Trying Again 9
Koneko grunted while sliding backward into a tree, her guard stance not falling even with the impact. It was day three of the group's 15 day training period and since they had arrived all the white haired girl was doing was sparring with the blonde across from her. She'd raised her gravity seal to level six while Naruto had added a resistance seal, making the air feel like mud even with the gravity their combined effects, she was barely moving but still she pushed to train. At the end of yesterday's training, Naruto had lead Asia to their camp site so the nun could heal the pulled and torn muscles they both had. He'd also brought back enough food to last them till tomorrow.
Asia also explained that she was trying to expand her magic reserves, and try to do learn other healing spells. The three had talked at length of the goals they intended and Naruto had made suggestions that Asia starts studying barrier techniques so that she could heal and protect at the same time. To Koneko, the nun looked like she was hearing Naruto's words as law, even if, said blond male was more focused on consuming as much Ramen as possible, which was slightly disturbing to watch.
Flashback.
"Naruto-san you shouldn't eat so quickly you could choke." Asia said, mentally agreeing with Koneko even if she didn't know it.
Naruto finished swallowing his last mouth full of Raman from his third bowl, as he'd eaten some sushi and rice to help fill him up. "This is nothing Goldie; I am trying to keep down my pace as I don't want to disgust you girls"
"Disturbing." Was all Koneko could say while she stared at the boy. Naruto just gave a small smirk as he tossed the empty dish into the garbage bag he had gotten from the house. "What are we training in next Naruto-sempai?"
"Why do neither of you ever just call me Naruto?" The blonde boy countered with his own question. Asia tried to stutter out a reply, something about disrespectful, but Naruto couldn't really make it out. Koneko just stared at him blankly waiting for her answer. With a soft sigh he decided to just answer the younger girl. "Right now I'm working on trying to get your endurance up so that you can keep up with me longer. Currently you can last about 20 minutes full out before your stamina gives out, with the sparring you're starting to instinctively pick up on my style and how to counter it. If there was a way for you to recuperate more energy it'd be easier."
"Ano, could I help?" Asia asked shyly, getting a small smile from Naruto and a grateful look from Koneko.
"Sorry Goldie, you already told me your gear doesn't heal stamina nor do you know any spells for that." Naruto said. Asia's mood fell while when she heard that.
"Stop holding back," Koneko said to Naruto. Naruto raised an eyebrow at the request from the girl. "No flames, you're holding back."
"Ah, I'm trying to get my Flames back under control; they have been acting up since the church," Naruto said while leaning back a bit to stretch out his back, he released a soft content groan when a loud pop sound. "So until I have my control back I can't use my flames in a spar."
"Mooo, I'm sorry Naruto-san. It's my fault that you lost… Owi." Asia stopping and was rubbing her forehead where Naruto lightly flicked her.
"Nothing that happened there was your fault, Goldie. You where just a victim of circumstance, do not blame yourself." Naruto said smiling at the blonde girl
"Sempai is right." Koneko said with a nod.
Asia looked between the two with tears in her eyes but the wide smile on her face let them both know that she was far from upset. "Hai!" she got out with some effort, as to not choke on her words.
"Good now let's figure out what we are all doing tomorrow."
Flashback end.
"Well Kitten from the way you're legs are shaking we're going to have to call it for now. You're getting better though." Naruto said as he moved to walk off, only to have to stop and bend backwards as a foot flashed in front of his face. "eh?"
"Not done!" Koneko growled out, wisps of red energy around her.
Naruto raised to a standing position, sliding right into a stance without a thought, his eyes flashed into garnet slits of his energy sight. What he saw was fairly shocking. While she wasn't truly doing Senjutus as she had explained it to him, she was taking in energy and using it, his bleed off to be exact. "Well isn't that interesting."
Koneko, hyped up on Naruto strong chakra, attacked first. The girl threw a supercharged right hook that Naruto backflipped to avoid, planting one of his feet into her stomach to continue her flight. The girl turned her flight into a flip landing it before she turned herself into a spinkick that actually release a crescent wave of Naruto's red chakra. Said blonde needed to cover both his arms in his chakra cloak as he blocked the attack as to not lose anything important, as it was he still ended up with a large gash on his forearms.
With another growl the girl was on the blonde again in heartbeat, throwing punches and kicks far stronger then she had ever before. 'She's showing this much improvement in strength and speed when using her senjutus wrong. Doing it right will be amazing.' That was when Naruto noticed something about his sparring partner; her eyes were unfocused and starting to gain a red hue to her golden irises. "You're running on instinct aren't you?" Frowning at the thought that the girl was going out of control over absorbing some of his chakra Naruto called out his flames to replace the chakra he was using to fuel his body.
Ducking another punch to the face Naruto shot out a swift palm stick to Koneko's stomach, with his flames just under his skin he was no longer feeding the white haired girls supply as well as the flames could consume the extra energy in the air through him. He just barely held back a wince when ebony flames shot out around his palm as it impacted into the Nekoshou's abs. He willed the fires away before they could burn his friend but he was sure this was going to be a long fight for control of his void abilities.
Falling into an offensive stance Naruto kept his hand open, as to do more pushing strikes rather than damaging attacks he'd do with fists or claws if they came out. His aim right now was to try and get Koneko to burn off his chakra, as she wasn't really controlling herself at the moment there would be little gained from having a real spar. With this thought in mind Naruto released his seal completely and kept his garnet eyes on the girl, who was now back to her feet and racing towards him at far better speeds then he'd seen from the girl before.
Shaking away the thoughts of how he could use this for training or in the match, as unless she could keep her head in battle it would be pointless.
Metal clashed against metal as sparks flew from the impact point. "Good, I'd say you're almost ready to increase the level again. You must be really pushing yourself Prep."
The fighters jumped back from each other as the blonde Knight swiped his hair back away from his face, the large amount of sweat he'd accumulated from his workout causing it to stay slicked back. "I'll believe that when I can hit you damnit." The youth grumbled. It seem that no matter how much he improved the ninja always stayed one step ahead, when it came to pure skill he knew he was the better swordsmen but Naruto had enough of a speed and reflex advantage that it negated most of his abilities.
"But hit me and you'll be out a sparring partner." The other blonde said as he moved back into a ready stance.
"Would do a world of good for my ego though, and it's not like more of his Shadow Clones can't be made."
"Oh I'm just feeling the love here Prep." The clone of the blonde ninja said sarcastically.
"Hmph." Yuto didn't really say anything; his response came in the form of him jumping forward in a downwards slash. While the attack form had been normal the attack itself was not, as a faint white glow covered Yuto's body. The Naruto clone managed to jump back and away from the attack zone just as Yuto crashed into the earth leaving a deeper crater then should have been possible for such an attack.
Naruto himself narrowed his eyes as he looked at the results of the attack, his eyes shifting from blue to red as he tracked all the energies in the clearing they'd been fighting in. 'He's unconsciously channeling his magic through his body like I do Chakra and my flames.' Naruto thought before he got a grin on his face, while not perfected yet Yuto had just started to create his own techniques. If he can get the boy to start using them consciously then this could move the other boy onto a whole new level for his fights.
Those thoughts were tabled for another time and the now red eyed blonde had to catch his sparring partner as he fell unconscious from exhaustion. "Well Prep, at least now you get to see the results you wanted." The boy muttered as he lifted the knocked out Knight over his shoulder to carry him back to his camp site, Naruto was going to be interested in this.
He was more than happy that Yuto was starting to come up with his own counters and new moves to work with, as Naruto himself wasn't as skilled in swordsmanship. He'd lost more than few against the smaller blonde when they worked strictly on skill and the ninja had to play by the knight's rules.
The vacation house
Around a table in the living area of the mansion sat a collection of girls with varying hair colors, all of the remaining members of Rias Peerage and Naruto's little sister were studying large amounts of books and documents. Standing quietly observing the group from a corner of the room was another Naruto, his eyes showing silent curiosity at what they were doing.
Akeno was studying the theory behind union spells and delay spells, she already had many of her own unique and powerful spells so she wanted to find some sort of edge; one that didn't involve diving into That.
