I'm thinking of making a plot bin. That way, I get to write out whatever idea I have in mind but don't have a general plan for and see which one someone might be interested in adopting or which one I think is worth continuing.
And I'm not even going to try sticking to lore in this one so ignore any inaccuracies and just turn your brains off and read.
Uzumaki Naruto stepped outside the cab and hugged his raincoat tighter to his body. The inside of the vehicle had been uncomfortably cool and humid but outside, it was nearly unbearable. The raindrops felt like small hailstones as they fell on the waterproof material surrounding him, producing a noise not unlike the one a gatling gun would make.
He'd never been to England before and he doubted he would ever return after this. At least not of his own will.
He quickly paid the driver with a loud "God bless you" that made the man roll his eyes. He shook his head with an indulgent smile as the car sped off.
People like him wouldn't be so quick to shun faith if they knew of all the things that existed.
He brought out a small piece of paper and bent over it as he read the address written on its surface before looking around. He didn't have to look too far. The driver had made good on his word and dropped him directly in front of his destination, a house.
The paint had begun to wash off from frequent rainfall, water had pooled in multiple places around the small compound such that it reached the lower part of the rims of the car parked outside and the lawn had grown to an almost unattractive height but he thought there was a homely feel to the place.
Or at least there was meant to be.
The moment he stepped foot in the compound, he was struck by a wave of air that didn't seem to pass by him but through him, the sheer cold stiffening his bones and causing him a sudden sense of exhaustion that made him want to sit on the ground and rest his eyes. It had been a long journey, hadn't it? One taken on very short notice too…
"Lord give me strength," he muttered in Latin as he warded off the stray thoughts before they could take root in him and walked towards the front door in steady, purposeful strides.
He wasn't welcome here, that much he could tell already. Unfortunately, he was the kind of guest that didn't leave unless they had achieved whatever they came for.
He knocked on the door four times and got no response. He repeated the action to no avail before placing his ear against the door. There was no sound coming from inside the house, not even footsteps that would indicate life. Had they changed their plans and left without telling him?
He bit his lip contemplatively before taking off his crucifix and wrapping it around his hand before knocking seven times. This time, he didn't have to focus to hear heavy footsteps approaching the door before it swung open to reveal a nervous looking man in a rumpled cassock.
The man eyed him suspiciously. "Yes? Who might you be, young man?"
"Father Jules?" Naruto asked. "My name's Uzumaki Naruto. I received the telegraph the church sent me."
The man's relief was visible. "Ah, bless you. Are you here to relay a message from the exorcist?"
Naruto smiled. "Sir, I am the exorcist."
Father Jules' nerves seemed to become frayed once again. He brought his hand to his mouth and began to chew on his fingernails as he looked him up and down. "That can't be possible, why would they send someone so young?"
It struck Naruto that while the man before him might be aware of the supernatural, he may not have any real in-depth exposure to it. It would certainly explain why he didn't want to believe him.
Nevertheless, he smiled the smile of a person who knew something that the other did not as he said, "Age isn't a factor when it comes to grace, Father."
"I know, but…" Father Jules shook his head in distress. "A case of this severity…we need someone with more experience."
"No amount of experience prepares anyone for an exorcism, Father." Naruto replied smoothly. "None of them are the same and you would do well to remember that."
"You don't understand, this isn't…" The Father tapped his foot rapidly on the floor. "You're not the first one they've sent. Three have come and not only did they all fail, they died shortly afterwards from the same cause.
Naruto raised a curious eyebrow. "What happened to them?"
"Hypothermia."
Naruto hummed as he nodded slowly. "May they rest in peace, but if there's anything the book of Jonah has shown, it's that it is folly to shirk out doing The Lord's bidding. I am here and the reward or consequence will be mine to bear. Now are you going to let me in?"
Father Jules stared at him in awe for a few seconds before stuttering. "R-right. Come in, come in."
"Thank you." Naruto walked into the dim interior. "No lights?"
"There were."
Naruto eyed the blackened bulbs. "I see."
He looked around as he let the priest lead him to what he guessed was the living room where the few religious items present had either been upturned or damaged. His eyes met that of a bedraggled woman who looked at him from between a man's arms. He guessed it was her husband or brother.
"Louise, Marc." Father Jules drew their attention to him. "This is Uzumaki Naruto, he was sent to aid you."
"So fast?" The woman, Louise, asked. "You said it usually takes weeks to months."
"It usually does," Naruto nodded. "I just happened to be available as well as nearby."
He had been sent to France to exterminate a pack of werewolves preying on a rural town and received the message when he went to turn in his report at the designated parish. The blood had barely dried on him when he boarded a private jet to England.
