Capítulo 40: Chapter - 40
Rias has killed before.
The execution of stray devils was a duty laid on every law-abiding noble of Gehenna. Calling up a flicker of enchantment and vaporizing a criminal hardly made her break a sweat. Even if the stray devil fought back, they were never a match for Rias' power, and death was quick and clean.
An orderly execution was nothing compared to the chaotic carnage of a battle. It was her first true skirmish, and so many worlds away from her training it bewildered her.
The redhead's pulse raced with adrenaline, and with a snap of her fingers she sent a thick coil of ruby light out that decapitated one of the screeching tengu.
Gold lightning cracked through the air, colliding with a kusarigama and shattering it before another of the assassins could try to cut into Rias.
Akeno and the Ruin Princess moved together like a well-oiled machine. They stood back to back, flashes of Bael sorcery and elemental conjuration scything down hired knives like wheat.
Over the crackle of magic and steel, Rias could just hear the shrill sound of chirping and Sasuke's mocking laughter. It… concerned her to hear her Pawn shouting and cursing so cruelly, because she would never have pegged her stoic servant as a berserker, and the only other reason for him to behave like that made her quail.
There was so much she didn't know about Sasuke. She knew that he preferred bitter flavors over sweet ones. Rias knew that nagging him into cosplay irritated him less than he let on. Given the choice of sleeping patterns, he slept late and woke late. Pride ruled him, but Sasuke would bend his neck out of pragmatic necessity.
What Rias didn't know was the name of his mother. She didn't know where his family came from, or if he'd never had one. She didn't know what dreams he had that would jolt him sweating and gasping from an afternoon nap. When Sasuke shoved an electricity coated katana through the stomach of an enemy, she couldn't say if his bared teeth spoke of pleasure or pain, madness or sadism.
In many ways, Sasuke was a familiar stranger.
"Rias!"
Koneko blew the doors of her study off the hinges, entering the library with a smashing of oak and silver clad fists. Water still clung in beads to the white of Koneko's hair, suggesting she'd been called away from washing her face or an outright bath.
As glad as she was to see her Rook, the distraction of the nekomata's entrance was costly. Agony flared sharp and deep as one of the would-be killers took advantage of Rias' redirected attention. A sharp katana laid the muscle of her left shoulder open to the bone, cutting so deeply it made her vision white out. Rias cried out in shock and pain, hand coming up to clutch at the wound.
Blood poured between her fingers, scalding and sticky. Gritting her teeth and shaking at the pain, Rias pulled up a tide of magic and thrust it out in a wild wave of destruction. The swell of disintegrating energy vaporized every enemy within a three meter radius before protectively pulling back and hovering about her.
Beneath her palm, Rias could feel the torn open flesh, and with a roiling stomach she realized that it was too wide and deep to simply be a cut. The wrinkled sensation was that of her own open muscle, and the sharp splinter was broken bone, burning with a white-hot ache and leaking life giving fluids by the spurt.
There was no more of her Pawn's frozen mirth ringing through the air.
There was just the sight of Sasuke and Koneko circling like hungry wolves and tearing through bodies with bare claw and electric magecraft. Yuuto's face was there too, full of grey pallor but strong as the young Knight clenched a silver demonic longsword in his fists.
The sound of her name drew Rias' attention, turquoise eyes moving slowly to stare at Akeno. The Queen's lips were moving, but the redhead could hear no sound over the ringing in her ears, and she'd never learnt to read lips.
Rias smiled softly. There was no reason to look so concerned. Truly, the cut didn't even hurt so badly any more. She felt a little light headed, but sometimes the shock of battle could do that. It was unnecessary and a little bit alarmist.
Rias blinked.
Kneeling on the blood splattered floor wasn't something she'd remembered doing.
At least it helped with the creeping weakness in her knees. Honestly, a little rest wasn't something for her peerage to be so worked up about. The pressing faces that filled her field of view were distracted by a scratch when there was a battle going on. The only one still fighting was Sasuke, stepping about so quickly it would have filled her with pride if she wasn't catching glimpses the tormented expression on his face.
She'd have to do something about that later. Sasuke was her servant, and she was the master. If anything, the duty was on her to protect him. His guilt was unnecessary.
Another warm surge soaked through her clenched fingers, and Rias was paradoxically glad for it. The sensation was a bit gross, but it was warm, and she was more than a little cold. Icy tendrils had wound themselves through her chest, and every bit of heat was appreciated.
Akeno's mouth moved with more urgency, repeating a single word over and over to the point it irritated Rias.
Artery.
Rias looked down.
