Capítulo 12: Chapter - 12
"I have never been so ashamed - of either of you."
In a way, the quiet disappointment in his mother's voice was worse than if she'd had a loud screaming fit. Naruto chewed the inside of his cheek, sneaking a glance at his aunt out of the corner of his eye.
Magic had healed her broken nose and chased away the swelling and bruising, but the memories of those injuries was still there. Injuries that he'd given her, because he'd come at her too roughly and treated her as more skilled than she was. He could still summon the image of her toxic teal stare when he closed his eyes, and combined with the heavy steel glare Grayfia was giving the pair of them, Naruto felt sick to his stomach.
"I thought I'd raised you both better than that." Grayfia sighed, folding her arms over her chest. She'd dismissed the crowd of servants and healed Rias' nose herself, but that wouldn't stop the talk that was going to come out of the little scuffle. "I did my best to teach you to think before you acted. But instead of taking whatever dispute you had to Sirzechs or Zeoticus to solve, you scrabbled it out like a pair of lowborn commoners in the dirt."
"We weren't brawling." Rias disputed, a rebellious fey look in her eyes. The angry clench of her jaw worried Naruto. "We were having an informal duel. It was nothing to disturb the household over."
Grayfia's brows drew sharply together as Naruto's mother pressed her lips together. "That doesn't make it any better. A duel is not a game. What if one of you had managed to do serious damage to the other? You're much older than he is, and Naruto is..."
"Much stronger than I am?" Ice filled Rias' voice, making Naruto wince and look for someone to say to diffuse all the tension. The nails of Rias' clenched fists bit into her palms. "Is that what you mean to say?"
The Strongest Queen hesitated, spurring Rias to roll her eyes spitefully. "Whatever then, I'm done with this." The redhaired girl shoved on past her sister in-law, ignoring the woman's demands for her to come back.
"Just leave it mom." Naruto sighed, rubbing a hand over his forehead. What a fucking mess. "This is more my fault than hers. I'm the one you should be mad at." Most of the time Naruto was willing to take the heat for people he cared about. That he'd broken Rias' face half an hour ago only made him more determined to take the punishment. It was his way of making amends.
Bitterness twisted Grayfia's lips as the silver haired devil stared down the corridor her sister-in-law had stomped through. "You're not as good a liar as you think you are, Naruto."
Naruto frowned at his mother's back, stepping up beside her and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I don't see how it's not my fault." the ten year old grunted, looking up with steely blue eyes. "I was the one that decided it was best to get it out of the way now, without anyone knowing about it. Neither of us was gonna seriously hurt the other, but Rias needed that fight. It's not easy growing up with someone younger than you that everyone loves to call a genius."
A queer expression crossed the taller devil's face as she finally turned to stare down at her son. "Sometimes I wonder about you. When your father is around you can act like quite the fool, but when he's not you can act surprisingly mature. if I didn't know better I'd think you were much older than you actually are."
"I can act the fool all the time if you like. How do you feel about mud under the sheets at the foot of your bed?"
"Do you want to die?"
"Ouch, mom. You're gonna make me cry."
A unladylike snort escaped her, lips twitching in reluctant amusement. "Haven't you heard? I take sustenance from the sorrow and tears of others." Grayfia settled a hand over Naruto's shoulder, humor falling away. "While I understand what you tried to do, you may have actually made it worse."
Wincing, Naruto scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, I know." An 'official duel' presided over by one of his parents or grandparents would have been recorded in public record, and they'd need a a few witnesses on hand to make sure things didn't get out of control. But they could have controlled the narrative a little better. Instead, his effort to keep it all secret meant then when his mother and maids walked in, it was to the sight of him beating the stuffing out of Rias. What would have been called a mere victory instead would get called an utter massacre.
"Your grandfather may not have any choice in the matter after this."
*
The news spread like wildfire. Leaping from mouth to mouth, household to household, clan to clan. Naruto Gremory had viciously beaten Rias Gremory in a duel, and because of that victory, he was to be named the heir to the clan. The ten year old himself denied that the victory was as one-sided and violent as they implied, but his protests were lost in the wind of gossip.
As for Akeno, she was a little busy packing away a pair of socks to listen to the latest burbles of speculation. A grim frown pulled at the Queen's lips when she followed the black knee socks with a pair of red lace panties. At a different time she might have been a little amused at the outright sexuality of her underwear - she came by it honestly through her mother - but Akeno was a little too consumed with worry.
With Naruto confirmed as heir a few days ago, Rias' tiny peerage had kept their heads down. While devil society was more gender equal than medieval human ones considering that women could attain equal magical power, it was still to a degree patriarchal. The gender imbalance after the Great War that left pureblood nobles on the verge of extinction only further decreased their independence. Without the protection of the heir position, the Ruin Princess was suddenly much more vulnerable to politics within the aristocracy.