While the woman looked relieved, the man wasn't as easy to accept. "Are you sure he's real? Didn't you say only the ripe of age can be exorcists? He can't be more than twenty at most."
"Age isn't a determining factor in this, Mister Marc," Naruto said.
"Like hell it's not, have you ever even done this before?"
"Yes."
"Where? Before an adoring crowd?" MARC asked mockingly. "Casting out demons to loud applause and awed women?"
Naruto frowned. "I'm not a charlatan, Mister Jules. The church did send me, I even have the official-"
"Save it." Marc rounded over to Father Jules. "I thought you said they'd send a more experienced exorcist."
"He's the only one available, I told you they all have tight schedules." Father Jules defended himself. "He wouldn't be sent if he wasn't believed to be competent."
"Marc, give him a chance," Maria tried to persuade the man. "He might be the one to save our daughter."
Marc wasn't hearing any of it. "Might be the one? She's older than him for Christ's sake. I used to be Catholic, I know people his age don't get anything higher than altar boy. He could be a…"
Naruto tuned out the argument as he scanned the personal items in the room. It obviously wasn't the first one they'd had judging by the wife's weary look. His eyes went from greeting cards to board games before finally landing on a family portrait hung from the wall.
They resembled the typical happy family with the hardworking father having one hand around the waist of his smiling wife and the other on the shoulder of their child who stood between them. He had to admit, she was very beautiful.
He'd never had a family of his own, having been raised in a church owned orphanage in Kyoto before being taken to Rome upon the discovery of his sacred gear but seeing one clearly being torn apart filled him with an anger he couldn't explain, especially since he knew the cause was none of its members.
He had to help them. Not only was it his duty, he couldn't, in good conscience, leave them to their fates.
But first…
"Do you love your daughter?" Naruto spoke up after three minutes of listening. The arguing group stopped to look at him.
"What?" Jules asked, confused
"I said," the blond slightly shifted the portrait on the wall. "Do you love your daughter?"
"Of course I love her. What kind of a question is that?" came the affronted reply.
"Really?" Naruto asked again. "Enough that you'd do anything to help her? Even if it means putting aside your own beliefs to let someone who can help do so?"
The man frowned, but nodded.
"Really? Then I'm just going to assume it's the devil speaking through you because it doesn't look that way to me." Naruto shook his head, inadvertently dripping water from his hood as he did. "The way it looks to me, you can only let your daughter get help from whoever you think is capable."
"Father Jules has vouched for me, the church vouches for me and your wife has vouched for me. Normally, that would mean you've been vetoed but it doesn't work like that. You're the man of the house and unless you agree too, I can't do anything." He shrugged.
"The apostles would never enter a town they weren't welcome in, much less do anything in it. The Lamb himself would never save a person who doesn't want to be saved." Naruto continued. "And I can't be here forever so if you continue to do everything except permit me to do my job, I'll walk out of here and when I do, I assure you, only the grace of God will save your daughter because nobody else will."
There was a few more moments of silence before Marc grunted and nodded begrudgingly. He still didn't fully believe the blond, but he wasn't about to test whether he was bluffing or not. "Alright. Whatever you can do."
"Please forgive him, he's been on edge since all this started," Louise pleaded.
"I understand," Naruto smiled at her comfortingly. "I'd probably be the same in his place, but this is a precarious enough procedure without following preset rules."
He finally took off his raincoat followed by the small backpack and a large coat, revealing his white, bloodstained uniform and sword. The couple edged away from him, terrified while the Father went a few tones paler. Naruto caught a glint of recognition in the man's eyes as he saw his sword.
So he wasn't that oblivious to the supernatural.
"B-brother Naruto! She's not yet fully taken, it's not too late!" The Father cried out in a panic. He hadn't been expecting for that kind of exorcist to be brought in.
"Relax, Father. I don't intend to use it on her." Naruto assured the man. "Whatever comes out of her is another matter."
"Your clothes…"
"I had a previous assignment," came his brief reply as he rummaged around in his bag before producing a small belt containing a bottle that he buckled around his waist and placing a small strip of cloth around his shoulders.
Naruto closed his eyes as he went through all the prayers in the span of a minute. Most recited them out of a book, but he'd been them saying them since he was an adolescent. He placed two fingers over his head and both sides of his shoulders before sighing heavily and turning back to the trio.
"I'm sure you are all sanctified already?" He asked.
Father Jules frowned. "Wait, don't you want to know what medium she got possessed by?"
"If the others before me reached the stage where they went to carry out an exorcism, it's safe to say one of already took care of that," he beckoned for them to follow him up the stairs.
Louise blinked. "How do you know she's upstairs?"
Naruto just smiled knowingly.
When they reached the door, he looked back at them. "Before I forget, I'm sure you've heard all this before but it's customary that I tell you anyway."
