Chapter 3 : Rias' friend.
Rias was walking down the streets of Kuoh with a pep in her step, her mood incredibly good and a smile on her face that hadn't left her since yesterday morning.
This was it, her solace of peace, her little Japanese adventure, far away from the going ons of devil's society, free from her responsibilities, stuffy balls, people seeing her only for her family name and her Lucifer of a brother.
Well, not free-free, not totally, at least, since it was incumbent on her and Sona to oversee and take care of this -relatively little- territory.
But that was a weight she was willing to shoulder for all the benefits it gave her!
"You seem incredibly pleased, my King." Akeno offhandedly comments next to her, prompting a little happy 'umu' out of her lips.
"I am," the Gremory heiress chirps, "This is already so much better than I'd thought! And we even met a real-life protagonist!"
"Ufufufu~" her Queen laughs daintily, prompting the red headed devil to look at her, "Are you still on that, my King?"
"Mou!" Rias pouts, clutching her school bag a little closer to her belly defensively, "Of course I am!"
"I'm still not entirely convinced that you aren't seeing things just because you want to see them, my King." the half fallen angel points out, an eyebrow delicately arched.
"But!" Rias cuts, "She has the seat, a unique name, and even a never seen before haircut! Prima-chan has to be some kind of dark-shoujo character: it's the trope!"
"Really?" Akeno not-quite drawl, "If that's true, then what would it make of me, then, my King?"
Rias pauses, thinking hard for a beat, before nodding self-satisfyingly.
"The tragic hime-sama, getting rescued in her time of need by the kind lead, of course!" she declares self-agrandisingly.
The two of them lock eyes, Rias grinning and Akeno deadpanning something fierce.
"...You know, I kind of hate the fact that I can't even refute it." the ex Himejima clan member answers flatly after a beat, "But I still have some reservations about your little pet theory about your human friend.
"After all, she doesn't even have that much magic. Did you not consider that it may only be some kind of coincidence?"
"It's true, but!" Rias chimes back, one of her hands leaving her school bag's handle to point a finger skyward, "What if she had some kind of dark, previously unknown, potentially dangerous, power that would shake the very foundations of this world if it got widespread?"
For a beat, only the sound of the crowd washing over the two of us is heard as they keep making their way towards Kuoh High-School's gate.
"My King, I think that you're watching too much anime, and that it has rotted your brain." Akeno ends up saying, apparently thoroughly done with Rias' antics.
"You take that back!"
The two kept -elegantly- bickering, until they finally reached their goal, Rias all but forgetting her Queen's -hurtful- words in favor of looking curiously around herself, her head on a swivel-
-only to perk up as her eyes land on her -new!- friend.
Leaning with her back against the wall, her own school bag -the same as her!- negligently thrown over her shoulder, held with only one hand, head tilted, her dark-brown mane falling in slightly messy locks on her shoulder, eyes half-closed, only a hint of their dark-blue pupils shining through her eyelids, Prima looks deep in though, one hand holding her chin.
In one word, she looked very picturesque, like a real-life anime character!
Almost, but not quite, vibrating with excitement, and certain that she was in the right, Rias throws a 'see! I told you so!' look at her Queen, who can only softly sigh before slowly shaking her head.
"Again, I think you're overthinking things, my King." the classic japanese beauty comments even as the both of them start making their way toward their new acquaintance, "I'm not even sure that she's aware of the supernatural."
"But what if she had somehow stumbled her way into learning about some of it, and was currently trying to discreetly investigate?" the Gremory heiress challenges.
"My King," Akeno sighs heavily, "Hanako-san isn't some kind of Investigator Dalton, she's just a 15 years old human who happens to have an uncommon sense of fashion."
"Mou!" Rias pouts -again-, "You're ruining all my fun!"
Not waiting for the Japanese beauty's incoming comeback, Rias instead happily skips her way toward the human girl, closing the distance between the two of them.
"Good morning, Prima-chan!" she happily chirps, wrenching the subject of her attention out of her thoughts.
She hadn't been sure, yesterday, when she had -rather unilaterally, in hindsight- started to call the human girl by her first name -which Akeno had confirmed was indeed a social faux-pas this early on-, but Prima hadn't seemed to get offended by it, beyond giving her a slow blink, so at least she hadn't messed that up.
The human girl answers with a lazy wave.
"Gremory-san, Himejima-san." she greets politely, giving her a little nod, then a second one to her Queen, "Still as enthusiastic as ever, I see."
Rias beams back her way, another chirpy 'umu' escaping her.
But she couldn't help it!
