Sunshine officially posted as full story. The picture is what Iris looks like once Reborn trains her to shoot.
And without further ado, a Belpehgor/Fem Harry story. Don't ask why... I just find the little psycho hilarious and couldn't resist.
It was a most unusual meeting. One would think the abundance of blood and the presence of the dead would cause it to go south to the point she would avoid him.
She didn't scream. She didn't run away. She didn't even blink in shock.
Instead she looked right at his crown and asked "Is that a fashion statement or a mark of your first kill?"
He blinked, not that you could see it behind his bangs. His grin would have made a lesser peasant shit themselves in fear of him turning those knives in their direction.
"Ushishishi. I am a Prince."
Her skeptical look and what she said next would cement the start of their odd friendship.
"Really?" she said in open doubt.
He drew his knives.
"Because last I checked, a Prince wore cleaner crowns. There's tarnish, and then there just dirty. And that crown of yours looks positively grungy," she said flatly.
Belphegor stared at her, then cautiously removed his crown to look at it himself. He wore it for so long that it was part of him.
Now that she mentioned it, his crown was looking less than it's best. The thing was he had absolutely no idea how to clean gold off, and he didn't trust civilians without standing over them. And considering how he acted, it meant they'd be too scared to do the job right.
The girl sighed.
"Follow me. I can at least get the worst of it off so it looks presentable."
Curious, both at her offer and the fact she had absolutely no fear of him despite the rather large amount of killing intent he was still letting off, Prince Belphegor followed her. It wasn't like he couldn't kill her if she tried something.
Once inside her rather modest flat, he found himself with a rather large plate of cookies while she took out some ingredients and a clean cloth. Belphegor watched her with fascination as she cleaned off the worst of the dirt and blood, then buffed his crown with an experienced hand.
It was like night and day. The gold was much shinier and had a real luster to it, as opposed to the aged and dirty look it had taken.
More to the point was that you could now see his family crest engraved on the metal, where it was barely visible before.
And that was before you got to the plate of cookies, fresh from the oven that she gave him.
"Ushishishi... you do good work, peasant."
Rather than be offended, like most modern women were these days, the girl seemed pleased about something.
"Oh good, you're not one of those 'humble' and 'heroic' princes. Honestly, I don't see what the appeal is for a prince to be so humble to his people. You're one of the people in charge, how are people supposed to respect you if you act so nice all the time?"
Bel blinked in shock, before a wide grin appeared on his face. He liked this girl, even if she could be mistaken for a man. If not for the fact she felt "female" to his instincts as an assassin, he would have been fooled. Even her voice made it hard to identify her gender.
She had a very androgynous look, right down to her hair style.
He left the apartment with a clean crown, a bag full of fresh cookies, and an interesting new toy.
The peasants he worked with noticed the change in his crown, but were smart enough not to make any comments outside of inquiry about the cookies.
They were his cookies, dammit.
He was back again, but she had a feeling this would happen. After all, it wasn't every day a murdering Prince would encounter someone who didn't bat an eye to death, bloodshed, and a scene that wouldn't have looked out of place in a slasher film, right down to the cackling maniac with a knife.
Because she had the feeling he wouldn't care about bloodstains on the couch, she made a point to put down a thin plastic on the fabric, and hid it with some blankets she could toss if the blood proved too stubborn to get out.
Living with that family had taught her to get the blood out of damn near everything.
At least she had time to research which family had that crest. And to get the full story.
Prince Raziel and his older twin brother had a massive fight and the younger stabbed his older brother almost to death. It was being kept quiet, but the older one survived and was now the sole heir to the throne.
Since the older one survived, he was was still part of the royal family...but the only way he'd inherit would be if there were absolutely no other options. Or if he were to produce an heir of his own by a legitimate noble line.
Most girls might jump at the chance to become a real live princess, personality and quirks be damned. Hell, there were girls out there who wouldn't hesitate to commit atrocities just to have a chance to become royalty.
Not her. If she wanted to be treated like a princess, she would have stayed in England and lived it up.
Within a month, the boy was back again. She didn't ask stupid questions like why a fourteen year old was doing in her house, or why he was colored in blood.
Instead she sat a cake she just finished making, mostly because baking was a soothing hobby and she didn't really eat that many sweets to begin with.
The Prince eagerly dove into the cake (it was red velvet with real cream cheese frosting and dusts of cocoa nibs on the top) making happy noises while she cleaned up the area he came in.
"I'm surprised. Normally peasants scream when they find me in their house when they come home."
"You're not that scary. Besides, it's nice to have someone here to eat the sweets I bake."
Bel paused and looked past her to the counter. There were at least three different cookies, two cakes, and an entire loaf of banana bread.
"Do you work at a bakery?" he had to ask.
"I like baking, it's soothing. Almost as soothing as sharpening my kitchen knives."
