43 Chapter - 43

Naruto strapped on his saber, patting the gold inlaid scabbard fondly. Initially, he hadn't been too hot and bothered to take up swordsmanship. Unlike hitting a bullseye with a kunai, hacking away at his opponents with a sword wasn't a skill he'd had as a shinobi. Fists and shadow clones had been the order of the day.

But the Gremory family was 'western oriented'. Rias' Japanophile tendencies were the exception, not the rule, and in Europe the sword was the sign of nobility. Every lord back to the founding of the clan had used western swords, and Naruto had been strongly encouraged to take them up too.

In the end, it paid off. Though longswords were generally too large for his still growing body, Naruto had learnt to use demonic sabers as his athames. Coating only the razor of the blade with his Power of Destruction gave the Gremory heir a very low maintenance, very deadly weapon.

One of the most amateur mistakes a sorcerer could make was to assume that the more magical energy there was in a weapon, the more powerful it was. Effective use depended on how the energy was used, not how much of it there was.

Conjuring a sword made of pure hardened lightning looked impressive, but it was better to use an already forged blade and condense all that magic on the cutting edge. A truly impressive enchanter like his father could achieve that slicing ability with a conjured whip and not rely on an athame at all, but Naruto wasn't quite there yet.

Quite stupidly, in Naruto's opinion, most devils found using tools as a focus to be barbaric. A 'true noble only needed the pure force of his spells' and other such farts in the wind. It was bullshit, because if they survived long enough they'd get the same result either way, but using enchanted tools made the learning process much shorter and much easier.

Rias' peerage was finally starting to realize that. Or perhaps Sasuke had become that much of a dictator in the weeks since the faceless fucker had tried to kill Naruto's aunt. Well, for one reason or another, everyone in that peerage had their 'chosen' weapons.

Tugging his tie close to his throat, Naruto gave his appearance a once over in the mirror. Crimson overcoat, white undershirt, sabre at his hip, red tie at the throat, and well-polished boots rounded out the ensemble. "I think I'm ready to go, mom."

Grayfia gave her son a brief once over, giving a satisfied nod at his efforts before making the last touches on her own appearance. The Strongest Queen had abandoned her typical maid outfit for a smart set of dark trousers and white blouse, crowning it with her silver ponytail and the green scarf wrapped around her throat.

It was uncomfortable and she longed for her old clothes already. Her son was still too young to really understand, and her husband tolerated her peculiarity with good humor, but her longing for that mark of servitude was deep in her bones. Before Grayfia had been Sirzechs' wife, she'd been Grayfia Lucifuge.

From the very teat she'd been raised to obey and protect the Lucifer clan, and while she might have betrayed the Old Satans and given her heart and womb to Sirzechs, that couldn't change her underlying nature. The House of Lucifuge existed to submit to the Satan Lucifer, and their blood ran in her veins.

Grayfia just supposed she was lucky that her husband had proven himself the most worthy claimant to the title, and her inborn loyalty could run true to her heart.

Satisfied with the woman in the mirror, Grayfia gave Naruto a slight pat on the head before leading him towards the portal. Children seemed to grow up so fast. Even devil longetivity couldn't keep her son by her side any longer than a short span of infant years. It made her long for another child to nurture.

"Remember, we are not there to be heard. We are only there to be seen." She reminded Naruto, going to hold his hand before fighting back the urge. Her son was too old to want to suffer his mother's affections in public. Then Grayfia stepped into the teleportation ring, accepting the swirl of fallen angel sorcery and letting it sweep her through time and space.

Naruto shook off the strands of fallen angel magic with a grimace as he landed on the other side of the portal. Call it superstition, but the very touch of that energy made him leery. Even if they had fallen, angels were still angels, and they were practically designed to kill devilkind.

Wrinkling his nose at the heavy smell of cigarette smoke, Naruto glared up that the offender. The fallen angel was tall, with middle aged lines of stress and laughter in his face. A mixture of black and blonde messy tumbleweed perched on the man's head, and Naruto could just tell the sight of the mess was irritating his mother.

"So, this is the brat?" Azazel chuckled, planting his hands on his knees as he bent down to get a closer look at Sirzechs' son. "He takes after you, old boy. Though that 'don't smoke in front of me' is all his mother."

