Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor Highschool DxD, and I make no profit writing about them.
(AN): He's back again.
Sweat slicked her palms and every cell in her body screamed at her to run away, but Suzuno throttled back that urge and stood her ground. She was a proud kunoichi of Kirigakure, and she'd known since she was a little tyke that at some point she might have to die for her village.
Waiting around until it was time for her bijuu to be extracted wasn't exactly what she'd thought her death would be like, but at least they'd promised to resurrect her afterwards. A second chance at life was more than most people ever got.
She just had to push through the pain and do her duty.
"That's one down." Uzumaki Naruto muttered, his neck craned back as he watched the last flickers of red chakra flee from Killer B's undead body to form the solid body of the Hachibi.
Suzuno hoped she didn't faint. "I totally didn't sign up for this." One of her fellow jinchuuriki growled an agreement, but the blonde young woman was so dazed it went in one ear and out the other. In two months Konoha had changed the world again, and she was still trying to catch up.
"See you on the other side." Gyuki boomed, a hurricane gale escaping his mouth at the bijuu squinted down at the assembled jinchuuriki, looking through them to his kindred within before gracefully letting Uchiha Sasuke whisk him off to another dimension with the Rinnegan.
Easy peasy.
It was maddening.
Three days ago she'd been trying to decide if she wanted pork or fish for lunch, and now she was standing next to the greatest concentration of power in recent history. The five Kage lurked off to the side of the beach with their lips pursed. All the jinchuriki were gathered in one place waiting to go through extraction. Then there was fucking Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke walking around and giving everyone orders. Suzuno was breathing the same air as legends.
She was living a fangirl's wet dream; if she could stop wanting to piss herself long enough to enjoy it.
"Alright, next."
Nobody moved for a few thundering heartbeats, frozen under the mismatched red and violet glare of the last of the Uchiha. No one wanted to be the one that stepped forward to take the full brunt of that cold malevolence.
Then finally Killer B turned to give a particularly petulant looking teenaged boy with a blazing orange buzzcut a significant look.
Green D folded his arms across his chest with a sneer, a rippled of barely restrained violence concentrated on his gravedirt and porcelain cheekbones. The Nibi's jinchuuriki had been cursing up a quiet storm and trying to melt Naruto with his eyes since the moment he'd been resurrected, but a quiet word from Killer B had been enough to make him grudgingly cooperate.
"Fine." Green D spat when Naruto only watched him with an expression of supreme patience. "Fine." Then he stomped past Suzuno, leaving deep prints in the famously white sand of Nami no Kuni. "Let's get this over with then."
A bitterly amused smirk twisted Naruto's mouth, but then vanished so quickly Suzuno was left wondering if she'd just been imagining it. To be fair she'd expected more than a bit of hostility from both of them after remembering the battle of Konoha, but rather than anger the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki seemed like he just couldn't give a damn about any of it.
There was a darkness hanging around Uzumaki Naruto, a darkness that was directly in conflict with the unbending optimism all the stories said he had. Suzuno had once thought of the legendary blond as a goal to live up to, but looking at him now all she could do was shiver and turn away.
It was best not to get too comfortable. She could be the next one called on by the two titans.
"That's the last one."
Sasuke hummed an agreement, letting his hands fall away from their mirrored ram seal with a faint crackle of grinding bone. "The last except you." He pointed out to Naruto, glad for the first time that he was an undead creation rather than a living being. If he'd been brought all the way back he'd probably have passed out from chakra exhaustion after tearing through the dimensions eight times with his Rinnegan.
The Edo Tensei definitely had its uses in creating unbeatable and tireless supersoldiers.
Bumping his armless shoulder against Sasuke, Naruto just rolled his eyes before throwing the white sheet he clenched in his hands over the vacant eyed corpse of the Ichibi's jinchuuriki. The blonde girl seemed to stare with up with accusation in her dead face and it gave him the willies. "So how do you want to play this now?"
Twin Sharingan whirled like venomous rubies as Sasuke cast a heavy look across the beach. Six white shrouded bodies lay in neat rows at their feet, while that Green D brat was off pouting by the water's edge. He'd personally released Killer B from his resurrection, which just left the five Kage fluttering about up on the grass. There was nothing obviously wrong, but he hadn't survived life as a shinobi by being unnecessarily reckless. "We'll deal with Kurama some other time, away from the crowd."
Naruto sighed in exasperation but gave in with a short nod. Truthfully he was tired and just wanted to be completely fucking done with the entire charade, however he also knew Sasuke had a point. They couldn't really trust any of the Kage to not try to pull some funny business if he freed Kurama right now. After extraction Naruto would be vulnerable and Sasuke was still currently dead, which would be prime time for any attempts to overthrow their new order.
The most strategic thing to do would be to wait to release Kurama until the very end. Naruto wasn't arrogant enough to think he'd be just as strong without his friend, and he'd need that strength to browbeat the shinobi into working order. Not to mention there were benefits if they thought he intended to stay longer than he actually would. The people in general would see his new order as more stable. "Yeah alright, we'll deal with it later. Time to get this party started?"
"I suppose."