After baring witness to the amount of destruction, no, pure Annihilation; that Rias and Naruto's combined powers caused the black haired devil wanted to dig more in-depth into ways that could match up to their might. One idea she'd had was a delay spell that could be triggered to combine with a spell she was casting, increasing its output. While her face didn't show it, Akeno's mind was almost frantic for ways to increase her abilities in as short an amount of time as possible.
Though she didn't want to say it, the fight with the fallen angels to save Asia had shaken her. While they had won, it was only because Naruto had managed to somehow make it in front of the attack that would have killed them all. They may not be so lucky next time. There was also the fact that Naruto had been injured badly, his body had healed at an incredible rate without doubt, but something had happened to his evil pieces. Akeno knew he was hiding it, she also knew that Rias had felt it too but was either scared to admit it or didn't know if it was just her imagination. Either way they will all have to confront the fact sooner or later. She only hoped that it wouldn't affect his performance in the rating game.
Asia and Hikari, both beginners in the aspects of magic, were sitting next to each other poring over every beginner's guide they could get their hands on. While Asia had more experience using mana, and therefore a larger reserve and better understanding on using it then her purple haired friend, all of her experience came from use of her Scared Gear. As the gear twilight healing, was an extremely power and useful gear, it was lacking in diversity, all it did was take ones mana and greatly speed up the healing of an injured body. This made it a great support Gear, however Naruto was right when he pointed out it only covered one aspect of support. As such Asia had taken to his suggestion with a passion, trying to learn and memorizes everything she could about creating and maintaining barriers.
Hikari on the other hand had taken to learning everything she could about fire magic, having taken to trying to follow in Naruto's footsteps, and becoming a swirling whirlpool of flames as well. At least that was her intent; she didn't know that Naruto was better with wind element in his old life or that his flames were not a result of fire magic. Her studies would not be a waste however, as while she couldn't take part in the rating game itself; she could help Asia to work on her barriers without them being over powered at first.
The last person at the table was Rias herself; the girl's hair was slightly frazzled, as she was holding her head with her hands on either side, fingers covered by her crimson locks. The Gremory heir was wearing a set of red framed reading glasses as she pored over all the files of Risers Rating games, trying her hardest to come up with some sort of plan. Her mind was running in many different directions with how things have been going as of late. While Akeno had been half right in that she did know something odd had happened to Naruto's evil pieces, she wasn't scared to ask nor was she ignoring the issue she was simply waiting on Naruto again. If he didn't say anything by week's end she would confront him about it. She didn't want to push, but she was also very worried about the draconic boy, he always tried to hold everything up himself, never asking or even thinking of asking for help.
"Well, aren't you all busy this morning." Naruto said with a smirk, enjoying the squawks of surprises from the four females. The clone had to quickly bent backwards as Akeno released a short spark of electricity at him in her surprise. "A bit jumpy are we?"
"Oh my, no. You are just being a bad boy and I thought you needed to be 'punished'." Akeno said back, having managed to bury her surprise quickly. She made note to stop letting her senses slip while reading again, she was far better sensor then the others so for her to let him get this close she was off her game.
The clone raised an eyebrow at the black haired girl while he rose to his feet again. "Somehow I doubt that would be about me being punished, and more about you spoiling yourself."
Akeno's eyes gained a mischievous gleam as she rose and started to seductively make her way across the room. "Ara ara Ghosty-kun, I promise I'll be spoiling you." The ponytailed queen whispered with a purr of desire.
"Akeno?!" Rias growled lowly. Looking back the standing pair saw Rias was developing a corona of red energy around her, her fingers digging hard into the armrests of the chair she was sitting in; her face as red as her hair. Across the table an equally red faced Asia was stuttering and gibbering something about 'pretty' and 'love', poor Hikari looked just as lost as Naruto, while Akeno was giggling madly.
"Sorry, Buchou didn't mean to make you jealous." Although Akeno said this aloud, everyone could tell that had been EXACTLY what she intended to do.
Sighing at her Queen teasing her again, Rias turned her focus on the still confused boy. "Naru-kun what are you doing here, I thought you were training with Koneko-chan on hand to hand combat?"
"I am." The boy said only to get looks of disbelief and confusion. "Well the boss is anyway. I'm here to see how everyone else is doing; and see if there's anything we can do for ya?"
"Oh right, those Shadow clones of yours." Rias said in understanding, still not use to the boy being in two or more places at once. "Well actually you could help me with my strategy. I'm not really having much luck thinking up the best way to deal with Riser."
"Err that might not be the best idea. Despite Az's best efforts otherwise, I'm really bad at strategy." Naruto admitted to the shock of the others present.
"But you beat Sona and made it look easy!" Akeno exclaimed.
"That's because I attacked her when she was in a weakened state and over confident." Naruto countered, only to see looks of confusion for the others. "Okay look, Uncle Az used to play chess with me a fair bit when he came to visit, always said it was to teach me to plan ahead. I never really got it, well the practice at least, I understand the concept. Anyway, Sona plays a lot like Uncle does, she's always planning both her moves and what she expects me to do. This works great when you're playing others that like to think strategically, not so well when you're facing someone that goes out of their way to mess with your plans, I can normally force a stalemate out of most players, even most REALLY good players, which I was expecting with her. However she was distracted, upset, and was still expecting me to play like her that put her at a major disadvantage; one that I used as fast as I could. So through her poor mindset, my luck and some damn good acting I made her learn her lesson." Naruto explained off the chess game. "Chaos theory at its best I'd say."
"And here I thought you just made your strategy look like random moves." Rias said, slightly disappointed that she couldn't get Naruto's help.
"Meh, I'm a 'focus on the end game' type. Only advice I can give you is when you're failing, cheat. That don't work Blow it to hell and back." Naruto said, trying to nod sagely even as everyone broke out into laugher.
Once she caught her breath again Rias looked at him with a bit of a smile, glad he came by this morning, as it took away a bit of the stress of worrying over her match just by listening to him. "You know, we've been making more assumptions about you then we realized. Like the chess game, we just assumed you were going to win in an oddly chaotic skill, when it was more a lucky draw."
"Well, I knew I wouldn't LOSE, winning as I did was a lucky break because to wasn't at her best." Naruto said trying to defend his win. "Besides she was going to lose at some point because she was so used to winning the way she did she was forgetting to take everyone's personality into account in their games. It isn't always exactly what they seem."
"How so?" Hikari asked, very interesting in how her brother's mind worked.
"For example, my confrontation with her the first night, I came off as brash and over confident. Not saying I'm not brash most of the time, just that I'm never one to underestimate someone. So Sona, took that into thinking I was such a straightforward person I'd treat chess like that, or that even my conduct with her was only skin deep."
"What was the deeper meaning Nii-san?"
"To stand up in the face of fear." Naruto said as he looked around. "I'm not expecting everyone to just run forward into a fight guns blazing, if everyone did we'd all die pretty quick. Rather I expect those that I respect to face forward and stand tall even when afraid. Like you Red, I get pissed off, spiting fire and all that, and I KNOW you're scared when I'm like that; but you don't cower away, you still stand by your beliefs, Sona buckled. She's starting to show her getting her feet back though so that's good."
"Oh my, I didn't think Ghosty-kun put so much thought into that." Akeno said with a giggle. Naruto just stuck his tongue out at her once again getting everyone to giggle after a heavy atmosphere.
"Anyways, my point is I don't do strategy, more just screw with people's heads." Naruto finalized his explanation. "And the best way I can explain that is, without playing into their hand do the last thing anyone would expect you to."
"I see, well, can we at least look over this so you can give me insight while I do the planning?" Rias asked, hoping to spend time with him, even if she knew it was a clone.
"Don't see how that would help but sure."
"It will just show opening for attack." Rias said with a smile "Ones that most people wouldn't think of."
If it wouldn't have taken away from his ever stock image Arthur would have sighed aloud by now. His team leader, Vali Lucifer, had led them into this town under the assumption that the devils here would be on guard and after them the moment they arrived. He'd been wrong, not only were their far less devil in the area than they had been told, those who where here had barely paid any attention to them. A couple of them had been running around town on bikes, but that looked more of a case of them trying to do their 'devil jobs' as he repeatedly heard the brown haired one complaining about.
