Kuroka and Shirone's settling in went surprisingly smoothly. It would surely take time before they truly considered it their home, but everyone who lived and worked around Castle Phenex chipped in to make them feel welcome. The first time that Shirone and Ravel came face to face, they stopped and stared at each other, neither of them speaking.
"How old are you?" Ravel asked.
"Eleven," Shirone said.
Ravel frowned. "When's your birthday?"
"November."
"Hah! I'm older!" Ravel said, leaning back with her hands on her hips. "And taller, too!"
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"Not taller," Shirone said.
"I clearly am," Ravel insisted.
"Not taller!" Shirone said.
Naruto had to measure them after that. It turned out, Ravel WAS taller… By an entire half a centimeter. For a second, Naruto thought Shirone was going to fall to her knees in defeat.
"Rematch. Next month!" Shirone said.
Ravel smirked, waving her hand in front of her face. "Certainly. But are you sure you can handle it? By then, the gap will have become a whole centimeter!"
"I'll grow," Shirone said, with so much confidence that it implied she could MAKE her body listen… Despite her current height being evidence of the opposite.
It seemed like every time Shirone and Ravel opened their mouths in each others' presence it was to argue. Despite that, they spent the whole day together. They even fell asleep in the same room.
Speaking of bedtime, when Naruto arrived at his room, he was surprised to see a second bed he didn't recognize on the other side of it. He looked at the bed, then leaned out of the door. "Mooooom!"
Lady Phenex hadn't been far away and soon appeared. "Yes, dear?"
"There's another bed." Naruto pointed.
"Of course. Kuroka has to sleep somewhere," Lady Phenex said.
"Why in MY room?" Naruto asked. "We live in a castle."
"Oh, Naruto, it's not about having space for her. It's customary to keep at least one peerage member close to you at all times. At least until you get older and master your powers, like your father and I, or your oldest brothers," Lady Phenex explained.
"No one is trying to assassinate me, Mom," Naruto said.
"That you know of," Lady Phenex said. "In general, it is the plots you DON'T know about that are dangerous. The Underworld is a cutthroat place, Naruto."
And she left, just like that.
Naruto stood there, considering the fact that maybe Riser set this whole thing up. Naruto's youngest brother had taken one look at Naruto's new servants, turned to him, and clapped him on both shoulders, crying.
"I'm so proud," Riser had said.
But for all of his embarrassing traits, Riser couldn't actually sway their mother to do anything. Likewise, if she insisted on it, Naruto was helpless to change her mind.
A yawn attracted his attention down the hall. Kuroka walked toward him in her sleeping attire, which was a black kimono similar to her usual garb, only even looser on her voluptuous body. Kuroka yawned again, stretching her hands over her head. She blinked at Naruto.
"Ready for bed, nya?" she asked.
Naruto stared at her. He could see enough to know that she didn't have anything underneath. Plus, she hadn't been ending her sentences like that earlier…
"Is something wrong, nya?" Kuroka tilted her head.
She's messing with me, Naruto decided.
He turned to his room, marching inside. "Nothing!"
Kuroka followed him. In his peripherals, before she went to her own bed, he spotted her smirking. She was DEFINITELY teasing him.
When they had both settled in their beds with the lights out, just as Naruto was starting to drift off, Kuroka spoke:
"Thank you," she said.
"That was random," Naruto said, his voice addled by drowsiness.
"You took me and my sister when you didn't have to," Kuroka said. "I promise, we'll pay that back. We'll make it up to you. For getting us out of that place…"
He was silent. They hadn't discussed House Naberius since Kuroka and Shirone came to Castle Phenex. It remained in the background, forcibly forgotten by all involved. This brief mention was the most Kuroka had said about her time there.
Naruto remained silent, laying in bed. A few times he almost fell asleep, but he fought off the drowsiness every time, forcing his eyes to stay open. It was torture to him, waiting like this without doing anything; his personality didn't mesh with it at all.
But he had a reason. After an hour, when he was sure that his parents and a majority of the servants would be asleep, Naruto climbed out of the bed.
Naruto crossed the room. Ignoring the way that her kimono had slipped basically all the way off of one of her breasts, Naruto shook Kuroka.
"Hey. Get up," he said.
"Nyah?" Kuroka said groggily, cracking her eyes open.
"You want to see my senjutsu, don't you? I can tell you were interested," Naruto said.
Kuroka cocked her head, not denying it but clearly still extremely sleepy.
"This is our chance," Naruto said. "Let's spar."
As he said it, he crossed his fingers, creating a shadow clone in his bed, which promptly acted like it was sleeping. Naruto ran to the window, cracking it open, and looked back at Kuroka, holding out his hand. "Let's go."
When Kuroka came close enough, he scooped her up like a bride, carrying her with extreme ease even though she was taller than him.
Naruto hopped down the window, running straight down the wall and sticking to it, causing Kuroka to laugh. "You're like a spider!"
Naruto jumped off the wall, bounding away, and soon Kuroka asked to be let down. Naruto led her to one of the most secluded areas on the grounds of the castle: a small valley with a waterfall in the woods, which reminded him of the Valley of the End a little bit, only less dramatic.
