Naruto gawked. Ok...where was this?! Last thing he remembered was being knocked out, so he should have been in his mindscape. But this wasn't a sewer.
He stood within a deeply forested area. Sunlight peeked through a few gaps in the canopy of the dense vegetation while most of the area remained darkened. It wasn't foreboding though; more like peaceful. Sacred, almost.
Naruto followed a small dirt path that broke off in several directions to various parts. He wasn't sure why, but he felt that going straight was the best choice. He whistled to himself as he continued down the small path. He didn't even know how long it was before he came to something that he was certain was what he was looking for.
There before him lay a cave. A large one, to be exact. All around it was a series of pillars that ended in balled tops, four on the left and four on the right, that, to Naruto, seemed like some kind of large electrical towers, and one was on top that had a pointed top the had a ball on the end of the point. The one thing that he definitely recognized was a large paper tag that hung from the center if the cave's mouth with the inscription of 'seal' on it.
No way...it couldn't be! Could his mind have changed this much?! There was only one was to know for sure.
"Hey fox!" he shouted and saw something in the cave shift and the Kyubbi no kitsune appeared at the mouth of the cave.
Naruto yelped in surprise.
The fox looked...hyper emaciated. As it was, the demon's skin looked to be the only thing holding it's bones together.
What was more, he saw that the tower-like objects had glowing orange-red strands of energy that connecting them to the nine-tails. Naruto had never seen anything like them before.
"Damn these...evil...pieces...of shit! Vamperizing...my chakra!"
Evil Pieces..." Naruto said, recalling what Rias had said she'd put in him to turn him into a devil. So...theses towers were actually the pieces themselves...or at least a mental projection of them. So these things were sucking the fox dry?
He wondered...
Naruto focused on the Evil pieces and the flow of energy stopped and the super-sized chess pieces stopped glowing and faded to the same shade of bright red as Rias' hair.
The fox glared at him then muttered something under it's breath. Naruto could have sworn it was the word 'Thanks'.
"Ooooh-kayyy...now that that's taken care of...what's going on with my mindscape?" Naruto asked, looking around.
"This is how your mind would have looked if it weren't for all that crap Konoha put you through because I was in you." the kitsune growled.
Naruto turned to look at the demon. Say what the huh?! So what was up with the sewer from before if this was what his minscape was supposed to be like by default?!
"Shit… since when was my mind so fucked up?" Naruto wondered.
"Did you think this place being a sewer was NORMAL? You hold in many things about yourself; usually your more aggressive traits and they build within you. Your mind had always been a wreck because of it, thus, reflects how you "hold in" those emotions by appearing as a sewer." Kyuubi explained to the blond and Naruto blinked before giving the creature a look.
"So basically...my minds better now because...?" Naruto said.
"Mindset on your Devilhood...the fact is that when that Rias girl mentioned that you were a devil, you finally vented how you felt. You Never allowed yourself to explode like that at the idea of being seen as anything other than human before. It was like a dam breaking." the fox grunted.
"So when I lashed out at Rias, I let go of the build up? Ok, I get that. But what's up with my chakra control. It feels like my chakra levels shrank or something." Naruto said, getting the ancient demon rolled it's eyes.
"Your chakra capacity hasn't been reduced, Moron. Just that with me in you, you're chakra network had to become highly overdeveloped because my demon chakra was too strong for a human body. Since you're a devil now, your body can handle my power better and that threw off your control because of how used to it you were with your control being harder from back when you were human."
Naruto blinked. So his chakra hadn't reduced, his body could just deal with having so much power better? Sweet. Wait...Naruto made a pinched face as if he had eaten something sour that had gone rotten and moldy, he took that back. If his body had gotten better at having so much chakra from his losing his being human, he didn't like that as much.
"If you want proof...your body'll be unmarked when you check again."
"The scars are gone?!" he asked.
"Like I said, you're body can handle demonic power better now, so my chakra can fully fix your body without strain or drawback...that Gremory girl's help in your recovery actually boosted the speed of how quick it went. Gotta say, interesting way of tending the wounded...both people up against one another with nothing but their birthday suits, pressing flesh..." the beast said snickering as the end.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait wait..." Naruto said, holding up his hand to cut the fox off, "You mean to say, if I've got this right, that Rias girl has been helping heal me...by stripping me down completely, stripping herself down completely, and pressing flesh against me when we're both bare butt naked?!"
The fox actually laughed, "Energy transference. The clothes get in the way...so yes!"
Stifling a nosebleed and then looking at the fox, Naruto said the first thing that popped into his head. "...I swear, Ero-sennin would love that chick..." Naruto deadpanned.