The strongest holy sword wielder was currently seated in a Café that was on one of the main streets from Kuoh academy. The café; which boasted having a large selection coffees and high quality teas, had oddly been named 'Storm Front'. According to what the boy had gathered the name was in dedication to a local hero or legend; which one it was still kind of unclear.
Apparently, there is a protector that patrolled the city at night, which kept the crime down and protected innocent people. There were a lot of people that whisper of him or her but nobody could confirm who it was.
The only witnesses only spoke of a black shadow, or a flash of golden yellow; not much to work with for the police, or him. The main reason he'd come to was it was the only café that was dedicated to the story, but wasn't just named the shadow something. After having set up a base to operating from Arthur's teammates had all split up to look for their target; all came back empty handed other than his sister Le Fay. When she heard the rumor she had asked around about it and reported it back to him and Vali. He'd thought of dismissing it as simple hearsay, but Le Fay insisted they at least look into it. Once they had Vali begin to believe it was their target or was at least had some relation to him.
Which led to why the young British blonde was currently in this café, trying to discover any form of information that he could get from listening in, while enjoying the admittedly good tea. "Heya Blondie. How's it going?" Came a playful voice, drawing Arthur from his musing. Across the table stood the dark haired form of Bikou, his grin clearly showing he found something amusing.
"What do you want Bikou?" Arthur asked in a flat tone, while not really disliking the Youkai he did find the other mans constant blood lust fairly tiring to deal with.
Bikou laughed while he pulled out the chair in front of Arthur and sat down. "Now is that any way to talk to a friend?"
"It is the way I speak with you." Arthur said simply while taking a sip of his tea, almost completely ignoring the man across for him.
"So cold," Bikou said with a laugh. "Anyway, what have ya got so far?" He asked as he waved for a waitress.
"Nothing." Arthur said with a sigh as he laid his cup on the table before him. "These people are going to surprising lengths to avoid saying anything about him. If I didn't know that we are investigating a real person I would have already brushed their conversion off as pure myth." The descendent of King Arthur explained. His eyes had narrowed in thought, not even his true ancestor had become this much of a myth to average people. "I'm beginning to believe someone is making an effort to suppress the truth behind our target."
Bikou blinked and lost his grin for a second when he heard this. Narrowing his eyes in thought, he made an order to the waitress, before turning back to the blonde swordsmen across from him. "What do you mean?"
Arthur crossed his arms across his chest while he stared down at the tea cup in front of him, his face reflecting how deeply he was thinking before he voiced any thoughts on what he was about to say. "The way everyone in this town talks about this vigilante, yet no one speaks a name, nor what he looks like beyond this 'black shadow' or 'golden flash' denotes that he is known but feared or revered. Yet no one makes an effort to find him; which while normal for a whole seems to go against the human nature. Humans; on a whole, seek confirmation on things. The existence of God, Devils, Youkai, even their own existence; we as a people always try to verify things. While some can take things at face value, or at least believe something 'in the moment' if we have time to think on something we desire proof that it happened or is real." Bikou nodded. He'd seen enough people that didn't believe in the supernatural simply because they didn't have 'proof'. What Arthur was saying made sense. "These people however simply either except the boy is real and don't question it, or don't believe he is real and don't question it." Arthur said.
Bikou narrowed his eyes. "You think it's a spell then? Why not simply erase the memory of himself?"
Arthur seemed too frowned deeply while he tried to think of an answer. "I'm not entirely sure; I'd likely have to ask Le Fay for that. She is the one that normally handles this sort of thing, it does seem like it is more trouble than it's worth if he didn't want to be found."
"Could he want the attention?"
"Then why go through the trouble not to be known? No one seems to know what he looks like beyond 'black and gold'" Arthur countered, sounding like he was questioning himself as much as his companion.
Bikou groaned as he rubbed his face. "This guy seems to go against everything Vali described him to be."
Arthur sighed as he lifted his tea again. "Agreed. If 'She' hadn't said so herself, I'd question if we were really searching for a dragon." He stopped talking as the waitress returned with Bikou's order. Once she had made sure they had everything they wanted she slowly wondered off again allowing the young men to return to their conversion. "Has anyone else found anything?"
Bikou shook his head slowly looking into his cup, as if expecting it to have some form of answer for him. "Not really. Cat lady can't even find any form of energy that could count for what we are looking for, she said there are weird chakra signatures in random places around town, but they don't leave a trail, which she said should be impossible." Bikou started to chuckle lightly as he remembered how aggravated this Nekomata would get while she was talking about it. "Vali got called back by Azazel, something about needing him to be ready for some rogues that are getting out of hand. So it's just you and your cute little sister."
Arthur gave the Monkey Youkai a cold glare at the man's comment about his sister. "Le Fay hasn't reported back yet, she said she'd be by tonight to tell me if she has found anything worth looking into. We can hope she has something as she was the one that found this lead." Seeing that Bikou had yet to lose his smirk, Arthur kept his eyes locked with the other man. "If you touch her in any way you will be breathing from the other side of you head by day break."
Bikou's grin remained, as this was a normal argument; and as such long since lost any fear of the man. As much as Le Fay was a cute girl she was far too hyper and kind for the battle maniac, he did however love to push the older brother's buttons whenever he could. "And if she touches me?"
"Your fate will remain the same." Bikou's laughter caused quite a few odd looks from the others in the café.
Kyoto Youkai head quarters.
Golden eyes stared intently at the kneeling form of a gray haired man with wolf eyes from their seat. The eyes belonged to the resident leader of the Youkai faction, Yasaka No Kyuubi. The young looking blonde haired fox woman was dressed in shrine maiden attire, consisting of a folded white shirt with large flowing white sleeves, and ankle length red skirt; a open slit at the back allowing for her long golden blonde fox tails to fan out behind her. "Please report." The women said in a polite yet authority filled voice.
"Hai Yasaka-sama. I was able to find out that Ophis has sent her top team into the Devil controlled area of Kouh, in search for a new and powerful recruit. Whoever it is, she wants him badly, while I wasn't able to get much detail she gave the order that they are not to return until he is found." The wolf man said, not lifting his head.
Yasaka eyes widened as she heard this, from the many spies she'd managed to get into the Khaos Brigade she knew that Ophis's top team was likely stronger than even her. She hadn't been able to get the exact measure of their strength but if they were being sent out for one target he would have to be very strong indeed. "I see. Anything on the target?"
"No Yasaka-sama. The only thing we could find out was that the target was to be 'Found' not taken." That caused more worry to appear in the fox women's eyes.
'A team that can take out Ultimate Class being was only sent to FIND a new recruit?' Yasaka thought while she looked over the paper version of the report her wolf spy was currently giving. Her eyes looked back at the still kneeling man when she noticed he was slightly shifting giving quick glances at her and around the room. "Is there something else?"
"No Madam… Nothing is proven at least." The man said quietly.
"Go on."
"Well, it isn't confirmed however there have been rumors floating around that they were sent to find another dragon Madam." The gray haired wolf said.
Yasaka's eyes shot wide open. "Another dragon user?"
"No Yasaka-sama, a new dragon." The man corrected, his eyes seemed conflicted about if he should continue talking. Seeing his leader was quietly waiting for him to explain he took a deep breath before he continued talking. "All dragon based Scared Gears have been located and accounted for. The last two, the absorption line of Vritra had been located in the Heir Sitri's Peerage, while the Red Dragon Emperor's Boosted Gear is being recruited by the Hero Faction from North America. While Vritra's last gear is in Kouh he is confirmed to not be the target."
Yasaka lightly bit her index finger as she worked over everything she'd just been told; while the idea of another dragon being out there somewhere was somewhat disconcerting if it was in fact a truly new dragon, it should still be fairly weak. However if it was weak then Ophis should not have taken notice of it, but if it was a strong dragon then why had it only been noticed now. "This is very disturbing. Continue to investigate it as you can, I will send some people into Kouh to investigate as well. What other news to do have?"
