Disclaimer: I do not own Black Clover and all rights belong to Yūki Tabata
"Character Speaking"
'Character Thoughts'
-Location-
*sound effect*
Author's Note: The next chapter is here, sorry for the long wait again.
Chapter 4- The Secret's Out
It is now the next day and most of the Black Bulls are awake and getting ready to start their day. At the table there is Vanessa, Noelle, Finral and Magna eating. Asta comes into view and sits down on the table to chow down while joining the conversation.
"So what are you guys talking about?" Asta says while chewing.
"Asta, don't talk while eating!" Noelle yells and Asta apologies.
"We were talking about going to the festival tonight as a group and having fun." Vanessa replies to Asta's question.
Asta is still eating, having something in his mind occur. While that is happening Magna turns to Asta.
"So how about Asta, are you going too?" Magna says.
"Yeah why not, it sound's fun." Asta smiles and says to himself. 'I could also use this in having Grey be more comfortable in crowds and a group.'
"Hey guys, has Grey woken up yet?" Asta asks.
"No, why do you ask?" FInral replies.
"It seems like you really like hanging out with Grey, am I right Asta?" Noelle asks.
"Well, it's my assignment to do so but I'd say yeah it's fun." Asta says innocently.
"I don't-I mean we don't get to see you that often anymore but it's not like I care or anything." Noelle says pretending to not care.
Asta just stares in confusion and Vanessa starts to giggle a little bit.
-Timeskip-
Today Asta was assigned a simple boar hunting assignment with Magna and Luck. A simple task for them as Yami put it…
"Today's the festival so I won't give you something hard but you are going to do a task first."
Asta is swinging right through the boars, Magna is flaming them with his fire magic, and Luck is just moving around attacking with his lightning and speed.
"Hey Asta, I thought you had said before that you were doing a good job with Grey?" Magna says readying up his fire baseball bat hits.
"I'm doing my best and I would say I'm doing great. Why do you ask?" Asta questions after slicing through a boar.
"Haven't you noticed? It's past midday and Grey still hasn't come out of her room. She usually comes out of her room earlier than before but not today."
"You're right." Asta stops and thinks to himself trying to reach an answer.
Asta being distracted doesn't see the big boar coming towards him but luckily in time Luck swoops in and kills it.
"Don't let your guard down Asta." Luck says in a funny tone.
Asta gets out of his thoughts and continues to fight off the boars.
-Back At The Hideout-
Noelle is walking through the hallway and walks past Grey's room and hears someone's crying. Noelle puts her ear to the door to hear closer and hears Grey crying.
Noelle knocks on the door. "Hey Grey are you okay in there?"
"N-Noelle? Y-Yeah I-I'm doing fine." Grey responds back faintly.
"Can I come in?" Noelle asks.
"N-No, r-right now's n-not a g-good time…"
Noelle, not knowing what to do, goes to find Vanessa for guidance. Noelle spots Vanessa laying on the couch like usual.
"Hey Vannesa, there seems to be a problem."
Vannesa turns around to look at Noelle. "What's the problem?"
"It's about Grey, I walked past her room and I heard her crying. I think something's wrong." Noelle says worried.
"Hmm, let's go talk to her." Vanessa gets up and Noelle follows her to Grey's room.
Vanessa knocks on the door.
"Hey Grey can we come in?" Vanessa asks.
"H-Huh? N-no." Grey replies back.
Vanessa somehow gets the door open and startles Grey. Grey is on her bed looking disheveled and her eyes red and puffy from crying. Noelle is surprised to see this and Vanessa walks towards Grey and hugs her.
"Grey what's wrong?" Noelle asks.
"I-It's n-nothing…s-something not i-important." Grey replies back shyly.
"It obviously must be something important if it has you like this." Vanessa lets go and stands in front of Grey while Noelle sits on the bed next to her.
"It's okay Grey, you can tell us." Noelle reassures.
"F-Fine, i-it's just… A-Asta. I-I overheard h-him and C-Captain Y-Yami t-talking about a p-progress report o-on me. I-I don't k-know if h-he really i-is m-my f-friend or a-acting l-like one." Grey says remembering hearing Captain Yami and Asta talking.
