breath, "The entire time I've known him, he's been a gigantic pain in the behind. And then you come along and the two of you are basically bosom friends or something."

The Belial patriarch grinned at him winningly, "That's because I'm just that awesome. And I've had my fair share of idiotic immortal enemies." He sighed pleasurably, "The sheer joy I get from humiliating them, stomping on their pointless pride after enduring all that unwarranted arrogance. Absolutely divine."

"Have I mentioned that I really like you?" Kurama piped up again.

The blond snorted dryly, "I gave you Madara didn't I?"

"Would have been a lot nicer if you could get me the full set of Uchiha." Kurama noted offhandedly before winking at a grinning Diehauser, "A clan of ninja from our village." The fox said by way of explanation, "With very few exceptions, every single one of them had a ten foot pole stuck up their asses and were singularly well known for their habit of happily abusing their bloodline and the stupid-as-shit abilities aforementioned bloodline gave them. In and of itself, this didn't really make them any different from any of the other clans inhabiting that dump, because quite frankly, all of them did the same thing, and tended to be horribly one dimensional in battle once you got around their bloodlines. Outside of that, they were actually somewhat okay people so long as you ignored the pole up their asses."

The fox drawled lazily, "The problem therein lay in the fact that some of them were pretty much ape shit crazy and had some amazingly lousy decision making skills. Combine that with the kind of power their bloodline gave them, and you have a massive fuck up just waiting to happen."

"My best friend was one you know." The blond pointed out somewhat reluctantly.

"And he was basically a prime example of the kind of nut jobs their clan pooped out on a daily basis. Didn't he, after getting his ass handed to him by the dumb ox, try to charge into the summit meeting filled with S-rank ninja all on his lonesome? What was he going to do? Wave his imaginary dick at them and hope they all started laughing too hard to fight back?" the fox countered scathingly.

Naruto winced, "Technically Madara was the one egging him on."

"Probably. Kurama grinned toothily at the blond's visible relief.

"But didn't he also cut off your arm before the two of you wailed on each other until you ripped his eye out? Right after you did the same thing to his heart if I might add? Madara was long screwed by then, so you can't even say he was influenced by something else other than the diseased monkey he calls a brain," the fox remarked conversationally, "Because if that's your best friend, I wonder what does that make the poor, honorable, almighty nine tailed fox, trying his very best to help you survive that ass kicking? An ass kicking that you most certainly would not have been able to even attend because you'd be dead several years prior on account of the many stupid mistakes you tend to make on a depressingly regular basis and only survived by virtue of that same great fox."

"Fine. You've made your point." Naruto grimaced in almost physical pain, sorely tempted to point out that Kurama had not been helping him out of any real sincerity until much later, "Now, can we not talk about my slightly misguided youth in front of a potential research partner?"

"Me? Never! I was just wondering to myself. And if my wonderings happen to be done within ear shot of a potential research partner… well that's not really my fault is it?" Kurama replied innocently as he daintily kneaded Naruto's hair to make a more comfortable perching point, "On a completely unrelated note, I suddenly feel a hankering for fried tofu, mostly because I haven't eaten anything in 205 years or so. Hint, hint."

"Alright, alright." The Uzumaki mumbled under his breath, "I'll get you your tofu. Stupid, pushy fox."

"Best day ever." Kurama grinned foxily, "Food and fun, all in one."

"Conversations that I do not understand and histories that I'm now really interested in aside," Diehauser cut in with great amusement at their little argument, "That's just another reason for you to quit school isn't it? You've got so much more interesting stuff waiting for you outside, my daughter notwithstanding of course."

Naruto sighed faintly, "I'll think about it. For now, let's just agree on a date and a place where we can meet again."

"How bout tonight?" Diehauser piped up with dangerously bright eyes that belonged on much younger men than him, "I'm perfectly willing to let you into my house for this. I'll even tell the children to do stay somewhere else for the night."

Naruto's eyebrow twitched and he wondered if he wasn't going to regret this whole thing in the future, because Diehauser was seriously starting to remind him of a desperate puppy.

****End Game****

Yuki Kajiura - Cynical World

Later that day

Kurama was outside with Avalon, still playing around with Madara, and the only reason he didn't quite trust Kurama enough to bring his old friend with him to school, was the simple fact that there was really only two outcomes if he did.

The fox would either get so bored that he would start terrorizing everyone within hearing range by violating Madara in even more horrifying ways, or inspire a mass stampede by attempting to burn the place down.

Of course, he'd actually been tempted to do the latter more than once, but that was beside the point.

Sighing, he squared his shoulders and knocked on the door to the teacher's lounge. Stepping inside, he bowed politely to the teacher, Mr. Ono who was Rias' math teacher if he wasn't wrong, and headed straight for his own home room teacher, Mr. Onizuka.

In the grand scheme of things, Eikichi was a rather laid back guy who was one of the few people he could tolerate for any amount of time, mostly because the man himself would rather stab himself in the foot rather than do something as troublesome as teach.

Case in point was the unshaven man in the crumpled shirt waved from his little cubicle, "If you're here to tell me you haven't done your homework, then save it. I'll just mark you down a little." The dark haired man drawled lazily before Naruto could even open his mouth.

"You wouldn't look at it even if I had brought it." The blond pointed out dryly.

"Fair point." The unshaven man with wrinkle lines on his lips smiled shamelessly despite the dirty looks the other teachers were giving him at that declaration, "You always were my favorite student."

"You also say that to any other student who doesn't give you trouble." Naruto noted sardonically.

