(New Leaf) Accretion 9 (Patreon)

Koneko

Waking up in an unfamiliar bed that I don't remember falling asleep in wasn't a new experience for me, but it didn't happen often.

I've seen it happen to a lot of main characters in anime and manga– mostly in battle shounen series after a fight, or in an isekai where the MC wakes up in a new world– but the actual experience was completely different than what was usually depicted. For one, there wasn't any grogginess or confusion when I opened my eyes. I didn't need to blink away any blurriness and look around the room to figure out what happened.

I simply woke up and opened my eyes, head clear and with perfect awareness of the chain of events that led up to this point.

The other difference?

I'm a Devil. One that is Rias Gremory's friend and servant.

Sterile white walls and bright lights of an infirmary after a tough battle left me injured and on the mend? The cracked ceiling of an orphanage to greet me as I start my new life?

Screw that, we have money.

I sat up and looked at the new room I found myself in.

The bed I found myself on wasn't some crappy cot or a stiff-mattressed bed with rails like the school Nurse had available, it was closer in comfort to the bed I had back home at the peerage mansion. Similarly soft silk sheets and similarly ridiculously comfortable mattress, only it was much smaller and without my canopy frame.

While not as large as our mansion's entrance lobby, the room I woke up in was pretty spacious, and almost as finely decorated. It was more on the long side instead of being square and boxy, and the walls were a warm but muted burgundy. A natural wood trim that looked like it would cost ridiculous amounts of money just for some pieces of carved wood, stretched down the length of the room with periodic breaks where it stretched from floor to ceiling. The ceiling itself was a creamy off-white, with multiple sparkling chandeliers hanging down to light the room.

All in all, the only reason it could be called an infirmary was because there were multiple other identical beds on either side of me, with two of them supporting Kiba and Hyoudou while Asia hovered over the brown-haired teen on my left. She had a look of concentration on her face, her tongue sticking out slightly with [Twilight Healing] hard at work. From the heavy breathing and slight tremble in her arms as she held them over the boy, she was nearing the end of her stamina.

"I see you've woken up now too, Koneko-chan."

I turned to my right to see Kiba looking my way from his own bed, with a tired smile and crinkled eyes. "How are you feeling?" He asked.

I took stock of the state of my body, lifting an arm and clenching my fist a couple times as well as some other similar little checks…

'Nope, nothing wrong.'

As expected, Asia's healing was perfect.

I pushed myself up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed to face him.

'I guess I'm not at one-hundred percent yet.' I felt a tiny bit of weakness in my limbs as my feet just barely touched the floor, reminding me that [Twilight Healing] didn't fix exhaustion. Oh well. Aside from my chakra reserves slowly climbing back up from near-empty, and an amount of physical fatigue that was about the same as having a worse than usual sleep…

Now that I was facing him directly, I responded. "Mm, I'm good." My stomach rumbled monstrously now that I was upright, and I tilted my head. "Could use some lunch. Used up a lot of power."

I watched as he pushed himself up with a chuckle, though he stayed in the bed and just leaned gingerly against the ornate backboard.

"You need to work more on your stamina, Yuuto-senpai," I observed, only semi-jokingly. "You're like a cheetah. all speed, no gas."

Kiba rolled his eyes. "I don't want to hear that from someone with [Rook] endurance, least of all you," he said dryly, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards in amusement. "The rest of us don't have a second pool of energy to draw from, you know. [Sword Birth] isn't exactly free to use," he smiled ruefully. "And Riser made plenty sure I had to pay that price over and over again with how quickly he destroyed my swords."

"Sounds like a skill issue to me," I replied mercilessly.

He laughed, before glancing to the side. I followed his gaze.

There was a TV recessed into the center of the opposite wall, showing highlights from the match with the volume turned off. It was currently playing a clip of Kiba racing around a practical firestorm with his Flame Delete sword in one hand and Repression Calm– his wind-absorbing sword– in the other. Using Repression Calm to steal away the winds that fanned the flames, he would then use Flame Delete to freeze the slowed fireballs and tendrils that reached out for him, just for the overwhelming amount of fire Riser could bring to bear to quickly overwhelm them both, shattering the swords in his hands.

He cycled through different combinations of demonic blades while Rias and Riser threw their family's magic at each other, before finally landing on a combination of Flame Delete and his new sword, Impulse Stealer.