Her left arm hung from her shoulder by only a thin strip of flesh. There was quite a lot of blood pooled on the floor.
Someone would have to do something about that.
A yellow runic circle rotated slowly, her wounded shoulder centered in its light. Akeno was so thoughtful sometimes, it made Rias want to smile.
So she did.
A little bit of blood was still leaking from the gash – which was really much deeper than she'd thought it would be – but it was her friend's thought that counted.
Still, there was no reason for them to be getting sentimental in a clash. More than half of the tengu had been cut down, but they were emboldened and hemming Sasuke in closer and closer. Someone should really step up and give him a hand.
A flash of red zipped across the room, red saber glowing blood red and parting flesh with sharp slices.
Rias dreamily smiled.
Naruto had shown up. How nice of him to stop by and give Sasuke a hand. Really, Sasuke had been so down lately that she should have asked him to stop by earlier. Their closeness made her burn with jealousy, but it was better for her to be jealous than her Pawn to be sad.
Then a heavy sensation of burning rage and deep power filled the air, weighing down on everyone so profoundly that even Rias could feel it through the cotton filling her head.
Oh, her brother was here too.
*
'You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.'
Ravel turned the yellowed page. Meditations was one of her father's favorites, and the blonde girl was beginning to agree. The dog-eared volume might be dusty and old, but the words of Marcus Aurelius were timeless.
Naruto's head twisted in her lap, and Ravel gave into the urge to run a hand through the sleeping boy's hair. Everyone in the Gremory household was exhausted and withdrawn.
It reminded her of the paranoid suspicion of outsiders that had filled the air of her home after the most recent assassination attempt. She still remembered the way Riser had limped about with a scowl for days, since not even the usually immortal Phenex clan was immune to the deep bite of a well-forged holy sword.
Luckily, Ravel was not counted as an outsider. Lord Sirzechs had strengthened the wards against teleportation months ago, but she was one of the few people that didn't actually live in the house that was still keyed into the warding scheme.
It was probably at Naruto's urging, but the Lord Gremory had still allowed it.
All the better for them, since it had let her respond right away when Ravel had gotten the panicked message from Naruto about Rias' nearly severed arm. Providing an armful of phoenix tears at no cost was against clan policy, but the grateful looks the Gremory family had given her made it worth it.
One vial of her clan's miracle cure had gone towards reattaching Rias' nearly severed arm. The other nine had been passed to a grim-faced Lord Sirzechs.
The Satan had disappeared for an hour while they all crowded tensely around Rias' sick room, and then reappeared looking even angrier with both arms soaked in blood up to the elbows. It made Ravel shudder in remembered horror.
She just hoped her geezer of a grandfather never found out. The old man might be willing to spend tears for the sake of an alliance or with the promise of future payment, but it wasn't Rias Ravel was marrying, and she neither asked for or expected the Gremory clan to be in her debt.
Rias was important to Naruto, and Ravel liked her too. That was all that really mattered.
"Whaz going on?" Naruto slurred, peering up in confusion before his eyes went wide.
The clan heir made it three inches off her stocking clad thighs before Ravel was shoving Naruto's head back down with a palm to the brow. "Go back to sleep, you idiot." She ordered sternly, turning another page. The entire effect was spoiled by the amused quirk of her lips, but at least she'd tried.
"Uh, okay? Wait, that's not okay! Why are you in my bed? Why's my head in your lap?"
"Maybe someone put it there." Ravel snarked, pinching at the redhead's nose without moving her eyes from the inked sentences of Meditations. He was acting like she'd just snuck into his room while he was sleeping, plonked his head in her lap, and starting reading.
…well she had, but they weren't strangers, so it was okay!
Rolling his eyes, Naruto subsided with a grumble. Ravel's nonchalance made the whole situation significantly less awkward, even if it was still odd. They were friends of a sort, but Naruto hadn't thought they were such close friends that it was lap pillow time.
"Whatcha readin'?" Blue eyes skimmed over the upside-down font, deciphering the title but not recognizing it. Maybe his father or aunt had read it before. It seemed more up their alley, seeing as how it was plain and stuffy looking.
Ravel snapped the book shut, dropping it on Naruto's chest. "It's philosophy. Might be too high-brow for you, Mr. 'Common Touch'." There was no point in trying to keep reading over the interruptions, and Naruto was more interesting to her than a book she'd read several times already anyway.
"I'm plenty high-brow." The redhead denied, cracking open the tome to a random page. "What is this? Ye Olde Anglo-Saxon?" All devils could understand any spoken tongue through their passive 'language' ability, but that didn't prevent Naruto's brain from rendering some works in positively atrocious spelling.