"Please, you're flattering me. Hehehe."

Naruto rolled his eyes and took a seat next to the dark haired man in the crumpled shirt, prompting Eikichi to raise an eyebrow, "You're sitting down in here willingly? Should I be worried?"

"I just needed your advice on a few things."

"Advice number 1; wear a condom."

Naruto pinched the bridge of his nose, "Not exactly what I wanted to ask, but I'll keep it in mind."

"Oh. Sorry." Eikichi replied in a completely unapologetic manner, "I saw you hanging out with that Hyoudou kid in the second year lately, so I just figured you finally hit puberty. I mean, this school is basically populated with horny little bastards, but that one in particular is practically their king."

"You mean people actually come to you with those problems? And you actually help them? I mean, its stupid advice, but it is still advice."

"Oi!" Eikichi grumbled under his breath, "You might be a few years younger than me, but I'll be damned if I let my own student mouth off at me."

Naruto chuckled, "Alright, alright, peace."

"So? What kind of problem brings the infamous Uzumaki here? And before class starts no less." Eikichi leered at the blond with amusement dancing in his normally dead fish eyes, "You didn't get someone pregnant did you?"

"I'm seriously worried for the future of this school right now if that's the kind of problems you get all the time." Naruto shot back, easily ignoring the hushed whispering around them, "But yes, I do have a problem. Lately I've been thinking that there's no reason for me to stay here anymore. So I wanted to know if there's an option for me to take whatever tests and just graduate off the bat."

Eikichi squinted at him.

"Are you sure you didn't get someone pregnant?"

The teacher laughed softly as Naruto politely told him to go to hell. The amusement in his eyes dulled as he considered the blond with surprising sharpness, "Come with me." He finally said after a long silent pause.

As the two of them left the teacher's lounge, it immediately exploded with loud gossipy whispers. Naruto would not be surprised to know that by the time he reached class, the entire school would already know that he wanted to leave.

As the blond followed one of the few people he could honestly consider a friend in school to the roof, Eikichi simply took out a cigarette and put one in his mouth before offering another stick to the blond after a slight hesitation.

Shrugging, the blond took it and lit it up with an offered lighter.

"I honestly can't say I'm not surprised I suppose." Eikichi mused after a long puff, "Despite what people think, I'm not entirely blind. In fact, even a blind person can probably see that you're just going through the motions here with that kind of creativity, high school certificate or no. Most of the teachers here don't even know how to handle you. The rest just ignore you." \

Naruto drew his own puff and nodded blandly, "So did you." The blond pointed out dryly.

"I personally didn't care. Figured it'd be good character building, for them that is, because you can damn well hold your own in a fight. My targets get met, and I don't even have to do a thing." The alleged teacher remarked gleefully.

Naruto rolled his eyes, how did this guy even become a teacher in the first place?

"Besides, it's not like we don't get the occasional weirdo from Gremory's charity," The older man continued glibly, "Hell, you're not even the first outright adult to get that scholarship. Most of them are just charity cases, people who never managed to finish their high school and dropped out somewhere along the way, delinquents or even the occasional sociopath. Then sometimes, you get the rare supernatural case, so there's an unspoken rule amongst the teachers that we just do our jobs; keep our heads down and pass them along until they graduate because a good part of our salary is paid by Gremory-sama's family."

"Wait." Naruto's brows shot up, "Supernatural case?"

Eikichi shrugged, "A few devils got in some time ago on that scholarship. Then we had the rare youkai or two. There was even one vampire from the west that made it his personal mission to attend every high school in the world and/or sparkle at pretty girls. That was one weird fucker. You'd be surprised at the kind of idiots we get in this town."

"Wait, wait, wait," Naruto stared at the man who was still casually smoking in aghast, "You're a devil?"

"Not much of one really," Eikichi shrugged, "Human father, common devil mom. Took after dad more, because all I got out of the deal was a slightly tougher than average body and a depressingly small pool of energy that all but disqualifies me from even stepping foot in the Underworld. Stung me something bad when I was younger when that law came in thanks to Bael. Still, I get along with the rest fine, though I did lash out for a while when I was younger. I even bleached my hair for a bit and when around beating people up just for looking at me wrong. Ah… good times."

"The rest?" Naruto murmured in barely a whisper.

"Sure. There's a whole bunch of us here." Eikichi squinted at the blond, "Why are you even surprised? You're a Piece aren't you?"

"I'm not surprised that there are other devils here other than the Sitri and the Gremory, I'm surprised you're one." The blond shot at his friend.

"Because my abysmally small energy pool all but fooled you into thinking I was a human?" Eikichi snorted derisively.

Naruto took a step back at the sudden venom, "That came out totally wrong. I just meant that I've known you for so long, but you never mentioned a damned thing. Even after I found out about Devils from Rias! I didn't mean it any other way."

Eikichi sighed and waved wearily, signifying his acceptance of the apology, "No reason for me to do it really. You were just another human, but then when Gremory-sama picked you up, you were instantly elevated far above us peons and there was even less reason for us to talk to you."

"I call bullshit. As if I'd care about something like that." Naruto shot back harshly.

"No I don't suppose you do." Eikichi smiled thinly, "A pricklier, more self-absorbed bastard I've never met, and you have this terrible habit of turning gloomy at the drop of a hat, but deep down you're a straight arrow kind of guy."

The older man with brown hair shrugged, "My resentment of nobles aside, I don't begrudge the Gremory from doing a good thing; education is important after all. But sometimes I see people like you. The kind that simply fail to fit in. But it was fairly obvious that you could ace the whole damn thing and just get on with it if you really wanted to."