With a quick and low dash towards a side of the storm where the fire was thinner, the Kiba on screen slashed Flame Delete downward, flash-freezing a line of flames towards Riser, immediately followed by stabbing the pitch-black blade of Impulse Stealer into the ice before it could melt. In practically an instant, the barely visible form of Riser froze in place in the center of his fire-storm, a thin thread of black piercing through his neck, and the flames themselves seemed to die down a bit.

Then less than a second later, the ice that Impulse Stealer stabbed through basically exploded in a burst of steam, followed by the sword's hilt glowing red hot and being dropped by Kiba out of pain, where it promptly broke apart into motes of light. The fires got even brighter and larger than before.

The clip cut off there, switching to showing Hyoudou barely managing to dodge a right hook from Ni, alongside a zoomed-in shot of the scene showing his fingers brush against her incredibly lewd version of a sailor-fuku uniform, and an almost unnoticeable magic circle appear where his fingers touched before it disappeared.

The scene cut to him snapping his fingers with a lewd grin, and his opponents clothes all bursting apart into scraps of cloth, leaving them standing in the nude with black bars covering their privates.

I gave another silent apology to the girls for directing the Perv their way. 'At least it got censored...'

Another cut, the next scene showing one of my own fights.

I ignored it and turned back to Kiba, a certain topic on my mind.

He picked up on the shift and seemed prepared for the unspoken question, even though I know for a fact my expression didn't shift.

I asked it bluntly.

"Did we win?"

Kiba's default smile twitched slightly, becoming more of an awkward half-grimace.

"Not… exactly…"

The door to the room opened.

-----

"Man, this is so bullshit…" Hyoudou grumbled as our group walked through the main hall of the Gremory estate, lightly fiddling with his collar to undo the top button. It was a little more than two hours after I woke up, and only three hours after the Rating game itself had finished.

"Language."

Hyoudou stiffened at the one word reprimand from the silver-haired maid leading us to our destination.

"It's unfortunate, yes-" Kiba agreed, "-but it is far from the worst outcome," he reminded his friend with a thin smile.

The two boys were both wearing soft white, button-up dress shirts and black slacks. Not all that different from their school uniforms, but without the jacket or undershirt, and more well fitting.

Rias's dad had sent Grayfia to collect our peerage for a "what happens next" meeting of some sort. We were given enough time to recover an acceptable amount as well as clean ourselves up, and provided suitable semi-formal wear for a small gathering, all already perfectly tailored to our sizes.

Technically, all new devils and other visitors like Hyoudou and Asia were required to use the Lilith-Rail train line to enter the Devil's section of the Underworld for the first time, for security and census purposes or whatever. In reality, not a single person involved would ever go against the arguably sixth-most powerful person in Underworld politics and father of the reigning Lucifer, just to enforce a minor border law.

Grayfia had arrived at the infirmary with Akeno in tow to explain the situation as it stood, waiting until after Akeno assisted Asia's healing of Hyoudou so that everyone could be awake to hear. While the two girls were finishing up with the boy, the TV had continued playing clips from the game, with one of them being from after I had been eliminated.

It'd shown in slow motion Hyoudou going toe-to-toe physically with Riser for a few seconds, relying on his Boosted defense to survive the heat while Akeno rained precision lightning strikes on the Phenex, before speeding back up to normal showing that the fighters were practically a blur. Eventually the strain of his Boosts became too much for the [Pawn], and he was Retired within moments of his stamina failing him.

With Riser already visibly pissed off at being pushed so far and struggling to stay on the attack while simultaneously regenerating the nerve damage Akeno was constantly inflicting with a sustained stream of lightning, he focused the entirety of his visible aura into a massive fireball– so big that it almost looked like the Supernova attack Friezer used to destroy Planet Vegetable– which he sent at an exhausted Rias, at the temporary cost of his own defense. Rias tried to fly around the edge, but she clearly wouldn't be able to avoid the whole thing in time; the attack was just too wide and approaching her too fast, so she instead decided to hunker down and use the last of her demonic power to throw up a shell of black Destruction as a shield.

A second before the fireball impacted the school, Akeno's body exploded in a burst of pure white lightning, different from her usual yellow or higher-powered blue.

The clip cut off there, before she became fully visible again.