"Azazel, please." Shaking his head at the other man, Sirzechs stepped out of the shadows. The starched clothes of a nobleman had given way to the gold and grey armor of a devil general, but the look in the Satan's eyes was just as soft as ever as he took in his wife and son. "You're going to end up offending someone, and while it would be amusing to see you try and smooth it over, I'd rather not waste the time."

Blowing a puff of smoke through his nostril, the Governor General of the Grigori spat out the cigarette with a groan. "Alright, alright. Let's just get this thing started shall we? Can't let all that political capital go to waste and all that. I hope you've gotten all the players lined up."

"We were just waiting on you. Now that you're here, we can proceed."

"Whatever, let's just hope Michael doesn't twist our balls off for this."

Grayfia covered Naruto's ears with her hands.

"Mom, I think you might be too late if you're worried about my dirty mouth."

*

Sucking a bead of blood from the tip of her index finger, Akeno shot Sasuke a truly foul glare. The brute seemed totally unmoved by it, only folding his arms over his chest and cocking a mocking eyebrow. One day, the tyrant would fall, and then she would have her revenge. Painful, agonizing vengeance.

"Hurry up and heal it, Himejima."

"Kiss my ass you puffed up self-appointed despot."

Sasuke rolled his eyes, stepping closer and grabbing both of the Queen's throbbing hands. The Uchiha was no healer, but he had enough skill to at least soothe blisters and stich together minor injuries. "Again." He ordered as the last sparks of purple magecraft faded.

A frustrated growl rolled past Akeno's lips, but after stomping her foot she fell in line. Notching an arrow to the curve of her bow, the half fallen angel drew back and squinted at the mark in the distance. A slow breath later and she released the projectile with an accompanying yellow glow.

Citrine lightning cracked through the air, centered tightly around the moving missile until it struck true in the center of the bullseye. A split second after collision, the entire target exploded from the release of contained magic.

"Better."

"I'll show you better, you…" Akeno grumbled mutinously, falling back into her routine of swiftly drawing, centering her chosen element in the steel tips of the arrows, and then letting them fly at the collection of targets scattered across the field.

It wasn't that she didn't understand Sasuke's motivation, since Rias' near fatal wound had scared the hell out of all of them, but the Pawn seemed to derive some form of sadistic pleasure from it all. She suddenly had a fleeting sensation of empathy for all those she'd victimized over the years.

Ah well, Akeno won some and lost some. Next time, it would be Sasuke moaning and complaining about whatever she put him through, and Akeno would just laugh.

Bastard.

"You're doing much better than you were when we started, Akeno-san." Yuuto chimed in, shading his blue eyes as he watched her smash target after target. The Knight was worlds ahead of her in the realm of pure weaponry skills.

Spawn of the bastard.

At least she had it easy in comparison to Rias. While Akeno's body was relatively unconditioned for the sudden shift towards using a bow to focus her sorcery, she'd had some skill at archery in her younger years. Himejima Shuri had been a trained miko, and she'd trained her daughter in the art before her murder.

Rias was still flailing about with the basket-hilt rapier Sasuke had nagged her into taking up. Before Sasuke's sudden shift from complete loner to autocrat, her redhaired friend had been a firm believer in the school of 'weapons are so much more uncouth and gorier than magical vaporizer'.

Honestly, everything would be so much easier if they could just use firearms instead. But while bullets could be imbued like her arrows, they required careful smithing with demonic steel. The whole process was too costly to be economic. Akeno supposed they could store their spells in capacitors beforehand or feed their energy directly through a spellgun, but a spellgun couldn't shape sorcery with the same skill as a living practioner. Too much power in casting would be lost, and they'd be better off to just cast the spells unaided.

There was a reason unskilled commoners used magical technology and relied on enchanted capacitors while the trained devils avoided them.

"Keep at it." Sasuke ordered the devil priestess, shifting his heavy stare to Yuuto and then motioning at the Knight's sword. "You too." He could feel twin glares of annoyance digging into him as he walked off, no doubt they'd have forgotten all about it by suppertime.