Naruto shrugged, "There was no reason not to. It wouldn't even be wrong to say that I was just looking for a goal while I'm here."

"And you've found one now?"

"Of sorts."

"Wouldn't have anything to do with a certain class president that suddenly seems to be fairly friendly with you now, would it?"

"Akeno would castrate you and then feed you your roasted balls for even implying it." Naruto noted blandly, "But yes, you could say that."

"That she would." Eikichi chuckled. He sucked in a deep lungful of smoke before blowing out a cloud of grey smoke, "You're not a bad person, Uzumaki. Akeno will do you good. Hell, you'd probably do her good as well. You'd corrupt her and make all her teachers weep for the loss of so much potential in the process, but hey as long as she enjoys it I guess." The brown haired man noted sardonically.

Naruto blinked slowly as he realized that his homeroom teacher was completely misreading the situation.

Then he decided not to argue because, knowing Eikichi, the man would wink and tease Akeno the entire time she was within hearing range.

And it would frustrate the devil out of Akeno, pun intended, because she would have no idea what the hell Eikichi was going on about.

Naruto was totally fine with that.

It would be hilarious.

"Snarking aside, I really wasn't joking when I said you were my favorite student."

"You're definition of favorite needs some tweaking." Naruto suggested conversationally, "In fact, you should probably rethink your entire decision to be a teacher while you're at it."

"Hey, you didn't cause any trouble. And even if you did, most of the time no one bothered me about it because they all pitied me for even being your homeroom teacher. Not to mention nothing could be proven anyway. Plus, you at least kept your grades somewhere in the middle so no one harped to me about you."

"You also desperately need to see a psychiatrist."

Eikichi shrugged lazily, "I'm being serious. As far as I'm concerned, that makes you the perfect kind of student."

"I'm being serious too, you either need to see a psychiatrist or change jobs because this cannot be healthy for you."

"Fuck it. I give up. I try to be all teacherly for once, and you just keep snarking back at me."

"Hi kettle, I'm pot and we're both black."

Eikichi chuckled and blew out another cloud as he looked down on the town spread out below them.

"This town is as crappy as it comes. There's so much bullshit going on, it'd probably do me some good to just up and leave where everything doesn't remind me of everything I'm never going to get because of who I'm born to. But I can't. I just can't. I love this town too much, and that includes all the dysfunctional jackasses in it, even that one crazy muscle builder that runs around in a sailor suit." Eikichi murmured softly, "Give it a shot. You might just feel the same way."

He turned around and left, flipping Naruto a middle finger in the process.

Naruto snorted as he finished off his own cigarette and cast his eyes on the same town laid out below him.

He smiled thinly.

Then he blinked.

"GODDAMIT EIKICHI!" Naruto suddenly roared and sprinted after his teacher, "DON'T THINK YOU GET TO LEAVE WITH KIND OF COOL EXIT AFTER BASICALLY TELLING ME YOU CAN'T BE BOTHERED TRYING TO WRITE ME THAT EXAM!"

"FUCK YOU UZUMAKI, Y'KNOW MUCH PAPERWORK THAT KIND OF SHIT IS?!"

****End Game****

Play AKINO - PRIDE Nageki no Tabi

Many hours later, Naruto found himself groaning in his class. It was already nearing evening by then, and he honestly couldn't believe that the bastard of a teacher had actually managed to outrun him through sheer will alone.

Sheer will to not do more work that is.

By the time he had finally gotten his hands on the bastard, it was already past lunch.

It took several more hours, a few fake tears, two wet paper towels and a German suplex before his alleged teacher finally relented.

Turned out, Eikichi hadn't been joking when he said he was tough, and he was perfectly happy to give as good as he got.

"Ano…. Sai…Naruto-sama?"

The blond stifled a groan and lazily waved at the nun standing in the doorway, "What's up Asia-chan?"

The nun, seeing that the blond wasn't protesting, or at least wasn't doing it openly, happily clasped her hands together and bowed with a quiet murmured prayer much to the confusion of her friend who was standing slightly behind her.

"Who's your friend?" the taller blond inquired curiously, he didn't remember ever seeing her with anyone else other than Ise or the other members of the Occult Research Club.

The sweet and kind girl smiled brightly, "This is Aika Kiryu-san. She's my friend!"

"We're classmates," The short girl adjusted her shiny glasses with a scary smile, "and co-founders of the Secret Alliance for the Protection of Pretty Hunks in Real Endangerment, or SAPPHIRE. Our motto is: "To observe! To protect! And to observe some more!" She declared brightly, "And I've been wanting to meet you for a very long time, Uzumaki-senpai."

"Uh... okay?"

She then smiled in a very creepy manner, her eyes fixed on his crotch, "You have a very nice package, senpai. Very, very nice."

The Uzumaki blinked and slowly backed away.

"If you happen to have a shrine of me in a closet somewhere, I'm going to be very unhappy." Naruto noted blandly.

The last time he had been this creeped out by a female, the aforementioned woman had cut open his face, dug her disturbingly long and prehensile tongue into said wound and then molested his crotch in front of 50 other genin right before threatening all of them with a bloody death via Forest of Death.

Suffice to say, questionable fashion sense or no, Anko was a very memorable person.

"It's a very small one, Naruto-sama. Aika-san assured me that it was very tasteful." Asia chirped up happily, prompting Naruto to twitch violently while Aika nodded so fast that her head looked like a bobblehead, her shiny glasses somehow never leaving his crotch the entire time.

