Naruto knew Makoto was innocent, hell she was probably one of the most innocent humans on Earth, but he still didn't expect her to do everything that he told her to on the first day of her school.

"You actually said that to her?" He inquired again just to be sure, because it was still coming across as impossible to him. There was no way Makoto said all those things to those two girls.

"Y-yes. Did I do something wrong, Naruto?"

Her weary and uncertain tone threw him off the loop. "No!" He immediately stopped her from going deeper into the subject and placed a hand on her head, patting it gently.

"Then why are you asking me about it again and again?" Her flustered face and shy eyes made Naruto smile wider.

If there was something he adored in this world then it was Makoto's innocence. Maybe it was due to him being an individual full of sins or maybe it was because she was part of his family, but whatever it was, he loved it and wanted nothing more than to preserve it as much as he could from the prying eyes of the Supernatural world around them.

"Ehh it's just that I was having a hard time believing that you said those things to Rias and Akeno, you know. Usually, you are so shy and reserved around strangers, so for you to go in front of them and say those things to their face felt surreal." He paused when he saw Makoto recoil a little due to embarrassment. "But hey! I'm proud that you did it. It means you are opening yourself to others, Makoto, and that fact alone is enough to make me happy. So don't shy away from me because of it."

In answer, Makoto nodded her head gently and smiled at him. It always felt nice being complimented by the person that you adored and getting head pats from that said person was just a cherry on top. "Thank you." She whispered, her voice still as low as a whisper.

Ignoring the cute expression Makoto had on her face, Naruto then asked the question that was eating him from the inside. "What were their reactions? I mean how did they react to your words?" His joyful voice and the excited look on his face didn't go unnoticed by Makoto, but she decided to take it as him being a little delighted and invested in her progress.

"They just froze and went silent."

The smile on Naruto's face turned devious. "Really?" He asked her and had to hold himself back from laughing out loud when Makoto nodded her head in confirmation. "I see. It must have been a sight to behold." He mumbled the last part to himself.

"What?"

"Nothing, Makoto." Naruto waved his right hand at the girl and pinched her cheek with the other.

"Oww…"

"Aww look at your face. You look so cute when it's all red."

"I don't!"

"You-"

A sudden silence fell upon the two when the distinctive sound of the doorbell echoed through the house.

-oOo-

Devil.

A being who sustained itself by indulging in acts considered sins by others was what she was supposed to be. The society around her expected her to have all the traits of a devil. From being selfish to using others when they were at their lowest mentally were how everyone around her wanted her to be.

Unfortunately for them, she had none of those traits. She was neither selfish nor could she use someone when they were at their lowest. To her, everything that people told her to do felt immoral. Even those people felt immoral and enemy-like sometimes.

What was wrong with her?

It was a question everyone used to ask her and she couldn't blame them either. Being a devil was supposed to be her whole identity and she couldn't even explore it wholly.

To everyone around her, she was a failure, even more so when they considered the lineage she belonged to. Her family was a well-known house in the Underworld and being a failure while belonging to her family was an absolute scandal in their books. They would rather kill that failure immediately and remove the stain of their existence than accept them as their kin.

Sadly for her, she couldn't even be killed because of her position in that abhorrent family. She was the daughter of the head and that precisely meant she was no commoner among her fellow family members. The rules that were meant for the lower levels of her family didn't apply to her. She was immune to them and that meant she couldn't be subjected to the punishments that were designated for the lower house of her family.

"But that didn't mean I wasn't punished."

She was punished heavily. Her punishments were so brutal that every time they began, all she could wish for was a sweet and absolute demise. But that never happened, her wishes always remained unfulfilled. So with tears in her eyes and pain inside her body, she endured every punishment that was inflicted upon her.

What else could have been done otherwise? Except for her weak and innocent mother who couldn't even speak a word against her father she had no one by her side. Everyone around her loathed her presence and she was well aware of that.

Pain and sadness composed the vicious reality of her life and she had accepted that fact a long time ago. Just like how some people are born to change the world for better or worse, she was born to suffer and there was nothing she could do about it.

At least that was what she used to think until she met him.

