Chapter - 27

"Yes." Rias decided, reaffirming her grip on Sasuke's arm as they began to meander forward. "I know you've been looking after him for the last month, but I think he'll still need the support. The wife-to-be is still somewhere about after all, and we might need to run damage control."

Grunting in agreement, the Uchiha took the lead and with his greater bulk pressed through the crowd. Sasuke heard her faint "Sorry, we're just going to greet my nephew" repeated several times along the way.

As the redhead brushed off yet another puffed up noble, a whirl of blonde and pink broke through the crowd near Naruto. Sasuke didn't need to know who she was to recognize the sharp-eyed expression of expectation.

Sasuke cursed beneath his breath, changing their course from polite wandering to a rude beeline directly through the crowd. The welcoming expression on the Gremory heir's face froze as Ravel politely curtsied with a child's exuberance. They were too distant for the Uchiha to make out the words, but Sasuke knew that there was limited time before Naruto managed to put his foot in his mouth.

"They're already together." He informed Rias after a particularly rough push from the crowd drove an annoyed huff out her lungs.

Rias made a noise of comprehension, leaning against him to add her weight to their shoving. The crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses, and the pair burst through the press of bodies just quick enough to catch the tail end of Naruto's nervous chuckle.

"Aha, well it was really nice to meet you. I'm gonna have to step out for a bit though, I'm not feeling too good. I'll see you later." With that, the Gremory heir turned and fled back into the crowd.

Untangling her arm from Sasuke's, Rias gave her Pawn a push to the small of his back. "You go, I'll handle this." The Ruin Princess watched as the Uchiha wordlessly nodded and broke away before spinning to give a smiling curtsy.

"Good evening, Lady Phenex."

Ingrained courtesy derailed Ravel's progression from confused to offended, and the blond girl curtsied back. "Good evening to you too, but Lady Phenex is my grandmother. I'm just Ravel." For an eleven year old girl her motions were well-practiced and elegant, but Ravel hadn't quite mastered the 'mask', and blazing anger created by being spurned shone in her blue eyes.

Rias decided she felt sorry for the poor thing.

"Nonsense." Rias winked one turquoise eye as the redhaired young woman straightened. "Stuffy old rules are for stuffy old men, and I think you look more like a real lady than everyone else in the room."

Watching the way the little girl's cheeks pinked with pleased embarrassment, Rias stepped closer and bent down to whisper conspiratorially "Just between you and me, I'm bored to death of all the puffed up fossils here. Want to walk with me a bit?"

Biting her lip in indecision, Ravel scanned the mingling crowd and smoothed down her pink gown. The blonde eventually gave a small but real grin, tugging at the drill-like curl of a pigtail. "Okay, nee-san."

Rias grinned back, taking the child's hand and gently leading her away from the center of the ballroom. The areas near to the walls and corners were where the servants milled, but were more private and would be less likely to overwhelm the girl than the constant press of strangers. "Silly me, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Rias Gremory."

"I know that, Miss Rias." Ravel puffed with a smile. "I've never seen anyone with hair like yours. Except Lord Gremory and Lord Lucifer. And Naruto." The last name trailed out with a hint of irritation, and Rias capitalized on it.

Wagging a well-manicured finger at the younger girl, Rias cut right to the root of it. "Turn that frown upside down, missy. No girl should be sad at her own engagement party. Especially a beautiful young lady like you."

Ravel's lips thinned with displeasure, and as the little girl fisted the pink silk of her dress Rias reflected that leading her to the shadowed corner had been the right thing to do. "It's a little bit difficult to be full of joy when my own betrothed hates me. I simply tried to say hello and he ran away."

"Well of course he ran away." Rias chuckled lightly, beckoning the girl closer with a finger. "But it's not because he hates you. It's because he's scared."

The look the Phenex girl offered was confused, but at least the boiling resentment had stopped. "What? Why would he be scared?" Annoyance shifted Ravel's mouth into a pout. "Did one of my brothers go and tell him they were going to beat him up? Seems like the kind of thing Riser would do."

If only they had. It would be such a convenient little white lie.

"Nothing like that." Lowering her voice to a whisper, Rias made a show of casting an eye out for eavesdroppers. "The truth is – ah, I shouldn't tell you. Naruto wouldn't like it if I spilled his secrets."

