Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!
"The Spear, the Castle, the Thread, the Armor, the Chain, the Wings, the Sword, the Sound, the Cannon."
A strategy meeting between Naruto, Ichika, Futaba, and Misa was taken place while Shino studied with Kururi, and the triplets of Itsuyo, Mutsumi, and Natsuki were at high school, with Yakumo... doing Yakumo things somewhere. Considering they were the only actual adult-adults in the relationship, it was best that they do at least some strategy.
"I can use my spear to fight."
"I can summon the castle walls of Valhalla, but honestly, my abilities have no real offensive use." Futaba stated, unlike her older sister and younger sisters, her natural abilities were overall on the defensive side of things.
"Can you do something like... place markers for easier wall summons?" Naruto asked Futaba, since if she could he could think of a lot of uses.
"Hope, I can summon the walls to my current location... my power is very defensive. Similar to how Shino can make barriers with her Armor... I am more a Last Line of Defense type." Futaba wasn't downplaying herself. She believed that it would be a wise idea for Naruto to level up her siblings before he leveled up her.
Among them right now, Ichika had the strongest bond and level at level 8, and since she was already the strongest even at level 1, she had an extremely high offensive power.
"We can't rely on my Transformation right now... my power uses up too much AP, meaning I can't stay transformed for more than a few seconds, but I can still fight well without transforming." Ichika was smiling at Naruto as she spoke, since she was just glad that he was talking to everyone. The fact he wanted to be active in participating in a war conference for their battle against future demons.
They had a map of the city on the table in front of them.
"My home is in a horrible location."
"I think it's a pretty awesome house." Misa didn't agree with his statement.
"It's too far away from the girl's school, and it would be better if we were closer towards the center of the city. The ability to rush over to any demon attack... it would just be better to be closer to the center, easier to move around." Naruto wanted to do this thing correctly.
Who to Level up?
What were the girl's powers?
Why was the enemy attacking?
Where would the enemy attack?
When would they get time to do ValxLoves to increase levels?
The 5 basic Ws of questions, and how they could be applied to their current situation. They had less than a year before the stronger demons would start attacking, and during that year it would be smart to make as many preparations as possible.
"Can you afford to move?"
"I can't afford to not move... what if one of us gets attacked, and we have to move across the entire city to help them... we might be getting some info on when demons will spawn, but who says we won't get surprise visits." Naruto didn't want to move out of his family home either. He couldn't even really afford to be moving, but the fact was that the world was literally at stake. "I can take out a loan if I need to. I haven't gotten it just yet, but once the government gives me the..." Naruto couldn't say the words.
The inheritence from his godfather's will, but he couldn't say it out loud. The wound was still too fresh on his heart.
"A loan though... where could we move, the center of the city is pretty... not a residential area." Misa looked at the map and how it was divided. She drew a circle around the center of the city, and Naruto drew a circle around her circle.
Ichika hummed in agreement with both points.
Futaba on the other hand was concerned about multiple points.
"... Shouldn't we focus more on leveling up our fighters, Ichika, Itsuyo, Natsuki, and Kururi?" Futaba wanted those with offensive powers to be pushed up on the power scale more. The simple fact was that they needed to decide the order of which the dates and events would take place, more so than talk about living location.
Naruto crossed his arms and leaned back.
"Well, moving to the center area of the city also means easier access to good date locations too... and good dates, good Val x Loves, means having better level up chances too. Trust me, I don't want to move... I'm pretty comfortable here... but... kind of..." Naruto had memories in the house that he didn't want to leave behind, but the simple fact was that their current location had no benefits to it at all, well not no benefits. It had no benefits other than being big enough to fit all of them inside of it somewhat comfortably.
Naruto tighetened his arms.
"Yes?" Misa was curious about what else.
"... but we're not close to much of anything. Living expenses for 10 people isn't exactly easy when we can't just walk everywhere... and as it stands I'm the only one who had a job..." Naruto hated to say it, but the fact was that he was a ghost writer for his godfather. Him being a ghost writer meant that he was not directly responsible for the novels in name, so he didn't get royalties and such. Now that his godfather was dead, the flow of money completely halted. "... so... my savings can only afford this place for so long."
"I can get a part-time to help with expenses." Ichika offered that much at least.
"What kind of man can't provide for his lovers... no... I'll find a way to make this work. I'll make something work out... this is my battle to fight." Naruto stated as he looked towards Ichika, and she made eye contact, before she nodded in approval of his words.
Misa did not agree.
"Actually, some of us getting jobs might not be a bad idea overall. If we leave the bigger expenses to Naruto, we can work up some funds... my ability needs thread to work, so for me to be effective I actually have to have materials." Misa required good threat to be useful in a fight, so she would find a way to get her thread costs by herself. She couldn't make Naruto foot the bill for her ability to even fight.
Most others could summon a weapon.
Her ability required her to use materials that already existed, and then use her ability to control and enhance the threads.
"I'll handle a good amount of the living expenses. Anyway, if we can't live dead center in town, at least we can live as close to it as possible. Yeah?" Naruto noticed that Futaba was staring at him as he spoke, though her eyes were closed, he could tell that she really was staring. She was paying very close attention to him.
She seemed startled a little by him calling her out.
"Go ahead Futaba, speak your mind to our lover!" Ichika slapped her on the back several times to get her to speak up.
"We still have a ton of time... we should focus on getting to know each other better." Futaba didn't see the point of him putting so much effort into something simple like a living location.
"... It will be pretty hard to get romantic, if we're constantly starving and the electricity gets cut off. Not to mention, I want to make sure all of you are safe too. We can raise levels while we get stuff set up, and once we are living in a new place... it will be a lot more romantic that way, right?" Naruto asked her.