"A boy with the widest smile and brightest blonde hair in the world." She whispered to herself.

A small smile made its way to her plump lips as she began to think about the aforementioned boy. "You truly are an extraordinary person…" The smile widened when the beautiful face of the boy flashed before her eyes. "Even though I only met you a little while ago, I can't wait to meet you again!" The thirst in her voice finally began to reveal itself. "I will fight-"

Every word inside her mouth perished when her head collided with something solid, making her squint her eyes in pain. "Agh, what happened?" She mumbled to herself and looked in front only to be faced by nothing but a beautiful door made out of some expensive wood. "Is this his house?" She questioned herself but immediately moaned in aversion when she realized that she had been standing in front of it for an hour. "Of course, it's his house." She couldn't be wrong about it. After all, she had been watching him from the shadows for years now. There was no way she could mistake his house for anyone else's.

"Ok then, time to introduce myself to him again." With that thought in her mind, she raised her hand and pressed the doorbell button.

Ding!.

The sound of the bell sent shivers down her spine as it meant that soon someone was going to open the door.

"What if it's him?!" Her eyes widened a little as she began to step away from the door. "I need-"

"..."

Her heart skipped a beat when her ears picked up the sound of footsteps from the other side of the door.

"..."

It was him, she was sure of it. How? Because she knew his walking pattern all too well. There was no way she could be wrong about it.

'Who could be visiting us at this time?'

Her face went pale and her heart began to beat frantically as soon as she heard his voice. "It's him." She whispered as her feet began to walk in the opposite direction of her initial approach. She wouldn't be able to face him without embarrassing herself again. She needed to get away from here as soon as possible.

'Click!'

But before she could do anything, the door of the house opened with an all too familiar sound of metal clanking against each other.

"Hello?"

Her eyes dilated to unimaginable proportions as soon as his face appeared before them. "N-Naruto…" Shaking with all the emotions that were churning inside her, she attempted to walk away from the boy but failed miserably when her feet intertwined with each other and before she knew it, she was falling straight towards the ground.

"Hey!"

It was only when Naruto shouted at her that Vali noticed that she was falling.

"Haa!" She gasped and tried to change her direction so that she could minimize the damage to her already injured hand. "Ahh" An uncomfortable groan escaped her plump lips as she fell directly on her back. "My-"

"Hey! Are you ok?"

Whatever she had in her mind perished as soon as his familiar face appeared in front of her eyes.

"Yes." Smiling to herself, she replied to the boy.

"You fell-" Naruto paused when he noticed something unusual about the individual. 'I have seen her before… but where?' He thought as he was sure he had seen her face somewhere before. So rummaging through the countless memories in his brain he began to look for the one particular memory that was connected to her. "Ahh!" Within a matter of a few seconds, he remembered where he had seen her before.

"You are that girl who fainted in front of the school." Naruto's words elicited a unique reaction from Vali.

Her beautiful pale face which was covered in nothing but white soon doused in the shameful color of red. "I-I…" She tried to retort but unfortunately, there was nothing she could do against that as what Naruto just said was true. She did faint as soon as she saw him in front of the school. 'But it wasn't because I was embarrassed. It's just that I didn't expect him to be there.' She pitifully thought.

"Hello? Are you still there or did you faint again?"

Vali bit back a groan at the obvious teasing. If it was someone else, then she would have beaten that person to a pulp by now, but Naruto was an exception in everything for her. He could call her whatever he wanted to and she wouldn't mind it as long as it was limited to teasing. "I'm fine." Noticing that he was still waiting for a response from her, she looked at him and gave him a look of appreciation.

"Here…"

All of her senses flared up in unison as he held out his hand for her to take. "I said I'm fine…" Still, her ego refused to accept his help as that would have meant that she was a weak individual who couldn't even get up from the ground on her own.

"I know but didn't you injure your right hand last time we met?"

"I-"

"It's fine to take help from others from time to time, you know."

"..."

"After all, that's what makes us-"

"Human."