The starved-looking Kitsune nodded in agreement with a smirk. "True...the man's too horny, even to be allowed in the circle of Hell that represents lust, he's just that bad. I suppose it's a good thing that you're too mad to focus on that girl's gender."
Naruto blanched "Uh...excuse me?"
The biju snickered, apparently going to love what it was going to say a little before it spoke to it's warden again, "That pink-haired teammate of yours...she psychologically conditioned you to be Gynophobic with her treatment of you." the demon stated. "It's obvious, you just have to look at the facts: 1) She's constantly abusive to you for anything and everything. 2) Your first kiss being with another guy. 3) Your kunoichi teammate gets mad when you show an interest in women. Looking at it from the outside, what am I supposed to believe other than the truth: that Sakura girl you work with is a yaoi fangirl and she deliberately bent you so you were as straight as a circle to try making it so you and Sasuke became a couple in order to entertain herself."
Naruto's jaw dropped. SAY WHAT?!
"Hold up! Hold up! Hold up! Time out! Stop the presses!" Naruto cried, putting his hands in front of himself in the capital-T gesture to have things stop. He looked at the bane of his existence, going green in the face, "You're saying you think that I'm..."
"Not by choice. But yes." the fox cackled, loving how much this was making Naruto squirm. "Don't take it the wrong way, seeing as how I was stuck in you since the day you were born, I more than anyone else, understand you weren't that way before, but that pink ape on your team won't allow you to be straightened out!"
Naruto backed away a few feet before his legs gave out under him and he fell to the ground, his knees against his chest and gripping his head as though he was in pain. "I don't believe this...I'm not gay! I'M NOT GAY! I'm really sick of having to tell people this!" he moaned.
"You know that it's the truth, then again...that cherry blossom's NOT HERE! You could be cured...AND you're already surrounded by those hot vixens Rias, Koneko, and Akeno for when you get over that psychologically-conditioned Gynophobia!" the fox laughed.
"Jiminy Cricket you're not!" Naruto snapped and the super-sized Evil Pieces suddenly surged in response to Naruto's anger, tearing away larger chunks of the fox's demonic power, making it cry out in agony as the Evil Pieces resumed glowing the way they had before.
Naruto looked at the Evil Pieces and had to confess that there was one good use for these things: disciplining the fox the Yondaime had put in him and had inadvertently made his life a miserable Hell growing up. Sure he knew why the man had done that, to save the lives of everyone in Konoha, Naruto included, but as much as he understood that and as much as he admired the man, it was hard not to hold the miseries Naruto had to endure in the past against him.
Fading from his mindscape, Naruto awoke to see that the room that he'd woken up in before had been fixed up as if the fight had never happened. He shook his head and looked at the door and window, making use of the red and black eyes which had once occupied Sasuke's head.
Dammit! He groaned. Not again! Those damn barriers were up again!
Naruto, from the mission in Nami no Kuni, knew the Sharingan had two separate elements: The piercing eye that caught every minute detail and the hypnotic eye which mesmerized the ones who looked at it. Sure, he had been fighting Haku at the time, but that didn't mean he hadn't heard Zabuza's voice when he was telling Kakashi-sensei what the rogue ninja had figured out about how the Uchiha dōjutsu worked:
"First with the piercing eye you copy my movements instantly. This replica of movements makes me doubt my own thoughts. Once I was shaken you infiltrated my mind, waiting for the slightest flow and intermediate my actions, seeking out any hints to my next move. You time it precisely, waiting for the right instant that my mind becomes unfocused and you created an illusion with your hypnotic eye. You induce me to make hand signs when you were making the same signs so you seem to be copying me when actually you're controlling my movements."
And, as he was learning first-hand right now, one of the main powers of the dōjutsu kekkei genkai was that the Sharingan was able to see energy flow. The Sharingan itself gave color to chakra, allowing the wielder to differentiate them and, while not on the level of the Byakugan, could even see chakra through solid surfaces.
He really wished he could turn the dōjutsu off, but as he knew from Kakashi-Sensei, the Sharingan in its active state couldn't be shut off if it was a transplant. Otherwise Kakashi would simply do that as opposed to constantly keeping his left eye closed and covered up with his hitai-ate. But as odd as it was, Naruto didn't feel any strain at all from these implanted eyes, as if his new body was overqualified to have the Sharingan. If anything, except for seeing energy, they felt like normal eyes to him with how he didn't feel there was any strain on his chakra at all.
That freaked him out a bit.
At the very least, he could figure out the normal Sharingan. While he had no idea how to get that "Mangekyō" level, Naruto knew one thing for sure: if you had to kill the ones who mattered to you to get it the way Sasuke kept alluding to during their fight, it was a power the blond DIDN'T want!