A clan would refuse to sell their heir's hand cheaply, but Rias was just a spare now. Her only remaining political value was in her bloodline and the womb that would pass it on. It was probably too early to be worried about threats of engagement, and the Gremory clan was a little more soft hearted than most, but they were still a clan. Rias, Akeno, and even Koneko hadn't wanted to cause too much fuss and give anyone any ideas about getting rid of a troublesome former heir presumptive.
So they'd leave. Out of sight and out of mind.
Centuries ago the previous Duke Gremory had an arranged marriage with a noblewoman from the Balam clan. Rather than do something as politically unwise as elope with his lover, the devil had simply taken many concubines. For his favourite concubine, he'd built Starling Hall. It was a relatively remote estate, constructed for a single woman and her children, and perfect for Rias' peerage. Like any other home made for the nobility, it sprawled, but it lacked the sheer vastness the aristocrats traditionally favoured.
Rias was partial to it because of the exquisitely constructed observatory it housed. A single vacation there as a girl and the Ruin Princess was hooked on what she called her 'star chamber'.
Akeno would just be happy to get out of the estate the rest of Rias' immediate family was currently living in. She was hardly a therapist, but she hoped the distance from the hovering servants and visiting clansmen would take some of the conflict out of her friend's heart. It was difficult to watch Rias alternatively mope around and seethe with envy. It was not a good look for someone she knew was usually tender hearted.
Stuffing a box of earrings into one of her suitcases, Akeno gave her room a last cursory look over. There were a few potted plants and old books she'd collected over the years scattered over the shelves, but nothing really stuck out at her. While Akeno might look like a high maintenance woman that needed to be spoiled, she wasn't attached to material things. Living on the streets for a year and a half made her more focused on utility than luxury. A few pieces of her mother's jewelry were probably the only things she owned that she considered irreplaceable, and those were carefully tucked away already.
"Seems fine to me." she decided, waving a hand over her luggage and casting a levitation spell with a a swirl of yellow runes. The suitcases roses into the air and floated along after her as Akeno left her bedroom and stalked through the corridors. Koneko was likely already waiting in Rias' bedroom, and once Akeno got there they could teleport away like thieves in the night.
The image made her chuckle grimly.
Stopping three doors down from her own room, Akeno knocked and let herself in.
"Slow." Koneko greeted from the bed, the nekomata curled up with her knees to her chest.
Pulling down an eyelid, Akeno stuck her tongue out at the younger girl. "Bleh. Not everyone lives out of a cat basket. Some people actually have to pack some of their favourite bed sheets. Behave, or I won't get you any more wind up mice."
The nekomata just shot back an irritated glare.
"Where's Rias?"
"Saying goodbye."
Akeno made a wordless noise of sympathy. They weren't 'moving out' really. For powerful devils like Rias' family, teleporting over to see her any time they wanted was child's play, and they'd just be lodging in another one of the Gremory clan's many properties. But even Sirzechs still lived under the same roof, despite being a centuries old Satan and lord of the slowly rebuilding Lucifer clan territory.
For such a close knit family, a teleportation circle away was both right next door and another country.
She wondered if her human Himejima cousins were just as tightly bound, or if they could cut ties with each other just like they'd cut ties with her.
"Good, you're here." Rias muttered as she slipped into the room. Faint dark circles lined under her turquoise eyes, and not for the first time Akeno wished that her friend wasn't hiding away from the family that wanted to help her.
The half-breed wasn't enough of a hypocrite to nag at Rias considering she abandoned her concerned absentee father, but up and leaving might not be the best choice. It wasn't like her parents weren't willing to understand their daughter's emotional turmoil. They'd certainly let her leave to 'find herself' and 'have her own space' with little enough protest after extracting promises to visit and tell them if she ever needed to talk.
Instead of leaning on her family, Rias was retreating from everything that had purposefully or accidentally caused her pain. Almost all staff at Starling Hall had been let go prior to Rias deciding to move there, so besides the odd visiting cleaner it would be practically empty. A mistress and two members of a peerage did not a village make, and there would be no clansmen nosing into their training progress or servants gushing over little master Naruto.
But Rias was not built for solitude, and Akeno worried about the long term impact of her self-imposed isolation.
"Are you ready to go?" Rias prodded tiredly, waving a hand and creating a small teleportation circle in the corner of the bedroom. The Ruin Princess' luggage floated over to linger by the red runes. "If not, now's the time to speak up."
"Of course."
"Yes."
"Then let's not waste any more time."
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