In my Dreams - Chapter 4 (Patreon)

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Chapter 4- The Devil You Know

Four Years later.

"That's her, that's Princess Rias-sama." "Wow, she's become so beautiful." "I know, she's starting to look like her mother more and more."

She heard the maids and servants whisper and upon Rias's face was a small smile, Walking through the lustrous halls of her own home it would seem as though there was even a small skip in her step, they could tell she was happy.

Rias had grown in the past few years, not just in her outlook but in her demeanor as well. Gone was the small girl who once resented the halls she walked in and the people she was around. In her place was a young woman, one at the age of twelve who was just now starting the beginning stages of puberty. She could already tell she was going to grow up to become beautiful. Just like her mother, who was capable of making every man or female swoon over her in the entire underworld— not that that mattered to her, of course.

Her relationship with her parents and brother had also improved. They had even had talks about fulfilling her request and annulling her marriage agreement with Riser Phenex. The thought of which brought her no slight amount of joy, as once the marriage agreement and her metaphorical prison were all gone she would be able to choose. She wanted to choose her future, who she would marry, who she would love.

Love? That was a funny word, something she had always desired. The warm feeling that you experienced when in the presence of another, when you wanted to do things not out of the desire for comfort for yourself, but for the person you loved. When you were willing to sacrifice the entire world just to see that one person you cared about smile.

That was what she wanted.

And that was only possible because of one special individual in her life.

A small smile formed across her lips at the turn of events that had happened since meeting Naruto. Since they had discovered this strange ability to see each other each night on that fateful day. They had only grown closer in the time since then, and soon… she didn't know how close they would be.

"Ara ara~ someone seems to be in a chipper mood," a voice rang out as she reached her door. Rias's attention was once again brought to the outside world as she looked around, seeing the one who had just called her attention.

She was a young girl, about her age, with long black hair tied in a high ponytail with an orange ribbon. Akeno Himejima, her newly reincarnated [devil piece]. Her [Queen] to be exact, the person who was supposed to be her right hand in every affair she made. She had come across the girl on one of her outings into the country of Japan with one of her brother's peerage members, and there she had scouted for potential pieces of her own. Luckily, she had been successful, and just in time too, as she had come across the girl being violently attacked by a few of her village members.

You see, her latest piece, Akeno Himejima, was a rare breed, a person born between the union of a fallen angel and a human, and not just any human, but a shrine maiden at that, a Miko, under the Himejima clan. From what she'd heard, they'd met in secret, where the girl's mother had come across an injured Fallen angel and had nursed him back to health, they'd soon fell in love after that.

But unfortunately, not all love stories end in happiness.

Akeno's mother's fellow clan members found out about her union and demanded to get rid of the proof of what happened, in doing so getting rid of Shuri Himejima's daughter forever. However, the woman did not comply, and in doing so, she was able to fend off a few of the practitioners long enough for her daughter to get away in the nearby forest, sacrificing her life in doing so.

Unfortunately, the shrine practitioners had caught up to the girl, but luckily, she and her brother's [knight] had been able to arrive just in time. Not without any place or a home to go back to, Akeno had taken her offer to become one of her [Evil Pieces] and had chosen to become a devil within the Gremory household.

That had been just a few months ago, and slowly but surely, the girl had come out of herself. Moreover, they both started treating one another as the sort of sister figures the other had never had.

And even with the new addition of Akeno's teasing and almost downright sadistic personality, Rias wouldn't trade it for the friendship they had, not in a million years.

"Hello, Akeno, I'm not sure what you're talking about," Rias said in an apathetic tone.

"Oh, I'm sure you do," Akeno stated with a faux smile. "You know it's weird, each time I see you walk into your room,you have this strange expression across your face. I don't quite understand it," she commented.

Rias knew what she was talking about, but even then she tried to deny it."Oh, that, I just like catching up on a few manga I've been reading, I must be letting my excitement show."

Akeno only snorted, "Yeah, that sounds like you. I never understood reading that stuff, even when I lived in Japan, you must be a real nerd to be addicted to the stuff."

"You'd be surprised, some can be quite good if you give them the chance," Rias smiled, satisfied that the dark-haired girl seemed to be leaving.

However, as Akeno began to leave, she turned her head once again, "But still…" she started, putting a finger to her chin, as Rias's eyebrow began to raise her eyebrow. "Your bed must be awfully comfortable if you go to sleep that happy each night. Perhaps you'd let me sleep in your room with you to find out—?"

"NO!" Rias shouted, far louder than she had intended, this caused her [Queen] to raise an eyebrow, not understanding her [King's] behavior.

"What seemed to be the big deal Rias, your bed is pretty big, it's not like I'd be bothering you or anything," Akeno stated before she suddenly got face to face with Rias, a knowing smirk began to be plastered across her face. "Unless…"

"Unless what?" Rias asked, once again trying to form an impassive facade upon her features.