But back to the matter at hand...how was he supposed to get out of here? This was going to drive him crazy! He wanted to escape! But what could he do? Swap himself with some...thing outside of...the...
"Ye gods, its perfect!"
Slapping a hand to his forehead for not thinking of it before, he placed his hands into a familiar cross seal.
"Kage Bunshin."
No sooner had the shadow clone appeared, than Naruto made another seal and was enveloped in a plume of smoke before he appeared outside the room he had been trapped in. After summoning a shadow clone outside the room, he had quickly performed a kawarimi no jutsu in order to instantly swap places with it in order to get out of his imprisonment. Sure he could have used something else, but the room he'd just escaped was all he had seen of this place, hence, the clone.
He looked around. Well...that worked!
Ok. Get out of the room...check. Now all he had to do was find his equipment, escape this devil-infested place, and find a way to return to Konoha and hopefully Tsunade-Baa-chan could find a way to remove those Evil Pieces from his body and restore his humanity to him.
Sounded like a plan to Naruto.
Now, where was...AH! There was the energy-radiating silhouette of "Little-Miss-Wicked-is-Good" Rias who had made a Devil out of him! Still...he frowned at seeing how many others were in this place. Damn...
Ah well, he'd evaded ANBU black Ops. when running around in bright orange, how hard could it be to stealth his way through a mansion full of devils be? And good thing for his new eyes too (Naruto couldn't believe he'd just thought that) since he could keep track of everyone in here by seeing the energy coming off their bodies due to the Sharingan and avoid them using skills like the transformation jutsu or using chakra to stick to places like the ceiling to avoid being spotted by them.
He had no weapons. He had to do this with his bare hands and his chakra.
Which suited him just fine.
Sweeping his eyes across the area to see where each of the ones in this place were and how many of them whose energy he could see and where they were, he nodded to himself. He had to do this quick and clean. Nobody knowing he was there, nobody knowing he was gone. Good thing he was a ninja. By definition, that was how he was supposed to work anyway. The blond made his way to where he saw Rias's energy coming off her.
As Naruto walked through the halls towards the femme fatale's room, he looked from one end of the hall to the other cautiously. He narrowed his transplanted Sharingan eyes and soon spotted the energy from Rias. 'Alright, just need to find her,' he thought, as he slowly made his way forward. The hall was lined with windows. From those windows pale moonlight shined through. It illuminated the hall enough that he likely wouldn't run into anything.
It also cast dark shadows along the places he wasn't. It'd also make it easy for anyone else to see him. Of course that was only if they were actually awake. He idly glanced out a nearby window to see the moon hanging in the air. He admired it for only a moment before he crept forward. Judging by how high in the air it was, he assumed that anyone else in the place was asleep.
He crept down the hallways regardless. The last thing he wanted to do was make a lot of noise. Waking up anyone would only make it that much harder to get around this place. Especially considering all the other energy signatures he saw around the place alongside of Rias'. He crept forward and pushed up against the nearby wall. He glanced down the hall to make sure no one was coming.
He kept his eyes open as he made his way down the carpeted hall. He saw something approach and looked to either side before flipping onto the wall and crawling onto the ceiling. As he did he nearly lost his footing. 'Oi, that's right. Chakra control is off,' he recalled as he pulled back on his chakra. Measuring the amount he needed was more difficult than he liked to admit. Further, using too much right now was not an option.
'Just hang in there…' he thought as he watched the man below him. He had a flashlight in hand as he roamed the halls. He was dressed in a dapper ensemble common among butlers. Naruto assumed that the man was one. Which given how big this place appeared, meant that Rias was very well off. 'That could make things difficult,' he admitted to himself.
He'd have to keep his eyes open for servants. He gasped softly as his chakra gave way and he fell to the ground with a thump. The butler paused and turned to investigate. Naruto quickly hid behind a nearby curtain. He breathed softly as the butler examined the area and then shrugged. He walked off a moment later and Naruto exhaled a relieved sigh. He really needed to be more careful.
He slipped out from behind the curtain and continued down the hall. He crept into a large room with the door outside across from him and stairs going up. He noticed a pair of pillars was to either side of the stairway. He also turned towards where the doors were and saw there were windows about it. There were two rows, each row was comprised of three large windows. Judging by the design he'd say they were decorative only.
'Damn, that could've been useful,' he thought to himself. He then turned back to the pillars and rubbed at his chin thoughtfully. 'Those could be useful,' he noted only to halt as he remembered his chakra control was shot. 'Better not to risk it,' he decided with a sigh. That meant he had to do it the hard way. With that in mind, he checked with his transplanted Sharingan once more and saw Rias' energy was above him.