Her shoulders had been tense the whole time the clip was playing.

Akeno-senpai stayed silent as we walked, eyes lowered while walking a step behind everyone, offering only a weakly strained smile when I fell back enough to softly bump my shoulder against her arm, walking beside her the rest of the way even as I ignored the new instinct telling me to get far away from her. A uniquely searing smell of ozone clung around her now.

She was wearing a purple dress just a shade lighter than her eyes, with ruffled shoulders and a small amount of cleavage showing, while I had on a sky-blue dress with short sleeves that fully covered my chest snuggly, emphasizing my… lack of a chest. I wasn't even bothered by that fact, surprisingly.

My tail tried to twitch, despite it being hidden under transformation for convenience.

'Okay, maybe it still bothers me. Just a little.'

Grayfia finally led us to a stop, turning to address our group as we stood in front of a pair of tall and wide, ornately carved and gilded doors. There was a gray-haired butler with a refined mustache standing by one of the doors, his wrinkled eyes closed and hands held clasped behind his waist as he waited patiently.

"As a reminder, you are about to be in the presence of Lords Gremory and Phenex in their capacities as heads of their respective Pillars," Grayfia stated warningly. "While it is not technically required of you all to be on your absolute best behavior due to the dispositions of the Lords, and the private nature of this gathering, you are to mind your manners at all times and refrain from directing vulgar language towards others, regardless of your personal feelings towards any guests."

"We understand, Ms. Grayfia!" Asia nodded rapidly, wearing a classic yellow sundress and hat combo.

While it was mostly aimed at Hyoudou, Grayfia eyed me in particular when she mentioned "vulgar language".

I couldn't imagine why.

'Heh. 'Rotisserie chicken'.'

I felt my lips curl upwards in a tiny smile at the memory, and Grayfia's eyes narrowed in response, staring me down.

With one last sweep of her eyes across our group, she gave a final satisfied nod, and turned to grasp one door handle while her subordinate grabbed the other. The two Gremory servants pulled open the heavy double doors in sync, stepping to the sides and bowing their heads as they did so.

The moment the doors cracked open even a little, my ears began picking up soft music and snippets of conversation from vaguely recognizable voices on the other side, the doors having been sound-proofed with magic. Akeno and I followed Kiba into the mansion's smaller "great hall", the larger one on the other side of the property reserved for more "public" formal events, while this one was used for smaller private gatherings, meant to be more comfortable while with closer allies instead of the general nobility. We stepped around the two newest members, who had both slowed to a pause in the doorway, taking in the room.

While Asia seemed to be looking around in awe at the understated but lavish wealth on display in the large room– floor-to-ceiling glass doors leading out to balconies, velvet-cushioned benches and couches lining the walls, a fully stocked and staffed high-class bar, a grand piano to the side with a maid playing ambient music softly, and more– Hyoudou instead seemed to be stun locked, torn between the instinct to ogle the full peerage of women in various levels of formal dress milling around the room, and the instinct to shout in surprise.

Rias's mom and a blonde lady that I assumed was Lady Phenex were both sitting comfortably in a more private corner of the room, holding half-empty wine glasses as they chatted together and glancing our way as we entered the hall.

"Close your mouth, idiot," I said as I walked past Hyoudou, not sparing him another glance as I began heading towards one of the refreshments tables. "You'll make us look bad."

Who cared that by ignoring Riser's peerage for food I'd arguably do the same thing?

I was fucking hungry.

I didn't waste any time, immediately grabbing one of those little snack plates and stacking a pile of tiny hot dogs on it in a tower. They were the kind with a flaky little pastry-wrapping around the middle, 'pigs-in-a-blanket' is what most people called them.

Forget making us look bad, it was probably already a bit awkward for Riser's peerage when they arrived before us, the ones unofficially meant to play host to the guests while the heads and their children discussed the politics of the situation in a side room.

It couldn't be helped though, since it took longer for magic to heal serious burns than it did to heal bruised and broken bones, and Asia was only able to take over in place of the usual healers after the game ended.

That, and being tied to the family responsible for the production of Phenex tears, they were always going to recover from their injuries faster than us no matter how things went.

I sat down on a bench next to the snack table and began tossing the little sausages back like tic-tacs, barely chewing the mini franks just long enough for the distinctly savory juices and buttery flakes to reach my taste buds before swallowing.

