Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

Asia was having fun.

Of course, they were still lost and she was pretty sure that this was not a Church. They had climbed to the top of a hill, up a set of stairs, and had found a Japanese shrine. It was kept in rather great condition actually, and they saw a young couple walking back down the stairs towards the bottom after their own visit.

"Not... a Church technically." Naruto stated as he rubbed the back of his head in annoyance with his own mistake. He had seen a building, from a distance, at the top of the hill so he had thought that maybe the Church was located away from the town. Now that he knew devils resided in the town, it would only make sense for the only church in town to be located away from the town itself.

That, or on the outskirts of the town, away from the devils that called the place home.

"It's getting darker now." Asia noticed, since the sky had turned orange with the sun beginning to fall, and everything was bathed in a warm light because of it. It was going to get harder to find the church soon enough, and though her guide to Kuoh knew absolutely nothing about where he was taking her, she was still having quite a bit of fun being shown around. "Heh... heheh." Asia giggled when she saw his downtrodden look appear on his face, before he quickly replaced it.

He was a very emotional person, who seemed to be used to hiding his emotions.

"Yeah..."

"Don't get down, I really enjoyed the mall...and seeing all of those houses, and going by the school was nice to see! Excersize is also super important, and I got a good amount of walking down today!" Asia tried to cheer him up. Everything that she had seen of the town had been amazing in her eyes. The people, the buildings, the culture itself, had been so different to her. Even the way that houses were built were so different than the way they were down in European countries.

She would be even more lost in this city without Naruto's help, so she was thankfull that he had been willing to help her for this long.

"Well, lets keep looking... you don't have anywhere to stay, or enough money to stay at a hotel do you?" Naruto asked her with a slight flinch when she shook her head. They didn't have much of an option but to keep going on and looking for this building. Finding a single building in a large town was not an easy feat, not when neither of them had any clue where they were going.

Naruto only memorized the buildings that he would have to go to himself, which was the only reason he knew where the school, mall, and parks were. Any regular shops and other places were a complete mystery to him.

"Don't worry about me too much, I can figure something out." Asia didn't want to needlessly worry him. She was fine with finding a park bench and napping there until the sun rose and she could keep the search going. She was sure that the people she was suppose to be meeting would come and find her if she stayed out in the open enough anyway. She didn't want to force Naruto to keep going out of his way for her.

Naruto took her luggae handle from her, and he started to pull it down the stairs.

"He-hey!?"

"We are either going to find this church, or you are going to stay with me. Who knows what would happen to you on your own, in a foreign land." Naruto could quickly imagine many situations where Asia was raped, murdered, or taken advantage of by people who had ill intentions for her. It wasn't an uncommon thing for foreigners to be taken advantage of when they were alone, it happened to him when he was younger and he learned all of the tricks that were used when the bastards tried stuff.

He had been swindled out of his money too many times for him to not know what would happen to a beautiful girl like Asia, who didn't speak Japanese, if she was found at night all by herself.

"O-okay." Asia stuttered a little when she realized that with his other hand, Naruto had grabbed her hand firmly and refused to let go of it. She could here the firmness in his tone, and the way that there was no room for argument. He spoke with an absolute authority, and his words carried the weight of a blanket over her.

She had been worried about not finding a place to stay, obviously, and she herself had been scared of sleeping alone on a bench until somebody found her.

His words made her feel safe though, the finality in them that she was going to have a place to stay no matter the outcome of finding the church or not. The warmth and kindness in his tone was unmistakable, despite how rough the words he used were.

'A girl's hand is so soft, and small... her fingers are cool.' Naruto idly thought as he walked hand in hand with her. His nose was red and it spread to around his cheeks a little, but he didn't let go of her hand out of his own embarassment.

The way their fingers intertwined, and how their wrists touched gently. He could feel her heartbeat whenever their wrists made contact.

"Naruto?"

"... It's getting dark now, and it's dangerous to go down these stairs when it's dark. I'm a man right? I've got to protect you." Naruto didn't have a free hand to scratch his cheek, his usual awkward habit. Instead he quirked his jaw, and Asia just smiled and nodded her head in acceptance of his explanation.

That wasn't what she was going to ask.

'These are a man's hands... this is Naruto's hand, and it's big and strong... and warm. I didn't know that just holding somebodies hand could make me feel so safe.' Asia looked down at their hands touching so tenderly. She could feel the roughness of his hand, but despite how rough they were, the way he held onto her hand was both tight and tender. The tightness of his grip never once hurt her, but only applied a comforting pressure. He controlled his grip, a grip strength that could more than likely break her hand, so that she wouldn't feel even an ounce of pain.