'Okay, just need to find her now,' he thought and took a deep breath. He made his way up the steps calmly and carefully. He didn't want to make any noise to draw someone's attention. Given the butler from before he wouldn't be surprised to see other servants were out and about. His vigilance paid off as a maid turned the corner up the stairs.
He quickly flipped off of the stairs to hang by the railings. He looked up and watched the maid walk down the stairs before he quietly and quickly climbed back up. He crouched down low and crept up the stairs. He glanced back every now and then to ensure the maid wasn't coming back. Soon he reached the next floor and looked from side to side.
There was no sign of servants. However there were no more stairs either. 'Probably more stairways elsewhere,' he decided. Although he also had to wonder why anyone would need a four story tall mansion. It felt silly in his opinion. Regardless, this wasn't his home and he had more important things to do. He crept down the hall and continued towards Rias location.
He idly took note of the outside as he passed by a window. He could now see what appeared to be a large forested area passed the mansions grounds. 'That'll be the easiest way to get away from this place,' he decided. He then continued his way forwards. Knowing where he was going was fine, but for now he still had to find Rias. Not to mention all his gear.
That in mind he continued down the hall at a sedate pace. Both eyes and ears kept open for anything odd. He halted a time or two when he could make out the sound of footsteps. Not trusting his chakra control he slipped behind nearby curtains. A maid passed a few moments later. Dressed in an outfit he'd say actually appeared proper for what she was. 'Unlike those things Ero-Sennin liked,' he thought with a frown.
He continued on and came to another flight of stairs. 'Finally,' he thought. However he then halted and frowned deeply. Unlike the last, this one was enclosed. He wouldn't be able to hang off of the side if someone came down from above. 'Going to have to make this quick,' he decided. He didn't run but he was quick in his pace as he went up. He stopped and peered around the corner when he reached the next floor.
'Right side,' he thought with a glance, 'clear,' he noted. 'Left side,' he mused as he turned, 'also clear,' he noted. That done he breathed a sigh of relief and walked out and continued towards Rias energy signature. It was still above him however, which irked him just a tiny bit. 'Just how big is this place!?' he mentally demanded. He shook that thought off and continued on his way.
He stopped when he heard something approach. He saw the shape of a large dog and widened his eyes. 'Okay, not using the curtain trick here,' he thought and jumped up onto the ceiling. He then quickly made his way forward. He glanced down after a moment to see that the 'dog' was actually a large wolf. Pinned to its collar was a flashlight it was using to look around.
'That seems… odd,' he decided. 'Who puts a flashlight on their dog?' he mused to himself. He then thought of the Inuzuka and paused. 'Never mind,' he thought with a sigh. He then gasped as his control gave out and he fell to the ground. The wolf turned and rushed towards him. 'Shit!' he thought and bolted down the hall. He turned when he came to a flight of stairs and quickly made his way up.
The stairs, like the last set, were also enclosed. He mentally groaned and palmed his face tiredly. 'Now I've really got to book it,' he thought as he quickly made his way up. He heard the sound of barking and grimaced. 'Now the servants will be looking for someone, just great,' he thought to himself. With that in mind he quickened his pace towards where Rias energy was coming from.
He crouched low as he saw someone rushing towards him from ahead. 'Probably heard the dog,' he rationalized. He slipped behind a curtain just as they passed him by. He then slipped out and continued on his way. Moving quickly he came to an intersection and used his Sharingan to look for Rias. 'Left,' he thought and turned down the hall. He crept along until he found himself at her door.
He looked to either side and then approached the door. He jiggled the handle for a moment and frowned. 'Locked,' he noted to himself. He checked to see if he had anything on hand he could use to pick it. 'Kuso,' he mentally swore when he found nothing. 'It'd take me too long to go back and find something to pick the lock,' he thought to himself.
Furthermore, the servants, that wolf, and anything else in this place would be more precautious this time…
'So I need to break into her room. Wonderful,' he thought sarcastically. He idly looked back down the hall and then to the door with a frown. 'The locks on these kinds of doors aren't as strong as others,' he noted to himself. He then gripped door handle. 'Let's hope this works,' he thought as he stood up. He pressed in and then twisted the door handle roughly a few times.
He heard several grinding noises and grimaced. 'Please don't wake up,' he thought as he twisted up and down and then pushed on the handle at an angle. A few more rough twists and he shoved on it and heard a snap as the handle broke. 'Well, no one ever said not to leave evidence,' he mused to himself. He pulled the handle out and then pushed the inner piece and twisted until he snapped the spring of the lock.