Winking at the taciturn Uchiha, Naruto cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed over the rush of the surf. "Time to get your asses in gear fuck nuggets! Lookin' at you Gaara!" So crassly addressing his subordinates – and wasn't that a head turner? Having all the Kage waiting him hand and foot – would horrify his mother, but Naruto wasn't too concerned about it. It wasn't like anything he did in the shinobi world would follow him back to Gehenna.
Anything material anyway.
Sasuke just scoffed, folding his arms and watching as the gaggle of Kage made their way across the sand in a line. They reminded him vaguely of little ducklings, and the imagery of tiny water fowl with the heads of Kage amused him enough that he found himself smirking at Gaara's black eyepatch. "It's time."
Time for them to call out whoever they'd chosen as their sacrifice, so that life could be breathed back into his bones and into the bones of the jinchuuriki. Time for them to give him back his eyes, so that Sasuke could finally touch his true power rather than the copy the Edo Tensei jutsu gave him. Time for them to remember how it felt to live in true fear of his name.
"No funny business." Naruto warned, rubbing at the joint of his crippled shoulder with his hand as he pinned Chojuro with a suspicious glance. "I'll be watching."
Gaara's mouth twitched, but the blond couldn't tell if the man meant to frown or smile, since it smoothed back away in a split second. "Of course. We might have had our differences, but we never dealt with you in bad faith."
There was a rebuke in those words that actually aroused a flicker of sympathy in Naruto before he ruthlessly squashed it. "Yeah, sure." It might be technically correct that Gaara and Sakura had never outright told him that they'd turned their backs on his old ideals, but they'd never admitted they had different goals either. It had been a lie by omission as far as he was concerned.
Regardless, Naruto let the matter drop, instead choosing to focus on a wrinkled but still familiar face pushing its way through the crowd. "Okay, I'll admit that I'm a bit shocked that they picked you of all people to throw to the wolves. Couldn't scrounge up some criminal and bribe him by paying his family or something?"
The cold glitter of Sasuke's real eyes deepened in Baki's sockets, but the aged jounin just smiled congenially. "Let me assure you, Naruto-san, that no one asked me to do anything. I volunteered myself for the task rather than leaving it for the next generation to handle."
Baki's outright willingness to die for the sake of others softened the prickling edges of Naruto's bitterness. His determination to follow his new path to the end didn't waver, but the blond found himself looking over the wrinkles of stress in the faces of the Kage with a little more forgiveness. "I suppose you were just doing the best you could, hm?" he muttered to himself.
The time for such conversations had long passed though, so shaking off the maudlin fugue Naruto briskly directed Baki to take his place before calling Green D over with a shout. "I figure you know already, but don't fuck this up." He warned blandly, calling on his Nine Tails Chakra Mode. "You'll only get one shot at this, so let me know if you're short on chakra and I'll give you a bit of a boost."
Rather than haggle over the exact arrangement that the constantly conflicting powers had agreed on, Baki just smiled enigmatically and gave himself over entirely to the Rinne Tensei. Thick streams of chakra in a dozen colours swirled through the air, finding their homes with a final sense of rightness.
Sasuke closed his eyes and for the first time in a month truly breathed. The flame of life passed into him, licking at his insides and chasing the chill of the grave out of him. Touch came back first, with the sand between his toes capturing him despite the sensation of his false eyes crumbling away. Then came taste, with the scent of the sea wind brushing over his tongue.
"Finally." Sasuke murmured, half a prayer; and then collapsed like a puppet with his strings cut.
"Fuck!" Naruto spat, diving to catch Sasuke before his unconscious friend landed face first in the sand. "I told you not to fuck it up!" His admonishment went unheeded as Baki breathed his last and died, while all around him Naruto's fellow jinchuuriki were waking back up with confused cries.
Lowering Sasuke to the ground, Naruto flipped the Uchiha over and pressed his fingers against the pulse at his friend's throat. Sasuke's heart thumped steadily, slow and strong, and he breathed in relief. At least they had that going for them.
A calloused hand settled on Naruto's shoulder, and the blond looked up in surprise only to catch sight of Sakura gingerly kneeling next to him with her hands wreathed in green chakra.
"It's just the shock of it." Sakura reassured her old squadmate, the pads of her fingers touching briefly at Sasuke's temples before continuing on to trace the rest of his skull. "Remember when Madara was first resurrected and went a little crazy over all the sensations? It's the same thing, but Sasuke went for a lot longer with most of his senses gone, so having them come back probably overwhelmed him. It's nothing permanent."
Sitting back on his haunches, Naruto rubbed at his forehead where he just knew that a headache was going to build. "Yeah alright, that's fine I guess. No harm done or anything. We'll just pack him up and head on back then. Get Kurotsuchi to look after the kids or whatever."
"Not quite." Sakura grinned impishly before looking over her shoulder. "Gaara, be a dear and go grab my kit. There's no time like the present." The one-eyed redhead mumbled an agreement before striding off, but the Hokage had already turned her attention to pulling Baki's body up beside Sasuke's.
Naruto stared in confusion before it all clicked, and he spluttered "What, you're doing it here?"