The human world, and a friend that wasn't immediately putting on air because of who she was, but simply treating her normally, like a normal teenage girl!
Granted, her little family, her peerage, behaved more or less the same with her, but Prima wasn't part of it, so it wasn't really the same.
"Say, what do you think we will be doing in sports today?" the redheaded devil asks, having identified that the two of them weren't quite at the stage yet to smalltalk about their evenings.
Keyword: yet.
She had hopes that would become the case later on, say, in about a week or so!
The girl with a side shave pauses, before giving her a nonplussed one shoulder shrug.
"No idea," she admits easily, before straightening her whole posture, not quite hip checking herself away from the wall, "But if I had to guess, maybe athletics? Make us do something basic, like running, and see what the level of the whole class is, that kind of thing."
Rias nods back at her words, since they made kind of sense.
"Just wished it wasn't the first thing in the morning, though. I'm kind of sore after yesterday." Prima grumbles, a frown of annoyance marring her traits for a beat.
An opening!
The Gremory heiress opens her mouth-
"Oh?" only for Rias' Queen beat her to it, a leer flashing on her face, faster than humans can even hope to see, "My, what could you have possibly do to end up like that, I wonder?"
The half fallen angel gives the human girl a 'concerned' look-
-but she apparently doesn't bite, choosing instead to give her fellow Japanese-born a flat stare.
"I went to the local gym," Prima answers after a beat, "I only got the time to finally pay it a visit yesterday, since I was busy settling in before.
"'Body is a temple, sports is good for your health', yada yada." she not-quite explains, waving her free hand dismissively.
"You do not seem very convinced." Akeno amusingly comments.
"It is what it is. Figured it was a good idea to stay in shape, just in case." the human girl answers with another one shoulder shrug, just as the bell rings.
Which was probably way harder for her than it was for Rias, since devil's physiology was pretty forgiving!
"You're really a hard worker, Prima-chan." the redheaded devil praises her friend, prompting her to give her a side-glance back as the three of them start to make their way toward the school's ground proper.
The human girl giggles.
"Not really, no." she answers, her lips quirking up into a smile, "Otherwise, I wouldn't wait for the bell to ring to enter the school's premises. It's just that I somehow managed to get here, so I'm at least willing to put on the work."
"What do you mean?" Rias answers confusedly, trading a glance with her Queen, and seeing that she doesn't get it either.
"I got in on a scholarship, so my staying here depends on my grades." the human girl explains, unknowingly making Rias freeze, "But since it's a good school, I don't really want to waste the opportunity given to me."
The devil gives her a little 'umu' of assent, while internally screaming.
What would happen if Prima-chan lost her scholarship?
Would she have to move away?
Will Rias lose her first human friend just like that?
She couldn't let it happen: if Prima somehow messed up, she would hypnotize the teachers and-
"But, hey, it's high-school," the dark-brown haired girl adds after a beat, a lazy smile on her face, and putting an end to Rias' spiraling thoughts "So, beyond literature and history, where I'll have to put some work, I'll think I'll manage."
"Would you say that you are a good student, Hanako-san?" Akeno asks, an eyebrow quirked up, just as they reach the locker room.
"Meh," the human girl answers while waving her free hand in a so-so gesture, "I'd say I have a more than adequate methodology, if anything."
"And you consider that truly important?" the half fallen probes further.
"Definitely." the dark-blue eyed girl says, while simultaneously bending over to reach for her own locker after kicking off her shoes, unknowingly giving Rias an eyeful of her backside as her skirt hikes up with the motion.
And, if anything, for a human, she was quite gifted here!
Almost a shame she chooses to wear something under her skirt, because the devil was willing to bet that her thighs would turn some heads if she didn't!
"You two good?" the human girl asks, getting two nods in answer -Rias' own quite delayed since she had to scramble to put her slippers on, delayed as she had been by her very important musings!-, "Great, 'cause I got no idea where the gym's at exactly."
"Ufufufu~" Akeno titters, before indicating to her King and the human to follow her, "This way."
The three kept making smalltalk on the way, to Rias' delight, until they finally reached the gym's changing room, going to their assigned lockers, the devil already on her way to disrobe-
"Yeah, nope."
-until Prima's words reach her ears, prompting her to turn into her direction-
-only to see the human girl glaring at the school provided bloomers as if they offend her on a visceral level.
"What's the matter, Prima-chan?" Rias asks, tilting her head, her blood red mane falling on the side.
"The matter is…" she starts, turning herself in the red headed devil's direction, her eyes dipping down for a flash, landing on Rias' underwear, halting her thoughts for a beat and making the heiress proud of her assets, before locking eyes with her and carrying on, waving the -apparently- offending object in her direction, "...that this is 'fan-service'-level of skimpy, and that I'm not wearing those thing."