The gray wolf nodded and continued his report. "We have confirmed the Fallen Angel General Kokabiel has indeed gone rogue and is gathering forces to restart the Great War. He has made fledgling deals with the Old Satan Supporters in the devils among the Khaos Brigade, as well as pulling most Fallen that were there to his side. No plans have been stated yet that we are aware of, however, he made no move to make contact with our group."
Yasaka nodded grimly "I don't imagine he will; Kokabiel always looked down on every other race. He likely only spoke to the Devils because they will make setting off the war easier."
The spy nodded as well, being sure to remember to inform the others of Yasaka's words. "Lastly we have finally been able to ascertain the leader of rogue hero faction." Yasaka's head snapped up, as this was something they'd been trying to find out for a while now. "Cao Cao"
Rias sighed in content relief as she let her tired body sink into the large bathtub; sitting next to her was Akeno, while Koneko was laid out at the end of the tub. It had been a full 7 days since she'd seen her Rook, and the white haired girl looked like she was almost asleep already just by finally being able to relax. "How's your training coming Koneko-chan?"
"Tiring." The girl barely muttered out, her arm lightly twitching simply from being moved.
"Ufufu is Ghosty-kun wearing you out Koneko-chan? Maybe I should help you 'deal' with him?" Akeno said teasingly, licking her lips a bit. The black hair girl kept giggling when she saw Rias' glare from the corner of her eye, however her face morph into slight surprise when all she got from her target was a soft groan and a waved hand. "Oh my, are you okay Koneko-chan." This time worry was very evident in the Queen's voice.
"Tired." The girl muttered.
"Koneko…" Rias started to asked but was cut off when the other girl groaned loudly an sat up to look at them.
"Wake up at 5, Spar till 7, we eat then work through kata's till 9. 9-12 we spar again, focusing on speed. We eat then work on kata's again till 2. 2-5 we work on new moves. 5-7 we eat and relax, often having Asia-sempai heal me. 8-10 we meditate to connect with our energies; or spar. Then I sleep. He trains more." Koneko laid out her day for the last week in a flat exhausted tone, the girl's eyes never coming more than half way open. Rias and Akeno's jaws looked like they had dislocated from pure shock but Koneko wasn't finished. "Naruto-sempai also trains with Kida-sempai, does personal training, cooks our meals; helps with Buchou's planning and helps Hikari-chan with starting martial arts."
"Errr." The two older girls couldn't even figure out where to start. They had thought that they were working hard with how much they had gone over, and the amount of practice they'd done. Even with his clones running around Naruto didn't seem to stop with how much they'd just heard.
"I am tired." Koneko finally stated blandly before she laid back down in the hot water trying to relax her tired muscles. As much as she cared for the boy she was really starting to regret asking for him to not hold back on her training; as she hadn't even told the two that she had already moved up to level 10 in her gravity seal, her muscle had been torn and healed by Asia so much she wasn't even sure when she'd stopped feeling the pain from it.
She did know that when Naruto had explained to her what she was doing, her drawing in his extra chakra, she'd started to panic, badly. The process was VERY similar to Senjutsu, similar enough that the Nekoshou didn't even know she was doing instinctively while she was fighting against the blonde dragon. It had taken the boy an entire day after she first used it for him to calm her down enough to continue their training. Since it wasn't true senjutsu she wasn't taking in the worlds hate, rather she was only taking in Naruto's Chakra while he used his flames to eat away any extra if she took in more than she could control.
While the boost she was given from this was a great deal lower then true Senjutsu, it did increase her strength and stamina by a great deal. She hadn't been able to recreate the kick attack Naruto said she had done while in the berserk state she believed she was getting close. Another bonus in her mind was with taking in Naruto's chakra she felt she was closer to him, she could also feel his emotional state without having to be touching him. It wasn't until she had arrived back at the house that she realized it wasn't just HIS emotions she could feel while having his Chakra in her.
She had, and still could, feel everyone in the house's emotions as clear as day; it almost got to the point it over whelmed her emotions. Rias' and Hikari's excitement when they saw Naruto walking in with her almost made the cat girl want to jump on the boy like his sister had; the pure happiness that Asia often exuded seemed to be greater now that she wasn't having to heal them. Akeno's mischievous joy when she was speaking with the boy or Rias jealousy when he seem to pay more attention to others rather than the red head which was followed very closely by confusion. Koneko felt it all rushing through her, her only safe zone seem to be near Naruto himself. His aura seem to deaden everything to a certain degree, something she was sure was from this flames.
While most of the feeling coming from the group could just have easily been seen from their actions, it was the underling emotions that truly got Koneko thinking. While normally she could only feel a person's emotions while in contact with them; therefore more often the emotions she felt was focused on her, now that she could feel them from a distance she was noticing things from a slightly different outlook.
Thinking back on the interaction she was surprised just how apparent it should have been; Hikari's slightly obsessive desire to please Naruto, the bubbling excitement and joy the Lamia felt when he said he was proud of her was the same as when she remembered her behavior towards her sister. The girl had truly taken Naruto as her family, her whole world really, although the love for him was purely of family, as she felt a small spike of lust from the purple haired girl when Kiba had walked into the room.
The blushing and bubbling from Asia was another thing that was pretty clear to all, the girl was crushing on her savior badly, but as time moved on the reaction was different. Koneko had thought that the girl was getting over her crush, but what she felt today clearly denied that idea; the love for the blonde was almost the same level as Hikari's but it was clearly of a different kind then what the young snake girl felt for him. Then again the only person likely to be surprised by the Nun's feelings was Naruto himself.
The two sets of feelings that made the white haired girl really think were from her current bath mates though. Akeno's self-loathing wasn't a real surprise for the girl; however it had decreased from when she first joined the peerage with was nice, but her bubbling desire when she was near Naruto as well as the real feelings of happiness when joking with the blonde was surprising. For all her smiles and jokes Koneko knew very well that the black haired girl was often masking how she really felt, something that most of this group had done often. That the boy who felt less than any of them could lighten the emotional burdens of the others was truly amazing feat.
Rias feeling for Naruto were slightly less unexpected, when one really thought about it. She was feeling a great deal of attraction towards him, as well as much confusion, frustration and happiness. These emotions where often displayed when she dealt with him in their talks, however the part that surprised Koneko was that depth of the feelings for the draconic blonde. Likely the two major things stopping Rias from really expressing anything for him was the engagement and the massive amounts of confusion the girl felt.
Koneko blew out a breath as she finally let her thoughts go and gave into the soothing warm waters of her bath. With all of Naruto's chakra now out of her system her empathy was mostly returned to normal. Peeking one eye towards the subjects of her thoughts she couldn't help the desire to sigh; both older girls looked both embarrassed and worried. Rias more so then Akeno, however one could still see that the black haired girl was still feeling slightly embarrassed by the considerable difference in the amount of training they were doing. "Different types; different way." Koneko offered up lightly, surprising the two.
"Pardon?" Rias asked, confused by the comment.
"Different types of fighting, different ways of training." Koneko said, hoping to not have to expand on it while still easing their thoughts. She sighed when she saw they still didn't understand what she meant; she was already starting to miss how she and Naruto could explain things to each other with only a few words. "Naruto-sempai, Yuto-sempai and I are physical fighters; we train our bodies to do our fighting. You are all Magic fighters, you train your minds and spirits to fight. We need to be able to fight without thought; you need to be able to think to fight. Different types of fighting need different types of training. Pushing our selves gets the best results from us; you pushing yourselves causes' you to lose any results you had."
The two girls smiled happily as they finally understood what the younger girl meant and started to relax more, even if they did vow to try harder in their minds. Rias tilted her head slightly with a small smile while she thought of something she wanted to ask her Rook about "HEY PREP! I THINK I'VE FIGURED OUT HOW TO BREATH FIRE, COME HERE I WANT TO TRY IT!" Rias mouth snapped shut and all three girls turned their heads to the door with wide eyes.
"OH HELL NO! STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME YOU SCALEY ASS BASTARD!"
"NO HURTING YUTO-KUN NII-SAN!"
The three girls looked at each other for a moment before they all couldn't handle it anymore and burst out laughing. "Hehe, I missed these moments." Rias said after finally getting her giggles under control again.