"You're doing good." Forcing out the compliment at both of them, Sasuke ignored the surprised stares at his back and left. He was trying to keep everything verbal and avoid the strange new tactile urges he had.

It wasn't sexual at all. Sasuke had the irrational desire to ruffle Yuuto's hair or pat Akeno's back instead of just giving words. It was as if he could reassure himself they were real and alive by doing so.

Three weeks after the assassination attempt, none of them had raised the issue of moving back to Rias' estate. Sasuke knew that Gremory clan servants had gone over to clean and repair the grounds, but it was still stained with blood in the peerage's minds, and for the time being they were content to live in the same manor as Rias' parents.

Sirzechs and Naruto had finally moved out of the Gremory clan main house, taking up residence in the Lucifer Satan territory. Repairing lands that had been devastated in the rebellion against the Old Satans had taken many years and much in the way of Gremory gold, but it had eventually been finished.

Just as well. Sirzechs Lucifer was playing with fire lately. Riding high on a tide of public sympathy about Rias' attempted murder and the sudden reassertion of bonds with the Phenex clan, the Satan had hammered through the first official treaty between devils and fallen angels. They would have free trade, a common currency, and establish a tribunal to push towards harmonization of laws between the Grigori and the 72 Pillars.

If Sasuke had to guess, it might even be the first baby steps on the road to a biracial state that governed all of Gehenna. Peace and good feelings abound, except for the tiny detail that Heaven had not in the least bit involved in the hasty bilateral treaty.

So if the puppet master was an angel or a resident of Gehenna with a grudge against peace or either government, excellent work. Sirzechs had just managed to piss him off and paint a giant target on his back.

As bitter as it made him, Sasuke knew he wasn't strong enough to defeat the faceless manipulator. A mere squad of the mastermind's toadies had nearly managed to kill his mistress. The closeness of that passing still rattled the Uchiha. He didn't want to die, and he didn't want to see anyone else around him die either.

"Ahh, Sasuke-kun."

Zeoticus appeared between one breath and the next, moving so fast Sasuke couldn't even react before the man's arm was thrown over his shoulder. "Come here for a moment."

Colours blurred by faster than any shunshin, wind drying out Sasuke's eyes before he was unceremoniously deposited in another part of the Gremory family's gardens. In the distance he could just barely see Rias swinging away with her jeweled rapier under Souji's careful watch.

"I'd like your opinion on something as my daughter's Pawn."

The arm still hadn't been removed from his shoulders.

Sharply shaking his head, Sasuke brutally murdered the urge to growl and managed to grit out a moderately polite "Lord Zeoticus?"

The man seemed all-in-all too airheaded to take offense at anything, but that didn't mean that the Gremory Lord lacked the power to turn Sasuke into dustmotes. He was reminded of a much older Naruto, and Zeoticus' brand of strange humor and lack of respect for personal space was exactly why the Uchiha had taken pains to avoid him over the years.

"It's almost Rias' birthday, you know." Zeoticus commented, thoughtfully stroking his beard and staring at his little girl with starry eyes. "Which means presents! Many, many presents of course, because my darling daughter deserves the best. But it must be quantity of quality!"

"…Rias' birthday is almost a year away."

"It is never too early for a doting father to begin planning for his child's next celebration!"

Goggling at the older man, Sasuke very briefly wondered what his childhood would have been like if Fugaku had possessed a similar personality. The Uchiha held the image in his mind for a breath.

"Kill me."

"Pardon me, my boy?"

"Nothing. I said nothing, Lord Zeoticus."

The redhaired devil tightened the curl of his arm, dragging Sasuke's face closer until the raven haired devil was practically buried in the man's chest. "There's no need to be so formal, Sasuke-kun. Just call me Zeo-kun."

"I'm not entirely comfortable with that."

Zeoticus looked so utterly put out that Sasuke felt like he'd kicked a puppy. Then a lightbulb seemed to go off in the nobleman's brain, and he smiled magnanimously. "Well, if you're not going to call me Zeo-kun, how about tou-chan? Any member of Rias' family is a member of my family!"

Sasuke began to choke.

"No!"

"Why not? Everyone else in Rias' peerage already does. Except that Yuuto boy, I suppose. But I'll wear him down one day."

What the hell was wrong with this family?