A shadow fell over my tower of wieners, as a pair of white-stockinged legs stepped into my vision while I was looking down at my food, wearing a pair of black short-heeled pumps.

I didn't look up, preferring to pop another of my meaty treats into my mouth to chew. And then another.

And another.

One of the shoes began to tap.

My fingers grabbed another 'pig' by the 'blanket' and brought it up to my open mouth.

The tapping foot came to a stop, just short of a stomp. "Will you stop ignoring me?!"

I paused looking up to see a red-faced Ravel Phenex in a pink lolita-style dress, her ringlets swaying as she practically vibrated in place, her blue eyes narrowed down at me in a pathetic looking pout that she probably meant to look regal and intimidating. Or something.

My mouth closed, and I thought about it for a moment.

"Nope." I popped the dog– pig?– snack into my mouth and began chewing, staring into her shocked eyes as I reached for another from my dwindling tower.

My fingers touched ceramic, so I looked back down.

'Ah, only one more.'

I picked up the final piggy.

She– Ravel, not the hot dog– sputtered as I prioritized snack over talk, standing up and walking past her to refill my plate with a different appetizer.

"T-take back what you said, before! I will not stand for such… such demeaning insults against me and my family, and demand that you apologize!"

I hummed in acknowledgement, but didn't turn towards the girl who kept trying to interrupt my food-time. "Okay." I nodded, before turning to face her. "I don't know what you're talking about though." I didn't know but I had a pretty good guess. "Tell me what I said, and I'll say sorry."

I wanted to hear her say it herself, out loud, in the same room as the rest of her brother's peerage where there were definitely going to be others listening in on us. Such as the two nekomata twins, whose ears were blatantly aimed in this direction.

The suddenly uneasy girl at least partially realized what was happening, and shifted on her feet in embarrassment as she glanced around.

I took the moment to look at what everyone else was doing.

Hyoudou and Asia were sitting together near one of the other food tables, sharing a plate of appetizers. The look on the nun's face as she looked at the nervously smiling boy was disgustingly sweet, and I was surprised at how little it shocked me that the Perv was actually managing to not perv out for more than half a minute. It made sense in hindsight though, because looking back on it, every time the boy had ever had a genuinely "cool" or heroic moment, Asia had been involved somehow.

She seemed to bring the good in him to the surface.

Completely opposite to those two's little bubble of sunshine, Akeno stood near the bar, Idly swirling a drink around in her glass with a dull expression while trading barely disguised verbal barbs with Yubelluna. Akeno's clear disinterest in everything at the moment, let alone engaging with the other [Queen], just made Yubelluna all that much more annoyed.

Kiba, as always, was smiling politely as he was accosted by two women. On the one hand, he was probably relieved because it wasn't like his usual fangirls, who wanted his romantic attention. On the other hand, Karlamine and Siris seemed to be genuine sword fanatics, and Kiba didn't particularly care for the things more than any usual swordsman. Hell, he tended to treat his real training swords like crap because he was so used to just making new swords with his sacred gear whenever he actually needed them.

Ravel finally answered, small streaks of red appearing on her cheeks as she glared at me. "Y-you called me... fried ch-chicken…" she mumbled.

I almost wanted to make chicken sounds at her, just to see the resulting fireworks, but that would be too antagonistic for no real reason. Under her expectant eyes I opened my mouth to say sorry for the insult ("sorry that you can't handle competitive banter."), when a pair of doors on the other side of the room opened up, and four people stepped out of an adjacent meeting room.

When she noticed my pause, Ravel turned to see what grabbed my attention.

Rias and Riser entered the gathering hall, Rias with a relaxed slump to her shoulders and tired smile on her face, and Riser with his hands stuffed in his pocket and eyes narrowed in slight irritation. Trailing behind them, talking to each other easily with amicable smiles like they were old friends (which was entirely possible), were Zeoticus and someone who I guessed was Lord Phenex from context.

With Lady Phenex looking exactly like an aged up Ravel and Lord Phenex looking like an aged up Riser, I was beginning to wonder if all full-blooded Devils looked exactly like their parents. Rias and her mom would look like identical twins if it weren't for their different eye and hair colors, and Sirzechs…

Okay, Sirzechs doesn't really look that much like Zeoticus, but he does look like a taller, gender-bent version of Rias, which meant he looked like a gender-bent recoloring of Venelana as well.