He raised a finger. "First of all, as far as the demon is concerned, you're deaf and dumb. Don't listen to it, don't even look like you're listening to it no matter what it says and most of all, don't speak to it. It will bait you, it will call out whatever sins you've confessed but you mustn't react to anything. Even if it sounds like your daughter's screaming, you mustn't react. Understood?"
When the couple nodded, he raised a second finger. "Second, this isn't an interactive session. I won't ask you to do anything, I will tell you and regardless of how absurd it may be, I expect you to do it without questions and do it immediately. Is that clear?"
He raised a third finger. "And for your sakes, don't stop praying. I cannot and I stress cannot, lay enough emphasis on just how protective prayer is here. It's not your lives at stake here anymore, it's your souls and grace is the only thing capable of protecting you."
He raised a fourth finger. "The last is more of an offer for you to back out. It might not attack any of us physically, but it will definitely attack us mentally. You might be struck with a terror unlike any you've ever felt or it might dredge up your most precious memories and pervert them in a manner beyond your understanding."
"It doesn't matter how much you love your daughter, it doesn't matter how much you are willing to sacrifice for her, none of it will matter in there. I can't accurately describe what you'll experience but if you already know you might not be able to bear it, you need to leave now because there's no telling what can happen if you flee when we've started. I'm asking you this for all our sakes."
When none of them left, he sighed. "Alright then. I sanctify you three in the name of the holy trinity."
"That's it?" Father Jules asked.
"We don't have time for ceremony," Naruto smiled wryly. "Now, we have a girl to save."
With that, he opened the door.
The first thing he noticed was that while there was a heavy rainfall outside, it was snowing in the room and had been doing so for long enough for the white ice to reach up to his ankles and for the first time since he was anointed, he was left dumbstruck.
To manipulate the elements to such a degree, especially in the afternoon, where a demon's power was it's absolute lowest, spoke of a power he'd never encountered before. He knew there and then that it was no demon.
"At least now I know why the others died," he said grimly, surprising the three.
"What? Why?" Father Jules asked, his voice jittery again.
"It's no demon in this girl," he shook his head as he pointed at the figure laying on a large bed. "It's a devil."
…
Possessions were a pastime she liked to indulge in whenever she had little else to do and the opportunity presented itself. Her favourite targets were the people who contracted themselves to her and were unable to or refused to pay their dues, followed by the ones who unknowingly opened doorways close to her.
Most of the time, she just went around terrorizing their close ones for a few months before leaving or when she was feeling particularly unpleasant, taking their lives along with her. She wasn't to blame; her victims wouldn't have landed where they were if they hadn't chosen to dabble in a field they had no knowledge in. Curiosity killed the cat was the saying after all.
The girl she was currently in had been one of the latter. A 'harmless' board game played in a party had presented her with an 'in' and out of the half dozen people in the circle, the girl has been the one to attract her attention. She wasn't to blame for that either; she liked beautiful things and the girl was one of them.
It had come as a surprise, however, when her parents had gotten their hands on an exorcist. A surprise, but not necessarily an unpleasant one. The man had been decently powerful, but he was old, very old. She hadn't even needed to actively attack him before his body gave out from the stress of a three day battle of attrition and he fled. Out of disappointment from the anticlimactic confrontation, she'd flash frozen him in his bathtub.
The second one hadn't been as easy, but he posed no challenge either. Like the first, he met a freezing end after his mind left him and he went skinny dipping in freezing cold water.
The third had been similar to the first, but unlike the other two, his health condition meant his body couldn't take the temperature and it was in between prayers that he slumped and passed on. All in all, nothing special. The only real annoyance was that all of them had escaped her hold in death.
With the seeming likelihood that there would be no more confrontation, she had grown bored rather quickly. Maybe she'd leave soon and take the girl with her. She was a beautiful thing afterall.
It was when she had started to slow her pulse that the fourth one came.
This time, she knew he would not be as easy as the others. Not because he had one of the seven Excaliburs strapped to his waist, nor was it because he recited all the prayers without even holding a book to read them from. No, it was because of his light.
It was bright, so bright it hurt her eyes and made her feel a slight burn. It was a river, mighty in it's burning intensity as he sent it in torrents to wash over her and flush her out of the girl before cutting her down like a fisherman would a particularly problematic fish. A normal demon or a lower class devil would have been overwhelmed and perhaps even killed in mere seconds from his light alone, much less when they were removed. T
Unfortunately for the man, she was neither.
If his assault was a river, her retaliation was an ocean, quickly and effortlessly sending him back and breaking through all his defenses. If he was a fisherman with a stick, she was a whale, incomprehensibly beyond his league. A malicious amusement swelled up in her as she felt his shock. He hadn't been expecting her to reveal herself and attack him so soon.