As Akeno's expression became even more sly, "Rias, you aren't hiding any dirty magazines in your room, at your age? …how scandalous," she teased, as Rias's cheeks lit up slightly.

"No, Akeno, I'm not doing anything of the sort!" Rias stomped her foot, blushing.

"Oh really?" But her friend's smirk only seemed to widen, "There has to be something in that room of yours you're hiding, what is it?" She asked as Akeno locked eyes with her.

"I lied, it was dirty magazines?"

"Nope, not buying it."

"Dirty toys?"

"No."

"Some new fad the High-class devils are doing?"

"No!"

Akeno hummed, "Hmmm, well, I can't seem to guess what it is except… oh?" And Rias did not like the look she was giving her. "You're talking to a boy, aren't you?" she asked, as Rias's eyes widened. "That's it, isn't it? You sly girl."

But Rias fixed her expression quickly, it wouldn't do for her to give herself away too quickly. "Of course not, Akeno, if I was ever in love with a boy then I'd let you know," Rias answered calmly, sometimes her friend got too playful for her good.

But that only seemed to cause her friend's smirk to widen, "Now, who said anything about 'love'? I certainly didn't." As the red-haired girl paled at her slip-up.

"Love? I don't know exactly what you mean," Rias gulped.

"Yeah, sure you don't," Her friend smiled, she could tell her guess was right on the money.

As Rias began trying to change the subject. "Oh would you look at the time, it's getting late, I should probably get to bed soon, don't want to ruin my sleep schedule," she stated, as she started to open her door, but not before Rias heard Akeno's final words.

"You know, Rias, I don't know what you're planning, but you know you can't enter any flings your kind are prone to doing because of you know what, so I hope you know what you're doing," her friend told her, and she acknowledged her words.

As Rias closed the door, but not before whispering, "Oh, believe me, Akeno, I know." She knew how complicated things had become, all because of one single reason…

She realized she had fallen head over heels for Naruto.

XXX

"Rias, I don't think we should see each other anymore," Naruto stated.

Rias's eyes were wide; that had been the bomb that had been dropped on her. From the moment she had entered their room, she had known something was different. Naruto had just been acting too strangely for her not to notice. He hadn't been as restless as he usually was; he hadn't been hyperactive or loud. No, he had almost been dead silent, unable to look her in the eye, and save for a few fidgets here and there, he had been still as a statue.

When she asked about it at first, he had pushed her questions off, made it seem like she had just been imagining things. But eventually she had wore him down, and that caused him to take an almost impossibly deep pause. She had thought he had fallen asleep in his voice's absence, an apprehensive look upon his face, he laid it upon her.

'They shouldn't see each other anymore.' That had been what he had told her, and she didn't know what to say.

"What? Naruto, what are you talking about? She questioned in a panic. The blonde didn't answer; he just looked away, still locking eyes with the floor.

Before he finally did speak up, he still didn't explain what he was thinking. "You said you couldn't come here if you weren't alone when you slept. Well, you should always sleep with someone in your room, that way you won't be able to see me again. Keep doing that, as long as it takes. You made a new friend, right? Akeno, have her or one of your servants do it. Look, Rias, you can't come back here," he told her, as the redhead girl's mind was racing for answers. She didn't know what was going on. Why was Naruto doing this?

"Naruto, I'm not doing that, I can't," she pleaded, not willing to accept this at all.

But that only caused Naruto's face to frown even more, "You have to. You said this place was formed because of me, well, obviously I have to do something—"

"No!" Rias shouted as she closed the distance between them. She couldn't allow Naruto to do anything that would cause their connection to cease; she wouldn't ever want that to happen.

She got close, laying her hands upon his shoulders as she hugged him. All the while, the blonde stood stock still, unable to move. He felt his shoulder become increasingly wet. Water from her tears, he realized, he was making her cry.

The redhead girl leaned down, licking her eyes with him as she gazed up. "Naruto, please, talk to me…" she pleaded.

As Naruto but his lip, seeing the small iridescent pools of water forming within her ocean-like eyes in her sadness. He realized how much pain he was putting himself through. He also felt the small hole in his heart that he was tearing away at, trying to sever their connection.

It was only then that he broke down and told her everything. And he meant everything.

He told her about what had happened in the academy, how he had failed the shinobi test for the third time. How he had been tricked into stealing a legendary scroll from the Hokage. How Mizuki had betrayed him, but he had also told her about what the traitor had told him… what everyone else was too afraid to share with him.

He was the Kyuubi's jinchuriki, the vessel that housed the strongest demon the village hidden in the leaves had ever seen. That was why the village hated him, and that was why the people close to him would only end up hurt if they stayed close to him, he realized that.

