HEY GUYS!
I'm back! And it hasn't even been that long since I posted chap 15. I'm glad that many of you seemed to enjoy chap 15, though I do have one thing to say…
THIS IS AN ANNOUNCEMENT: GRAYFIA LUCIFAGE IS NOT JOINING NARUTOS HAREM
There we go. Yeahhhh, I didn't even want to keep this a secret because so many people complained about it so I'm letting all of you know now. You may now calm the fuck down.
Anyway. I don't have much else to say, so onto the review replies!
Wacko12: Yes
Insanemaelstorm: I'm glad you enjoyed my chap. And for the Grayfia thing, already revealed it.
Blight23: You must not like fun. Does seeing other people not freaking out over something physically hurt you? I'm just curious. (p.s. you have anger issues)
The Great Dullahan: Hopefully in a meaningful direction
Gold Testament: You make a good point but…whoopsie
Dr. Masaki: Naruto is a contributing factor. But its not why Grayfia is divorcing Sirzechs. The reason is because of Millicas. Sirzechs kept allowing Rias to take care of Millicas and when he brought up Naruto, she snapped at her nephew and terrified him. Grayfia said that he could either set Rias straight or she would leave him. And though Rias is on the right track, she still isn't there yet.
Moonlight Slayer: Olivia technically wasn't lying. She genuinely believed herself to be a goddess. Unfortunately, she wasn't. Ill delve into this a bit during the actual chapter.
MCRasengan: Rossweisse is a Rook
Kikarak: Ah! Here it is! I have to congratulate you for what I think is the longest review I've ever gotten if I'm honest! Also, thanks for backing me up on the honorifics issue that blight brought up. I would like to thank you for all of the genuine and constructive feedback and suggestions that you gave me, and it really made my day (By this stage I think I've re-read your review about 4 times) and I will be striving to take that criticism and hopefully make this story the best that I can make it.
Kidray98624: You will. Don't worry.
PedoStranger: I'm so glad you enjoyed the chapter and how I got Naruto and Olivia to meet.
NaruUchiha24: Thanks! And don't worry, all that and more is to appear.
Shin: Yay! Someone understood where I very badly came from! But don't worry, I will be explaining that during the chapter.
TheB: All will be explained! Worry not!
OrangeSpark5555: I apologise, but no.
Aaaaand that's all done!
Now, before I start the chapter. If you would like to come and yell at me on my discord for my lazy update schedule. Here ya go!
/V79GQbE
And with that said. ONTO THE POORLY WRITTEN PIECE OF SHIT THAT I CALL A STORY!
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It had been barely thirty seconds since all of the teenagers in the room had left before Yasaka sighed softly and turned a look at Inari.
"Inari-sama…"
"I know..." She whined while digging her palms into her onyx eyes "It's just…. I thought I was helping"
Yasaka raised an eyebrow and Inari sighed.
"Its just…its….it was different talking to, someone like her"
"Someone like her?" Yasaka asked in concerned confusion.
"Do you have any idea how different it is to talk to a mortal after living in Takamagahara (1) all my life?" At Yasaka's silence, she continued "All of my brothers, sisters and relatives are within decades of the same age, including me. We've all been through so much and have the maturity and…. I guess it would be called 'wisdom' to know generally what we are all feeling and how to make sure that our intentions are felt by each other. Do you remember the first time we met?" Yasaka nodded while tapping her arm with a slender finger.
"I was 134 I believe. I had been the leader of Kyoto for two years and suddenly I got a message from Amaterasu-sama that a Goddess had decided to meet me" She explained from what she could recall "I was quite confused"
"Do you remember the actual meeting though?" Inari implored the Kyuubi Kitsune.
"Vaguely. You stumbled over your words a little bit and had slight difficulties expressing your intent" Yasaka recounted calmly, trying to remember the day that had happened over a century ago.
"No need to be polite. Ama-chan gave me quite the tongue lashing after we left for how uncomfortable I made you" Inari revealed with a soft smile and small giggle.
It didn't take long though for the soft smile to sink into melancholy and the giggling to die like a tree in a wildfire. With slow and careful movements, she picked up an empty cup and with nary a word, it began to fill with the sweet scent of Yamecha Tea (2)(3). Taking a small sip, she continued speaking while looking at the green liquid.
"That was my first time seeing a mortal in over 600 years…. The only reason I didn't do to you, what I did to Olivia. Was because you were over a century old and had grown up in a very strict and harsh environment. You had matured and that allowed me to use a few cues from my family…."
"But Olivia didn't have any of those cues…did she? You had no idea how to properly convey yourself" Yasaka guessed while sadly looking at the millennia old Juubi Kitsune.