"This is what we are fighting for Buchou." Akeno said with a small smile on her face as well. Koneko didn't say anything but both other girls clearly saw the slight grin on the other girls' lips.
Naruto snickered to himself as he watched Yuto back away from him, he really hadn't even started to try and breath fire, like he joked, he just really wanted to make the boy move out of the chair he was sitting in. There really wasn't even a reason he wanted to, he just felt the urge to see the boy scramble 'Totally worth it too.' Hikari was coming up behind him and likely either going to try and berate him or see the smirk and catch him, meaning he was going to have to end it soon. Sucking in as much air as he could, swelling his chest massively, Naruto watch as his princely friend ducked his head. Faintly hearing Hikari's yell to stop Naruto opened his mouth and burst out laughing. "Got'ch." He said before turning his back and walking back towards the living room.
"Wha?" Yuto said as he looked up from his curled up place on the floor. Seeing the other blonde started to leave the Knight started to put everything that just happened together. It only took the bishounen boy a few seconds to realize he'd just gotten another prank pulled on him, causing him to groan aloud and pick himself back up. "Damn Ghost! When are you going to stop doing that?!" Yuto demanded as he fell in step behind the blonde Rook.
Naruto shrugged while smirking over his shoulder at the other boy. "Don't know, maybe when the calls stop coming in."
Yuto face-palmed at the reply, knowing he was still being punished for his 'impress my big brother' stunt. "You're not going to let that go are you?"
"You should have known better then to listen to Uncle Az." Naruto shot back, getting another groan in reply. Shaking his head with a light chuckle the whiskered blonde lead the two back around the corner Hikari was coming up on, his arms instinctively shooting up to catch the legged Lamia when she stumbled in her run and almost crashed into another wall. "You really shouldn't run Habi-imouto."
"Mooo, I'll get used to these legs at some point." The purple haired girl whined as Naruto helped steady her.
"Who said anything about the legs, you run into things even with a tail." Naruto bluntly pointed out. Hikari huffed indigently before turning her head away from the pair, ignoring her brother while trying to hide her blush from the other blonde behind him. Yuto's soft chuckles weren't helping her much though. Shaking his head and smiling Naruto started to lead all of them back towards the living room. "So getting back to what you were saying about your magic studies?"
Hikari's eyes shot back open with excitement again. "Oh right, so Akeno-nee showed me how to make the fire ball spell more open ended so I can control it and make it bigger. She says most of the spells I'm going to learn work the same way but some like the 'Fire Wall' spell are limited in some ways, like it has to always be connected to the ground or can't be moved once it's made." The girl bubbled out happily skipping her steps back through the house.
Naruto and Yuto nodded along while she started going over how she was doing and how she was going to be the greatest fire mage ever, even better then Naruto himself. "She does know you don't use fire magic right?" Yuto asked in a whisper.
"I tried to explain it a few times, I think she just wants to try and copy me. I figure she'll figure it out later, and by then she'll have a different goal… Hopefully." Naruto answered just as quietly. He developed a sweatdrop near the end of his sentence when he noticed that Hikari hadn't stopped talking even though she was going red in the face. Yuto snickered all the same, the two were surprisingly alike in some manners and yet almost complete opposites in others. "Hey Hebi-imouto shouldn't you and Goldie be getting ready for your bath?" Naruto said loud enough to cut into the girls ramblings.
"Oh Right! ASIA-CHAN!" The transformed Lamia yelled before running off. Naruto raised his hand to call for her not to run but before he got anything out the blonde pair heard a crash and 'oww'. The whiskered boy could only drop his head and hand in defeat, while the other started to chuckle lightly, knowing that the girl would be fine.
"Well, at least she energetic." Yuto said while he patted his friend on his shoulder.
"She's an energized wrecking ball." Naruto replied lamely, wincing when he heard twin crashes from both his sister and the blonde nun she had gone to find. "How can anyone be that clumsy, let alone two people?"
Yuto snorted a bit after recovering from his own wince. "Got me, but I'm guessing it's a trade off for how cute the pair can be."
The male Rook just shook his head as he straightened himself and starting slowly walking again, the Knight falling in step slightly behind him. "So how's your new technique coming?"
"Surprisingly good, after getting the hang of controlling the Aura itself; using it is pretty much more a matter of just focus rather than exertion." Yuto said while he formed an orb of bluish-purple light to float above his right hand to show the other boy. "Admittedly it is still fairly draining in comparison to when I only used my mana to make swords, but the speed and power boost it offers is nothing to dismiss."
"I imagine it would be fairly difficult to hold that for long, the strain will lessen as your reserves grow." Naruto commented before nodding. "And your ideas for ranged attacks?"
Yuto seemed to narrow his eyes while he remembered his practice in making new moves. "Well, that's been a little more difficult. While I'm not having much trouble with making elemental weapons throw off waves for their elements, I can't seem to get the non-element ones to do the same."
"Err, that was a bad explanation at the end Prep, it sounded like you're trying to make your swords throw out waves of metal or something." Naruto's eyebrow was raised in confusion at what his friend was trying.
Yuto stopped at what Naruto said and starting chuckling at the thought. "That would be pretty funny to see wouldn't it?" Imagining swinging his sword and having metal I-beams coming flying out of it. Shaking his head the swordsmen tried to better explain what he was trying to do. "What I mean is I can't get my basic swords, or eater blades like the holy eraser to send off wave like attacks of any sort."
By the time Yuto had finished explaining what he meant the two had made it into the living area of the mansion. Thinking on what the bishounen boy had said Naruto started questioning him to see if he may be able to understand what was wrong. "How exactly are you going about making the waves?"
Yuto sat down in his original spot that Naruto had chased him out of before; something that the other blonde had done as well before answered his training partner. "Not much to explain really, I channel my magic into the blade, increasing its attack power, while I swing I release it allowing the swing to throw the attack."
Naruto blinked "You're just releasing it aren't you?"
"Yeah, that's what I just said."
"Then that's your problem." Naruto said with a grin. Yuto looked at the other boy with a confused frown marring his face, seeing the look Naruto's grin increased. "When you are channeling the magic into elemental blades the mana is remade into the element, as you stop building up power you throw the power with your swing. The problem you're having with you normal swords is that the Mana isn't changed into anything so it stays in the sword before slowly dispelling. If you want to throw wave attack with those YOU need to make the wave with the mana, try having it circle around the sword instead of in it." Yuto looked gob-smacked when he listened to Naruto explain; very simply, the mistake he'd been making for the last three days.
"I feel like an Idiot." Yuto groaned out as he palmed his face in both his hands. Naruto only chuckled. "And now that you've explained that I know why my Eater Blades don't work either, with how they suck in the desired element they can't throw their attacks because they'd have nothing to pull the element back too."
"True, though you could likely make the blades longer and shorter depending on your will with a bit of work." Both boys fell into silence after that, Yuto because he was thinking of how he could try what Naruto had suggested about the sword length and Naruto because he was just comfortable and was starting to fall asleep sitting up.
The next morning left Naruto both confused and utterly lost. While he had been getting up fairly early for the last week it didn't mean that he had been having a much better time waking up, he still rarely had all his senses when he woke up. Looking to his right he was disoriented by the blob of bright red laying on his arm that should have been white, thinking he had the wrong side he looked to the left and saw a mass of black weighting that arm down. Groaning in confusion and his lacking mental abilities in the morning the boy tried to figure out where he was, as he remembered being in the living room talking with Yuto then being here.
Lifting his head a bit the blonde boy saw that he was in one of the Mansion bedrooms, at least he was fairly sure that's where he was because he was in a large crimson covered bed much like the covers Rias put on most of her beds. The room's decorations were sparse; mostly being clothing that was thrown about from the girls sleeping here. He'd also located the missing white blob; she was sleeping on his stomach between the other two girls.
Releasing a soft sigh the boy scanned the room again before his eyes laid upon what he needed, his body pillow was brought into the room with them. He'd have to thank Koneko for that, as she was the most likely person to have gotten it. The girl liked sleeping more than him and likely didn't want him waking her up when he got up. Closing his eyes he focused on the pillow before switching himself with it and escaping the bed.
