Disclaimer: First Chapter
Story Start!

A book store.

One would not expect Naruto to be an avid reader, and he wasn't. He factually was not an avid reader, but that wasn't to say he didn't enjoy a good book now and again either. Since it was a day off for him, and after a week of not having partners who were great conversationalists, he felt that he needed something to relieve some of the annoyance he was feeling.

Aki suggested this book store to him.

'Weird choice, but fine.' Naruto hummed as he looked through the books for sale. It was a good lesson to not judge a book by it's cover, but at the same time, none of the books he was seeing really appealed to him either. He didn't read for the sake of reading, he read because sometimes it could be fun, and he didn't want to buy a book just to not enjoy it. 'Barely any devils assigned to me too.' Naruto put the book back on the shelf.

He felt eyes watching him.

Turning around, he saw a crow on the other side of the street, looking in through the window at him. Naruto narrowed his eyes, because Makima was watching him. He turned his back to the window, and stood still for a moment, before he entered Sage Mode.

Himeno was watching as Power was training under some old dude.
Akane was taking an ice cold shower.
Kobeni was masturbating.
Denji was sitting in a cafe, with Reze serving him coffee.
Aki was feeding the huskies that Makima gave him, and the cat in his apartment too?

Hold up, Denji was with Reze?

-With Himeno-

"I can't believe I'm babysitting the Fiend today." Himeno sighed in annoyance as she sat on the grass. She was just watching Power get absolutely beaten in a sparring match, a violence one, from Kishibe, the teacher who trained her. The older, massive man in his 50s was a monster in combat.

Well, she used to think he was a monster.

Now he just seemed... weak compared to the real monster she was friends with.

"Hey Himeno, got a question for you?"

"Well, think of the devil, and he appears." Himeno teased Naruto when he walked right up from behind her, having appeared from nowhere. It worked that she could take her eye off of Power, since her throat was slit open and she collapsed to the ground. Kishibe looked over at them, and looked at Naruto with a neutral expression. Honestly, she hadn't expected to see Naruto today at all, so it was a pleasant surprise. "Your day off today?"

"Yeah... who is that?" Naruto watched as Kishibe walked over to them, opened his silver hip flask, and drank from it. The guy was almost 6 and a half feet tall, almost a full foot taller than Naruto himself. Kishibe came over to Naruto, looked him up and down, judged him mentally, and his cold eyes looked at the whisker marks on his face.

There was a silence.

"... So you're one of the newbies, I haven't been told anything about you. Mind if I ask you a few questions?" Kishibe asked him directly, but politely.

"Shoot."

"Are you on the side of humans or devils?"

"Humans, duh."

"How do you feel about your comrades dying?"

"I feel sad, and it makes me want to protect my remaining ones harder."

"Do you want revenge?"

"No, revenge is a dangerous path to travel on."

Kishibe got the answers to his questions, and he looked towards Naruto, and he judged him. There was a disappointment in his eyes. The boy in front of him, a teenager of no more than 17, and with a body not that impressive looking.

"You've got a good head on your shoulders... you're not cut out for devil hunting. The strongest devil hunters have a screw loose... devils fear people who they can't scare. You're too weak, you should quit." Kishine told Naruto. He did raise a brow only ever so slightly when Naruto didn't seem that offended by his words, and he looked at Himeno when she laughed under her breath at what he had said. "I've never heard of you, I'm Kishibe, the strongest devil hunter, from Division 1." Kishibe continued the self-introduction.

Himeno laughed a little louder.

He looked at her, and she did not meet his gaze.

"Cool, nice to meet you." Naruto waved off the insult, and he waved off somebody else taking the title of strongest. It didn't bother him if somebody else wanted to claim it from him. He did wonder why this guy hadn't heard of him from Makima yet though. '... Unless Makima didn't want me and this guy meeting for some reason.' Naruto thought to himself. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto, my hobbies are trying out different ramen stalls, I like ramen, and I dislike how long it takes for ramen to cook." Naruto stated.

"I love booze, women, and killing devils." Kishibe explained.

The air was filled with a pressure, a pressure that was uncomfortable to Power as she recovered from her neck being split open by drinking blood from the pack provided to her.

"Okay Pervy Hunter."