"-ld that thought for a moment, while I address everyone." I picked the smooth voice of Rias's dad out of the room's noise when conversations lulled with the group's entrance, and Lord Phenex nodded at the crimson-haired man with a smile and a wave of his hand.

Zeoticus held his fist over his mouth and cleared his throat. With a subtle hand gesture that I only noticed because I was already paying attention to him, the maid playing the piano subtly came to a stop.

"Excuse me, I would have everyone's attention for just a moment." Lord Gremory spoke up, his strong voice easily cutting the room's noise without having to be raised all that much. It wasn't a request, it was a statement, and everyone quieted down to focus on him just like he said.

"I would like to announce that our houses have come to an agreement regarding the results of the contest, and have revised our plans to strengthen our families ties in a mutually beneficial way that all parties can agree upon." The man paused, smiling wryly. "That is to say, we've been… enlightened, so to speak, on the changing times and the mindset of the new generation." The man chuckled lightheartedly. "Us old-folk will no longer make deals without getting all involved parties' consent first. It is our wish that any animosity from before can be forgiven and forgotten, moving forward."

He clapped his hands together.

"With that matter out of the way, drink! Eat! Mingle and have some fun after a well-fought battle!" He said boisterously. "If you have any specific meal requests, one of the servants will gladly bring it to our chefs. That's all for now."

Ravel turned back to face me now that Lord Gremory had dismissed our attention, but I was already walking away, speed-walking as fast as possible without actually breaking into a jog to reach my [King]. I saw the others were doing the same, all of us wanted to know if we succeeded in our goal.

Rias bee-lined straight for Akeno since she was the closest of us, and going by the giant smile on our [King]s face when she rushed forward to glomp the [Queen], I think it was safe to say we had our answer anyway.

-----

Naruto
(Kuoh Academy Computer Club)

KAOMessenger (Signed in as: U.N.Predictable)
^
V.G.LaDOS: Here's a video that should help show the importance of what I was talking about.
V.G.LaDOS: <Link>
V.G.LaDOS: It's pretty short and is more focused on the artistic aspect of 3D lighting, but an alright intro for the surface details.
V.G.LaDOS: Give it a watch, and I'll answer any technical questions you have.

I felt my phone buzz in my pocket with a text and pulled it out, looking away from the school website's messenger screen on my monitor to see who it was.

I grinned when I saw it was exactly the person I'd been hoping for, and rushed to type out a response.

^
Today 4:07 PM
Koneko1123: we're back, u free?
9SageNaruto: waht happened u guys win? im at computrer club right now.
(Koneko1123 is typing)

I had been in the middle of working with another student online when I'd gotten the text. President Four-Eyes had decided to test my "commitment" to being part of the club after my unannounced two-week trip, and challenged me to prove my dedication to learning about computers, letting me choose a topic out of a selection to write a research report showing my understanding of the topic.

He didn't actually have the authority to assign me punishment work, especially for absences the school signed off on, but I refused to let the jackass talk down on me like that. Uzumaki Naruto never turns down a challenge!

Knowing basically nothing about anything involving computer's– aside from how to use a browser– I'd picked one at random and landed on "Digital editing: including but not limited to video, audio, image, and 3D modeling."

Whatever the hell all that really meant.

Within five minutes of me blankly scrolling through google pages, Vice-pres Tatsu noticed how lost I was, and put me into contact with another student he knew through the school's internal social network. While Tatsu seemed to know his way around all the physical tech and basic programs, this other student was apparently like a wizard with everything on the software side of things. They weren't even part of the computer club, and apparently did all of their classes online, getting an online reputation as a mysterious student no one had ever met in person.

The only thing people knew about them other than their skill were their name's initials at the beginning, which were part of the school's minimum requirement for a username.

"Huh."

The moment I saw Koneko-chan's text though, all of that fell away from my mind. The only thing in my head the moment I read her next string of texts was impatient excitement, barely holding back the urge to rush over and get all the details.

^
Koneko1123: we tied, double knockout, but the marriage was canceled anyway
Koneko1123: family politics + we had more pieces at the end, so they gave us the win
Koneko1123: we're all relaxing at the mansion the rest of today, gonna throw a party tomorrow. Want to join?