His hasty attempt at retaliating meant nothing to her and she almost lazily pushed away the defensive thoughts he tried to form as she rapidly wormed her way into his mind. As she sifted through his memories to pick out which one to torment him with, she saw it.
He was running. His gait was steady, almost annoyed, like he was being sent to fulfill a chore. He wasn't being pursued, he was doing the pursuing. He had a destination. He felt them before he saw them. They were just below him now. He leapt off the roof onto the street below.
He drew his sword and it became a battleaxe as three figures came into view. The air was fresh and warm tonight. A good night to read a book with a bowl of noodles in between his legs, a bad night to end the lives of others.
Nevertheless, he swung downwards diagonally, cutting through skin, muscle, bone and organ as his feet touched the ground before rising and swinging the axe in a wide arc, bifurcating both his first target and the second next to him.
Blood sprayed on his cheek and clothes and bits of bile gathered on his weapon. Disgusting. He'd need to shower again.
"Exorcist!"
He twisted around on a foot, his ankle bearing the brunt of his move and lunged forward, ducking downward in his charge as a missile of black and crimson passed over his head and took a part of his hair off too. He'd need a haircut too. Maybe Sister Hilda would help. But did he want a buzz cut?
The axe became a sword again and he gripped it with a second hand as he slashed horizontally across a black covered torso. The grip vibrated and a faint hiss reached his ears as blessed metal carved a burning path through cursed flesh.
Keep moving, Naruto.
He felt foul energy narrowly pass by his midsection as he jerked himself to the side. Lunge. He got close in the blink of an eye and kicked the devil in the midsection hard enough to visibly displace the air around his foot. Much to his surprise, the man took the blow rather well, his feet forcing stones out from the ground as he was pushed back by a meter.
The devil's retaliation came in the form of a wave of black and crimson that Naruto corkscrewed over before pushing himself forward with a foot, his blade poised to stab. The devil sidestepped out of the way, the air displaced in his wake giving Naruto the faint smell of something resembling ozone and sulfur. Before a counterattack could be launched, he regained his footing and pushed himself backwards so he shoulder-checked the devil who turned his body so that their backs collided instead.
The devil's back felt like hardwood against his own as they both shuffled in place, obviously waiting for one to make the first move. His lazy reluctance was gone and in it's place was annoyance. This was a waste of time.
He jumped away and stood on the tips of his toes just as the devil turned around as well with a crimson ball on his hand and swung his sword down, severing the limb. The man's mouth opened to let out a scream but he brought the sword back down, cutting through neck, chest and belly. Blood stained him even more.
He twirled again on a foot and took his second hand off the grip as the blade curved and elongated halfway through his short lunge. The last man was already doubled over trying to hold in his entrails. One chop would be enough. He swung upwards in a chopping motion and separated the man's head from the rest of the body.
The entire fight had taken less than a minute. It didn't feel like a fight but he wanted to call it that anyway. It felt more like an assassination, but the word left a bitter taste in his mouth.
He wiped his sword clean on one of their shirts and sheathed it before walking away, only taking a moment to stop and glance back at the corpses. Their faces were frozen in a state of eternal shock as their forms and the ground beneath them was stained with a widening pool of blood. They cut a grisly scene, but not enough to elicit any remorse from him.
He had no sympathy for devils, much less the ones attempting to sneak into the holy city.
Her eyes widened as realization struck her. A short while ago, a quartet of devils, one of which had been a member of Clan Bael, had been found murdered in the outskirts of the Vatican City.
In spite of public outrage, nothing could be done since the angel faction had been justified in killing the intruders had they been the culprits but it had been a bone of contention between the two factions and the respective clans the victims belonged to had sworn to get retribution in blood from the killers should they be found.
But there were no killers. Only one. And she had found him. He was nothing like she thought he would be, but she had found him.
He could not have been more than fifteen or sixteen when he killed five members of prominent house with nothing but an excalibur mimic and the commonly occuring twice critical and she had a feeling he'd only used the latter to save time.
Fortunately for him, she had no intentions of turning him in just to slake her kind's irrational thirst for revenge. Unfortunately for him, her interest had been piqued.
Serafall Leviathan was very interested in the young exorcist.
…
Naruto sat hunched over as he cradled his head in an attempt to relieve himself of the pulsating headache he felt. The cotton buds in his nostrils felt wet and he didn't need to pick them out to know they were now fully red from his blood.
But as he glanced up with hurting eyes to look at the couple that joyfully embraced their weeping daughter, it made the pain worth it.
"You did it, Brother Naruto," Father Jules said beside him. He held an ice pack to the blond's head. "Three exorcists, twice your age, came and went. All three died but you, you didn't."
Naruto grunted.