Aika smiled sadistically, "I'll see you later Asia-chan." The short haired girl waved, her eyes still undressing Naruto, as she slowly drifted back out of the classroom. Naruto immediately darted to the door and locked it.

Then just to be safe, he threw a self-destruct seal on it just in case someone managed to open it.

Once he had employed every other method he had to make sure that Aika was really gone, stopping just short of performing a purifying ritual on the room and everything that had within a foot of Aika, Naruto turned to Asia, "Alright… other than showing me the fact I desperately need to get you some friends who aren't complete nut jobs, what can I do for you?"

The gentle smile on Asia-chan's face dimmed a little, "I just wanted to talk to you Saint-sama. You have been so busy that we never see you around, and suddenly I heard that you want to leave. Is that true?"

"Sort of." Naruto shrugged casually, "I just felt like I'm not getting enough done while I'm here. No reason to stay here now that I have a foundation to use I guess. Besides, it's not like I'm leaving the place or something. I'll still be in Kuoh."

"I knew it!" Asia exulted, "I knew that you weren't abandoning your task. There are no bad devils here in school, so you wanted to go out and evangelize the others who are!"

What.

Naruto stared blankly as he furiously went back over his words again and try to see if there was any possible way to translate them as such.

He failed.

"Forget it." Naruto muttered under his breath and fell back into his chair with a groan as Asia hopped a little nearer with a happy smile. Almost automatically, he lifted one hand and began to pet her, "That said, I do apologize for my absence. And gloominess. I know you were worried about me."

Asia chuffed softly as she enjoyed the way his rough thumb pad brushed across her forehead so affectionately, "You are Saint-sama. It's natural that you are worried about your task." She said devoutly.

That wasn't what he said at all was it?

Nevermind.

"I still prayed to you every night."

Naruto forced himself not to twitch again and sighed imperceptibly.

"You do realize I'm not really a Saint right?"

The much smaller girl stiffened slightly and her light blue eyes dimmed slightly.

"No." She whispered softly, "But you're the closest thing an unwanted nun has to one."

Naruto smiled gently, "You have Rias, you have Akeno, you have Kiba, you have Ise, and now you have Aika. I'd say that there's nothing unwanted about you."

"But that was only after you came to me." Asia leaned in a little more as if willing him not to leave, her eyes brimming with adoration, "You gave me the start I wished I had my entire life."

"You're making me better than I sound," Naruto replied cynically, "If Ise wasn't around to persuade me, I would not have done anything and you would still have been revived as a devil either way. So logically, you owe your thanks to him rather than me."

The young girl's smile seemed to deflate a little at that, causing Naruto's brow to rise slightly.

"Is something wrong with you and Ise?" He questioned her placidly.

It wasn't really any of his business, but Asia tended to be rather protective of Ise even when he was literally trying to peek up someone's skirt at the time.

"It's nothing." Asia smiled bravely, "I wanted to ask, is it possible to train with you? Kiba told me many times that he would not be as strong as he is without your help."

His eyebrows rose even farther at the attempted misdirection but he kept it to himself.

"It would not be impossible." Naruto conceded, "But before you decide, you should probably know that I'm more familiar with things related to actual combat."

Asia frowned, "But you saved me."

Naruto scratched the back of his head, "That and my ability to heal are completely unrelated. Resurrecting someone is simply a matter of whether or not I had enough energy to accomplish it, and it's not exactly something I can teach others because it's unique to me alone. Healing people on the other hand…." The Uzumaki pursed his lips, "Let's just say that it was a rather unconventional way to train and it's not exactly something anyone can do."

"So... you can't help me?" Her eyes began to water.

He glanced down at the downcast girl and sighed again, before he ruffled her hair, "Okay, okay. I can help you get stronger."

Her bright cerulean eyes brightened, "Really?"

"Yeah." Naruto sighed with some resignation.

Why was he such a sucker for teary eyes?

Asia set her chin with determination, "Just tell me what I need to do."

"For one. I'm going to need you to read a few books."

The Bishop blinked a few times, "Read? Just read?"

The blond nodded slowly, "Part of learning how to use my abilities to heal people was realizing that healing isn't just limited to scanning a wounds to find the source, picking the right spell and then pouring in my power before praying like mad that it works. Not to say it's wrong, because you can certainly do that. It just takes a metric crapton more of energy to do it that way."

Naruto licked his lips, "From what I've seen of your Sacred Gear, that's exactly the way it seems to work, but it streamlines the process so that you don't use nearly as much as someone else who is doing the same thing. That's why I wanted to see if you had more knowledge on the way a human's body worked, would it reduce the energy you need to heal someone." Naruto glanced at the girl who was intently absorbing his every word, "Like I said, I have practically zero experience in teaching someone how to heal. So we're going to have to this from scratch."

Asia's smile was nearly blinding in its intensity, "I'll do my best."

The taller of the two chuckled, "My grandmother told me this once. I figured it was appropriate if I passed it down to you." He placed one hand on her forehead, "A good healer will learn every part of a person's anatomy, he will understand every gear in the human body, and he will do it well. But a great healer knows that to heal his patient, he has to synchronize with them. Their breathing, their pulse, the squeak and groan of every muscle tensing or contracting, the very rhythm their heart makes every time, all of it. And my grandmother might not have been the best role model around, but she was the best shinobi medic alive. Period."

Asia beamed, "I won't ever be abandoned because I'm weak again."