"I don't know what you're so shocked about. I'm the best medic on the continent"
"That doesn't mean that you should be doing eye surgery on a beach!"
"Don't be such a big baby, Naruto. I brought all the tools I thought I'd need with me, and even if I didn't this is nothing compared to the way Obito and Madara ran around swapping eyes back in the day. They didn't even sanitize, just bare hands with their balls to the walls."
"Those guys are not the kind of people you should be taking your ideas from."
Red was her colour. It was the shade of her eyes. It was the tint of her mouth. It was the hue of the blood she drank. Love and hate, life and death, and above all things passion were woven into red.
It also had the peculiar effect of seeming demonic and unnatural to humans, which was why Valerie chose to carefully observe Sakura with a clinical stare that shimmered like edged garnets. She wasn't trying to frighten the woman.
Not exactly.
Valerie just wanted Sakura to know that even though Naruto had basically forbidden any interaction between his Gehennan friends and the shinobi, she was watching.
"Look, I'm not saying you should coddle him, but keep in mind that by this point he's used to only having sight and sound. Throwing in three more senses on top of that can be psychologically overwhelming after a month of barely feeling anything. Give him a day or two to get used to all the new sensations."
Naruto huffed an explosive sigh, waving off the pink-haired woman with a scowl. "Fine, fine. I'll make sure that someone sticks around while Sasuke's out of it."
It had been hours since her King returned from sending off the bijuu, but Sasuke still slept like he'd been drugged. Valerie hoped that he would wake up soon, for Naruto's sake. The sight of him practically bouncing off the walls in agitation was making her anxious as well.
"Good. And remember to keep me updated. I don't think anything is wrong, but if something does go wrong I know you two numbskulls would be too proud to admit it."
"Oh bugger off, Sakura. I'm not a baby."
There was an ease between the old teammates that hadn't been there when Naruto had demanded their fealty in the Land of Iron. It was an ease that truly hadn't even been there that morning. Something had happened during their little trip out to the beach, and whatever it was had let to this new truce Valerie was seeing.
She wasn't sure that she liked it.
What if someone tried to move against her King while Sasuke wasn't able to help defend him? Valerie didn't trust any of these shinobi, and if something happened she alone wouldn't be much help. Sephiroth Graal was a powerful Sacred Gear, but it wasn't exactly combat oriented, and couldn't be used to heal chakra bearing beings anyway.
If something happened to Naruto, Valerie wouldn't be able to survive. Everything would be meaningless. She had no idea if Ophis could pluck up his soul so easily a second time, and Sasuke's technique required a DNA sample and a forbidden sacrifice. Immortality was not a sure thing for Naruto, which meant nothing else mattered except his protection.
Valerie waited as Sakura and her King exchanged a few last quiet words, tracking the Hokage as the woman left their apartments. Then she turned to Naruto. "Are you sure that you don't want to leave?" she asked for the third time since he'd come back. "That pineapple head already has the plans and you've bound up enough of the shinobi that they can't kill each other. We don't have to stay."
Massaging at his eyes with two fingers, Naruto seemed to age ten years in ten seconds. "No." he sighed softly, before his voice and face grew harder. The longing bled away, leaving only steel will behind. "No. We'll make it through another month, just to make sure that nothing unexpected pops up, and then we'll be gone. We can give them that much."
Inwardly Valerie was revolted by the idea. Naruto's kindness and generosity were part of why she loved him, but she wished he wouldn't let strangers take advantage of him. The blond was running himself into the ground for stupid short-sighted humans that didn't even deserve to breath the same air as him, much less demand his sweat and blood.
But this was what Naruto wanted, so she let the matter drop. At the very least her King deserved to get what he wanted this time. The ancestors knew that he'd had precious little in the way of success since his resurrection.
"Hey, you okay? You look a bit pale."
Valerie smiled gently.
The abyss hungered, dark and empty and ravenously thirsty. It hungered for life and love and blood and power. Her supply of Rias' blood had run dry three days past, and the magic in Koneko's blood was only a shadow of that in Rias', whose blood was a pale imitation of the sweet majesty running through Naruto Gremory's veins. It was enough to survive, but not enough to thrive. Not enough to truly live.
She would just have to make it work, somehow.
The Grail whispered, ageless and eldritch with the ringing sound of the sun and the sweet taste of the grave. 'Take me up.'
"I'm fine. You should worry more about yourself."
(AN): Here ya go. 3000.
Rewriting - Fundamentally I don't have any problems with it as it. I do think it would benefit from extra scenes. Sakura/Gaara POVs, maybe a dinner from Grayfia's POV where she feels something is off about 'Naruto', ect. Nothing huge but it would flesh things out. But it's not in any way a priority.
Valerie – I conceive of her as a fundamentally unstable individual because of her childhood deprivation and the Grail. Naruto is her personal savior, but there was restraint there. She was standing on the edge but managed to keep within the bounds of 'healthy crush'. Then Naruto caved in and expressed a romantic interest in her, which is the push.
It is intensifying her obsession and taking it out of her fragile control. Which is why over the course of this fic she's been lowkey developing from an Asia-type character who is pure sweetness to expressing internal disdain and hatred of anything that gets in Naruto's way.