With that done he pushed the door open and slipped inside the room silently. Once inside he reached out and placed the handle back onto the doorframe to make it appear as if nothing was amiss. 'Won't hold up if they actively check, but hopefully I'll be long gone by then,' he thought to himself as he turned to look at the room.
Sheesh! Looking at the décor of her room, Naruto could almost swear he was somewhere back home. There were certainly a huge enough collection of objects and artifacts that her room would have fit in back there.
Wall scrolls...samurai armor...figures of Shinto deities (Naruto had to wonder how THAT worked, a devil with statues of gods in her bedroom)...kokeshi dolls...folding tatami mats all along the floor...shoji and bamboo blinds...and tons of other things that reminded him of being home, she was even sleeping in a zen platform bed with a shiki futon that had a kakefuton comforter, along with buckwheat hull pillows! Place looked like a Feudal Lord's room!
Ok...maybe finding his ninja tools in this girl's room wouldn't be as easy as he thought.
Naruto couldn't help but gulp as the thought of that if Rias had this much of a major flair on the cultural style, it made it easy to imagine her trying to take over the Elemental Nations.
The idea seriously freaked him out.
He made his way to Rias. Maybe she had them with her rather than hidden somewhere among all this stuff? Would certainly be easier than turning this needle-in-a-haystack the girl called a room upside down looking for ninja gear. As he got near her, she turned over, pushing the futon cover away and Naruto had to stifle another Rias-associated nosebleed.
Rias slept completely naked!?
'DAMN YOU ERO-SENNIN! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT! I JUST KNOW IT!' Naruto mentally raged. What drove him crazy was that a certain part of him between his waist and knees was suddenly as erect and hard as a steel rod at the sight!
He backed away, horrorstruck over this devil body's reaction—this utter betrayal! Yet the part of him that had to deal with exposure to Jiraiya's nature noted that Rias' body measurements were B32-W22-H32...Gah! He shook his head. Bad thoughts! Bad thoughts! He backed away from the thirteen-year-old devil girl as if he was terrified of being infected by some plague.
He had to get his equipment and get out of here...sooner the better!
Looking around furiously, he sighed as he saw his supply pouch and his kunai/shuriken holster on a shelf, he could see his own chakra all over them like fingerprints. Creeping over to avoid waking the female in the room so he didn't get an unholy beating if she found out he was in her room while she was asleep and have her jump to conclusions...something her state of dress or lack of therein wouldn't help much in detouring...he picked up the fanny pack-style pouch and opened it, giving a brief inventory inspection.
Kakuremino no Jutsu cloth...check, Makibishi spikes...check, flash bombs...check, smoke bombs...check, Kunai knives...check, shuriken...check, explosive tags...check, military ration pills...check, first aid kit, fully stocked...check, suppression seals...check. signal flairs...check, sleep gas bombs...check...poison gas bombs...check. Collapsible demon wind Shuriken...check. Diamond-edged steel Zankosen wires...check. He looked over the rest of his equipment after that. All accounted for.
He sighed and looked at the ceiling, seems that for once, God (if he even existed) threw him some slack. Maybe the Big Guy Upstairs knew that he wanted to shed his unwanted devilhood and had finally decided to give the young shinobi some help. Then he fought down a snort at the idea. Yeah right! If it took being unwillingly turned into a devil to have God give a damn about him, how much of a "Supreme Benevolence" could the mook be?!
Strapping the pouch back to his waist then the holster back to his right thigh, he then made his way over to Rias silently, took out a kunai and raised it over his head. He looked down at the Gremory girl that had changed him, part of him wanting to actually kill her for what had happened to him. His whole life, he's been treated like he was some unholy monster, then because he wanted to do what was right, he literally woke up and she told he was a devil now? How else was he supposed to act in that situation except with anger? Still...the fact was Rias was under no obligation to, but still saved him, and only did what she had due to there not being any other option available in time to keep him alive. As much as she had done to him, as much as he despised her...
"No..." he said. There had to be another way, a better way than this.
He put the kunai knife away before kneeling beside the sleeping devil-girl.
"...I owe you, I'll admit that. You saved my life, I'll just walk away and let you keep yours." he whispered in her ear, then stood and turned to walk away before a hand grabbed his wrist. Turning again, he saw Rias holding his hand, still sleeping, but that there were tears pooling on the sides of her closed eyelids.
At that, Naruto's eyes widened in complete astonishment.