Naruto frowned. Now he was sure something had gone wrong, because while it was pretty much common knowledge that the nun had something of an inferior complex about being abandoned, she didn't really bring it up all that often. In fact, she would only say something so long as someone brought it up first.

"Did something happen between you and Ise?"He tried again.

The nun dipped her head slightly, her golden tresses hiding her eyes slightly, "It's nothing. I'm just being silly."

Kneeling down, Naruto cupped her chin and pushed it up with genuine concern, "You don't have to hide anything from me. You know that right?"

Asia scuffed her shoe shyly, "I'm just a little confused. Ise's childhood friend, Irina-san came to town for a visit and he's helping her see all the new things in town again. It's a good thing, but I don't know why I get really irritated when he's being such a good friend, and I feel so guilty about being such a bad person." The nun blurted out with an ashamed expression.

Ah.

This wasn't really the kind of thing he was good at. Kill people, blow people up, and interrogate people, etcetera, he could do. He could do it really well too.

This? This was the kind of thing he refused to touch with a ten foot pole.

"Ah… why don't you tell him how you feel?" Naruto pursed his lips, "And then tell me if he tries to do something stupid so I can gut him with a blunt spoon."

"You really think that will help?"

"Wouldn't really hurt to try I guess?" Naruto hedged.

"Thanks…. Naruto-sama." Asia bit her lip for a moment before she dashed at him and hugged him tightly, "In that few sentences, you have given me more guidance than anyone has ever given me before today." She whispered fiercely and gave the Uzumaki a brief, but tight squeeze, "Sometimes, it really feels like I finally have a father."

Naruto blinked, but before he could reply, the girl had already sprinted out of the room.

The tall blond slowly stood up and mechanically dragged himself over to his chair by the window again.

Kurama came padding into the room on silent paws, "Thinking about her again?"

Naruto silently nodded.

"She'd be about the same age. And she was always pestering me to teach her how to heal."

"It's okay." The fox slunk over and laid his head on the blond's knees with a quiet chuff, "I miss Hikari too."

Naruto hummed as he ran one hand through Kurama's coarse, spiky fur, "What say I introduce you to a few other kids?"

Kurama snorted, "More tiny, shrill, annoying little flesh bags? No thanks. One was bad enough." It huffed haughtily.

Naruto grinned. The fox was saying one thing, but his furiously waving tail was saying a whole different thing entirely.

"Alright, come on." Naruto said as he picked the protesting fox up by the scruff of his neck, "I haven't missed a single day with them and I'm not about to stop. Don't worry, they'll love you."

Kurama looked away, "You think so?"

"If they don't, they will after they put you into a dress and make up."

"LEMME GO! LEMME GO DAMMIT! CURSE YOU UZUMAKI!"

****End Game****

The next couple of days passed slowly as Eikichi worked on the paper.

Or at least Naruto thought he was working on it, the man certainly seemed a little more tired than usual, not that that was unusual for the dark haired man.

He was being left alone, outside of the occasional training sessions with Asia.

To his surprise, his original hypothesis had been somewhat accurate. Both of them had noted a significant increase in efficiency to her healing, allowing to heal much more than she previously could.

Furthermore, the nun had also secretly confided to him that the more she used her Sacred Gear to heal, the more it seemed to know what she wanted by manifesting itself in a pulse of healing energy, almost like a tendril of thought that seemed to flow directly to the origin of injuries before she even started actively looking for it.

So far, this tendril seemed to be limited to the more serious wounds and when she was idling or not actively using Twilight Healing, the pulse would sort of dilute itself around her, granting her a vague idea of all living beings around herself. They were already working on exposing Asia to different types of injuries to see if this affected the tendril and to see if they could somehow increase the range and accuracy of the pulse when Twilight Healing wasn't active.

It was slow going but it had brought up several interesting ideas he was rather anxious to see if he was able to replicate or imitate it with his own Artificial Gear.

Something he was writing down already in an attempt to put infuse some order into the chaotic jumble that was his mind when he heard someone cough politely.

Naruto furrowed his brow and looked up to see Akeno who was leaning on the door frame, "Hey." She said awkwardly, "It's been awhile."

Naruto's eyebrows rose, "You do realize that you're in the same class with me and I see you every day right?"

The girl shrugged, "Do you? Do you really? Because you essentially have your head in the clouds whenever I've tried to talk to you ever since Erza showed up."

The Uzumaki chuckled, "I've been a little distracted I guess." He conceded as a bright red lump of fur leapt through the window to Akeno's surprise.

Naruto smiled thinly, "Akeno, meet Kurama. He's my killer bunny familiar."

He instantly bent over backwards by sheer instinct alone as a yipping Kurama rocketed towards his stupidly grinning face in a whirling tornado of fangs, claws and blood red fur, fully intent on mauling it off, "I TOLD YOU NOT TO CALL ME A BUNNYY!"

Akeno merely quirked one brow with a wry smile. Somehow, it felt right watching the blond do something stupid in her vicinity again, and even if she would never admit it to anyone, she had missed it somewhat.

"I see you managed to get one every bit as insane as you are." She noted dryly, "Even if it is a little more eloquent than the rest."

"He's not really eloquent. He's just got a lot of practice cursing people. 205 years of it to be exact." Naruto replied offhandedly even as he batted away the tiny fox's attempt to murder him with a pencil.

"If you say so then." Akeno replied neutrally, "By the way, would you mind helping me do some shopping?" She asked a little hesitantly, knowing how much he valued his time alone with his book.

To her complete and utter surprise however, the blond glanced at her for a moment before he closed his book with a small smile, "Sure."

