A/N: Have an omake!
Friday, April 20th
"Whatever I'm being accused of, I didn't do it. Those two perverts are lying—" The irreverent and tattooed blond cut himself off, pointing in their direction. "Hey, who's that behind you?"
Normally, Sona Sitri would never fall for such a blatant misdirection, and neither would her Vice President Shinra Tsubaki. She could excuse how she was caught off guard by the boy's behaviour and mannerisms, explain away her moment of gullibility as her having grown used to the respect others afforded her position, or blame the myriad other items of business she had on her mind for distracting her.
"Huh? What are you-?" Tsubaki began in confusion.
All of the above could even be true, but the fact remains that Sona turned alongside her [Queen] to glance into the hallway behind them reflexively, taking the bait the teen had practically waved in their faces.
Really, the fact that there wasn't anyone there wasn't surprising at all. What was surprising, was turning back to the classroom less than a second later, just to also see the blonde had disappeared. Where he had gone was just as blatantly obvious as the trick question, what with the remaining students in the classroom staring at the open window, with looks ranging from open-mouthed disbelief to hands stifling giggles. Koneko wasn't even hiding the tiny smirk of amusement she was sending Sona's way.
A moment passed in silence, Sona's eyes meeting Koneko's. The young girl was sitting on a desk, next to which was a school bag that the Sitri knew for a fact didn't belong to the Nekoshou. Two other girls were standing nearby, seemingly having been talking with the girl before Sona's entrance interrupted them, but it didn't seem likely to belong to one of them either.
"Tsubaki."
"Yes, Kaichou."
"Please return to the council room, and inform the others that they no longer need to seek out Uzumaki-san. He will come to us," she said.
"Understood, please excuse me." Her vice president bowed slightly and turned, swiftly leaving the room. Sona meanwhile began to make her way towards the white-haired girl with purpose.
Seeing as the entertainment was over, the rest of the students went back to doing their own things, though the more gossip-minded ones kept an ear on Sona's continued business in the classroom.
"Am I right to assume that is Uzumaki-san's bag?" She asked Koneko while gesturing at her feet, getting straight to the point. She was well aware of the girl's preference for bluntness.
"Mm," Koneko nodded. "Why?" She asked with a tilt of her head.
"I would like for the student council to be the ones responsible for getting it back to him, if you don't mind us taking possession of it," Sona supplied in answer. "Uzumaki-san has shown that he's willing to learn, but his lack of a more formal education has caused him to disregard certain important cultural and social barriers, which may impact his future," she explained. "In other words-" she gestured at the window, "-it is clear that he is not fully adapted to the life of a student, and the Student Council intends to assist and work with him on fixing that. Having him approach us to retrieve his bag would help facilitate that."
The tall-for-her-age redhead snorted, and Koneko hummed noncommittally, which Sona knew to mean she didn't buy that as the full story.
Which was true. Everything she said was correct, but she was also interested in getting a read on the boy personally, and potentially offering him a place in her peerage given the attention Rias and present company had given him.
While Sona's intentions were likely obvious to the [Rook, she did not particularly react much at all.
"Okay," Koneko finally said with a nod.
"Thank you." Sona gave a serious nod in thanks, picked the bag up, and turned to leave. "I'll be taking my leave."
As she began heading out of the room, her hearing picked up on the start of a conversation back in the room she was just in.
"... I'm kinda surprised you just let her take it," an unknown girl's voice spoke with a bored, almost husky tone. "Won't he get annoyed at you for selling him out like that?"
"Mm. That's the fun part." Koneko's voice replied, likely aware that Sona was still close enough to hear them with their shared Devil biology. "Since he's an idiot, he'll frustrate her and she'll frustrate him, and it'll be funny for me. Win-win." That settled it, the [Rook] definitely knew Sona could hear them.
The other girl barked out a laugh and said something else, but Sona had just left the range of hearing and didn't catch it.
Either way, she was suddenly much less sure of her chosen course of action.
'I can already feel the headache coming,' she thought dryly.
Monday, April 23rd
Arriving early for school was hardly anything unusual for Sona, who liked to spend a few extra minutes before morning classes going over her duties for the day in the student council room. Usually, she would be joined by any number of her peerage members just by odds of them also having something they needed to do in the space that was effectively their base of operations, whether that be something mundane such as finishing homework, or less-so, such as submitting the paperwork for their finished contracts.
Today, under her instructions, only her second in command was with her. Tsubaki stood patiently on standby to the side of Sona's office chair, one of the only sounds in the room being the scratching of Sona's pen on paper as they waited for the unruly blond to finally make his appearance. The clock continued ticking, slowly counting down the seconds until the start of home room was due to begin.
There was still plenty of time for the boy to retrieve his bag and everyone involved to make it to classes, but the longer it took for him to appear, the less time Sona would have to fulfill her true objectives to any meaningful degree.