It was far enough away to not alert his parents to the disturbance. Naruto had used this place for his training before, so he knew they could get away with this.
Naruto took a deep breath. He sucked in energy from the air around himself, undergoing the changes of senjutsu. Another difference about this world, in comparison to his last one, was that Naruto had no trouble maintaining Sage Mode for extended periods of time. Although he didn't know the upper limit, it was at least more than an hour.
The world crystallized around Naruto. He became aware of everything in his surroundings in a way even all his senses working together couldn't manage. Naruto could even sense his family back in the castle, miles away from them.
"Ready?" Naruto asked Kuroka.
"I've never seen Senjutsu quite like yours," Kuroka said. "Yes, I'm ready."
"Here I come!" Naruto announced.
He threw himself forward. Behind Kuroka, a large purple magical circle appeared and started to spin. It fired a chain of white bullets at him, the first of which Naruto dodged, turning to run to the side.
With his expanded senses, he studied the impact that Kuroka's attacks made, judging how much damage they dealt to the ground. After the third impact, Naruto had seen all he needed to.
He turned toward her again, running straight into her ongoing attack, and busted through the projectiles with his body, suffering no real damage.
He arrived in front of Kuroka in an instant. Kuroka saw him coming. Naruto swung his fist, however Kuroka disappeared, reappearing on a branch nearby.
Without interrupting his punch, Naruto jumped, reaching Kuroka's new spot almost instantaneously. He opened his palm at the last second, grabbing and slamming her down instead of throwing a punch.
Naruto carried them both to the ground, where Kuroka landed underneath him. Right before he hit her, her eyes had darted to his fist. Yet it still connected, leaving her trapped less than a minute after they started.
"You're so strong, nya!" Kuroka said.
Naruto, however, frowned. He stood up, crossing his arms.
"Do it for real," Naruto said.
Kuroka sat up, smiling tentatively. "I don't know what you mean?"
"You saw my attack. You let it hit you. You're holding back!" Naruto said.
"I'm sorry if I disappointed you," Kuroka said. "You're just too strong—"
"No!" Naruto said. "Two bishops? That's rare, even big bro Riven said that! I don't care if it was because your old master was weak. I can tell that you're amazing! I wanna know HOW amazing!"
Slowly, Kuroka's smile shrunk. It didn't disappear completely, though, and by time her expression had changed, she looked a lot more genuine.
"Very well," Kuroka said. "I'll show you ALL my tricks. After all, they're yours to command now, Naruto."
She disappeared.
There was a shimmer and then she was gone. Kuroka reappeared in a tree. A second Kuroka appeared on the next tree over. Soon, there were dozens of them, all looking at Naruto from up in trees or down by the water. Naruto was pretty sure these were illusions, not physical clones… But he did wonder if this was how the shinobi who fought him felt.
"Here I come," said every Kuroka at once.
Naruto grinned, bending his knees as he was assaulted from every angle.
Bullets rained down on him. They had natural energy in them, he could sense it, but it was mixed with devil magic, meaning he couldn't mess with their composition or stop them with his powers. Naruto was forced on the defensive, running through an absolute rain of bullets, 90% of which were entirely fake. Illusions mixed with the real thing, disguising which blows would have impacts… Except Naruto knew which the real ones were, triangulating them by sensing the natural energy that they held.
Unfortunately, he couldn't sense which one was the real Kuroka out of the copies, which seemed to be made out of natural energy entirely. He had to narrow down the number of them.
The fact that they were in a forest should help with that.
Naruto stopped running, letting a few attacks hit his empowered body and simply shrugging them off. He did the right hand signs and released one of the old wind jutsu he knew, spewing a huge stream of air from his breath.
Back in the Elemental Nations, this one had been used primarily to divert shuriken and kunai. Naruto used it a little differently.
Right as the technique activated, he stuck his own arm into the path of it, turning the limb into pure fire.
Everything from his shoulder down was blown away, acting a bit like hairspray behind a lighter. Only on a massive scale.
Naruto's attack lit fire to the forest. It spread, burning with the magical power of the Phenexes, spreading over the whole area with the help of his affinity for wind magic. Naruto laughed crazily while the Kuroka copies disappeared, one reappearing in the middle of the river, conjuring a pillar of ice for her to stand on.
"Well done, Naruto. But can you handle this?" Kuroka asked.
At least ten magic circles appeared in the air above her. They attacked him with ice, sleet, fire, blasts of wind, and many more. They cut Naruto's skin, coming at him from all angles so he couldn't dodge, but Naruto's natural magic power ensured that wherever he was cut turned to flames and healed.
It was good to be a Phenex.
Naruto tried to run at Kuroka, but the ground under his feet turned into mud. The river surged over its banks, forming into icy shapes that attacked him. Battling Kuroka was like fighting two versus one against a powerful devil magician and all of nature itself.