"Only someone who was utterly low-brow would fail to appreciate the classics." She sniffed.
"Keep insulting me and I might drool all over your skirt. After all, you can't expect civilized behavior out of an uncultured rube."
Ravel twisted Naruto's ears, giggling sadistically at her fiance's pained squawk. "Just because I rushed over here in striped stockings and a miniskirt doesn't mean that I'll put up with your perverted ideas."
"I didn't mean it like that, you grilled chicken."
"Whatever you say, pervert boy."
Naruto gave the blonde a sharp rebellious poke to the side before turning his attention to the window across his bedroom.
The artificial sunlight of Gehenna shafted in, and if the Gremory heir had to guess, he'd peg the time around noon. He hoped Ravel had left a message for her family, otherwise he could picture the Phenex clan running about like chickens with their heads cut off looking for their missing daughter.
So much for the clan of gallant hellbirds.
"You know… I never actually thanked you for just dropping everything and rushing on over here in the middle of the night. Can't imagine it was the easiest thing in the world to do" Chewing the inside of his cheek, Naruto tugged reflexively at the undone collar of his white button up shirt.
"Don't." Ravel snorted, running a manicured thumb over the slowly building dark pouches under her eyes. She'd been awake all through the night and through half the day. Counting the previous day, it was the longest she'd been allowed up, if 'allowed' was interpreted very loosely. "One day you'll be my husband, and then it'll be my duty to do whatever I can to be useful to you. I'm just getting an early start."
Cringing at the reminder of their distant marriage – Naruto thought Ravel was fun, but he was hardly in love with her – the redhead floundered for a response. "Well I guess? Though won't your parents be pretty pissed off about you stealing some phoenix tears? Like, I don't want to be rude, but your grandad doesn't really seem the type to be giving out of the goodness of his heart."
Frowning at the haphazard buttoning of her blouse, Ravel briefly regretted not having taken a little more effort when she'd been pulling on clothes last night. There was no point in crying over spilt milk though. "I really doubt they'll ever figure it out, since I didn't steal anything. They're more likely to be upset over the scandal of their daughter running away to spend the night with an older boy."
"I really wish you wouldn't say it like that. I'm starting to think it's you and not Riser who's the perv."
"I didn't mean to scar your innocent virginal little heart." Ravel mocked.
"Ugh, that's not – I'm not even…" Shaking his head and thinking better of bragging about his conquests in another lifetime, Naruto refocused on the other half of her denial. "So did you just have some lying about then?"
"No, dear husband-to-be, I made them." Arrogant superiority shone from the blonde girl's face, expression entirely at odds with her messy dress and single tied up pig tail. "Go ahead, let me bask in your awe."
"…did you really cry like a gallon of tears in the few minutes it took you to get here?"
"You really must like being punished." Ravel sighed, pushing Naruto's head off her lap so she could flop down tiredly on her back. "Creating the tears isn't that simple. You need the proper ritual, a cup filled with purified prepared water, and a completely empty mind. If you forget or fail at getting any of those, you're not crying 'a phoenix's tear', you're just dripping your own all over the place. It's difficult and complex and not something I should be doing before I'm thirty years old!"
Naruto's heart compressed with a hot fissure of concern. Sure, they'd needed those tears and the Phenex clan monopoly on them made them expensive, but they could have paid for them through proper channels. If the ritual was in any way dangerous, he wished she hadn't have done it. "You alright? It doesn't hurt you, or anything?"
Ravel grinned smugly, throwing her legs over Naruto's chest and sprawling even more. "Is that worry I'm hearing from you? You don't need to be afraid darling, it's takes a while to learn to do because it's hard, not because it's risky. I'm just so amazing that I skipped a lot of years."
Glaring down at the pink and white clad thigh draped over his chest, Naruto fumbled down with one hand to tickle viciously at Ravel's foot. "I think I'll not feed your ego, little miss prodigy." He managed to get out before she was reaching down to twist his ear again.
"People have to know about it for you to be a prodigy." She muttered, giving his ear a final yank before letting the fleshy lobe go. "The only one that knows besides you is Riser. Everyone else is always 'take your time, Ravel' and 'that's too advanced for you, young mistress' and 'don't blow up the drawing room Ravel'. It's so annoying."
"I know!" Naruto commiserated, abandoned his second quest to tickle the blonde girl's feet. "Even once they figure out that you're pretty damn amazing for your age, they still always hover around. 'Don't grow up too fast, my boy' and 'you better be home by dinner time young man' and blah blah blah."
"Old people suck."
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