"No…. I didn't mean to be mean. I wanted sort of like the chiding mentor thing going. You know what I mean?" Yasaka nodded with a nervous smile and sweat drop "Instead, all I did was come across as…. I don't know! Some kind of arrogant jerk, I guess" She huffed and leant back while staring at the roof.
Yasaka was silent for a few moments as she idly tapped her desk with her well-manicured nails, her eyes trained on a spot on the wall as she thought before snapping to her senior as she stood up.
"I should probably go and apologize, huh?" Inari asks with a cheeky smile that seemed a bit forced to the Youkai.
"Its probably better to let Naruto deal with it. He's closer to her age and she might not want to see you right now" Yasaka points out as the voice of reason.
With a dramatic sigh and a pout, the Goddess sat back down and snatched her cup of tea before drinking it, her body language showing a childish anger, but her onyx eyes swam with guilt.
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Olivia stared at the fellow teen for a moment before huffing and crossing her arms.
"And you are?" She asked somewhat rudely, but even then, the grin never left Naruto's face.
"I'm Naruto Uzumaki. Pleasure to meet you Goddess~" Olivia growled angrily, and her emerald eyes seemed to flash for a moment.
"You heard her" She seethed under her breath "I'm not a Goddess at all. I'm just a dumb brat playing pretend" Her glare threatened to burn him where he sat but he paid it no heed.
"My apologies" He said calmly "You seem to be taking it quite badly, mind if I ask why?"
Olivia scoffed and flicked a strand of bright blonde hair over her shoulder.
"Why should I tell a glorified plushie like you?" She asked while keeping her piercing glare trained on him.
"I'm just a curious soul. Wanting to help someone who seems in desperate need of help" He decided to brush off the plushie comment as her simply being angry.
"I'm not in desperate need!" She hissed while leaning over the table, before seeming to realize what her actions were portraying and glaring more while slowly leaning back into the booth seat.
"Could have fooled me~ So. Want to explain?"
"Why do you even care? You could have just as easily left the pathetic Fallen girl to wallow in her pity" She flicks her gaze over to the alcohol covered wall briefly.
"Well. I just noticed how sad you looked, those words tore down your whole world, didn't they?" He asked seriously, the grin slipping from his face as he levelled his steeled purple eyes on her.
"And how would you know?" She heatedly responded "How could you have ever possibly experienced your world crumble to dust around your eyes? I've seen the way those two girls look at you. I've seen the look in your eyes. You're happy! How could you have ever felt how I'm feeling right now?" She seethed, heedless of the cheeky gleam exiting her 'companions' eyes.
In an instant the girl felt a subtle wave of magic pressure emanate from the Devil. She was stunned silent at the deadly glare that his eyes had morphed into and the thin line that was once his seemingly never-ending grin. Staring into his eyes, she felt like she was being judged by something far darker and serious than the teen she had come to know since entering the office twenty or-so minutes ago. The trance that the two had was broken as his fingers began to sharply tap against the table in a smooth and quick motion.
"When I was ten years old. I had to kill one of my own Peerage members. Want to know why? Because I saved them" Olivia blinks in surprise and subtly leans away from him "They were on the verge of death, they were as pale as a ghost and had shed enough blood to have easily killed others, but they struggled, they held onto that flickering flame. And I couldn't stand to see it. I had only gone there, because they had a Sacred Gear. But at the time, I couldn't care. As quickly as I could I ran over, revived him and healed him to the best of my ability" Olivia let the story continue, unable to stop it in her surprise at his tone "But it didn't matter. I had 'turned him into a Devil against his will' and for that, he could never forgive me. I tried so, so hard to accommodate him. To make him like me and I had believed it had worked…until the night he tried to kill me" Olivia's eyes widened.
With a shaky breath, he continued talking "We fought, he used every trick he had learnt and even the familiar that I had helped him gain to try and kill me. And in the end, I had to kill him. I overpowered a fire spell and melted him" Naruto shivered while looking at his hands "I had nonstop nightmares for so long. And to add insult to injury, my sister and mother turned their backs on me for killing a Peerage member, someone I was supposed to see as family. My father ignored me. I only had my brother, and even he turned his back on me. I was the laughing stock, the brother of a great Maou who couldn't even stop his own Peerage member from turning into a Stray Devil. Four years, four years I dealt with all that! And it hasn't even fully stopped to this day…. And then, at a gala that I already despised to begin with. My sister's fiancé approached and begun to relentlessly mock me for it. I snapped, I hit him once…and I was removed from my family in all but name. I lost practically everything that day, I could only bring the items I could fit in a pocket dimension and had to leave the one place I had to call home….to call 'mine'." He tilted his head up slightly and looked at Olivia through the top of his eyes, his spiky red hair hanging over his eyes and creating ominous shadows "So tell me 'fake Goddess'. Think I have no right to talk to you about your world falling apart?"