Naruto could counter her nature manipulation with his own, shutting down the mud that he was currently sinking into for example, but if he used that much chakra on top of sage mode, he'd start running out of power before Kuroka did.
"Screw it!" Naruto said. "Who cares if I get caught? It's worth it!"
Back in his room at Castle Phenex, Naruto's shadow clone disappeared.
His chakra doubled.
In each of his hands, glowing blue balls formed.
"Rasengan!"
Naruto drove his attack into the stream of attacks coming toward him. There was a grinding sound, an explosion, and a plume of dust.
Naruto shot out the side of the dust, wearing a grin, and kicked off, flying at Kuroka, who grinned brightly back at him, conjuring a purple defensive barrier. As he flew, Naruto created a rasengan much larger in size.
"Seven layers seal!" Kuroka cried out, creating a powerful defensive shell.
"Sage Art, Big Ball Rasengan!" Naruto yelled.
His attack hit her shield, creating a shockwave that blew water over the banks of the river, and made the burning forest around them sway.
Through this chaos, Naruto met Kuroka's eyes, grinning. Both of them had the same thought.
Fun!
Kuroka's barrier and Naruto's attack dissipated, and they separated, only to dig deeper into their bags of tricks and fight on.
LINE BREAK
Naruto tugged with both of his arms. He tried to kick with his legs. Unfortunately, nothing would budge.
"Aw man," Naruto said.
Kuroka was sitting nearby, staring at him. The fire still burned in places around the forest, but Kuroka had put a lot of it out. Two trees were bending down, their entire shapes warped in order to wrap Naruto up with their branches. At the same time, vines stronger than iron had been created out of the ground, binding him in at least three dozen places. The dirt had formed shackles around his ankles, encasing him down to the tips of his toes. All the foliage that was holding onto his body had been encased in magical ice, providing a defense against Naruto burning through it. There was a cloud on his shoulders, and somehow the water vapor possessed its own weight, acting like a few thousand pounds pressing Naruto's body down, further limiting any chance at movement.
Kuroka was standing in front of him, breathing a bit heavily but otherwise unharmed. Her hand was extended, maintaining the magic that was holding Naruto captive.
"Do I win?" she asked.
"You win…" Naruto groaned. "And here I wanted to look cool."
Kuroka dispelled what was keeping him captive. He landed on the ground, Sage Mode fading, rubbing his wrist. Kuroka helped him up, which got Naruto to smile at her, although her own face was serious.
"You're terrifying," she said.
"Wouldn't that make you scarier? You beat me!" Naruto said.
"Many people consider me scary. I'm a prodigy. But you… You're a freak, there's no other word for it," Kuroka insisted. "You're Shirone's age. From what I can tell, your family hasn't formally trained you yet. I'm strong enough to be considered an Ultimate Class Devil, and you forced me to take you seriously."
Kuroka laughed. "It's almost scary, honestly, thinking about how far you could go. Is this how my old master felt when he looked at me?"
"Nox didn't like how powerful you are?" Naruto asked.
"I'm far stronger than him," Kuroka said. "As soon as it got to that point, he started to fear me. He started excluding me from experiments, which is fine with me, but then he set his eyes on Shirone." Kuroka scowled. "We had an agreement that he wouldn't touch her when I joined his peerage. He started to get obsessed with trading me, so that he could do what he liked with her. I think if he didn't trade me soon, he was going to start his experiments anyway. I… Am glad it didn't come to that."
"What was he even trying to do?" Naruto asked.
"To make a Super Devil," Kuroka said. "It's all that House Naberius lives for. His new plan was senjutsu, and Shirone and I were the keys to that." She smirked. "Although looking at you, maybe he was right about it. Maybe Senjutsu really is the key to a new Super Devil."
"C'mon, stop it! You're gonna make me blush. I've got a LONG way to go before I get anywhere close to that!" Naruto said.
"Maybe…" Kuroka said. "But don't we have almost infinite time, nyah?"
She leaned in, pecking Naruto on the cheek, which made him blink with surprise.
"Another thank you for what you've done," Kuroka explained. "Grow up big and strong, Naruto. I won't expect any less from my master."
She said this part consideringly, looking at him with an eye on the future. Naruto chuckled. "I plan too!"
As Kuroka took them on the short route back, teleporting them directly into their room, Naruto looked back on what he considered to be a successful night.
It had been fun. Invigorating, even, sparring with Kuroka. He wasn't disappointed that he lost. It was an uphill battle from the start, and like Kuroka said, he had tons of growing left to do! His short reach was such a pain to fight with!
Yeah, all things considered, it had been fun.
His only regret was how fun it would've been if he'd been able to use ALL his chakra.
LINE BREAK
Across the Underworld, on the roof of Nox's mansion, a figure stood up, holding up his new mask, freshly painted.
"There we go!" said Naruto's shadow clone, admiring a handmade ANBU mask designed like a fox's face. "Perfect for being covert! Just like those sneaky operatives Gramps was always assigning to watch me."
The clone turned the mask around, fixing it on his face.
"Time to kick ass," he declared, before hopping off the roof, descending on the mansion below.
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