'Somebody, a girl no less, is actually crying because I'm leaving?!' Naruto thought. This was completely outside his reference. Having never even gotten a date or been kissed by a girl, he didn't know how to handle anything like this. He slowly and carefully reached for her wrist and delicately removed her fingers one at a time, treating this like she was a scary device—one that might explode if handled incorrectly. And knowing how short-fused human women were as far as their tempers, he was willing to bet that wasn't far from the literal truth with female devils!
As he walked away from her before she could make another attempt to latch onto him, Naruto shook his head. While Naruto wasn't religious by any stretch of imagination, his own life experiences had made sure that, thanks to the villagers that despised him, he was aware that Devils were regarded as beings that had to be evil, wicked, brutal, bad, scum, wrong, brute, and vicious. Beings that were considered "evil" and "bad" existences BECAUSE they existed at all in the first place.
Letting someone, especially someone he had a reason to hate, live didn't seem very devil-like to him. He smirked at that. Well...he never had been one to follow the norm before. He saw no reason to start now. As long as he had a say in the matter, he would choose to be different.
"I'll find my own way." he decided, feeling pleased with the rightness of the action. Looking around, he spied a window and grinned.
Then he remembered when Rias and her group had shown him their bat wings and he wondered if he could do the same thing, when they sprouted from his back and flourished a bit in response to his surprise.
'So the wings show up at will, huh? Gotta admit that's kinda cool...' Naruto had to mentally admit. After all, who wouldn't like being able to fly whenever they wanted? Making his way to the window, Naruto tested the unfamiliar muscles in his back and the wings flapped a tiny bit. He hoped he had this right. As much as he was (admittedly) looking forward to flying, he didn't know the first thing about it. Still...he was a kinesthetic learner, the kind that needed to learn through trial and error, and through hands-on training. Besides, if birds did it with this literal flight-or-fall bit, why couldn't he?
As he kept trying to get his wings to flap as much as he could, he opened the window and took a deep breath and jumped from it. Yet his attempts to try to force himself to learn how to fly weren't met with success as he tried to figure out which part of this body controls the movement of the wings and he spun and tumbled through the air and...
"WAAAAAHHHHHHH-OOF!"
...crashed face-down into the law outside of the Gremory household. Thankfully Naruto didn't break any bones. It seems this new devil body he was stuck with was built to take a beating.
"Ok...learn to fly...need to learn to fly..." he grunted, then pushed his face out of the grass and shook his head to clear it of the stars and colored spots dancing before his vision before cracking his neck to rid it of the kinks caused by the crash and then stood and stretched. When all his joints had produced a satisfying pop, he looked behind him and sneered up at the House of Gremory.
"Well...I'm out of that place, at least." he muttered, then glared at his wings and they shrank back into his back until they vanished as if they had never been there, not even his clothes were damaged at all by it.
Naruto grunted, he would've been more impressed with that if his wings had done that AFTER they had worked when he had needed them to. Ah well, he smirked and walked off, he had no idea where he was actually going, but he felt it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.
As she awoke, stretching before she took a shower and freshened up, Rias kept replaying the fight between her new servant and her brother over and over in her head as she dressed, then went over to her desk and picked up an old tome on space–time transportation techniques, looking for for clues on how to pinpoint different realities as she looked through it.
As a Devil that was a veteran from the Great War between Heaven and Hell, someone that was considered as a genetic anomaly ten times more powerful than the original Lucifer, one of the three known Super Devils, and the leader of the Four Great Satans, and how he had an overwhelming mastery of his Power of Destruction, was a master hand-to-hand combatant, as well as a master of magic, it wasn't surprising that even with as much as he'd held back in their fight that her brother had outclassed Naruto so much, that he'd even LET the blond hit him for hours with those overhead hammer-blows. Not that Naruto wasn't a good fighter in his own right, Rias had to confess that, he had done pretty well against Sirzech, especially seeing as how he was a fledgling devil, freshly reincarnated and unused to his new level in physical ability and that level of control over his demonic aura, which Rias guessed he had gotten due to the Evil Pieces changing him. After all, from the way he had freaked out upon learning he was turned into a devil, it was obvious that he wasn't a hybrid, and what kind of purebred human had access to demonic powers like that without being changed into a devil first? Still...the gap in experience between the two was too big.
It made Rias wonder what her newest family member would be like once he got use to his beyond-human body and got some more experience fighting. Maybe he could even free her from the ball-and-chain that was that arrogant furnace, Riser...
Rias vehemently halted that thought, shaking her head. She couldn't be that selfish.