Olivia was silent, her eyes wide and staring into his like a drill, her hands lightly shaking as she exhaled shakily and tilted her head down.
"I'm sorry. I had no idea…" Naruto sighed and leant back in the booth, stopping the ominous look and aura he had going, before.
"…its fine. I got a little worked up anyways" He took a calming breath "So, mind answering my question?"
Olivia felt her eyes wonder over the table and her arms as she leant on the booth table, trying to articulate the words within her own mind. Naruto, mistaking the silence for more hesitance gently spoke up.
"I may be a stranger but talking can help put things in perspective and could help you. And I just gave you my own backstory." He tacked on the joke at the end and managed to get a split-second smile from the girl.
"I wasn't born a Fallen, nor a Hybrid of some kind. I was born to two full blooded Angels and lived in Heaven for the majority of my life…. I used to love living there. Everything was so pretty and colorful and full of life. Though, after the first mission that I followed along on, that sort of changed…..The Angels have this sort of….warning system for those that Fall -at least, those that fall gradually- and all it took was a split second where my wings were no longer pure white for it to be attached to me like an eternal weight and branding…"
She tugged at the plain black collar that sat around her neck, the accursed leather-like material locked around her neck for what she imagined would be the rest of her millennia-long life.
"This used to be pure white, but the further towards a Fallen one goes, the darker it gets. As you can see, its black, which means I've Fallen. After I fell, I was reeling from the event and only had those I had helped to fall back on, and they had believed me to be a Goddess. And they gave me strength, with them, I didn't feel like I did as an Angel, or even my limited time as a Fallen. I began to think that I really was a Goddess, I felt like I wasn't just deluding myself. I built myself back up and around this idea that I had become a Goddess, that I could actually do good and help my followers. That I could actually make a change and do something among these…. titans of strength and the pantheons which had hundreds of Gods, Goddesses and warriors; even if it was something as small as keeping them safe…but finding out that I was just a fraud? That I really was deluding myself and all I was, was just a Fallen that was deluding myself?" She pauses and tears began to leak out of her eyes "I just couldn't handle it…I hate that I really am just that same dumb Angel who couldn't protect anybody" Naruto tried to comfort the now crying girl, but not knowing how, he just stuck to patting her shoulder.
They stayed like that for a moment before he spoke up.
"Who's to say that you aren't a Goddess though?" When Olivia snapped her head up to him and stared at him like he had lost his mind, he continued "For a human, a mere lower-level supernatural is a God. To a low-level supernatural. The highest levels are Gods. If that's the case, then its not really about what Inari said. The aspects of reality that you can bend to your whim above all others. I think its about the actions you take, and the way you present yourself and your powers that makes you a God or Goddess. And, if you were really just a regular Fallen, why would you ever possibly have silver wings?" Olivia's eyes widened.
"My wings? I thought it was a defect. Or some kind of accident or something…." She muttered while rubbing her arm self-consciously.
"Maybe you can explain how an Angel's or Fallen's power work, if they have different mechanics?" Naruto asked curiously.
"Weren't you supposed to be trying to cheer me up?" Olivia asked with a small smile as the boy froze.
A small, very tiny, blush lit up his cheeks and he raised his arms with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry. Got a little carried away…. again"
"Its fine" She placated him with a gentle smile "I am feeling much better now. You really knew what to say to cheer me up" She teased slightly, enjoying the soft moment of tranquility.
"I'm glad…. maybe we should continue this conversation somewhere else? Like, not a bar?" He asked the other teen.
Olivia jolted as she remembered and looked around, seeing most of the bar patrons having gone back to their drinks and/or conversations after Naruto had thrown her Sake against the wall. Though a few, including the owner, glared at the both of them with a hatred that was almost palpable.
"That sounds like a good idea…" She slowly slid out of her seat, followed by Naruto.
As the two began to walk out, and past the man who was still passed out from when he tried to hit on Olivia as soon as she entered, the owner stomped towards them with an annoyed glare. Stepping in front of them, he crossed his arms and blocked the doorway.
"You two aren't leavin' till ya pay for tha alcohol an' tha wall" He sternly points towards the alcohol-soaked wall.
The 'Goddess' froze and paled, having left all her money with Samuel and Joel…. who she had abandoned when she ran out of Yasaka's house and through the backstreets and alleys of Kyoto. Naruto, meanwhile, sighed and calmly pushed Olivia to the side a little bit as he walked forward; his suave and confident grin returning as he reached inside his cloak and grabbed a small wad of notes out, handing it to the owner.
"Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a lovely evening!" He says, his grin only serving as an unashamed reminder of what he did as he confidently walked out, Olivia meekly scampering out of the bar and next to Naruto.
"That looked like a lot more than was needed…" She hesitantly began the conversation while evening out her pace with his.