Akeno blinked and forced herself not to smile stupidly, "Why don't you come down to the clubroom? I want to get changed first." The urge to smile finally won as the blond started walking next to her, his grumpy familiar curled up around his neck like a scarf.

"Rias isn't there by the way."

"Good to know, but why would I want to know that?"

"I'm not sure," Akeno replied conversationally, "I just thought you would considering how you two seem to be avoiding each other like the plague."

Naruto grunted non committally, "I'm not avoiding her, but I have a pretty good idea why she is."

"Oh?" Akeno prodded.

"Do you know how she tried to resurrect me?"

"Of course. I was actually there, remember? And she didn't try, she actually did resurrect you because when I checked you, you had no pulse. You were for all intents and purposes dead."

"While you are right, you are also wrong," Naruto hummed to himself, "In my case, while losing a heart is rather painful, it won't kill me. It'll just send me into shock, a sort of suspended animation while all the… precautions I took kick in and regenerate whatever I lost."

Akeno blinked at him incredulously, "Are you honestly trying to tell me you won't die even if I kill you right now?"

"Yes. Yes I am that awesome, thank you very much." Naruto grinned blandly, "But that's beside the point. The point was, she put part of her soul in me in an attempt to anchor me to the living. The problem was that she didn't realize what that would do to her."

The taller blond pursed his lips, "I imagine it's rather like waking up one day, feeling inexplicably drawn to the weakest, most useless person in the universe and thinking that he's your soul mate or something and the worst part is, you don't even have control over your own feelings and you have absolutely no choice in the matter." Naruto noted with great distaste, "But then, when that fragment finally makes it back to you, you wake up and realize, with sheer utter horror, exactly what you've been spouting off to the most useless person alive. So yes, while I'm not making it an issue, I understand why she's ignoring me and I don't blame her."

Akeno sighed as they arrived at the clubroom, "After all that, the only thing I heard in that entire spiel that was even remotely true, was that for some godforsaken reason, you think you are a useless person. It's a damned good thing that no one's dumb enough to come to you for love advice."

Naruto winced, "Ah… I was wrong?"

"When are you not wrong?" Akeno teased as she stepped behind the changing curtain.

"Then can you at least tell me what I got wrong?" Naruto inquired exasperatedly.

"Nope," The raven haired girl's sing song voice floated through the thick fabric, "If you think I'm going to give you the answer after enduring a moping Rias for the past week or so, you can think again. Of course, I wouldn't be opposed to telling you how to fix it in return for something else~"

Naruto fell into the nearest couch and crossed his legs with a sigh.

At least Akeno sounded like she had regained her spirit.

"Does this something else happen to include you and a pair of whips?"

"Not unless you prefer it that way." Akeno remarked sultrily.

"Then, no." The blond replied sarcastically, "I happen to make it a policy to stay away from pain whenever I can."

Akeno struck a taunting pose, teasing the blond behind the curtain with the shadow of her curves, "Funny, you always seemed like the type."

"I think you're confusing me and Ise."

"Not very likely. That guy could get off on anything even remotely erotic. At least you have some semblance of standard." Rias' queen remarked loftily.

Naruto tried to think of something to defend Ise with, but then realized that there wasn't really anything untrue about what the girl had said, so he just shrugged, "Alright, alright. So you want a deal?"

"Mmmhmm."

"What do you want then?"

"…. Can we just spend a day together?"

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. I'll tell you when I'm done."

After what felt like an eternity to the waiting blond who had been tapping a small crater into the ground with his shoes, the door finally opened again and Naruto very quickly opened his mouth to scold the girl for taking so long to answer.

Then he blinked.

"Yes?" Akeno asked archly.

Akeno who was dressed in a rather simple, serviceable and decidedly unglamorous blouse and skirt, with her long pony tail tied and draped down her front so it wouldn't get in the way.

It was simple, it was homey, and there was something strangely appealing about the whole ensemble despite it being utterly contrary to how she usually dressed.

"You look beautiful." Naruto said simply.

Akeno flushed and smiled challengingly, "Good try, but wrong answer." She arched an eyebrow at him, "I'm always beautiful."

"And your ego is as big as always." The blond deadpanned, "Still, at least I know you're alright. You've been so nice the entire time I was starting to worry that I was talking to a doppelganger. I mean, the fact that you haven't once tried to bite my head off the moment we started having this conversation is interesting in and of itself."

The raven haired girl rolled her eyes at his sarcasm, "Why is it that when you cannot be honest, you must revert to sarcasm?"

"Honest?" Naruto echoed incredulously as the two of them left the room, "You didn't want honest. You just wanted me to be a doormat. There was essentially no right answer to that question whatsoever!"

The sound of their continued bickering echoing down the empty hallway even as they left the school.

****End Game****

"Here."

Naruto grunted as the girl plonked a huge plastic bag containing an assortment of daily food into his arms, in addition to the several other bags that were already there.

"Mer…Mercy!" the blond groan weakly as he tottered around, trying to balance the tower of plastic bags.

"I carry twice that amount all the time, Naruto," Akeno replied with a smirk, "Grow some balls."

"Why do you even need so much?!"

"You'd be surprised at how much Rias eats." The dark haired girl replied blandly as she strolled down another isle, eyeing the price tags with a practiced eye.

A shock of blond hair appeared from behind the tottering pile of groceries, "What happened to all her maids then? I know I saw plenty when I was at her place."