"When you fell, we all thought you wouldn't make it," Father Jules continued. "The last one. He died in this room. His body gave out from the cold and he just collapsed. But when you got up and cast it out? Amazing."
"No," Naruto whispered.
"What do you mean?" Father Jules frowned. "It's over, isn't it?"
"I didn't cast it out, Father. It left of its own volition." Naruto's voice came out as distressed. "The exorcism was a failure. A woeful one. I couldn't do anything about it."
The Father began to sweat again as he looked at the family. He couldn't say what he'd experienced at the hands of the entity but the thought of going through it again made him want to cry. "It's not over?"
"For them and for you, it is." Naruto assured the man. "For me? It's only the beginning. The consequence of a failed exorcism is the exorcist's cross alone to carry."
Jules bit his lip, suddenly worried for the younger man who he'd only noticed just how pale he had become. "Are you saying you'll come under attack now?"
"Perhaps." Naruto nodded. "Perhaps it'll strike now. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after tomorrow. Maybe next month. Maybe I won't see it until years later when I'm near the end of my life. Perhaps it won't even attack me personally and I'll encounter it in another victim. The one certainty is that we'll meet again as we will continue to encounter ourselves until either of us truly triumphs over the other."
"Do you all know about that?"
"It's one of the first things we're told before we even start training." Naruto nodded slowly. "To tread this path half-cocked is to invite disaster."
The Father stared at the man as he took the buds out of his nostrils and dropped them onto the melting snow. Seeing him like this made him understand why exorcist numbers were relatively few. Nobody wanted to enter a field where failure meant death at the hands of the inhuman or being forced to bear another's burden whether it was one they could carry or not.
"I have to go." Naruto got up and trudged out of the room. He ignored Father Jules' remark that he couldn't leave in his state and the family's plea for him to wait so they could properly thank him.
He took the strip off his neck as he went down the stairs. The rain had subsided greatly, but there was no comfort in that small fact. His mind was stuck where it had been mere minutes ago and no good weather would help him now.
I'm going now, the devil had said after battering its way into his mind. Not because you have power over me, you do not. I'm going because I have found one that interests me more than the girl. I'm coming for you, exorcist!
He could still hear it's mocking cackle, alarmingly feminine in a manner that worsened his headache. It wasn't over between them, not by a long shot. It would never forget him, just as he would always be able to recognise it and sooner or later, they would clash again. When that time came, he would have to be ready.
He returned what he'd taken out of the bag into it and donned his coat and raincoat. He had to return to the Vatican, as soon as possible.
…
Naruto found that weeks after the exorcism, sleep had become a large discomfort for him. It came easy, sure, but with it followed dreams that were strange at best and nightmarish at worst with all of them following the same pattern of him waking up with freezing cold sweat and no real recollection of what he dreamt other than the faint memory of blue eyes and a girlish cackle.
He'd considered them a product of mild trauma that would eventually fade away as he moved on with life but when two months passed and they not only continued, but he began to get the niggling feeling that he wasn't alone whenever he dozed off, he'd begun to consider the possibility that he was being visited.
Unfortunately, there was no real way to tell other than to watch and remain vigilant in the hopes that the intruder, if there was one, showed up eventually and so, he propped himself on a chair in his room with a jug of coffee and went through his bible with excalibur mimic disguised as a pen in his hand.
Or at least he'd done that back in the previous evening.
The coffee had cooled and lost its taste in his mouth but Naruto drank it anyway and stifled a yawn. He glanced at the clock near his room as he rubbed one eye. It was almost 3:00am and the pull of sleep had only gotten stronger, but he couldn't afford to shut his eyes, not until the next day.
The surroundings had become quiet, so much that he could easily hear his own breaths and the usually unnoticeable ticking of his clock. He rubbed his eyes for the umpteenth time as a small chime notified him of the hour striking three and flipped over to the next page of the book.
It wasn't until five minutes had passed and he'd started to doze off that he felt it.
It started as a small draft that made him wonder whether or not to shut his windows before the power went out completely, engulfing him in darkness. He frowned and searched for his lamp as the temperature in the room began to lower to the point where his fingers felt smooth against each other. Eventually, he found the kamp and after unplugging it from the socket he'd left it near, switched it on.
A small click came right before a white light illuminated his surroundings enough to see that he was standing face to face with a woman.
Her blue eyes glowed in the artificial light and her straight, black hair fashioned into twin pigtails reflected the lamp's shine back at him. The rest of her form was obscured by shadow, but he could make out a dress resembling something he'd seen in a cartoon once on top of what seemed to be a smallish body with uncharacteristically large breasts and curvature that made it clear that it was definitely an adult.