'Well, that's not entirely true,' She thought to herself dryly with minor irritation. Since one of her goals was to get a read on his character, even something as simple as his time management was helpful information. Whether he was the type to be right on time or fashionably late, either option said something about him. He certainly wasn't keen on being early, that much was already proven. While there wasn't an actual agreed upon time for his arrival… Kuoh Academy students, generally speaking, did not make the Student Council wait.
It was a matter of politeness and respect for their time, the responsibilities being almost closer to that of part-time jobs under her leadership, rather than a mostly symbolic position.
While Sona personally wasn't surprised the boy seemed to be one of those few that disregarded the unspoken rule given his window stunt the other week, she had hoped that his sense of shame would rein him in. With the embarrassment of having left his school supplies behind last Friday in his bid to escape, it was possible the awkwardness of having to meet with her anyway to retrieve his property would subdue his more boisterous urges.
A quick set of light knocks on the door pulled her out of her wishful thinking. "Co-"
The door opened before she could say 'come in', and the tattooed blond strolled into the room casually with a bored look and a hand stuffed in his pocket.
"Yo." He drawled. "Koneko-chan said you guys got my stuff, yeah?"
Sona felt a twitch coming.
"Uzumaki-san, we would like to discuss some-"
"Aahhh, look, do you guys have it, or nah?" He cut her off with a yawn. "I gotta get to class, don't want to be late, ya'know?"
Her eyebrow twitched. Aggressively so.
'This boy is going to be trouble,' She thought with a grimace. 'There's no mistaking it.'
The next day
Naruto was just walking down the hallway, minding his own business, when a pair of upperclassmen decided to approach him and make a scene, completely through no fault of his own. The girl of the duo was a bit more on the petite side of things compared to most female students, with straight brown hair pulled tightly into long pigtails and an energetic expression on her face as she practically bounced down the halls. In comparison, the blond boy of the two strode in Naruto's direction full of purpose, with exaggerated authority almost dripping off of his smug swagger.
The boy called out, drawing the eyes of others in the hall.
"You there! Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto slowed, stopping the twirl of his cane to plant its end on the floor and lean on it.
"Yeah, that's me. Who's asking?" He responded curiously as the two came up to him.
"I'm Saji Genshiro of the Student Council, and my partner here is Nimura Ruruko, of the same group," He began, the girl bowing lightly as he introduced her.
When she rose, she spoke up with an apologetic smile. "We couldn't help but notice you swinging around that cane of yours, and came to talk to you about it."
The boy cut back in, looking down at Naruto in an attempt to intimidate him. "You need to cut it out, or we'll have to confiscate it for putting other students at risk of harm," he warned.
"Ahhh, man, looks like the fun police have arrived," Naruto rolled his eyes with a groan. "Who are we even kidding here? There's not a chance in hell anyone was gonna get hurt, and nobody at all so far has come up and asked me to stop until you guys got here." He squinted at the two. "That hardass Shitori chick put you two up to this, didn't she?"
There were a couple muffled gasps.
Naruto argued against the council members, oblivious to the deliberate distance the rest of the students in the halls kept from the confrontation, all while they watched the encounter between the student council and the "Delinquent Prince".
"Why you little…" A vein popped on Genshirou's forehead, while the brown haired girl shifted uncomfortably on her feet. "Does a brat like you even have permission to bring that onto school grounds?! I've read your file! You never checked in for an injury with the school nurse or any teachers, and you don't have any pre-existing condition either!" He exclaimed in annoyance. "We were trying to give you the benefit of the doubt and handle things quietly, but you had to go and give us lip. So, what's your excuse, hah? Hah?!"
"Eehhhh!?" Naruto grasped his chest and feigned shocked outrage. "I had an accident just last Friday and fell out of a second-floor window in front of half my class! You can even ask your president to confirm it, she was there to witness it herself!"
More gasps rang out.
Naruto scoffed dramatically, putting on a show for the onlookers. "Is this how the Student Council treats injured students, just trying to mind our own business walking down the hall? How inconsiderate."
Without waiting for a response, Naruto hefted his cane up again and stalked right past the two stunned council members, leaving them stun-locked in the hallways amid a sea of disappointed and disgusted looks as students parted ways for the whiskered teen.
"Wha- why the hell are you all looking at us like we're at fault!?" Genshiro spun around, yelling angrily at the gossiping students and getting flinches in return. "He's literally fine! Look, you can see him running away right now!" He roared, pointing in the direction the boy left.
The crowd's heads turned as one, and sure enough the short first-year was pumping his arms rapidly in a mad sprint as he fled the scene, vaulting over the stairwell's guard rail to drop straight to the next floor down.
"Eeeehhhhhhh!?"
As the crowd cried out in disbelief at the ruse, Ruruko tried to calm down her fellow peerage member-slash- budding crush, all while wondering just how her [King] would react when they inevitably reported the encounter.
Somehow, she got the feeling the answer would be "not well".
A/N: Takes place around Aphelion 2 and 3 with brief mentions elsewhere as well.