Even though Iruka had told him that he was himself, he still had his doubts. What if one day he accessed that power? What if he lost control of it and ended up hurting the people he cared about? He couldn't do that to them, he couldn't bear to live with the guilt that would plague his heart if he did, would be immeasurable. Compared to pushing them away, that pain was nothing; he could take it.

"You see, Rias, that's why you can't be here with me anymore," he told her. "I can't let you get hurt, after all, it'll mean the villagers are right, that I'm… I'm some monster that will hurt everyone," Naruto pleaded, looking down. She could see that he was clutching onto his stomach as if it were burning, right where she assumed this seal to be. "I can't… I can't hurt you, Rias, please!"

Rias was silent at the revelation, and all she had learned. She had known Naruto was special, from the way he described himself as a ninja and what they could do. But she had never imagined Naruto would have been forced to take up such a burden.

The very thought made her blood boil. Every time Naruto had talked about his life in his village, she had always known something was off, but now that she knew why, she was even angrier. Naruto had been forced to take up a responsibility he didn't even know the weight of, all for the safety of some no-good humans who treated him like garbage. She wanted to go to Naruto's village; she'd kill them all if she could for how harshly they treated her friend. To force a small child, a newborn, to hold on to the strongest creatures in his world was barbaric, and she wouldn't stand for anything like it.

Rias's hair shadowed her eyes, so much so that Naruto couldn't quite gauge her expression. And so he assumed the worst: she likely hated him, or was afraid of him, like all the others who knew about his burden. He knew he couldn't bear to see that look in her eyes, the same look everyone else gazed upon him with, the look that he was nothing, that they didn't even want to associate themselves with the air he breathed in.

If she looked at him with those eyes… he didn't know what he would do.

"Naruto…" Rias spoke, her voice was calm, but it held a restrained anger he wasn't sure of feeling.

"Y-Yes, Rias?" The young boy questioned, already fearing the worst. What if she would react how all the others did. What if she rejected him.

He didn't know if he could take that.

"You aren't a demon." She merely told him.

"W-what?!" He said, shocked. "But I am, you heard what they say about me, it's true!" He told her.

"No!" Rias shouted in anger, as she raised her head, revealing her glowing red eyes filled with anger. Her hands started to crackle with red and black power, enough to destroy several of the smaller objects in the room.

Naruto had only seen this power once before, it was her strange jutsu that she had shown him back when they first met, when she thought him to be an intruder.

Rias reeled back her power of destruction, as her eyes morphed back to their usual sea-foam green that he was used to seeing.

But her anger wasn't quelled. No, she was still pretty pissed. To think all that mistreatment, all the anger and all the suffering Naruto's village put him through was because of this.

They mistreated him, they abused him. All for the reason that Naruto protected them. The truth was not lost to her.

And the simple fact was that Naruto kept them safe. Not the other way around.

Naruto was the reason they were alive and this was how they treated him?

It didn't make sense to her.

She wanted to say that she hated humans, and she hated the way they feared what they couldn't control or understand. Rias had seen what they could do first hand with her own [Queen, Akeno.

But now she knew Naruto's life was even worse.

She knew that this kind of behavior wasn't excluded to just humans, as she knew her kind could be just as cruel.

To think Naruto's village would mistreat him all because of a demon sealed inside of him. From what she could understand, Naruto's power was similar to some sacred gears. Powerful artifacts, some having ancient spirits in them. But it was to her understanding that these powers were gifts used to help people. And for Naruto to be abused for said gift… well, she didn't understand it.

Well to hell with them.

If they didn't see how amazing Naruto was or his charm well they could burn in hell for eternity for all she cared.

Of course, she didn't tell Naruto that, her friend was far too kindhearted for that. if she knew him as well as she thought she did, she knew that Naruto would try to convince them he was good or something. And it would probably take some sort of grand miracle for the to see Naruto in a different light, but he would still try.

He was that kind of idiot.

But she didn't care.

Naruto's presence had already helped her enough, and she didn't need some grand miracle to convince her that Naruto was worth caring for.

If others couldn't see that then to hell with them.

But first she needed to get Naruto to see that she wouldn't throw him away like the others.

"Naruto, you aren't a demon. And even if you were I still wouldn't care, you're my best friend; and you're the kindest person I know. You wouldn't ever do the things they said, so I want you to know that I won't ever think they way they do about you. So don't call yourself a demon, because I'd know a demon when I see one," she told him, absolute conviction in her eyes.

She did not doubt her words, but unfortunately the damage had been done, and Naruto wasn't so sure.

"B-But, how can you know…?" He questioned. How could she know he wasn't a demon, or wouldn't go out of control in the future.

Rias merely just smirked.

Smirking like the spawn of Satan she was.

Twin bat wings released from her back, as she told him. "Because Naruto, I'm a devil."

End Chapter.

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