Her aunt hated the sound of the knife scrapping against the whetstone, so she forced her to do it. After a while, she learned to tune out the sound and just enjoy the smooth motion of the stone against the metal.
Her friends had always wondered why her knives were always razor sharp to the point it could literally split hairs.
It took a second for him to process this new information, and within moments she found a rather large (and to many, disturbing) number of knives. All of which had wires connected to them.
She didn't even ask. Her OCD nature kicked in hard and she grabbed her favorite whetstone and within moments went to work calmly sharpening the knives. Some of the blades were shaped oddly, but she was able to work around that. The sound of the stone against the knives filled the apartment.
Meanwhile Belphegor cheerfully demolished the cake, and after a moment began going after her cookies again.
It was well into dinner by the time she finished. Careful inspection revealed all of his favorite knives were now sharper than ever, so much so they could slice through skin and live barely a thin line of blood.
Even after he left, he quickly became a familiar face in her home. Mostly because he found the fact she had zero reaction to him intruding in her home or eating her food. More than that, he didn't even need to demand her to do things like sharpening his knives or throwing his blood soaked clothes into the wash.
It was...strange. He had never met a peasant who acknowledge his title as prince, but at the same time didn't really care about his hobbies or his profession.
She was interesting.
"What are you wearing?" said Bel, baffled.
She could have passed for a nicer Squalo, complete with sword...though it was sealed shut.
"Cosplay!" she said cheerfully.
"What?"
"Cosplay, or Costume Play. You know how people like to get dressed as their favorite characters? That's cosplay. I'm going to a fan convention for horror enthusiasts. I intend to get the best in show!"
"..."
He had never joined the peasantry in such things. And he was very bored...so much so Squalo had forcibly tossed him out of Headquarters until he wasn't in the mood to cause chaos that could back up the paperwork again.
Ceres was his lone source of amusement that didn't involve killing others.
"Where is this 'convention' being held?"
The second she told him, he had a very disturbing grin on his face. That was strictly mafia-territory. There would be plenty of people he could run into and scare the crap out of, all in the name of mistaken identity.
"Want to come? I'm pretty sure they do Varia cosplay there too, so if you tone down the blood thirsty aura you could probably get some blackmail on your coworkers," she said cheerfully.
Hearing his evil chuckles told her that he was sold.
"So, do you want to go as yourself, or do you want to subtly mock your fellow officers?"
Bel had the perfect image in mind. And best of all he could get spending money if he did it right. He could mimic their voice too.
"The second."
Ceres and Bel had some very evil chuckling going on as she helped him to put on the outfit.
At the convention...
Bel was smugly evil as he gave his fellow Varia heart attacks by mimicking Mammon's voice down to the tone. People kept complimenting his costume.
Then came the costume contest. Ceres really wanted to win, and since he had seen several horrible imitations of himself, she knew he would almost certainly win. A few swipes of an alcohol pad to get rid of the 'markings' and a discreet removal of his costume, and there was a "perfect" imitation of Belpegor.
Much to his amusement, none of the mooks or trash suspected the real thing walked among them.
It didn't take much for the peasants to compliment him on the fact he was doing a perfect Belpegor cosplay, down to the way the crown looked.
Ceres was clearly trying to stifle her laughter when he got selected for the "best costume" round...especially when he won the trophy. She managed to last right up until they were heading out of the convention.
"Oh god... that was hilarious! We totally have to do this again next year, except you should scare the living hell out of them by showing off your wire trick!" she cackled.
Belphegor was grinning evilly, his amusement blatantly obvious. He recognized several of the peasants from his own division. He couldn't wait to see the chaos that came from them realizing he had been the "perfect copy" of their superior.
Ceres suddenly had an even more evil idea.
"I just had a fun thought..."
"Go on," said Bel, amused. He liked this woman, he liked her a lot. She wasn't bad, for a peasant. Even if she was a year or so older than him.
"What if you stopped by my house before you went to work one morning and you went in with black or red hair? Could you imagine the chaos you could inflict before someone caught on because they thought you were an infiltrator?"
Bel's cackles filled the air and gave the few Varia within hearing a bad feeling.
One week later...
It took some time, but one of his minions happened to spot a new addition to his office.
"Prince Belphegor? Sir? Why do you have that trophy on your desk?" asked the random minion.
"I won it. Why?" he asked, giving a dangerous look.
"Oh god..."
Within an hour, word had spread among the Storm division about Prince Belphegor having been at the convention.
Mammon was still baffled as to why the Prince had bothered to come to her office to "give her cut" to her. Or why he had those odd horror paraphernalia in the first place.
Ceres didn't look up when Bel dropped in. By this point she could always sense when he was in the neighborhood to mooch off her.
Sensing his boredom, she grinned and held up some temporary hair dye. With how light his hair was, he didn't need to mess with the permanent stuff to get results.