"I don't really see what's wrong with those, though?" Rias answers, a bit puzzled.
Maybe it was one of those human moral things she still wasn't totally clear on?
The human girl snorts, before shaking her head amusingly.
"Yeah, figured you don't." she answers with a half-smile, "Guess that means it'll be tracksuit pants for me, though. I'm gonna bake when summer comes around."
Rias could see that happening, if what she had learned yesterday was really true.
As a devil, it wasn't like the heat bothered her quite the same as the humans, after all.
"Right, let's get done with this." the girl with a side-shave muses aloud, before shrugging of her blouse-
-and making Rias instantly gapes, a few voices echoing her thoughts around.
Because Prima's upper body, the front, at least, is riddled with tattoos, with some ways to go before being called artistic, if she had to be honest.
On each of her shoulders, thrones a simplistic rendition of an open eye, an open libram on the left side of her belly, a simple phrase reading 'Duty is Forever' at the level of her collarbone and right under her head, and an arm holding a sword on her right thigh.
Suddenly, her friend wearing skirt shorts was making a lot more sense.
Shaking her head out of her intrusive thoughts, especially the niggling one telling her that that kind of iconography had quite the religious bias, even if she was drawing a blank about the opened eyes-
"What? Something on my face?" her friend drawls aloud, prompting the devil to pay her attention-
-only to see that the whole class is throwing her disturbed, distrustful looks.
"Ano, Hanako-san?" someone hesitates, apparently taking the lead of the gatherings, "Why are you tattooed?"
"Because I do what I want with my body?" the human girl answers, clearly puzzled, "The Yakuza issue was dealt with ages ago, before each of us was even born, and it's not like they put a patent on the concept."
Rias let out a little disbelieving laugh at her friend's boldness.
"Don't you…" the same girl starts, side-eyeing her peers to find some form of support, but clearly finding none, "Are you not afraid that it would impact your chances at gainful employment if it got known later on?"
"In this country?" the girl with a side-shave asks, a quizzical eyebrow raised, "It probably would, but it's not like I'm going to stay here for work."
What?
"What?" Rias says aloud, her mouth working on autopilot on this one.
"I'm not fancying myself as a wage-slave in the Japanese workforce, it would be bad for my health." the inked girl jokes as she goes back to changing herself, starting with the aforementioned tracksuit pants, "I'm perfectly fluent in at least three languages. As soon as I can, I'm out of here.
"Maybe I'll come back for retirement, but I'm sure as hell not becoming a salaryman or whatever in this country."
The certainty in her statement fills Rias with just as much joy than dread.
Joy, because her friend thinking about career plans meant that she probably wasn't an exorcist in training or something along those lines, despite her unfortunate choices in ink, and dread because it meant that their time together was probably on a time limit.
Maybe she'd accept Rias' offer later on, once they got to know each other pretty well, the devil muses.
"Because you'd think you'd get a better chance, while being like," another girl asks, waving her hand in her direction, "That?"
Her sentence, or maybe her tone, prompt Rias' friend to slowly turn back on the naysayer, only to give her the most unimpressed stare she can.
"Yes," she slowly answers, her tone flat and emotionless, "Yes, I think I can. In fact: I know I can. In the USA, for example, nobody would give a damn, especially since those aren't visible when I'm clothed.
"Hell, if I wanted to become a fully-fledged tattoo artist, they would have just as much importance as whatever I can write in my CV.
"Now, here's a thought…" the dark-brown haired girl trails off, narrowing her eyes calculatingly.
"Wait," Rias interjects, eyes squinted in thought, "You made those yourself?"
"Yeah, I got a full tattooing kit at home." comes the easy answer, the girl with a side shave smiling ruefully, "Cost me a pretty penny, almost my full skin, I'd say."
"That's so cool!" Rias gushes, "You'll have to show me!"
"If you want, Gremory-san."
"Who knows?" the devil answers, eyes shining with mirth, "Practice enough, and maybe one day you'll do me!"
"Not a chance." instantaneously comes the answer.
"Mou!"
"Not without your parents' approval, at the very least."
"Mou!"
"And maybe the one of that 'handsome brother' of yours you kept talking about yesterday."
"Mou?!"
Alas, despite the might of Rias' pouts, her friend was left unmoved.
[AN: here it comes, the long-awaited Rias PoV.
Give me your thoughts, not sure if I managed to make justice to her OG characterization.
Hope you enjoy, xoxo]