It had taken only a millisecond to notice all the details on her and the next one was spent connecting the dots. He hadn't heard his door open, nor footsteps. The cold had only worsened now that she was near and her eyes bore an uncanny resemblance to the ones he'd been seeing in his dreams.
She was the devil that had been visiting him in his sleep.
His reaction came in the third millisecond. His pen became a tanto that he swung at her neck with blinding speed. Unfortunately, it was three milliseconds too late.
The devil's lips curled into an amused smile as she trapped the tanto in-between two fingers. Naruto's eyes widened at the sight, but pressed on. He pushed forward, aiming to stab but the blade didn't budge. It burnt her fingers enough for the smell to reach his nose, but she seemed not to feel it one bit.
"You shouldn't try to kill a guest, exorcist," the devil spoke, her voice deceptively high pitched. "It's bad manners."
"Who are you?" Naruto asked acidly. "Tell me now and I'll make your death quick."
"Hehe, that's no fun." She twisted her fingers and Naruto's arms screamed as he was forced to keep Excalibur from being wrenched out of his grip. "You shouldn't attack people before getting to know them, you know."
His response came in the form of altering the short blade to a longsword. The devil's eyes widened as the blade rapidly neared her, but the next instant saw her standing across the room, leaving a shocked Naruto staring at her with the sword where her neck ought to have been.
Naruto gathered his nerves and eyed the devil with a lot more caution than he'd had to use in a long time. She was superior to him in terms of physical strength; he'd almost dislocated an arm holding on to Excalibur when she tried taking it away. And she was fast too. Even for him, she'd been little more than a blur.
She giggled and moved out of the area illuminated by the lamp. The shadows swallowed her completely until only her eyes were visible. Naruto felt a bead of sweat trail down his head as he followed her eyes. She was no regular devil, that much he could tell now.
"Why are you here?" He asked. "Why do you keep coming here?"
"Oh, you know," she giggled. "Not so deep down, you know."
He frowned. "You're the one that was in the girl."
"Not who?" Naruto couldn't see her face but he had a feeling she was pouting. "That hurts, exorcist. I'm a person too."
"You're an abomination," he retorted hotly as he circled around in place with a lamp in one hand and Excalibur in the other. "A mockery of the light of creation, existing only to spite The Lord's work."
The devil snorted. "That really hurts, you meanie."
Meanie?
Naruto ignored the childish insult in favour of muttering a verse from the bible that he'd memorized. "Reveal yourself, devil."
"What's the magic word?"
Confusion seeped into fury and Naruto found his frown taking on a perplexed tone. "I said come out."
"Not unless you don't say the magic word."
He racked his brain. Magic word? He didn't know magic, what word compelled a devil to reveal themselves that he didn't know about? "I'm only going to ask one more time. Come out."
"Magic word," the devil replied in a singsong tone.
He didn't have time for this. He rushed at the pair of eyes and slashed diagonally. The eyes vanished and Excalibur cut through not flesh, but foam and wood. Naruto realized with no small amount of irritation that he'd cut his own bed in two.
A faint shift in the air behind him made him turn and he pirouetted to build enough momentum for a decapitating blow. The sword cut through air and he growled when he felt the air beside him shift again. With a fluidity born from practice, he twirled the sword and leaned forward to stab the devil only to quickly hop back as his foot met something solid on the ground and was nearly trapped in it. A quick glance downward showed him it was ice.
He heard another giggle in his ear and felt his blood run cold as a finger poked him in his lower back. The longsword became a spear, but the butt struck nothing behind him. His heart raced as he turned around to see the door leading to his bathroom.
Had it been a blade, he would have been dead or paralyzed at best but she'd only chosen to use a finger and it didn't help calm Naruto one bit. He was being toyed with, that much he'd come to realize.
But it didn't stop him from striking at her every chance he got. They continued their game of cat and mouse for what felt like hours to Naruto. He attacked with as much speed as he could manage in the space of his room, but he might as well be grasping at shadows for all his effort amounted to and as much as he loathed to admit it, he was beginning to lose his composure.
The same strikes that had killed devil and monster alike were being weaved through like nothing by the ever giggling devil who continued to mock him in her annoyingly childish manner as she poked him in different parts each time he missed her. It seemed as though he was never fast enough to catch her nor was he strong enough to hurt her in the few times where he did catch her.
And now with the walls and his furniture cut to bits, Naruto came to a conclusion he didn't like.
Whoever this devil was, she wasn't childish, she simply didn't see him as enough of a threat to take seriously. And if she'd come to take him, she wanted him to realize that. She wanted his will to falter. It would make things easier for her.
A part of him wanted to give up, to let her have him like he knew she probably would if she actually tried. He'd felt her in his consciousness before, she'd plowed through his being like a train through a spider web and had viewed his memories, unaffected by his attempts at pushing her out. He knew resistance was possibly futile, why try?