"You might want to wear a throwaway shirt on, in case someone has the brains to dump water on you," she advised.
His smirk said volumes.
Today was going to be fun.
Just not for his minions. Or his fellow Guardians.
He walked into Varia headquarters with a grin on his face, whistling some tune he heard Ceres humming more than once, and waited for the fall out. As she had suggested, he was borrowing one of her shirts that she could care less about ruining that did not suit his usual tastes at all. Sure he had his crown on, but compared to the rest of his appearance and his odd good mood without any blood on him...well, it was little wonder that it took almost no time at all for the Stupid mooks to think he was trying to infiltrate their headquarters and failing badly.
It took an hour for the chaos he unleashed in retaliation to reach Squalo and the others, and another ten minutes before Luss of all people to recognize he had temporary die in his hair and dump warm water on him.
And that was after the hell he gave Squalo and the others to corral him until that point.
"Ushishishi..." Bel was snickering despite the ropes around him, and the very annoyed expression on Squalo and Levi's faces. Mammon was not above abusing her Flames to keep him still.
"Belpegor..." growled Squalo.
"Who dyed your hair? They did a perfect job!" asked Luss. Of course the okama would be interested in that.
"My girlfriend," said Bel, almost spur of the moment. He wanted to see their reactions.
"Bullshit!" said Squalo.
"Is this a bad time?" asked Ceres. Everyone turned to face the newcomer, and Bel grinned widely. Obviously she had come in to see her handiwork in action... complete with cookies. She could have passed for a well dressed, rather handsome boy with that outfit, if not for the fact she had a decently sized chest.
"Who are you?" demanded Mammon crossly.
"I came to bring Bel his cookies. He left without his usual demand of them when he crashes at my apartment."
"..."
"Are you the one who did his hair? It definitely suits him," said Luss.
"Well he was bored and I did offer to help him spread a little harmless chaos like when I took him to that convention where they had Varia cosplay..."
"That explains the odd trophy..." muttered Mammon.
"You're his girlfriend," said Squalo in disbelief.
She blinked.
"Well I am a girl and he is my friend, even if it's mostly him mooching off my baking and getting me to sharpen his knives for him..." she said slowly.
"I give up. I'm going to get wasted and hope that when I wake up the world makes sense again," said Levi.
How the hell did Belphegor land a girlfriend that cute who clearly didn't care about his attitude or the fact he would leave blood on her furniture and knew how to sharpen knives to their standards?!
"Someone had better be cleaning up this damn mess! And you! I don't want to see your face for a damn week! I don't care if you have to take a mission or what, just get out of here!" said Squalo crossly to the tied up Storm officer.
Bel snickered evilly.
"You are not getting paid vacation out of this," deadpanned Mammon.
Luss made a show of presenting the ropes to a highly amused Ceres, while bemoaning the fact she was born a girl. She giggled.
"Did you have fun?"
"The Prince was highly amused. They didn't stand a chance and it took so long before people suspected I was a bad attempt at infiltration," cackled Bel. Now to get this stupid hair dye out...it was beginning to soak into his clothes and it was very annoying.
Ceres snickered. Once they were out of the building, she removed the ropes and handed over the cookies. Treacle, this time.
"So... are we officially courting or did you say that just to get a rise out of them?"
Bel paused briefly in his attack on the cookies.
"You amuse me. No one has ever reacted like you do whenever I unleash my intent to murder them brutally. You don't even care about the blood on my clothes or the mess I make."
"Kind of hard to be afraid of something as trivial as death when you've faced it so often you become bored with it all."
She wasn't even sixteen (not for two more weeks!) and she had already faced enough death-defying adventures that a mass murdering teenager with a crown barely rated a "meh" from her. She would have stayed in her home country, if it wasn't for the fact she was sick and tired of the old man's inept little 'misadventures' that kept getting the people who cared about her killed.
Losing Sirius had been the final straw.
Sensing his interest, Ceres grinned at him.
"I can share a few stories of why I don't fear death while I wash that dye out of your hair."
"Deal."
Bel had assumed Ceres was a peasant, like the majority of the trash he had to deal with.
Instead he ended up befriending the "missing" girl-who-lived, who was in fact the heiress to two ancient and noble lines. Which meant by the standards of his family, she was very acceptable for dating material.
More to the point, she didn't even balk at the idea of getting her hands dirty, and after the one time he threw a knife at her...purely to see how she would react, of course...she caught it and dumped it into his lap. Blade first, and if it had been an inch or two closer she could have gelded him.
Besides, he was learning a new appreciation for the color green. Her eyes were very similar to the Boss' red ones. Just as fierce, but had more of a protective, insane glint to them.
It could have been his hormones finally hitting him hard, or perhaps they simply meshed. But he liked her. He honestly did.