The difference between a man and woman was this.

A man's strength to protect a woman.
A woman's strength to support a man.

'I've got to do my part... I've got to show him that I appreciate him.' Asia thought as she tightened her grip on his hand. He paused in his walking for a second, and looked back at her with a surprised look. Just the act of tightening her grip on his hand showed her support and willingness to let him take the lead, and it showed her support for his choice.

No words were needed.

The actions both Naruto and Asia took were enough for each other, his actions to protect her and her actions to support him. They could just look into each other's eyes, a mere touch and glance were worth more than 10,000 words that either could say to the other. Both of them had eyes that could hide no feelings that had, and both were observant of people enough to be able to read eyes.

'... She's different, this girl is different...' Naruto wouldn't have been able to hear anything that Asia said to him anyway. His heart was beating in his ears so hard that he couldn't even hear the cicadas as they made their noises in the trees around them.

A grin started to slowly stretched out on Naruto's face, and he turned his head so that Asia couldn't see him. He couldn't hide this grin if he tried to, and he couldn't hide the watering of his eyes either. Asia was proving him wrong about women at every turn, the faith she placed in him was honest. Her eyes were nothing but warm, and her hands were comforting to him. She was so very different than what he had experienced before in his life, but this was what he had always wanted from a woman.

To prove him wrong.

He never wanted to give up the hope that there was a woman who could prove him wrong, and be a person that he could love. He hated himself for a long time for having this hope that there were people who wouldn't hurt him, and when he had been proved correct time and time againt that people were trash, he found 2 people in this world that he could trust, that trusted him.

Asia leaned into his arm, and pushed the side of her head up against his shoulder.

'I'm falling for him.' Asia admitted to herself instantly. This was everything she wanted from a friend and more. The way he made her heart beat faster just by touching her, and the happiness that each thing he did brought her. This was different than the adoration that people gave her when she was a Saint. The love she felt for the people she healed, she understood the feeling of love so well that she could tell when she was feeling a different love for somebody else.

She loved this kindred soul, who experienced the same pain as her.

He was a broken soul, who might have experienced even more pain than she had. When his hand held her own to protect her, she felt his weakness and his strength. His grip that protected her was a grip that was deperate for her support. It was a hand that had been hurt many times, and despite being afraid of reaching out, couldn't help but seek out another hand to hold.

'Issei Hyoudou, a friend I never thought I would make... and Asia Argento... the way my heart hurts for you is very pleasant.' Naruto thought as he wiped his tears away by leaning his head against his shoulder.

They got to the bottom of the stairs.

Asia didn't let go of Naruto's hand, despite there not being a reason for holding it anymore. She didn't stop leaning up against him either. Likewise, Naruto made no such move to let go of her hand either. Asia further held onto his arm with her other hand, bringing her even closer to him. She didn't want to lose the sense of touch, and neither did he. There was an unspoken agreement that neither of them were going to stop holding the other. Asia just gently squeezed his arm with her hand, and that was all that needed to be done between them.

Not a word needed to be said before them.

-3 Hours Later-

3 hours of silence, not a single word had been said between either of them during the entire time they continued to search for the church in the darkness. The entire time, they walked and walked, trying to find where Asia called home, but to no luck. The dark had fallen over them, to the point it was harder for either of them to make out which buildings could have been the church.

So, they were at his camp.

"... Sorry." The first word spoke in three hours was an apology from Naruto, and Asia just shook her head at him.

"You tried your hardest, I can't be mad. Anyway, I've never camped before, this will be a fun experience." Asia didn't have a malicious bone in her body though. She was only kind and accepting of the situation. She didn't hate him for his failure, and though the entire day she had just been happy to let him keep trying while offering her support. "I'll change into my pjs." Asia told Naruto as she took her luggage from him.

She needed to get her nighty out if she wanted to sleep properly after all, she walked to the other side of the tent where Naruto couldn't see her. Naruto walked towards the center of the camp and while he could hear Asia searching through her luggage, he got the fire started in only minutes.

The area of the camp was lit up by the flames.

Naruto could see Asia's shadow, and he looked towards the shadow against the trees with his curiousity peeked. His eyes widened when she started to strip, and the shadow started to give a more accurate line of her body. Her nun dress didn't do her body justice, and from her shadow he could see how small her waist was and just how wide her hips were compared to it. Neither too big or too small, and while her clothes made her breasts look small, she actually had decently sized breasts that were slightly more than a handful. He couldn't see such fine details such as nipples on a shadow, but he could see the entire shape of her body as she stripped naked behind the tent to change.