But the larger part of him refused. If he'd go down at all, he wanted to do it with defiance. He couldn't just silently accept his fate, not even if it meant going up against an insurmountable foe. No exorcist ever went quietly to their doom and he wouldn't be the first to do so.
That was why even as his arms began to hurt from what he could now tell was an hour of constantly using weapons of different weights and makes, he raised Excalibur mimic in its true form and pointed it at the devil who'd finally revealed herself.
"Eh? You still want to go on?" She blinked. "I thought you were done."
He glared at her. "I'm going to give you one last chance. Tell me your name and leave."
"You're not really in the position to say that, you know," she scratched her head and glanced at where the clock was. "But…time's wasting so you better say the magic word or we'll have to do this again tomorrow."
"Magic word?" Naruto spat out. "I'm no sorcerer."
She laughed. "Of course not, silly. I mean the one out of the five magic words." She began to sing quietly to herself. "There are five magic words, there are five magic words…"
Naruto racked his brain for why the song sounded so familiar. It was a children's song, that much he could tell but the matrons at the orphanage hadn't really done much singing to any of the children.
Wait, it was coming back to him now. The five…sorry, thank you…. please…
"You want me to beg?" He asked incredulously. "You want an exorcist to beg you? A devil?"
"You figured it out," she clapped her hands delightedly. "Well? Go on. Say please."
"I'd rather die!" He snarled and rushed at her.
"Hmpf, that's rude." She stuck her tongue out at him even as he got closer. "But I'll let you off this time since you'll be mine now anyway."
Naruto's eyes bulged out as pain erupted in his midsection and he hit a wall hard enough to crack the reinforced concrete. As he fell towards the ground, he felt himself get kicked upwards before he saw the leg and this time, his back struck the ceiling, followed by his head. Lights burst in his vision and his grip on the lamp loosened as he dropped.
Broken glass dug into his palms and he felt his thumb slide over Excalibur's blade as he tried to get up, but he felt a hand grab him by the shoulder and lift him to stare at it's squatting owner, the devil who still smiled as though she hadn't sent him flying twice.
She hit hard. Harder than anything he'd felt before and he'd been punched by an iron golem.
She smiled at him indulgently and caressed his face. "Hurts, doesn't it? You won't be walking for a few days after that, but don't worry, I'll take good care of you so you might get better sooner. You should be thankful I don't want to damage you too much."
"No," Naruto ground out and his hand shot forward, looking to impale her with the sword turned dagger. Her hand left his face to grab his and casually broke it at the wrist, forcing a pained gasp out of him.
"You have spirit. I like spirit," her childish grin turned wicked. "My name is Serafall Leviathan."
Naruto's heart skipped a beat. There was no being involved in the supernatural who didn't know about the four satans. Each one took on the former names of four of the fallen princes as titles.
The sheer power they had was something that never ceased to be a topic of discussion and it was a general agreement that they were to be avoided in the extremely unlikely chance that they were ever encountered.
And here, he'd tried to fight one in his bedroom.
Serafall's grin widened, as if knowing his thoughts. "So you know who I am. That's good. You put yourself up in place of the girl, exorcist and you lost. I'm sure you know what means."
Naruto screwed his eyes shut as he felt a sharp pain in his head, followed by the unpleasantly familiar sensation of another consciousness in him. Like before, she'd simply swept her way past every defence he had.
But this time, it was different. She wasn't scouring his being, she was encroaching. He could hear her whispering, encouraging him to give in and let her take over. He could feel her digging herself deeper into him, lodging herself deep in his mind that he wouldn't be able to remove her without hurting himself.
Her whispers grew louder until it became full on screams that made him want to bash his head against something until he fell unconscious. It was an unpleasant chorus of different voices of different pitches and tones, all saying the same thing: for him to let them in.
He couldn't. He wouldn't. She might subdue him, maybe even enthrall him, but she would never possess him. He wouldn't let her have that final victory over him, not even if it meant he'd die. It was why even with his memories being warped and the voices bearing down on him like the weight of the sky, he used the only thing the satan couldn't truly take away from him: choice.
Serafall gasped as she was forced out of the blond's mind as quickly as she'd entered. It had been so sudden. All she'd heard was a single, quiet no before everything she'd let take root in him was pulled out and ejected along with her.
He'd refused her. It hadn't been a loud one, but a refusal was a refusal nonetheless.
She eyed the shaking blond as he curled into a ball and cradled his head. He was stronger than she'd given him credit for, at least in spirit. She'd seen exorcists more powerful give in relatively quickly.
"You've won this round, exorcist." She whispered to herself as she stepped away from him. "But I'll be back. It's not over, not until you fall."
A magic circle appeared beneath her feet and she disappeared just as the door to the room was kicked inward and a group of white clad people rushed in.