Naruto's eyes widened slightly at that. How did she know that quote? As far as he could remember he had never heard anyone else say that quote. Hell, for all he knew, he could have been the one to make that quote in the first place. So to hear it from someone else's mouth threw him off the loop a little. 'Maybe it's not an original quote after all…' Sighing to himself, he looked at the girl again, only to see her staring at him like he was some sort of an unearthly being. "Hello?" He blinked when the girl didn't answer.

"Hello?"

"Hello?"

"Excuse me?"

"..."

While Naruto was having a hard time finding a way to bring Vali back to reality. Vali, on the other hand, was having a time of her life staring at the face of the person whom she had come to admire the most during the past few years.

'You look cool though, even more than me…'

Her heart fluttered with uncountable emotions as she began to fall into the chasm of one of the few sets of beautiful memories amassed throughout her tragic and unfortunate life—memories gifted by him.

-Flashback-

Pain.

It was all she could feel. From the brilliant onset of the day to the gloomy conclusion of the ending, she was greeted by nothing but pain and suffering.

Her body, her poor frail body that had endured unimaginable abuse for years was finally giving up. She could feel it in her heart as it was beginning to lose hope now.

Hope.

A false belief bestowed upon her by her mother was something that had given her the courage to endure everything that had been thrown at her by her wicked family. But now after being crushed by the harsh reality so many times, Vali was beginning to realize that there was no such thing as hope. It was just a mental crutch created by weak individuals to help them endure the punishments that were inflicted on them by strong entities.

She, who had lived her whole life following the concept of hope, was slowly beginning to realize that the more she was clinging onto this concept, the weaker she was becoming.

"I can't live like this." Vali groaned to herself, her face forming a vicious scowl as she made herself comfortable under the shade of the huge tree. "If I want to live a happy life then I have to become powerful." Her eyes, which were staring at the sky until now, wandered away from the blanket of blue and fixated themselves on the tree above her. "Be it the Supernatural world or the Mundane/Mortal one, only powerful things can survive the punishment of the time."

The tree under which she was sitting was a powerful being. It had endured every punishment that had been inflicted on it by nature, and now after overcoming those hardships, it was helping weak people by providing them a place to save themselves from the heat and rain. According to Vali, the tree was one of the best examples of how a strong being should act. "First you become strong and then you use that power to improve the lives of those who are weaker than you." She whispered, remembering the words of her mother very well.

"But how am I supposed to become powerful?" She had no one who could teach her or even help her out in some way or another. The only person she had by her side was her beloved mother but as much as Vali hated to admit it, her mother was not that powerful. She was a human in the end and that meant she was weaker than almost every other being in her world.

'You are weak and pathetic because you lack the traits to be a true devil.'

Vali clenched her fists as the harsh and somewhat true words of her father echoed inside her mind. She could deny it as much as she wanted to but deep inside even she knew her father was somewhat right. The main reason for her weakness was her not accepting the true essence of her existence. She was a Devil more than she was a Human, but throughout her whole life, Vali had always refused to accept that reality.

Why?

"Because it doesn't align with my ideology." Her ideology was to help weaker beings and protect them, something that was opposite to what the devils stood for. "They exploit weaker beings and then kill them when they no longer have a useful purpose to them." Vali could never be like that. She refused to venture onto that path.

"Then how am I going to fight that monster? That monster-" Her eyes widened in surprise when her ears picked up the sound of footsteps coming towards her. "Have they found this place already?" The fear in her voice was reasonable because if her father saw her resting here instead of observing other Devil children in the town, he would never allow her to visit the Human world ever again. 'I need to get-' All her worries washed away in an instant when instead of her father, she saw an unknown individual enter the clearing.

"This place seems nice. I think I can train here."

Her beautiful hazel eyes met his deep blue and at that very moment, she noticed something strange about him. 'He isn't a Human.' She could sense it in an instant as he was leaking out energy as if it was nothing. 'His energy reserves are huge!' In her short and sad life, she had seen many individuals with almost endless reserves of energy but none of them could even compete with what she was looking at that moment.