"They're not around. Or to be precise, not here." Akeno answered him as she glanced at the two identical looking packs of meat, trying to ascertain which one was worth more for less, "It was part of her deal with her brother. If she wanted to live here, then she would have to live like a real human. No maids, limited budget, the usual student life."

"I can't see why she would want to do something like that." The blond grunted sourly, "Being poor sucks."

"Rias might be a little spoiled sometimes," Akeno remarked dryly, "but she respected her brother, more than almost anyone else. She wanted to be just like him, what he represents to the Underworld, and she figured the fastest way to get there was do what he did when he was younger, go through the same hurdles. You know the rest."

Picking up another huge bundle of fresh vegetables, she tried to pass it to the blond, only to realize that he wasn't behind her anymore, "… Naruto?"

It took almost every single shred of will power in her lithe frame not to start throwing a tantrum and stomp her feet while she yelled for the irritating blond who had obviously wandered off again.

Just as she was about to start yelling, a head of yellow hair suddenly popped up beside her with a dangerously wide grin, "Hey."

Stifling the little yelp of surprise, Akeno growled, "Where were you and what were you doing?"

"Just… looking at some interesting stuff."

Her curiosity instantly piqued by the way he was deliberately avoiding her gaze, she glanced at the shopping cart and immediately narrowed her eyes, "Naruto… what is that?" Akeno asked with a dangerously calm tone.

"Just a few odds and ends that caught my eye." Naruto replied evasively as he tried and failed to edge what looked like a warehouse's worth of shiny, gleaming hardware tools, and of course, whole bottles and cans of industrial strength chemicals.

"I see you've found the hardware section." She calmly noted.

"I…. uh…. Can explain?"

"No."

"What?" Naruto spluttered, "You're not going to even give me a chance to explain!?"

"You mean you can explain why I would let an insane idiot who is already walking around with Hell knows how many vials of poison and chemicals buy even MORE chemicals and tools?" the dark haired girl asked dryly.

"At least let me keep the adhesive," The blond pleaded with a hopeful look, "You have no idea how much of my work needs adhesive nowadays."

Akeno sent him a look that made it very clear that she thought he had hit his head a few times more than was healthy before she relented, "Fine, you can have the adhesive so long as you pay for it. Everything else goes back."

The blond's bright spiky hair seemed to wilt along with his expression, "You're mean, Akeno-chaaannnn…"

She steadfastly ignored the adorably sad pouts the blond kept shooting her even as he meticulously stacked huge bottles of glue into his cart while removing everything else, his heart breaking with every item that he had to put back on the shelves.

"That's the first time anyone has ever called me mean to my face and yet I somehow can't bring myself to care." Akeno noted dryly, "How did you ever even feed yourself without bankrupting yourself in the process, you big baby?"

Naruto scratched his head as the two of them began walking again, this time with a much lighter cart. "I didn't really have that problem back then. It just started when I came here, more a necessity than any real desire to be an actual packrat because I never knew when something would become useful, but wasn't willing to let it go because I wouldn't have the money to buy it when it did become useful."

Akeno chuckled as they lined up to pay for the groceries, "Yeah, I can see that happening."

"One of the advantages of tinkering with all those stuff is that they help me keep my mind busy." He said with a lopsided smile, "Of course, every once in a while, it's not enough and I still find my mind wandering back. Wondering what they're doing and how they're handling my absence."

Although his tone was amused and perfectly measured, the raw emotion in his eyes led Akeno to squeeze his arm gently. Even Kurama seemed to shift a little from his place around the blond's neck.

"But I try not to." Naruto said eventually, "I'd never be able to get out that dirty little shack otherwise."

Part of her wanted to leave the topic alone because of how utterly lonely he sounded, but another part, the louder one told her to press on.

"Is there… a certain someone you think about in particular?"

Naruto blinked, "What?"

"I me-mean, is there someone you respect back... home?"

Scratching his chin thoughtfully, the blond cocked his head, "….I guess there are two in particular that jump out to me."

"Let me guess, your father and mother?" Akeno replied teasingly.

The blond grinned, "Nah. Not so typical. One was a friend. And the other... well she was just special."

"Just so you know, I'm not interested in your puppy love stories."

Naruto chuckled as the rest of the world bustled around them, rushing to do their own matters done, uncaring of two average looking teenagers out on a shopping spree, "Nothing so mundane either."

The two of them began unloading their items on to the conveyor belt so that Akeno could pay for her groceries, "One of them grew up alongside me. He was never what you could call active, given a choice between a buffet dinner or starving to death, he'd pick starving to death every time because he's too lazy to walk to said buffet table. This made him, in a world where walking on water and spitting fire was commonplace, something of an odd man out."

"So why would you respect someone like that?" Akeno questioned curiously as she forked out several bills to the cashier.

"Mostly because despite his lackluster physical abilities, or specifically because of them, he was one of the smartest people in our entire village, much less our entire generation, and that, made him one of the most dangerous. Assuming he had enough motivation that is."

"Sounds a lot like you right now." Akeno pointed out dryly.

"Meh." Naruto shrugged, "He'd probably find it terribly ironic, and amusing, that for once, I'm in his position. I can't afford to throw my weight around, nor am I as utterly thick skinned as I used to be. In fact, he'd probably be laughing on the floor right now if he knew that I might have taken a few leaves out of his book. Besides, it worked didn't it?" Naruto replied with a smirk.

"Too well if you ask me." The dark haired girl noted wryly, "You are quite probably the most annoying and unpredictable person I know."

Naruto fluttered his eyelashes at her comically, "Oh stop, you're making me blush."