…
Serafall made for her office with an energetic gait that belied the rage bubbling beneath her cheerful appearance. The terrified staff avoided her as the ground on which she skipped frosted over. They didn't know what annoyed her so much, but they didn't want to be around when she inevitably decided to vent.
The fleeing servants escaped Serafall's notice; her mind was more focused on something or rather, someone else.
She still couldn't get how the exorcist had managed to refuse her all of a sudden. She'd almost had him, she knew it. There had only been a small flicker of his will left and all that remained had been to cover it, at least until it became an inferno, burning away the majority of her influence on him. The memory of it alone made her want to kill something!
And the worst part was that she couldn't even try it again. One of the rules that old goat, God, had set was that save for the event where the person invited them back in, possessions, be they successful or failed, could only be done once.
Of course she could enthrall him, but it wouldn't be the same. She didn't want a mindless servant, she wanted to own him. To have his mind, body and eventually, his soul. But that wasn't to be anymore.
But what if it was? She twirled a small rod of ice in her hand as an idea came to her.
She couldn't brute force her way into his mind anymore, but it didn't mean there wasn't any other way to have him.
She could still make him choose her.
…
Naruto had been expecting Serafall to return one day, either to evaluate him, to see just how far he'd gone since their last encounter or more likely, to finish what she'd started and in expectation of that day, he'd readied himself as best as he could.
But all the mental and physical preparation didn't keep him from being surprised when he saw her appear to him in broad daylight, sitting on his hotel bed as though it belonged to her. He supposed in a way, it did. What was his was hers considering he was hers too, at least in her head.
She smiled at him, a bright, cheery smile that almost made him regret the way he'd been to her the last time, but something in her eyes made his grip on Excalibur, disguised as a walking cane, tighten.
"Ah, ah, exorcist. Don't be mean again or I'll have to punish you," Serafall warned him, her tone bubbly.
His eyes strayed down to her legs, the long, shapely legs that had kicked him around like an overinflated beach ball and left him without use of his legs for weeks and he felt phantom pain burn in his gut.
Fighting wouldn't help him, not with her. But it didn't mean he'd stand still and give in to her either.
"Here to finish what you started?" He asked. "You'll find me a more challenging opponent than last time."
"Mmm, I don't think I will," she giggled as she pointed at his cane. "Methinks the cane isn't just for show."
He frowned but said, "would you like to know if it is?"
Her smile turned mocking. "Are you sure you even want to fight?"
To be honest, he didn't. He was confident in his own abilities, but not so deluded as to believe he could go toe to toe with a satan.
"The church knows you've been visiting me," he said. "If you try anything, they'll know."
Her mocking smile only widened. "So you told them about me? Snitch."
She's got to be joking, Naruto thought. "I don't think that counts in this case."
"Yes it does."
"Why are you here?" He asked.
She gave him a flatly amused stare. "To see you, duh."
Naruto's eyes narrowed and he subtly pushed Excalibur's guard up with a thumb. "Why?"
Serafall eyed his hand and crossed a leg over the other. "To talk."
Naruto blinked. "What?"
"Yes, I want to talk," Serafall said.
It was a trick, it had to be. Devils didn't talk to exorcists, they killed them. She wanted to get him to lower his guard before attacking him. That was it, yeah.
But would it even matter if he had his guard up? He didn't have much of a chance of beating her on his best day and even though he could do so if the need arose, he was in no proper condition to fight.
If she really wanted to talk, it would be in his best interest to listen to her. But he'd keep his guard up, useless as it might end up being.
He kept his eyes on her as he reached for the small chair placed in the room and moved it until he was sitting opposite Serafall. Enough for them to see face to face, but still enough of an angle between them for him to dive away should she reach for him.
Serafall seemed to understand the reason for his positioning too as a small giggle left her mouth, but he ignored it in favour of taking a seat and trying not to sigh from the relief his back felt.
He propped Excalibur in-between his legs but didn't take his hand off the pommel. "I'll humor you this time, Leviathan. But only because I don't want to ruin this nice hotel room."
"I'm sure that's why," she smiled smugly and produced two bottles from inside her dress. "Cola?"
He eyed the bottle cautiously. She rolled her eyes and opened the two before taking a sip of both. It wasn't as convincing as she probably thought it was, but he sighed heavily and took one of the bottles from her anyway.
He didn't know it at the time, but that was the point at which his life would never know relative normalcy again.
The original idea was for Serafall to attempt to seduce him into her peerage by befriending him at first before eventually falling for him. I mean, he still ends up joining, but that's after a series of events that leads to his excommunication from the church but that's pretty much it. It was supposed to be a oneshot but I'm tired of writing it so I'll just leave it here.