It surprisingly only took him 25 minutes of aimless staggering around to find the kitchen, by which time he had his head cleared enough that he knew how to make his morning coffee, and insured that he was indeed still wearing clothing. He really didn't want to have to deal with his sister yelling at him for not being clothed again, he did not need a headache added to his already sleep fogged mind. 20 minutes later the blonde was seating himself at the table with a large plate of scrambled eggs and toast and his second coffee of the morning. On the floor next to his seat was an equally large bowl of eggs buttered bread for the boy's familiar, which Tabar was digging into quickly.
"Any idea what we should do today?" Naruto asked the wolf next to him in a lazy half asleep voice. Hearing the canine give an almost questioning sound the boy swallowed the food he'd been chewing and answered "Well, everyone has the day off to rest before going back to work. I really don't feel like going out there only to be dragged back by Kitten or someone, plus I got a bit of my control back for my flames so don't need to go overboard on that." Tabar looked up to his master for a moment and tilted his head. "Yes I know; a bit is not what I had before but at least it's not hurting to use them anymore."
Tabar gave him a snort before returning to his breakfast, a sound that Naruto returned while he did the same. Tabar finished his food first and calmly trotted off to the corner of the room to wait for his master, something Naruto wasn't going to make the animal do for long. The blonde had just finished cleaning up his dishes when a sleepy red head entered the room. " Mornin' Naru." Rias said around a large yawn.
"Morning Red. What are you doing today?" Naruto asked as he leaned against the wall, out of the way as the girl rummaged around the kitchen looking for something to eat. As he drank last bit of his coffee still in his cup as the boy's mind was started to work better as caffeine awakening his slumbering neurons.
"Nothin' don't wanna do nothin' today." The girl murmured lowly, still very tired from the night. Although it had been one of best night's sleep she had had in weeks, that didn't mean she had wanted to wake up.
Giving a soft snort as he drained the last of his coffee, Naruto pushed himself off the wall and headed for the last place he left his clothing bag. "Right, I'll be back after I take a real shower. You should be awake by then and I'll ask again." Rias just muttered a soft good bye while she found the cereal.
As he showered Naruto started to review his own training so far. His fight with Tabar had caused more than a couple of his memories to come back to him, though they were still very dis-conjointed and immensely scattered. Remembered images of talking to the tailed beasts as well as the main attack for all of them; he also remembered his first encounter with Jiraiya, the original author of the books he was republishing. However the new memory that had the most effect on him was of learning his main attack: the Rasengan.
Relearning the attack was much quicker than it was originally, he had already gotten to the third and final step. It felt very odd because of his new beast type chakra, the Rasengan was now completely red in color. The biggest problem he was having right now was if he introduced any other energies to the Rasengan it became increasingly unstable; he'd already had it blow up in his hand several dozen times by trying to add magic and trying to add his flames so far just consumed the sphere.
Blowing out his breath, Naruto turned his head to the ceiling, allowing the hot water to cascade across his body. The blonde contemplated how is life came to this point. Although he would never trade it, only a few months ago he would never have expected himself to own his own home while living with several women on top of that having any sister or the best friend that could pretty much be classified as his brother. One of the unexpected bonus benefits of having coming contact with these people was now his emotions were actually starting to come to the surface, this was something he is still having trouble identifying but at least he now knew what they were. He often caught himself reminiscing about time before they came and how empty he really felt back then even if he was becoming a void Dragon he still felt more now than he had in his entire new life.
A playful smirk crossed his face as he thought about how much she now knew about is supposedly uncle Azazel. Of all the many things he is expected from that man he never thought he would be the leader of anything; let alone the entire fallen Angel race. The man was a hilarious pervert, a loyal friend, and an obsessive fisherman. He could never imagine his life without the man he had come to see as the first member of his new family.
Getting out of the shower and grabbing a nearby towel, Naruto once more started to think about what he could do today in order to waylay the boredom that could set it. They didn't have his gaming consol here, not that he was much good at it, nor did he want to go back to studying with his day off. That pretty much put an end to most of the things he'd been doing for the last couple of months; Training, learning magic, studying alchemy, studying for school, taking care of the house work, taking care of Hikari, cooking meals, doing requests. 'I really haven't had much of a life have I?' The blonde thought as he realized how little he'd been getting out.
Trying to think about what he used to do before all this started his eyes fell onto his cell phone, placed on the edge of the sink, and he remembered his old ring tone. "Anime!" Naruto suddenly said aloud. "I was in the middle of One Piece, I can get back to that." a grin spread across his face as he finished toweling off and started getting dressed. "Wonder if anyone wants to watch with me?"
Pulling on a shirt and wrapping the towel around his neck; to catch the last drops of water to fall from his hair, Naruto left the bathroom and made his way back down into the kitchen. Upon entering the room the boy almost wanted to snicker at the scene in front of him, most of the people in the mansion had made their way down to the kitchen, only Koneko and Hikari still remained in bed, but everyone down stairs looked like he imagined himself in the morning.
Akeno had yet to put her hair up in her normal ponytail, allowing it to fall freely around her body; giving her a look like she had a black vial covering her from head to toe. Her eyes, only half open, had a slightly glazed completely unfocused look to them. Although she was no longer naked as she had been in bed, her apparent idea of getting dressed on her day off consisted of wearing another of his shirts, over sized on her, and he assumed she wore underwear, but couldn't be sure.
Rias was sitting across from her black haired Queen at the kitchen table, hunched over a steaming cup of tea. The girl didn't look any more awake than when he'd left her to find breakfast for herself, as her hair was sticking up everywhere and her eyes were mostly closed from what he could see. She was at least wearing a tracksuit though it was in complete disarray, and she didn't look like she'd be staying up much longer if given a choose. Even the normally peppy Asia was groggily working her way through making everyone's breakfast, though she was fully dressed.
The only one that looked to be in presentable condition other then Naruto, was Yuto. Although the young swordsmen had slight darken marks under his eyes from exhaustion the boy still looked like his normal princely self. "And the pretty boy effect holds true even after seven days of workout hell, you still look like you're ready for a date Prep." Naruto said announcing himself to the room. As everyone looked up at him Naruto grinned "I know I told Uncle Az you woke up like that but I didn't think you honestly woke up looking like that." Naruto started chuckling as he made his way to the table to sit down.
"Too early, shut up" Yuto muttered out while he accepted at a cup of tea from Asia with a small "Thanks."
"Mah, I'm normally that way, you never let me get away with it." The other male countered with a grin.
"Nii-chan no baka." Came a sleepy response from behind the boy as the young Lamia slithered into the room.
"Morning to you too, Hebi-imouto." The Draconic boy let out a small chuckle as the girl dropped into a spot at the table and let her arms flop out in front of her, while her head fell to the table with a soft 'thud'. "So anyone has any plans for the day?"
"Asia and I have to go to town to pick up supplies" Akeno muttered out quietly while she started to pull her hair behind her head into the normal ponytail. The slightly older girl grinned tiredly towards the blonde Dragon, she, much like to Rais, had a much better night sleep the normal but was still tired from the long hours of training. Casting her eyes towards the blonde nun the black haired girl threw her a tired smile; as she was the one who is doing most of the learning but was being very attentive in her studies.
"I personally am going to go find a very good book and disappear for the day." Said Yuto.
"I really have nothing planned. Why is there something you wanted to do?" Asked the redhead girl at the table.
The blonde leaned back into his chair, lounging one arm behind him. "Yeah, I realized I hadn't been watching any of my anime. So I thought I'd sit down and run through some One Piece while I had some time off, was wondering if anybody wanted to watch with me?"
All signs of exhaustion vanished from the redhead across from him will her eyes seemed to glow with excitement. "Anime?!" Her bed head hair instantly turned into a perfect hairstyle, bags under her eyes vanished and are once frowning lips suddenly became a wide smile that almost cracked her face. "I'm totally up for that!" Everyone started chuckling at her obvious excitement.
Naruto grinned as he stood up "I'll run back to my place and get the videos, have you watched any of it before?"
"Yeah I'm a couple hundred episodes in, I think I'm at 210?" Rias said as she tried to remember what episode she'd watched last.