She sent him an exasperated look, though the very corners of her lips were trying to rise up in a silly smile as she gently smacked him upside the head, "You are so utterly incorrigible."

"Incorrigibly awesome." Naruto added smugly, "Never forget the awesome."

"Right…" Akeno sighed with an expression of long suffering, "So who was the second person? Someone as annoying as you?"

The blond scratched the back of his head with a strange expression, "I guess you could say that."

"Hmmm?"

Naruto opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, someone much shorter than her bumped into her midsection, causing her to fall, dropping her grocery in the process.

Wincing a little at her hard impact with the concrete curb, the dark haired girl squinted at the person who had accidentally bumped into her to see a small old lady, dressed in black also on the ground, cradling bleeding hand. Ignoring the signals of pain her arm was sending to her brain, the little old lady managed to give her a truly apologetic look as she struggled to help Akeno instead of herself, "I'm so sorry, miss, are you alright?"

"You should worry about yourself first, you're bleeding." A calm voice interjected as a firm hand grasped the old lady gently and helped her up before the blond turned to Akeno and offered her a hand.

Accepting the blond's help with a face, Akeno ignored her spilled groceries and hurried to the old lady's side and began rummaging in her purse for some clean cloth she could use, "He might be an idiot sometimes, but he's right. Just hold still and I'll bandage this for you."

While she was busy looking for some cloth, she heard the sound of something tearing and looked up to see the blond tearing off his sleeves with ease, as he knelt beside the old lady. With an almost gentle expression, he began to wipe off the dirt, "It's alright, this will just hurt for a while."

The old lady chuckled as Naruto quickly and efficiently used his other sleeve to wrap her wound, "Don't worry about me young man, I'm used to pain. You should worry about your girlfriend first."

Naruto grinned childishly as he spoke cajolingly to the old lady, "Then I wouldn't have to worry about anybody, she's tougher than me by a ton!"

The old grandmotherly woman smiled faintly, "I know what that some girls want to appear strong, and they are, no doubt about that. But no one can be strong forever. If you don't show her that you love her, even a small pointless little gesture, you might find yourself losing her, boy."

Blushing as the old lady gave her a pointed look, Akeno was about to deny everything when the blond cut her off with a strangely serious expression, "Thank you. I'll keep it in mind next time."

It was the heat, Akeno reasoned with herself, I was why she felt so hot.

It had nothing to do with the ridiculous sincerity vibrating in his voice at all.

Nope. Not at all.

The little old woman whose elbow was wrapped up nicely, chuckled loudly and patted Naruto's cheek affectionately, "It's rare to see such honest young men nowadays. The two of you make a sweet couple….bickering like the best kind of friends…."

As the old woman wobbled away, Naruto grunted when he felt someone burying her elbow in his gut, "What was that for?" Akeno hissed quietly.

Instead of replying immediately, Naruto knelt down and began to pick up the spilt groceries first, "No reason in particular."

Akeno's eyebrow slowly rose at his dismissive tone, "In particular?"

"She's been following us for a while now." Naruto replied conversationally, "I was wondering what she wanted until just now."

"Was she a devil?"

"Not unless you consider little old human ladies as devils." Naruto commented with a grin.

"Then?!" Akeno demanded, getting tired of the blond's evasiveness.

Sighing, Naruto heaved the heavy pack onto his back, "She just came from a funeral reception if I'm not wrong, and she's been wandering around town when she saw us. I assume it was because she was reminded of her husband, and wanted to talk to us…., but didn't know how until she just bumped into you on purpose."

The raven haired priestess stared at him with disbelief, "How… in the seven worlds would you know something like that?"

Naruto shrugged and made a face, "When I first noticed her, she was wearing a funeral gown, and the dirt on her shoes smelt like the kind you'd find in a graveyard. Underneath all that, I could smell the stink of a hospital, sunk into her skin as if she had spent long hours there. She herself had no noticeable illness when I scanned her earlier, so it must have been someone close to her, someone that just passed away recently. If that wasn't enough, I noticed the way she was slouched, feel the despair radiating from her…"

Naruto pursed his lips and sighed, remembering Onizuka's words. "It just made just want to show her that the world hasn't abandoned her, that she isn't alone, even if it's false. If it gave her even a tiny bit of hope, then whatever embarrassment you or I felt was worth it." Naruto remarked calmly as he kept walking.

Akeno blinked.

It had never struck her how broad his shoulders were until she was standing here, behind him, and listening to him. Remembering the old man's words about how Naruto had lost more than most people would gain in entire lifetimes, Akeno came to something of a realization about the blond.

"You know, you look down on yourself too much. It's not that you can't do it anymore, you just don't want to because it reminds you of what everything you've sacrificed."

Naruto looked back over his shoulder "Did you say something?"

Akeno smiled, "I did."

"What was it? I busy scraping gum of my shoe so I didn't hear it."

"Just something you're going to have to learn by yourself."

"Eh…. C'mon!" Naruto whined, "It's no fair saying something then not telling me."

"Nope~"

"Never mind, I know what you said!"

Akeno gave him a genuinely surprised look, "You do?"

"Yeah, you want to go to the toilet, but you were too shy to say it out loud right!?"

The heat slowly rose up Akeno's cheeks again as all the passerby's suddenly looked at them because of his OVERLY loud voice.

"Right? I was right, right?"

"Naaaaruuutoo…"

"What? You need a bottle?"

THWACK.

Fuck it. She was an idiot for even thinking that he was a good person.

*****End Game*****