To get her mind off that, she turned to the task she'd taken up yesterday since her meeting with the blond and she'd tried learning where he was from. While nearly all devils with the exception of young ones, namely newly-reincarnated ones that used to be humans, already could use transportation for summon request contracts with those willing to do business with them, she was looking for a way to trace energy signatures so that she could find out where Naruto was from. Get him home, and hopefully learn more about him and, if everything went well, get him not to be so angry with her and her peerage. She needed to let him know about the laws of the underworld, but if he was too hostile to listen, it wouldn't be any good, so she wanted to have something to offer him that he wouldn't be able to turn down.
That meant making him an offer he couldn't refuse.
...And then there had been the odd dream that she'd suddenly had last night. What was it about?
She was so focused on her self-appointed task that when there was a pounding at her door, she jumped and banged her knees on the underside of the deck she sat at. Opening the door, she was surprised at seeing her brother standing on the other side, a deeply troubled expression on his face that told Rias she was going to hate whatever this was about as much as she hated Riser Phoenix, if not more so.
"Family meeting. Now. All peerage members." he said, his voice hard, then walked away, doubtlessly going to inform the rest of the household, and left Rias completely bewildered.
Sighing and setting the book aside, she went out and noticed something odd that troubled her for some reason: the handle on her door was broken. She frowned but figured her brother must have done it earlier when he was trying to get her attention before his hammering on her door had gotten her attention. Sighing at that, Rias went and got Akeno, Kiba and Koneko, telling them what was going on, then went to Naruto's room and hesitated, before deciding to forge ahead and removed the barrier over the door and opened it, instantly being met with a frown from the one within it.
"What now?" he muttered.
Rias winced. Still with the anger? She recalled what Grayfia had said about him: Anger was useful when it kept focus off of the things that bring a person despair.
Just how bad was his life before?
"Well...family meeting was called, all peerage members to be included. And like it or not, since you're part of my peerage now..." she trailed off with a grimace upon seeing his expression at the mention of being part of her group.
"Orders from up top?" he asked with distaste. Rias nodded and he groaned, rolling his black and red eyes before scowling and he shoved his way past her and her peerage's other members rather rudely. "Let's just get this over with..." he muttered.
"Jerk." Kiba said, scowling after the other blond.
Rias sighed, turning to her knight piece-holder. "Just...he needs time to adjust is all. He's difficult, but that's because he doesn't like devils. So just please try tolerating his attitude. Think about how would you feel about being turned into a reincarnated Fallen Angel? That's why he's acting this way."
Kiba made a look of utter disgust at that. He loathed Fallen Angels. "Fine, guess I can understand that." he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. The group made their way to the main meeting hall of the Gremory household and Rias froze at who all was there.
What made Rias' gut clinch was the fact that not only was her brother and his full peerage there: Souji Okita, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, Surtr Second, and Bahamut, along with Grayfia, but so was her mother and father with theirs, and her nephew Millicas Gremory, along with all the staff of the House of Gremory.
Yeah...she wasn't going to like this at all!
Akeno, Kiba, and Koneko must have all felt the same because they shuffled forwards, looking as though they were at a funeral as they made their way to join everyone else.
"You're all here, good." Sirzechs said, then he looked at Naruto in shock and confusion, making Naruto sweat a bit. "You're here?! How's that possible?!"
Rais winced, she didn't like the sound of that, her brother wasn't expecting Naruto to be here. The feeling of dread increased as she sat down in one of the chairs, her group taking places behind her.
"So what's this about?" she asked, seeing her newest peerage member suddenly look much more nervous, his feet started tapping on the floor, obviously anxious to run. Rias turned to him and tried for a reassuring smile. From how much he was sweating, it didn't help.
Sirzechs nodded at his sister's question, knowing this wasn't the time to stand on formalities.
He snapped his fingers and a movie theater-sized screen appeared at the end of the room where everyone could see them, further confusing everyone, before Sirzeches pulled out a remote and turned the screens on.
What happened next was that the member of the Gremory house were treated to an image of what looked like the inside of a feudal Japanese room, but after a few seconds, a figure in a hooded jacket broke into the room, made their way over to the clearly sleeping figure in the bed, who shifted and the intruder stumbled backwards, hands clamped to their face. The hooded figure then looked around furiously before spotting something and making their way over to a shelf and picking up a pouch of some sort and looked through what was in it before putting it on the back of their hip and made their way over to the sleeping figure again, pulling out a leaf-shaped blade with a handle that had a ring on the pommel and stood over the person a few minutes, the weapon raised over their head, ready to be brought down. Yet nothing happened and the person muttered something before putting the blade away and knelt down next to the one they were about to kill and said something to them instead then stood and turned from the sleeping individual, whose arm shot out and their hand caught the would-be assassin around the wrist, making them turn and stare before they hesitantly reached down and slowly and carefully removing their hand and heading towards a window, before spreading a pair of devil wings and inspecting them and jumping out the window before the screen went dark.