"That stupid Bakasta, he's the cause of this!" Noelle starts to get angry thinking Asta did something bad.
"Oh, I think I'm starting to understand the situation. Grey, I think you should let Asta tell you about it." Vanessa figured out the problem and knows the only way to fix it is for Asta to tell her about the mission.
"I-I d-don't think I c-can." Grey doesn't think it's a good idea.
"I see now, she's right Grey. Asta isn't that type of person, in fact it's quite the opposite." Noelle agrees with Vanessa.
Grey sits in silence thinking about it and decides to go with it and nods. Vanessa and Noelle stay for a while longer keeping Grey company and comforting her for the time being.
-Some Time Later-
Asta, Magna, and Luck came back through Finral's portal and brought back some boar meat. Asta, only being there for a few minutes, gets called over by Vanessa.
"Asta, can you come here for a sec."
Asta walks over not knowing what it would be about.
"What's up Vanessa?"
Vanessa begins to explain the situation with Grey.
"Wait, me and Captain Yami talking about her…Oh no so she figured it out!" Asta panicked remembering yesterday and the secret mission being unveiled to Grey.
"Yup, and now you got some explaining to do." Vanessa responds with a slight giggle.
"Alright then, I'm heading to her room to explain it." Asta gets up from the couch and heads to her room.
Asta arrives at Grey's door.
*knock knock*
"Grey are you in there? It's me, can I come in?" Asta asks.
Grey doesn't respond which then leads to Asta opening the door still.
Asta enters and sees a similar scene that Vannesa and Noelle did. Grey notices Asta and catches her off guard. Asta sits down next to her.
"So I was told that you overheard Captain Yami and I's conversation last night. I really screwed that up but I'll explain it to you." Asta says disappointed in himself.
Grey silently starts to listen, hugging her knees.
"It's actually simple but dumb, so to start off Captain Yami saw potential in you and asked me to help you out as a sort of assignment. The assignment was to help you get comfortable with your appearance and others so you could be able to fight better and learn from others." Asta goes on to a further explanation.
After a while Grey stopped listening and was worried of what was to come for the future.
"S-So d-does this a-all m-mean all t-the times w-we h-hung out w-wasn't real?" Grey mutters.
"What? Of course it was, I-" Asta was trying to talk but got cut off by Grey.
"I-If the c-captain d-didn't give y-you this a-assignment w-would y-you still h-have b-been spending time w-with me?" Grey says a little louder, wanting an answer.
"Yes I would have-"Asta then gets cut off again.
"That's not true!" Grey yells out. "S-Sorry f-for yelling b-but if y-you didn't h-have t-this task y-you probably w-wouldn't p-pay much a-attention t-to me let a-alone be friends."
Asta looked down in defeat. "You're right…I probably would have occasionally said hello but not do the things we did these past few days. But the thing is I'm still trying to become friends with everyone here, I'm still fairly new here after all."
Grey perks her head up to look at Asta.
"If it wasn't for this assignment then we wouldn't have interacted as much as we do now. But I'm grateful for this task now because we became great friends. If I didn't accept this then I would have missed out on all the fun times we had." Asta says with a smile.
"S-So d-does that m-mean we're f-friends?" Grey still questions.
"Of course we are, I don't know where you got that idea from." Asta puts his hand on her shoulder. "Now then we should start to get ready like the others to head to that festival with them. You wanted to go right, Vanessa told me." Asta says as he pats her shoulder and gets up from the bed and leaves waving bye smiling.
Grey stares at Asta as he leaves and smiles now knowing that her worries were false and everything turned out fine. She then goes to clean herself up. As Asta is walking out into the hall he spots Vanessa leaning against the wall.
"What are you doing outside here?" Asta asks.
"Just listening to you two and also because you are in the girl section of the hideout. I know you're a good kid but I still should keep an eye on you, you're young after all." Vanessa says with a smirk joking.
Asta blushes in embarrassment forgetting where he was and starts to run in the hall.
Everything seemed to have gone really well and now everyone is just waiting around to head to the festival, some of them , Magna, Luck, and Yami are heading out because of some stuff they have to prepare. Gauche seemed iffy about going but after Marie asked him to take her he couldn't just say no to her.
How will the Festival go later tonight…?