"EEEEK!"

Asia, in just her panties while covering her chest, came running out from behind the tent and towards Naruto with a fearful look on her face. Naruto eyes went straight to her white panties as he lept up to rush towards her, and help her.

"What's wro-" Naruto didn't need to finish his question, because a wild Boar came out from behind the tent. It was a male boar with large tusks, and was nearly as tall as Asia herself. If it stood up on it's hind legs, it would have been taller than either of them. Boars could be even more dangerous than bears when they got to a massive enough size. "-oh." Naruto stated as he stood in front of Asia.

The boar looked towards him, and started to snort and scuff it's hooves into the ground. It was preparing itself to charge down Naruto and Asia.

"What is that!?" Asia asked desperately, having never seen such a large hog looking animal in person before.

It started to charge towards them when she shouted, and Naruto leaned down and touched his fists to the ground. He slammed his shoulder under the boar's head, right into it's neck as it charged them. Wrapping his arms around it's neck, even his arms couldn't wrap all the way around it. He pushed with his legs and the boar was forced back as Naruto competed to see which of them could pack more weight behind their movement. He dug his heels into the ground with each step he took. When he lifted the boar onto it's hind legs, it wasn't able to get any force behind it, and it's weight was rendered useless to him.

'It's neck is thicker than a bear's neck, and these creatures have extremely sturdy necks simply because they kill using their heads as a weapon.' Naruto took one of his arms off of the creature, and he used his other arm to force it onto it's side. Naruto raised his elbow up, before he slammed it down with all of his strength behind the boar's front leg, where it connected to the torso.

*Crack*

Naruto splintered one of it's ribs, and he smacked the same spoke a second time and dug his elbow deeper. The boar gave a shudder, before it laid on the ground limp and unmoving, it's eyes closing.

"That..." Asia just watched Naruto take down a massive animal using nothing but brute force, and she had to be surprised. He didn't use even one weapon, or have one visible on his body.

"I'm going to protect you." Naruto stated, before he winced in pain and looked at his shoulder. There was a massive gash going a decent way starting at his shoulder, and down his back from where he sumo wrestled the boar onto it's hind legs. The entire back of his shirt was soaked with his own blood, the boar had injured him pretty good with it's tusk.

Asia saw his wince, and it brought her back to reality.

"You're hurt!"

"I'm fine, I've dealt with this before. I think you should..." Naruto glanced over her lack of most clothes, and he saw her nipples peeking out from behind her arms she used to cover them. They were the prettiest shape of pink he had ever seen before. You could say his favorite color was orange, sure, but right now he would more happily admit to being a fan of pink. "... get dressed, then you can-"

"It's not a big deal, let me heal you first." Asia blushed deep when she moved behind Naruto and raised her hands to his back. Her clothes didn't matter nearly as much as him being hurt protecting her. "... thank you." Asia told him, and he just smiled.

"Anytime."

"Please, don't hurt yourself for my sake."

"My body moves on it's own... you're worth protecting, so I don't see this injury as a big deal. Look on the bright side, you're safe and we have dinner. You're a danger magnet though, aren't you?" Naruto asked her with a wide smile. Just moments at the camp, and she already attracted a super dangerous animal to them. That was great luck for his stomach, but it was just further proof that he needed to protect her.

"W-w-what!? No, I mean, maybe... but-"

"It's cool, I attract misfortune too... it's what has made me into the person I am today." Naruto removed his shirt as Asia got to a part of the wound that was hidden behind it. His entire back was covered in his own blood, he was going to need to bath in a nearby water source if he was going to want to be clean before school tomorrow. 'Ah... I better skip school to make sure that Asia can get to the Church.' Naruto thought, realizing that it was dangerous to leave Asia alone while he went to school.

Not like he was smart enough to do good in school even if he showed up anyway, why the school even accepted a failure like him was an unknown.

Asia just smiled at his words, and nodded her head.

She wouldn't argue.

That night, Naruto didn't summon a Servant.

Chapter End!
Please Leave Me Lots of Nice Long Reviews, But No Flames Please!

We got about halfway to the goal this time, and with each passing chapter we get closer and closer to seeing which Servant Naruto will summon by his own free will.
We are getting closer and closer to that 10K chapter as well, so lets keep working at it.