Rias went a mixture of sickly green and beet red in the face as she realized what place that recording had happened in.
"Sirzeches...how did you get this footage...?" she asked, trembling.
Her elder sibling looked suddenly nervous, "Uh...well...I...wanted to make sure you were alright, Ria-tan...so I kinda-sorta...had hidden cameras installed in your room!" he said quickly.
For the amount of outrage that caused, a bomb might as well have gone off! Everyone exploded into outraged shouts of anger and disgust.
"YOU HAVE HIDDEN CAMERAS IN MY/HER ROOM?!" Rias, Grayfia and Rias and Sirzech's parents all screamed louder than anyone else, their faces livid.
The Lucifer paled. Shit! He had a feeling in his gut that going that to keep an eye on his little sister as a way to make sure she was safe was a bad idea!
"Wait! That's not the issue here! For the first time ever in the history of the underworld, the Gremory have produced a Stray Devil!"
That caused the ones in the room to freeze, their wrath unforgotten, but not as great as a priority for the moment.
The law of how to deal with Stray Devils was Ironclad: all Stray Devils were to be killed off or put in prison immediately. It was was voted by all the Clans including the Gremory Clan, that it was mandatory that it become a law. Once you were reincarnated into a Devil, you belonged to the one who had done so to you in both body and soul. The system couldn't afford to be changed, they recruit you then you belong to them, and there was no way out. The reason for the Law of Stray Devils was that they were a danger to themselves and towards everyone and everything around them because when a Devil reincarnates, they had to be near his or her master so their power was in control or have their powers go berserk after they reincarnated. The master had to put seals on the servant for them to control their power because when someone reincarnated into a Devil, all aspects of their power increased dramatically with what they were before, and the power of the master kept the servants' power under control because of the surge that accompanied the alteration in physiology making control of that unrestrained power impossible!
"WHAT?!"
"Well who other than a member of the Gremory family would already be in here, what kind of devil isn't used to their wings showing up at will like that but the formerly-human ones that have been freshly reincarnated by the Evil Piece system, and then there's what they took from my sister's room. Rias...what were those things that were on that shelf?"
Rias bit her lip. She wanted to lie right now so badly it hurt, "...The weaponry Naruto had with him." she said, feeling hollow from betrayal. She didn't want her peerage's newest member in trouble.
Everyone in the room looked at Naruto and he gulped.
"Hey whoa...like he said, how could I be here if that were me in the video?" he said quickly.
"True...but then again...you're not what one would call 'normal', as far a the human world would go." the Crimson Satan said, somewhat coolly.
"WHAT?!" Naruto demanded, outraged.
Rias paled, recalling the fight the two had the day before. Last thing she wanted was a repeat of that with all the House of Gremory in the crossfire!
"Seeing as we're devils, we can sense demonic power as easily as feeling the breeze on our face and the level of control you had over that energy cloak when we fought before made it pretty obvious that you had done it before. What are you, a hanyō?"
Naruto lunged at Sirzeches, but Kiba, who had obviously been thinking on what Rias had told him before about why the whisker-marked blonde was so difficult and the comparison if he had been reincarnated as a Fallen Angel, grabbed him from behind. "Don't let him bait you!" the young swordsman said, slamming the other male to the ground, but as he did so, Naruto muttered an "Aw crap..." before he vanished in a plume of pea soup-thick, white smoke.
Everyone stopped and stared at that as Kiba got off the floor, looking stunned.
"Thought so..."Sirzeches said grimly, "he had only half the energy I felt from him when we fought before."
"A fake...so then...he really?" Akeno said, staring at where the counterfeit had been.
Rias, shaking all over, bolted to her feet with her eyes wide and having trouble breathing, and locked eyes on Sirzechs.
"Onii-sama...you...you're not serious! You can't...!" Rias said, the idea of losing one of her peerage nearly putting her into shock, "He doesn't know the law!"
"Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it." her brother said, shaking his head sadly, hating having to tell his sister this. "I can try keeping the other clans ignorant of him for a little while, a month or two at best, but that's all I can do. If you can't convince him to go back to your peerage..."
He didn't need to finish. Rias felt her blood freeze. No! She couldn't have that happen to him!
She rushed out of the room, feeling numb. Unable to come to grips with the fact that Naruto had gone Stray. Sure he hated her, but if he was serious about going Stray, why was she alive?! Stray Devils killed their masters!
She HAD to find Naruto and convince him to come back to her immediately or he was going to die!