"You can stop hiding, Devil dude. I can sense energy too, you know…"

His words elicited a gasp out of her and before she knew what she was doing, she was walking out from her hiding spot. 'What am I doing? He can be a rogue Devil or a Lucifer hater in general.' There were thousands of scenarios that were running through her mind but she paid them no attention. If what she was looking at was true, then the boy could have already killed her by now.

"Huh?" Naruto blinked when the bushes behind him rustled abruptly. 'He is behind me?!' He panicked. Smart and aware as he might appear on the outside, Naruto was still a novice when it came to sensing the presence of another Supernatural individual. So yeah, while he could sense that someone was hiding near him, he could still not point out where.

"I…"

The fear inside his heart lessened a little when he was greeted by a sweet and timid voice of a girl. 'Who is she?' He asked himself and turned around to look at the individual, only to gape in awe when he saw one of the most beautiful girls he had ever seen standing in front of him.

"I'm sorry for scaring you like that, but believe me, I wasn't trying to hide from you."

She could have said anything at that moment and Naruto still wouldn't have cared much because he wasn't listening to her words at all. For him, her hair was his center of attraction, and all he could do was gape at them like an idiot. "Beautiful…" He muttered to himself. In his whole life, he had never seen hair as beautiful as hers.

"Hello?"

A smile blossomed on his lips when her hair fluttered gently in the wind, lending her already beautiful face even more elegant charm.

"Hello?"

Naruto finally snapped out of his stupor and looked at the girl's face, only to recoil back in shame when he saw traces of fear lingering there. 'I must have scared her by my creepy staring…' The shame inside him doubled when he realized how stupid he must have looked when he was staring at her like that.

"You there?"

Eyes still down in shame, Naruto responded to her with a simple nod of his head.

"Ok. I said I wasn't trying to hide from you. I was just resting here for a while."

Again, Naruto just nodded in response, confusing Vali further with his actions. "Are you alright? Why aren't you looking at me like before?" She asked him, not a bit aware of the fact that how oddly she had just mouthed out her query.

Naruto, who was already drowning in shame, sank even further when the girls asked him that question. 'I'm stupid.' That's all he could think at that moment. If only he had greeted her like a normal individual, then he wouldn't have to go through all of this. 'I can still rectify my mistake.' He blinked as he realized that all he had to do was apologize to her.

"You are blanking-"

Whatever Vali was about to say vanished from her mouth when Naruto interrupted her. "I'm sorry for staring at you like that before. I didn't mean to do it." His apology, although very sincere, only managed to confuse the girl even more.

"What are you saying?" She blinked at him. "When were you staring at me? I don't understand." She was honestly confused and the random statements that the boy was blurting out didn't help her in any way either.

Naruto's mind froze as he realized that he had made the situation worse. 'She didn't even see me staring at her. Great Naruto, you are truly a master of social interactions.' He wanted to pat himself on the back with a baseball bat but before that, he needed to resolve the mess he had just created. "Ahaha… I was joking…" He tried the basics he had learned from the students at the school but cringed immediately when he saw the blank look on her face. "Not… I was serious…" His lips began to tremble a little when the girl remained motionless.

"Aghh fine!" Having had enough of everything, Naruto finally decided to confront it in his way. "Listen, dude, when you were explaining yourself, I was looking at your hair. I heard nothing you said because I was mesmerized by the color of your hair." Gasping for air, Naruto somehow managed to say everything in one single breath. Now it was on the girl how well she was going to take it.

"I see… are you one of those awkward types my father told me once about?"

"Ehh?"

"It's fine…I-I sympathize with your situation."

Naruto was at a loss for words. 'What the hell did I just hear?' "Impossible…" He mumbled to himself. It was baffling. How could someone who's even more awkward than him and Makoto exist in this world? It was supposed to be impossible, but this girl in front of him just proved him wrong.

Vali, who was noticing the change in the boy's demeanor, began to shake a little. "What a-are you talking about?" She asked him, knowing very well that she wasn't going to be able to maintain this act of bravery for long.

"Pfft haha…"

Her fear became a reality when the boy began to laugh like a maniac. 'Did he realize that I was faking confidence?' She hoped not; otherwise, that would mean that she would appear weak in front of a child too. She wouldn't be able to handle that.