All traces of anger fled the blonde's face, and Ravel transformed into something very familiar to Rias – a child eager to hear gossip. "I can keep secrets." Ravel promised instantly, staring up at the redhaired girl with spellbound excitement. "I'm the best at keeping secrets."

Pretending to consider it, Rias held off until Ravel looked fit to burst before caving. "Okay, I'll tell you, but you have to promise you won't say anything to anyone. Especially Naruto."

"I swear!"

"Pinky swear?"

Ravel held up a dainty little finger, which Rias shook with her own with all the solemnity of a priest conducting a funeral.

"Okay, so the secret is that Naruto is a romantic. He's a huge one." Rias emphasized when Ravel only looked confused. "When we were younger, he used to beg me to read him love stories. And now that he's older he spends his time watching romcoms and reading girly romance novels."

Building on the lie with a sense of sadistic humor, Rias only smirked when Ravel's face filled with shock.

Ravel cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "No way!"

"Yes way! That's why he ran away. Naruto's been dreaming all his life about meeting a wonderful girl, getting married, and having lots of babies. But now that he actually met you, he's so afraid he'll muck it up that he wanted to run away. I was surprised he did because he spent the whole month talking about meeting you tonight, but Naruto can be really shy."

Ravel clasped her hands together, barely able to contain her amusement at Naruto's supposed sappiness. "That's so cute! I don't think any of my other suitors were like that. Most of them were boring and loved to talk about money. Why didn't I think of it before? It's so simple."

Satisfied that engagement had been repaired for the night on her end, Rias wished Sasuke luck in straightening out her nephew. She held her pinky up again. "I know! That's why I want you to promise me that you'll remember – no matter how much he runs away or how shy he is, Naruto is really just a softy that wants to be loved. So you hang in there, and never give up."

"Alright. I'll pinky swear!"

*

Sasuke burst into the restroom like a bat out of hell. Taking one look at the pale faced Naruto staring into the mirror like a zombie, the Uchiha flipped the taps. Then he scooped up a handful of water and splashed it directly into the redhead's eyes.

"What the hell was that?" Sasuke bit out, watching as his friend spluttered and rubbed the wetness away with a sleeve.

"Fuck off, Sasuke."

Waiting until the redhead had scrubbed his face dry, Sasuke threw another handful of water into Naruto's eyes. "Want to tell me what the hell that was, dobe? Because that sure looked to me like you forgot your balls at home."

Blue eyes glared balefully at the Uchiha for a breath before Naruto shook his head and fled into the toilet stall.

Sasuke stood alone in the rich ebony and silver accented washroom, thankful that they were alone and that he'd thought to lock the door. Then he raised a leg and kicked the stall open with a crash.

"What the hell Sasuke? Can't you just piss off and leave me be for a bit?" Naruto growled, rising from his seat on the toilet and glowering. "I'd have thought you understood the idea of needing a little fucking space, fuck!"

Taking in the younger devil's defensive stance, guarded face, and clenched jaw with a considering glance, Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Nope. Fuck this. I'm not your fucking psychologist."

Then Sasuke fled, leaving Naruto momentarily befuddled until the Uchiha returned with an armful of blue glass bottles. Watching as Sasuke popped the corks on a pair of the bottles, Naruto accepted one and held it up to his nose.

"The fuck you giving me booze for?"

"Drink it." Sasuke ordered, taking a swig and grimacing faintly at the sweet bubbling champagne. "I'm not dealing with your delicate girly feelings sober, and we have until the end of the next hour to get your shit straightened out. If you're not on the floor when old man Phenex decides to give his speech, this whole night will be a clusterfuck."

Swirling the bottle but not lifting it his lips, Naruto dubiously watched Sasuke pound back the thousand-dollar wine like it was illicit moonshine. "Not that I'm going to judge if you decide you need to live a little, but I'm pretty sure this is illegal. I am a minor."

"As if you care." Sasuke snorted, setting aside the empty bottle with a quiet burp and stepping forward.

"Wait, what are you-"

"Hold still, dumbass."

And that was how Naruto found himself pressed to the bathroom wall by another man at his own engagement party, alcohol being poured down his throat despite his protests. If they didn't reek like a pair of boozehounds by the end of Sasuke's escapade, Naruto would eat his own boxers.