He changed the subject.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, right now this is more my parents house than it is our house... you guys just live here. But, if we get a home together, it will be our home... isn't that way more romantic than just living in the house my parents left behind?" Naruto changed his argument. His argument was obvious, but Futaba could see some real emotional and romantic value behind moving into a new house with your lover.
There was something special about it that would make for some good level up help, and make some Val x Loves more meaningful to her sisters.
"Absolutely!" Misa agreed with Naruto on the emotional aspect of that.
When he said it like that, she was actually somewhat looking forward to getting into a new home. Ichika was nodding along as well. Futaba was the only one that wasn't completely sold on the entire thing. It would be hard to find a home able to fit 10 people in it, and it would be harder to find a good home within the circle that Naruto had drawn on the map.
There were a LOT of benefits to moving.
Instead of moving, she wanted to focus on raising her sister's levels so that they would be safer in actual battle. She wanted to see the offensive girls see their levels raised before the others, who wouldn't be seeing as much battle.
"Moving homes to the side, in what order should we raise levels?" Futaba wanted to get the conversation moved along.
Naruto hummed.
"I guess for the most part, I'm fine with... well anyone, but I think we should focus on Yakumo's Support, your support, Ichika's offense, and Natsuki's offense." Naruto knew that Yakumo used sound-based powers to offer buffs and support to others, and she had very little offensive power of her own.
Still, White Mage buffing abilities were a great help in battle as a general rule, and getting Futaba some levels would be great so that she could do more defensive abilities. Ichika had absolutely terrible gas mileage for her powers, so while she was the factually strongest of her sisters, she wasn't nearly as good for dealing with any threat that she couldn't handle without transforming.
"Me?" Ichika asked.
"We have got to level you up a little more, so that you... aren't a one and done attacker. Your AP is terrible... and Futaba... do you really think your defensive abilities aren't super awesome?" Naruto didn't see why she wanted to focus on the others so much. The ability to summon walls to defend against attacks was just an overall amazing ability for combat.
"I can't attack."
"She can though, and so can Natsuki. If you can summon walls around the enemy to box them in, or maybe cut off their escape with walls, then they can finish them off... oh, and then there is using the walls as an offensive power by summoning the wall with the enemy right where you are summoning it." Naruto could list several offensive uses for her ability.
Futaba hadn't thought of that.
Summoning the wall where the enemy was, and possibly getting them stuck in the wall, or flat out beheaded by the wall. That was an amazing offensive use for her ability.
Ichika wrapped an arm around Naruto.
"That's my lover for you, none of us ever thought to use her walls like that... thinking out of the box, I like that." Ichika had praise for him.
A Lover was their Source of Power, but it was also who they wanted to defend the most, and their Lover was a great source of inspiration for a Valkyrie. The ability to get new ideas from your lover and use them was just suppose to be the normal.
"Uh... walls... offensive?" Futaba had never once considered her ability to have any offensive uses at all.
Just defense.
"Still, Natsuki's sword has more versatility so I guess I should focus a bit more on her... we should move closer to their school. We're fighting wicked gods, right?" Naruto asked with a look to the second eldest of the sisters.
She nodded.
"... Well, I might know anything about gods, but I do know how some really wicked people think... I think once the battles start getting fired up, they are going to infiltrate the school and send a sadistic person with a twisted desire there... somebody really motivated to do as much harm as possible." Naruto could imagine it.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because, the most wicked and twisted person I know would do that. If the wicked gods are even half as wicked as her, then they will send somebody who can blend in well... but is absolutely evil, to gain the trust of the triplets... and then cut them out. We need to be closer to the school... so that I can be there in a heartbeat and help them transform." Naruto could imagine it.
His mother.
Naruto just looked at this and thought "What would my mother do" in any given situation, and it helped him get a grasp of what the wicked gods would do. His mother was a very twisted person, and he knew her very well. In his opinion, if you asked him who was more wicked, her or a "wicked" god then he would say her.
"This would be easier if you were a highschool student." Misa wished Naruto was a bit younger.
At 19 years old, he was over school age for high school, so he couldn't be that close to them.
"... I have an idea about that... Ichika, want to take a visit to the girl's school?" Naruto asked with a smile.
"Yes!"
-At the School-
"Ye-ey-ey-ye-ey-ye... yessir."
Naruto was filling out the paperwork to get hired as a teacher at the school, the Physical Education teacher since it was the only thing he believed he was smart enough to teach. The person responsible for hiring him was currently being held at spear-point, a spear right at the tip of his throat.
Ichika put on her scariest face when she did it, and it was working.
Well, not to mention the fact that they were doing a little bit of cheating by showing him some dangerous stuff. Demon attacks were starting to happen, so while it wasn't super widely known, the existence of demons was now known to those who paid actual attention to the news.
"Oh, and I'm going to be doing..."
"Sometimes he is going to be dating three of the students that are here, so you're going to need to look the other way... and not bother them when they do their thing." Ichika held the spear closer to his throat. "Got it piggy?"
"Oink."
"... and okay, I'm looking forward to working here." Naruto smiled in satisfaction at getting a new job, and being able to secure a somewhat decent form of income. Naruto leaned forward and smiled. "... by the way... that is my girlfriend you're oinking at, so maybe respond like a human... and not some sex slave getting their rocks off." Naruto was not exactly happy with how happy the man looked to be called a piggy.
"Yes sir..."
Thus, Naruto intimidated his way into getting a new job.
Chapter End!
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