"You are not any better. You are as awkward as me… hahaha."

Naruto's words incited an unknown expression on Vali's face. "What do you mean like you?" Her eyes were fixated on the boy now.

"I mean you are just like me."

"No, I'm not-"

"Yes, you are."

"No-"

"Yes."

Vali accepted her defeat. There was no point in arguing with someone as stubborn as the boy in front of her. "And what if I am awkward? Does that mean anything bad?" Her words, although worded with courage, still came out sounding like a mere whisper.

"Nope. Why would that be a bad thing?"

"But you were laughing at me for being weak a while ago."

Naruto paused and blinked at the girl. "Ehh?" His voice and the expression on his face did nothing to hide his confusion at all. "Weak? When did I call you weak?" He asked her, somewhat intrigued by how she managed to reach that conclusion without any substantial basis.

"Y-you said I am awkward…"

"And that means you are weak?"

Vali nodded her head. "Yes." She whispered and lowered her gaze when the boy began to walk close to her.

"How?"

She paused a little to see whether he was still walking towards her. 'He is…' Her feet began to walk away in the opposite direction.

"Oii… don't run away and answer my question."

Little feet stopped their stride as Vali raised her head and looked into his eyes, pain and discomfort shimmering within her own. "Because my father says that only weak people lack the courage to confront others and that makes them awkward." She could still remember every word that man had said to her. They were the sole reason for her timid personality after all.

"Wow… that means I'm weak too," Naruto whispered as a small smile slithered its way to his lips. "Or… maybe… just maybe… your father isn't that intelligent." His words were followed by a surprised gasp from the girl. "What?" He looked at her in confusion. "I'm serious. The way you have just described your father, he sounds like a clown to me."

Vali was at a loss for words as no one in her life had called her father a clown. They couldn't even if they wanted to because… "He is very powerful." It was his power that kept everyone around him in control.

"So what? He can't be more powerful than my mom. Hell, I'm sure he is weaker than me."

For the first time in her life, Vali let out a genuine chuckle out of her mouth. If she wasn't sure before then she was sure now. This boy knew nothing about her father. "He is Lucifer." She didn't want to shock or scare him with that new information. All she wanted to see was how he would fare with that newfound news.

"Say what?"

Vali was about to repeat her words but soon realized how stupid she was being by disclosing information as sensitive as that. Her family wasn't that well appreciated in the post-civil war Underworld and by telling about her lineage to a being from that place she was doing nothing but inviting unwanted attention to herself. "N-nothing." She squeaked and sighed in relief when the boy looked away from her.

"Hmm…" Naruto mumbled while stroking his chin with his fingers. "Then how come he is more powerful than you? If he is a Devil, then sooner or later you are going to catch up to him. It's just a matter of time."

It wasn't that easy, Vali wanted to tell him that but didn't. "No. He will always be more powerful than me because he can do things that I can't."

Naruto was fast to respond. "Like what?"

"He has all the traits of a Devil while I don't have any of them."

Now that made Naruto laugh. "Haha… What? Are you serious? What kind of argument is that?"

"Huh?"

Controlling himself, Naruto looked at the girl and sighed. "You don't have to have those traits to be a powerful dude, you know?" He told her and continued. "You can become powerful without having any of those useless Devilish traits."

Vali was stunned. "How?" She felt like her whole world was crashing in front of her. Until now, she had lived in a reality that had told her that she needed to accept her true Devil self to become powerful. But now this boy, this strange boy, appeared out of nowhere and was trying to change her whole reality.

"By being yourself. Take me as an example. I'm half-Devil and half-Human but I'm still more powerful than most of the Devils. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because… because…" Naruto paused, trying to remember what his mother had told him when he used to cry a lot about having no friends and being weak.

"Because?"

"I don't know. I'm just cool, I guess."

Vali's eyes twitched in agitation, but before she could say anything, Naruto interrupted her by saying something incredible, something that she had never thought she would hear about herself from someone else's mouth.

"Just like you. You look cool too, you know."

Beautiful white face doused in the color of red. "W-what are you saying?" She murmured, still finding it hard to believe that he just said that.