Naruto nodded with a small smile "So I'm only a couple episodes ahead of you. Okay, I'll be back in half an hour, anything else I should pick up while I'm there?"
"Ano, Naruto-san if he could wait a couple minutes could we go with you?" Asia asked shyly.
Naruto nodded as he started out of the room. "I'm gonna go ask Kitten if she needs anything from the house while you get ready."
Waking the white haired girl was actually easier said than done. Since she remembered today was a day to rest she pretty much buried herself into the blankets of the bed and refused to come out. Even with Naruto's insistent poking at her side; much like she enjoyed doing to him, she refused to come out of her cocoon of blankets. "Come on Kitten, I just need to know if you want anything." Naruto tried enticing her out, only to get a murmured reply that he couldn't understand.
After a few more minutes of trying Naruto got tired of it and pulled the blankets away from the girls face and leaned in to hear what she was trying to say these turned out to be little more than broken sentences of involving words like 'sleep, light bad, warm bed'. With a soft snort and smile, the blonde boy leaned in and kissed the girls hair before retreating from the room.
"No way!" Rias called with a laugh as she threw a handful of popcorn at the blonde across from her.
"I totally could!" Naruto shot back with a wide grin. The two were sitting on the couch in the living room with the anime playing on TV and had been at it for close to seven hours now. The second the blonde had returned from picking up his discs Rias the grabbed his hand and dragged him to the couch where she had popcorn and drinks set out for them ready to go. The girl was practically vibrating in place when he finally got the disc in and pressed play.
"All right show me the handgun." The two were currently arguing about if Naruto could copy Ace's attacks from the anime. Naruto had sighed and immediately thought of how he looked when he called up his fire tried to tell Rias that he should be able to replicate some of his attacks but the girl wasn't buying it.
"Fine! Let's go outside." Naruto declared as he stood up and hit pause on the disc player. Grabbing her hand this time he dragged her outside and into the field area behind the house. Stepping away from her he tried to mimic the character's stance "Let's see, he stood something like... This." The boy said as he fell into his stance while extending his index finger as if it was a handgun; while calling up his black fire from within him. It took a couple of minutes of focus but he finally was able to shoot off three small bullets of black fire. "Ha! How's that Red?"
The redhead leaned back a little, thoroughly impressed with what she'd seen. "Okay, you are right. This also gives me a minute nickname for you, Ace." Rias said with a large smile on her face.
"Err. Dammit, I'm not live this down am I?" Naruto asked with a little bit of nervousness in his stance. He wasn't even given a chance to get an answer when he saw his familiar coming out with a wolflike snicker.
"Nope." The redhead said with the chipper tone of voice while she turned back to the house with swaying her hips. "Now come on we have another three hours before dinner's ready and we can get through a couple more episodes that way." With that said Rias started to walk back towards the house with a skip in her step.
"Yeah, yeah laughing up furball." Naruto said to his familiar as he started to follow his redheaded friend. The wolf fell in step behind him, never losing his dog like grin or snicker; once again proving to the blonde but the Wolf was far more intelligent than he let on. "Oh shut up you're gonna be the death of me. Damn dog."
"Ace hurry up! There's anime watched!"
"I'm coming Red hold your horses" the blonde called back before trailing behind her towards the house. 'Great now she's got a nickname for me. Me and my big mouth.' Naruto didn't see the excited content look that was on Rias face as she looked back at him briefly.
Neither of them saw the golden eyes of a white haired girl following them both with a look of contemplation.
ORC Club Room.
"Red, if you don't stop pacing you're going to wear a hole in the floor." Naruto said with an exasperated sigh. It was the day of the Rating game, and everyone had returned from their training ready to go. Hikari was currently staying with Az by Naruto's request, having called the man the day before to watch over her so that she wouldn't drive herself crazy with no one to talk with.
"I can't help it Ace, this is an important match, and our first one at that." Rias fired back, her whole body riddled with tension.
"And we are ready for it. We've all trained, studied, and prepared the best we could Buchou." Akeno said, jumping in to help calm her friend down. "We've done everything we can, so trust in us and stop worrying."
The redhead looked around seeing the looks of determination from most of her Peerage, sighed and started to let the tension leave her body as best she could. Once she relaxed enough not to be a ball of nervous energy she smiled at her friends in thanks, though she had to hold back a giggle at Naruto's relaxed stance while the boy clean his ear with his pinky in utter boredom. The blonde haired dragon was one of two people that weren't wearing their school uniforms; rather he was dressed in a loose black hooded sweater with scarlet red patches around his shoulders and a red swirl on the back, with matching black pants and boots."You look relaxed Ace, any secret to you confidences?"
"Eh?" The blonde asked back before looking around to see everyone but Koneko wanting to know the answer, in hopes of calming their own nerves. His eyes staying on Asia's nun outfit only for a second longer than the others as he wonder if that would really be good battle wear, than considering what everyone else was in he wasn't about to comment on it."Sure, If all else fails, we can always just do another combo attack of my flames and your destruction Red, only at full power. If he gets up we do it again and again until he stops getting up." Naruto said back lazily, having remembered the area sweeper attack the two had done on the last suppression order they had received.
Yuto started to sweat nervously looking between the two of them. "Remind me to get out of the area before you try that, Please?" Naruto looked at him and sent an evil grin at him. The sweat on Yuto's brow started growing in proportions before he sent a pleading look towards Rias. The innocent look on the redhead's face did nothing to help his nervousness; even though everybody else started to giggle at his expense.
Before anything else could be said a silver magic circle appeared in the middle of the room, luminescent light from it grew in proportion until everyone had to look away. Once the light died down and everybody could see again they saw that the silver-haired maid, Grayfia had returned. "Ojuo-Sama, the match will be starting shortly; are you prepared?"
"About as prepared as we can be." The redhead said with sigh, her hand coming up to massage brow. Before more could be said she felt to hands on her shoulders offering comfort and support, glancing up to see whom it was. She saw her black haired Queen Akeno offering her a supportive smile on her right and on her left the smirking vision of her blonde haired Rook. Looking past them she could see her entire peerage nodding their support as well. Feeling her resolve strengthened by the show of support Rias gave them a smile before turning back to Grayfia nodding firmly "We are ready."
"Very well. You will be teleported to your chosen site of battle now." The silver-haired maid explained, as soon as she finished speaking a bright light encompassed them all. When they could see again they realized they had returned to a mansion in hills, and Grayfia was no longer among them.
"Didn't we just leave here?" Naruto asked rhetorically.
Rias giggled lightly before she calmed down and approached the coffee table in the middle room. "Yes, I decided to take your advice and choose something completely random for our battle site. I figured since we spent two weeks in these hills training; we know the area well enough that we can maneuver it and because it's so far away from everything else in the area I believed it would give us an advantage over Riser's peerage." She explained pulling out a map and spreading across the table.
"While I'm happy to see that you're listening to me I don't know if being random actually works as a strategy," Naruto said sounding very unsure of himself. "I mean I know it works for me to fly off the handle and do something crazy, but that's just me."
Rias just shrugged small smile "Well we will just have to depend on your luck; because every other scenario ever ran through while we were studying pretty much ended with us all losing." The redhead seemed to take on a gloomier air while she looked down at the map. "I just couldn't seem to figure out a way to take on a superior opponent that would give us the best chances of winning. I mean I know we are stronger but he has more numbers more experience, and to put it bluntly more support. So I got to think of how we could win; and then I remembered your chess match with Sona. You explained that she was distracted unused to dealing with someone who thought like you and was expecting you to play by her rules."
"So you're just ignoring the normal rules and trying to play by your own?" Naruto questioned, trying to understand what she was implying. When the girl nodded Naruto tried to understand what she was thinking hoping that he would get some insight into how she wanted to play this. "So the first step was removing any known territories that you could've chosen beforehand. And because this is a training area he wouldn't think of this as being a battlefield and wouldn't have studied it?"