"You two should totally spar!" Himeno suggested loudly with a twinkle to her eye. "Kishibe, I want your opinion on Naruto, so can you give him a once over with a spar?" Himeno asked.

It happened quickly.

Kishibe swung his fist at Naruto without any warning, starting the spar with the intention of trying to knock Naruto out.

'A boy his size should be knocked out by this much strength, I'll end this and get him to quit before he dies.' Kishibe thought as his head collided with the side of Naruto's skull. Naruto just turned his head to look at him though, even as the the iron hard knuckles smacked his skull, Naruto seemed unfazed by the attack. He wasn't knocked unconscious.

"I really don't think it will be a spar though." Naruto suggested to Himeno, who hadn't seen the way Kishibe swung his face. She had been distracted for a mere moment, and blinked at the moment of the fist striking.

Kishibe looked at his own fist.

His knuckles were bleeding, hitting Naruto in the head as hard as he did had split open the flesh on his knuckles, and he felt pain that showed his hand was broken. He opened and closed his fist, before he made sure that it was still usable. He then looked at Naruto, who really didn't seem to have taken much, if any, damage at all from his unserious attack. He pointed at Naruto with a finger.

"I've changed my opinion of you, you might look weak, but you're very durable, aren't you?"

"I think I am." Naruto stated as he unscrewed Kishibe's hip flask and poured it out onto the ground.

...

'When did he steal it from me?' Kishine's uninjured hand went to his pocket, and it was empty. That was really his flask that Naruto was pouring out on the ground, and he hadn't felt when it had gotten taken from him at all. He hadn't felt a hand enter his pocket, and he hadn't even seen a blur of motion of it being taken. 'Was I distracted for a moment, and he use my distraction to steal it... or was he just too fast for me to see... was it a combination of the two?' Kishibe analyzed the situation.

"What a waste of booze." Himeno saw and smelled what Naruto was pouring out.

Naruto tossed the flask back to Kishibe.

"Maybe, are you satisfied with the spar Himeno?" Naruto asked her.

She was confused.

"... You guys didn't spar though, you haven't even thrown a punch at each other?" Himeno questioned with arms crossed, and pouty lips. She looked towards Kishibe, and he was just checking to see if there was any booze left in his flask. He gave no facial cue if he was angry or not, but he looked back to Naruto.

"The best devil hunters are those who are unhinged, I stand by that." Kishibe wasn't going to change his opinion on that, but he had made the wrong judgement on Naruto. Naruto didn't seem like a dangerous person, he seemed very sane, and like a good natured guy. Normally, guys like Naruto who had a good head on their cultures died quickly and easily to devils. At the exact same time though, he had never met a person as strong as this guy without them being absolutely insane.

Naruto looked at him.

"Yeah?"

"You're stronger than I am, which very few can say. You're the exception to the rule. Your strength should be impossible at your size... are you actually a human?" Kishibe questioned. Naruto was on the smaller side for a man, and though he did have a good build for his size at least, the fact was that he withstood a punch he had no business withstanding. They were in two wildly different weight classes. It would make more sense if Naruto wasn't human.

"As human as they come."

"He's a liar, he's a demon, a demoooooon... but his flesh tastes great." Power exclaimed, unable to keep her mouth shut now that she knew for a fact that Naruto was stronger than Kishibe.

"Hey Himeno, I'm going to crash for a few days at your place. Something came up." Naruto had a feeling that Makima was scheming something, and he figured that if Makima was scheming, then she was hoping that Himeno got caught in the crossfire. Knowing Makima, this was the play that he could make that would best mess with her plans.

If he had to guess, he was sure that Makima was expecting him to get involved with whatever Denji and Reze had going on, but that was the expected move. Instead, Naruto was going to focus his efforts to protecting Himeno and Kobeni, the people who he expected Makima to want dead.

"Why?"

"Reasons."

"Good enough for me." Himeno didn't have a problem with it. If Naruto said he had reasons, then they were secret, and she wouldn't pry into them. It would be nice to have a friend staying with her for a little bit.

"She's a pervert too you know."

"Yeah, but she's a woman, so she gets a pass on being a pervert, since her being a pervert doesn't come off as creepy as you being a pervert." Naruto deadpanned to Kishibe. The man didn't let the offense show on his face.

Still, he had to question something.

Why had Makima not seen fit to inform him of such a strong boy?

Chapter End!
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