"It was." Was the only reply she got.
"Oh…."
"So. You were going to explain how your powers worked?" He raised an eyebrow at her as she smiled sheepishly.
"Oh yeah… So, Angels and Fallen Angels, powers run on a system of faith" She scrunched up her face as she tried to remember the lessons she was taught so long ago "You can, of course, train manually to increase your strength. But a sort of 'easy' or 'overnight' solution was to increase the amount of Faith you received. If humans, or any creature really-" She tacked on at the end with a thoughtful expression "have Faith in you or pray to you. Your strength and abilities passively improve. This also works for the Pantheon one is apart of. But that strength is spread evenly throughout the whole pantheon, unlike when a single Angel or Fallen receives prayers or Faith" She looked over and saw Naruto looking at her attentively with an encouraging smile "Its also why the Fallen are, on average, weaker than the Devils and Angels, because they no longer receive the passive bonuses of being in an actually known Pantheon like Angels and rarely, if ever, receive individual prayers"
"Maybe your wings turned silver because the type of prayers or 'Faith' you got was altered?" Naruto chucked a hypothesis at her.
"Altered?" She parroted in confusion.
"Yeah. I have two ideas. It could be because you no longer have the management system of the Biblical God to filter the 'Faith' so what you're now getting is the unfiltered power of their prayers" Olivia hummed in thought, having never thought about it like that before "Or! Receiving the prayers and 'Faith' of being a Goddess is somehow fundamentally different from the prayers and 'Faith' of an Angel" He said while resting his right arm on his left hand and flicking his finger out to the side.
Olivia was silent as she mulled over the two hypothesis' and thought about which one was more likely to be true. Both had merit to them, and she couldn't immediately discredit either. As they both walked, and she thought about them, they made idle small talk until hearing Natsumi call out Naruto's name. When they turned towards her, they saw her, Sayuri and Kunou -who had launched herself at Naruto- approaching. With a small grunt and a spin, Naruto caught the flying kitsune and let her down.
"Hiya Naru-nii!" She chirped happily, getting a grin out of the Devil.
"Hey Kunou-chan~" Naruto greets her "Say hi to Olivia" He gestures to the 'Goddess' besides him.
Kunou squawks in embarrassment and stumbles back before straightening herself and hurriedly bowing with a large and tomato red blush on her face.
"I'm so sorry! My name is Kunou, daughter of Youkai Leader Yasaka" She repeats in a clearly rehearsed speech "It's a pleasure to meet you"
"It's a pleasure to meet you as well, Kunou" Olivia giggles slightly while playing along "But you don't have to be all formal around me, its fine"
Kunou sighed and straightened herself out, her posture momentarily snapping into a straight and noble stance before quickly melting into a more relaxed one as she grinned at Naruto again, and then at Olivia.
"So, squirt. Now that we've all met up. What would ya like to do? ~" Sayuri asked while grinning and crouching down to Kunou's level, an action which made the younger girl pout slightly.
Her golden eyes boring heatedly into Sayuri's silver, she grinned before turning to Naruto happily.
"Can we go get Yakitori?" (4) She asked, seeing Sayuri pale out of the corner of her eye.
"The usual restaurant?" He asked kindly, getting an excited nod from the young girl "Okay. Let's go" He encouraged everyone as they started to move in a group.
Noticing one member missing, Naruto turned back and saw Olivia standing awkwardly in the same spot, her head tilted down and grasping her elbow.
"Olivia. That was aimed towards you as well" He jokingly chides while smiling gently.
When Olivia looked up in genuine surprise, he hid the small stab of sympathy that spread through him at the sight. He motioned for her to come over and a small, shy smile stretched her lips as she power walked over to the small group.
"Yakitori!" Kunou cheered while animatedly walking forwards, Sayuri looking like her soul was trying to escape.
And through it all, Olivia couldn't help the small giggle that bubbled up through her lips.
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AAAAAANNNNNDDDDD DONE!
Also, here ya go!
(1): Takamagahara is the Japanese realm of the gods. So like Asgard for Norse mythology
(2): Inari is also the God of tea
(3): Yamecha tea is a green tea grown in the Yame region of Japan. It is known for its sweet taste and smell and for its quality.
(4): Yakitori is a kebab
What is it with me and finishing these chapters somewhere between 11pm and midnight? I've done it for so many that its, frankly, ridiculous. Any who! That's chapter 16 and I hope you guys enjoyed it.
Another thing I'd like to say. I did SO MUCH FREAKING RESEARCH for this chap. Idk why, but I think I spent more time researching stuff than actually typing this chap.
I hope you guys enjoy this chap, I'd also like to say that on the 4th of February I start my last year of high school. So, my updates will likely slow down. I'm letting you all know now in case I don't update before then.
Regardless
Adios!