"Fuck!" Shouting and spluttering, Naruto shoved the other boy away. "I should kick your ass for that you bastard!"

"Oooh, I'm so scared." Sasuke mocked, opening another pair of bottles and passing one to Naruto. "I might start taking you seriously if you get enough liquid courage into you. Otherwise, I don't think you've got enough spine left."

Nursing his bottle with a mutinous frown but more cooperation, the Gremory heir kicked at the Uchiha's knee. "I've got more spine in my pinky than you've got in your whole body, shitbird."

Sasuke rolled his eyes but subsided, waiting for the alcohol to take its toll. Long minutes passed in silence, broken only by the popping of corks and Sasuke's impatient urging for Naruto to drink faster.

Judging the other devil intoxicated enough after the fourth bottle, Sasuke passed Naruto a fifth with a repeat of his earlier demand. "Feel like telling me what the fuck that was out there?"

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

The sweetness of the champagne became more pleasant the drunker Sasuke got, and he barely remembered to grimace at the taste. "I mean the whole 'haha excuse me while I run away and hide in the bathroom like a little bitch'?"

"Fuck you." Naruto rejoined with little heat, peering through the open end of his bottle at the emptiness inside. The alcohol burned pleasantly in his bloodstream. "I wasn't ready for it."

"Ready for what?"

Throwing up a hand, Naruto whipped his arm in a vague circle. "I wasn't ready for this. All of this! I'm thirteen years old! I'm not supposed to be getting engaged and married off for at least another three decades at the earliest."

"Don't bullshit me." Sasuke snorted, loosening his green bowtie with one hand and leaning back against the counter. "You're thirty-three or thirty-four, you grown-ass man. Back home you'd be married with a few brats on the way, if not comfortably middle aged given how long shinobi typically lived. Why is the Hero of the Hidden Leaf hiding in some rich snob's bathroom?"

Seizing Sasuke's coat by the lapels, Naruto shook the older devil. "That's not who I am anymore!" the denial was full of such anguish that Sasuke's mouth dropped slightly open. "Don't you get it? This is the life we've got now! All the suffering, everything we fought for, all the sacrifices our friends made, it's nothing!"

Naruto's hands dropped away, and the redhead rubbed his eyes with a sleeve. "Uzumaki Naruto doesn't exist anymore. Only Naruto Gremory does, and he's still a kid. A kid that wants to hold onto his family. A kid that doesn't want to have to bury his friends. A kid that wants to grow up properly, and make all the stupid little memories everyone takes for granted. He wants to meet a nice girl and fall in love with her, and get married and start a family of his own when he chooses it – not because he had to do it for the sake of the world!"

"Stop whining, it's pathetic!" Sasuke ordered sharply.

Running his thumb over the lip of his bottle, Sasuke set it aside. "You're wrong." He declared after a beat, carefully observing the play of emotions across Naruto's face with dark eyes. "Uzumaki Naruto is not dead. He still exists, and he always will. Naruto Gremory wouldn't have known to treasure those bonds. He'd take them, and the future he wanted for granted. But you value those things, and that's how I know that Uzumaki Naruto will always be alive in you. So dispense with your excuses you big baby. I have nothing else to say to a loser that forgot everything we learned from our hardships."

In a way, Naruto had it more difficult in the new world than Sasuke had. Sure, the Uchiha had suffered poverty with a body that had little natural talent. He'd been alone and weak, threatened with death many times over. But he hadn't had to give up dozens of bonds. He hadn't had to leave the Konoha he wanted to build behind. The sacrifices his family had made for him were for him to live, which Sasuke was doing in any world. The sacrifices Naruto's friends had made were for a Konoha he'd promised them but would never be able to see.

"That was almost profound, bastard." Chuckling thickly, Naruto opened another blue bottle and took a sip. "Careful now, I might think you're growing soft."

Sasuke's lip curled with contempt. "Think what you want. I just can't help but feel like it's fucking sad that Uzumaki Naruto is scared of a little arranged marriage. Get your shit together. I didn't lose the Hokage's hat to a pansy."

"Yeah, yeah, you're as bad as a woman. Everything is about you and your emotional clusterfuck."

"I'm telling your mother you said that."

"Fuck you!"