"Yes that's exactly what I'm hoping." Rias said while she waved everybody to come towards the map. "Because there are no separate buildings on the other side of the ravine the battlefield is just a mirror image of this area. This gives us the advantage of only having three separate entrances into this area, the bridge in the middle of this ravine and the two sides of the cliff faces from these mountains." While she is explaining this Rias was pointing out the points she was talking about on the map. The map they were working with showed an area of the 150 yd.² with the house they were currently standing in being at the back section of the map about 10 yards from the boundary at the back and roughly in the middle of the map from top to bottom. The house was located in the middle of the clearing with the tree line about 50 yards out, the forest they were to be fighting in took up most of the map before the trees thinned out near the middle to show twin ravines.
"That chasm is where I was doing my fire training," Naruto said while pointing to the ravine in the map. "But there's no bridge there and it was a lot larger"
Yuto studied the map for a short amount of time before pointing to a clearing on the south part of the map." That clearing is a lot bigger than it shows on the map."
"Some adjustments had to be made to this world so it'd be a better fighting area," Rias explained with a slight shrugged. "Besides any training you did there probably expanded pretty much everything in the area."
"Well luckily we don't have to contain the destructive nature of our abilities here, right?" Naruto said with a dangerous grin. Rias and Akeno got grins to match his while Koneko and Asia sighed and shook their heads. Yuto however just groaned while muttering to himself about avoiding cross fires, he prayed the shutter down his spine wasn't a forecasting of his doom. The migraine he got would be totally worth it if he could avoid being anywhere nearby when Naruto released any large-scale attacks.
Shaking off the mood and refocusing herself on the coming fight Rias started to lay out her plans. "The way I figure it is Naruto and Koneko will move up the middle and protect the bridge which will be the main area of attack. Akeno I'd like you to go to the southern Cliff face and start moving into their territory. Take out anyone you see but your main focus is to take on Yunabella. Riser likes to send her out to pick off any strays in the area, if we can tie her up we'll have a better chance of taking out most of his peerage." Rias looked around to make sure everybody was still following her and agreed with her ideas. Seeing everybody nod their consent she started to move on "Yuto I'd like you to head towards the north face, your main focus is to take out any pawns start coming into our area. You're doing this because with your speed you can back up and take out any that get past Akeno, we can't afford any of them making here for promotion. After you four leave Asia is going to set up a barrier around the base, while it will not be strong enough to keep anybody out, it will let us know if any make it this close and then I'll take them out. Any questions or suggestions?"
"Are you sure you want to get involved? It'll look kind of unprofessional for you to take out something that isn't another King." Akeno questioned, worried about her Kings social standing and reputation.
"It's because it's unprofessional that it will be unexpected. Right now I'm more worried about making sure we win rather than how it looks when we win." Rias explained, the girl rubbed her eyes as she said this. Even if it looked bad to other high-ranking Devils Rias cared more about making sure she didn't marry Riser and then how it looked to anybody else at the moment, she was sure there would be other rating games that she could make up her standing with. "As I said before; he's a mature devil with a full peerage, I'm not mature with only you five backing me up. As Ace proved we're stronger but I'd rather not let that go to my head, and end up making a mistake. There's too much at stake."
"Very well Buchou, I didn't disagree I just wished it pointed out."
"Thank you Akeno." Rias offered her closest friend a kind and grateful smile. One that the black-haired girl turned eagerly. "Shall we begin?"
Everybody gave a sharp nod except for Naruto who ended up with a large smirk before leading everybody out the door.
Naruto rushed through the forest leaping from tree to tree to make it to the bridge first. His white-haired fighting partner was just below him running as fast as she could to keep up with his jumps. Neither had to say anything to know what the other was thinking, both because they knew their roles and the two weeks together monumentally added to their already almost unspoken understanding of one another.
Koneko was already focused on her ability to draw in chakra from external sources; in this case mainly from the chakra Naruto was unconsciously releasing. While the process scared her immensely at first the fact that she was taking in Naruto's chakra instead of nature energy helped calm her down, as well as the fact that she needed to do this for someone that was very important to her firmed her resolve to push forward. Knowing her fear Naruto assured her that he would make sure nothing happened to her while doing this; she felt warm whenever she thought about Naruto's promise to her, which is another thing she intended to follow through with after she got done with this fight: making a Naruto take her out on date. The blonde was dense enough he probably didn't even realize he had that effect on her, thus ensuring she had to make the first move.
The two arrived at the bridge before Koneko could delve any deeper into those thoughts. As they came to a stop Naruto took the time to observe the bridge that wasn't there in real life. The structure was 15 feet wide, made with cement and metal railings; given its design, the blonde could only assume it was made from reinforced cement that connected directly into the ground as it was a free-floating structure other than where it connected at either end.
Naruto admitted it was a little disconcerting seeing the same bridge and ravine mirrored 20 yards away without seeing him and Koneko standing at the other end. To pull his mind from it he tried to remember exactly how this plan was supposed to work, as this area was middle ground and the most direct route between each side it was supposed to be a main focus point. The part that had him confused was how Rias explained it, because Riser knew that Rias had a smaller less experienced peerage he would assume that she would come in from either side to try to get a sneak attack but because he knew she would do that she was sending her strongest to the front gate to draw his attention. She also said because Naruto had personally insulted him he'd send his main forced to take blonde boy out right off the bat as an attempt to restore his honor that Naruto insulted. This left Naruto not sure if he was being the distraction, the main attack or just a convenient target; and if Naruto had upset Riser as much as Rias was implying wouldn't the man come directly at him himself not send his peerage?
Naruto shelved his thoughts, as from the woods on the other side of the two ravines appeared a number of Riser's peerage. From the group Naruto was able to pick out the young twins that had the chainsaws, the small blonde girl with the drill hairstyle, the girl in the kimono, staff wielding girl, the girl he was very sure was Chinese descent and the last girl was holding a Zweihänder. "Well at least we won't run out of playmates anytime soon kitten."
"Fried chickens mine."
"Which ones that?" Koneko's response was to point out the blonde with drills like hair. "Right drills is all yours. But who gets the chainsaws?"
Before either of them could answer a large shadow rose from the ground around the two before taking the shape of teeth. Both girls panicked before swinging the chainsaws around at the swelling shadows, as the jaws closed on the girls the others cast out magic trying to dispel the attack. While mostly successful both girls lost their weapons of choice, leaving them to fight barehanded. Watching the deadly attack spewed from the shadows Naruto gained malicious grin before he called out to the other side "Welcome girls! I'm sure you all remember my familiar Thanatos Tabarius?" He questioned with a wave of his hand towards where he felt his familiar rising, having finally thought of a proper name for his loyal companion.
To be continued.
AN: Sorry all for the slow update. I've been Very sick lately, and almost hospitalized a couple of times because of it. I'm still trying to recover but I got this back from my beta and thought to do my best to get it out as soon as I could.
Omake: Again Dadlop3 is to blame for this, and it has nothing to do with the real story.
Naruto looked around the formerly sealed, unlit room that the girls had led him to with half lidded eyes. He was currently on his second cup of coffee so he wasn't thinking all that clearly at the moment. "Why are we here again Red?" he asked.
"I told you Ace. We're here to get the last member of my Peerage," Rias stated happily. She was looking forward to having all her little family members, the normal ones, together, even if the last member was going to need some work to get him up to speed with the others.
"Gya-kun is shy," Koneko said from slightly behind the boy, making sure he didn't stop and fall asleep on a windowsill or stairwell. If it happened once or twice, or several times, it will happen again.
Grunting quietly while he started peering into the room, the dragon-kin boy spotted a small, very feminine blond figure sitting need the back of the room. She dressed in a Kuoh academy uniform similar to what the girls were wearing. As he was about to greet the admittedly cute looking girl both, he and Thanatos caught a weft of the smells in the air. It was a smell they were unmistakably familiar with. Naruto deadpanned at the shivering hybrid in front of him.
"Oh great. A blond Haku," he muttered while his eye twitched. What the heck was with his luck and meeting people who want to be the other gender? First, there was Haku whose gender is still up for debate. Second there was the urdine who wanted to be a female American Rambo. Then there was the walking tank wanting to be a magician girl. And now...
He then glared at the cup in his hand.
"I'm going to need a lot more coffee for this shit."