"The truth. You do look cool though, even more than me." Taking a pause, he continued. "You know what? You're just like that wife of Lucifer and I'm sure one day, you will become as powerful as her too."

"I-"

'Beep…'

Their strange conversation came to a halt when Naruto's watch decided to ring abruptly. "Aww… it's over already?" Looking at his watch, Naruto sighed in defeat when he saw that the time for their school lunch break was over. "I didn't even get to practice and now I have to go back to that boring class…"

Vali bit her lower lip anxiously as she realized she had just wasted a stranger's time for nothing. It was because of her that he didn't get to do the thing he came here to do. "I'm sorry." She immediately apologized for being a burden again.

"Huh?"

"It's because of m-me that you didn't get to practice-"

Naruto would have said something funny in response again but decided not to when he saw flickers of Makoto in her personality. "It's fine. You don't have to apologize for anything." He placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled gently when she didn't flinch back this time. "Also who said that I didn't like talking to you. It was a nice conversation, you know. I loved it and would have liked to continue it too."

"Really?"

He nodded his head and did something that his mother always does to him whenever he is sad. He ruffled her hair and patted her head twice. "Yes." His whisper elicited a strange reaction from her but he paid no attention as he was busy planning his next words. "Also, you don't have to worry about those so-called Devilish traits, dude. I'm sure as time passes by, you will eventually learn them on your own, just like I did."

"On your own?"

"Yes."

While Naruto only said those words to motivate the girl, he didn't know he had just introduced Vali to one of those countless traits of a Devil.

Obsession.

Vali's eyes dilated with mirth as they stared at the endless pools of the abyss that were Naruto's eyes.

'Who are you?'

-Flashback End-

When Naruto first learned about the concept of luck, he used to think it was nothing but a phony way of foolish people. But as he grew up, he began to realize that it wasn't a phony concept as he had first thought it to be. It had some sort of credibility to it.

How could he say that? Well, if it was a fictitious concept then there was no way Naruto would have ended up with the beautiful family that he had currently. If history is to be believed, then he was just an orphan whoM his mother found lying inside the bushes of a garden in this city. Had luck not been on his side that day, he could have been found by someone else, someone who wasn't as good as his mother, someone who might have left him alone, or maybe he would have not been found at all?

The fact that he was found by none other than his beautiful mother Layla was enough for Naruto to believe in the concept of luck to some extent.

'Some extent…'

And it seems that Lady Luck knew about his skepticism too. So to turn him into a true believer she decided to change his life again and introduced him to his best friend, Makoto, a girl whom he would do anything for.

Although the situation in which they met was rather sensitive, he still thought himself to be very lucky that he got to meet her before anyone else could harm her. If he wasn't sure before then after meeting Makoto he was sure now. Lady Luck existed and not only did she exist, but she also wanted him to worship her.

Unfortunately for her, Naruto wasn't someone who would worship a cosmic concept or being just because she was being nice to him. No, he was not that type of person. If she wanted him to worship her, then she needed to do something even more unbelievable, something that would make him instantly fall for her charm.

News flash… She did just that. Lady Luck finally managed to turn him into a believer.

"Say that again, Mom…" Naruto whispered, still not believing he heard her right.

"Fine… Makoto and Naruto, meet Vali. From now on, she is going to live with us until her uncle returns from his business trip."

A huge smile blossomed on Naruto's face.

'Life is good…'

Or so he thought, completely unaware of the hungry eyes that were analyzing every part of his body with precise intensity.

-END-

A.N: I hope you liked the chapter.

Do leave a review as they help me with motivation.

I know I'm a little late in updating my stories but it couldn't be helped because I was very busy with my studies. But now, everything is sorted out. So I think I can start writing again as frequently as I used to do in the past.

Also, thanks to the guys on the server for being supportive and keeping reminding me about the updates. If they didn't, I would have lost all the motivation to write by now. So yeah, thanks again, especially to Hadrian for proofreading the chap.

Speaking of proofreading, if there is anyone interested who wants to help me out with my future chapters please join the discord server and contact me there.

Thank you.