(New Leaf) Canicular 3 (Patreon)

Koneko

I carried a large cardboard box with me as I walked through the old school building. I just finished hanging out with Gasper, and was now on my way to the club room after having packed away all the cosplay outfits we had tried on, including Naruto-kun’s discarded Fate costume.

He didn’t really care about keeping the clothes after he got his use out of them, so I decided to hold on to them for myself, wig and all.

I felt my face warm a little when I thought back to the rooftop.

At some point just before I’d caught up to him, it slipped my mind that the shake I’d been holding was his, and I ended up drinking it absently to the point of finishing it. If it were just that, I’d have ignored any embarrassment I felt, shrugged, and said ‘finders, keepers.’

Instead, for some fucking reason, I’d all but dared him to stick his hand down my shirt to get my phone! Even knowing that I was safe because he wouldn’t dare try something like that, I could have just teleported it away instead.

It was one thing after another, starting with my friend being dressed like a cute girl and ending with him stripping in front of me, all combining to make a bunch of small things have a bigger effect that constantly kept dragging my thoughts back to it, much to my embarrassment.

I couldn’t even look at Gasper in his Kuoh uniform today without finding myself trying to picture what Naruto-kun would look like in a girls uniform of his own.

I mentally shook off the image as I reached the clubroom, taking a calming breath and stilling my expression while shifting the box over to balance on one hand, like a waiter holding a tray of food. The fact that it was big enough for me to comfortably fit in meant nothing for balance with my chakra.

I opened the door with my other hand and walked in, the light conversation of multiple people pausing for a moment to acknowledge my entrance with a couple stares.

After getting over with all the usual hellos to everyone else from our peerage, I nodded in greeting to Sona, Tsubaki, and Meguri; though the latter didn’t seem to notice, because she already went back to talking Kiba’s ear off about the supremacy of katanas once again, as was usual when she was in the same room as him.

As is normally the case when one of our peerages comes across something potentially involving the state of the town, the other peerage’s [King] also needed to be kept aware of any details, which was why Sona was with us for this meeting. It was usually a fifty-fifty whether she brought Tsubaki along to these sorts of things for a second opinion or left her behind to take the lead of the others in her stead, but in this case, she’d brought both Tsubaki and Meguri, because they were the two members of her peerage most knowledgeable on one of the topics tonight, both being former members of exorcist clans, even if those clans weren’t on the level of one of the Five Principals.

Saji was here with them too, for whatever reason.

He was busy arguing with Issei about ass versus tits though, so I ignored the two perverted idiots.

I made my way to one of the few unclaimed seats left, the couch that the Tengu twins were sitting on, and settled my butt in the open spot in between a couple of weirdo crows.

That is, I sat between Akatsuki and Akeno, who was also sitting here.

Yoru was on the other side of the female Tengu, meditating.

‘Actually…’ I kept my suspicion to myself as I bent forward, setting the box I brought with me down onto the floor in front of my feet. Once I’d straightened and gotten comfortable, I closed my eyes and focused, brows furrowing in careful effort to open up my senses without leaving myself exposed.

I felt Akeno perk up beside me as she felt the traces of my aura expanding slightly around me, but I ignored the feeling of knowing she was smiling my way without seeing her, instead letting the natural chakra of the world– or just this room really– trickle through me. In with one breath and out with another, telling me what I wanted to know about Yoru’s aura.

I ignored the box at my feet, too.

‘Yep.’ My eyes opened, my curiosity sated. I ignored Akatsuki’s curious glance from the corner of her eyes.

The fake-cultivator, hovering cross-legged a few inches above the couch cushion in a serene meditation pose, was just taking a nap.

‘These two dumbasses really do go all in on the ‘cool and mysterious sages’ aesthetic, huh?’

“It seems we’re all here now,” Sona noted from where she and Rias sat at their usual chess table after having just finished a game, getting the room’s attention. “It’s a couple minutes early, but we might as well begin if we’re ready. Rias?”

My master shook her head, though she did stand, Sona joining her as she moved towards her desk. “Not quite, we’re waiting on one more person.” Rias glanced my way as she sat at her desk, Sona standing next to her with arms folded.

I took the hint and pulled out my phone, looking at the notification screen to confirm I hadn’t gotten any messages saying he’d be late.

Saji, who had broken himself out of his argument the moment Sona spoke up, piped up with a question. “What, did you guys get another new recruit already or something?”

My tail flickered with an inexplicable feeling of anticipation for something, and I felt rather than saw the exact moment Yoru’s eyes snapped open, his aura waking up.

“‘Or something’ sounds about right.”

All eyes turned towards Rias, who rolled her chair out of the way with a hint of surprise to reveal the window behind her desk, and the blond ninja lazily lounging on the sill like he belonged there. The orange light of the setting sun behind him shined through untamed hair, making his golden locks seem to glow softly.

Yoru stood up, stern-faced.

“What’s up, whiskered dude? Been a while!” He called out brightly, expression unchanged.

“Yo.” Naruto-kun gave a two-fingered military-style salute with a grin. “Good to see you, bird guy!”

The blond host of Vritra made a strangled noise in his throat. “You!”

“Me?” The whiskered teen blinked, before squinting at the newest student-council member. What was effectively a large and warmly lit room to us devils and youkai was a deep, dark, chamber cast in long shadows to his human eyes, so a blonde student in a school uniform was probably harder to recognize than the fake cultivator. “Wait, you’re that guy! The one from-” He said with widened eyes, before he turned sheepish, glancing nervously at Sona. “-uh, that one incident that I totally had nothing to do with…”

“Smooth, Uzumaki-kun,” I commented blandly, suppressing a smirk. Akeno giggled.

Ever since that first time Saji had tried to flex the Council’s authority over Naruto-kun in the school halls and failed in front of everyone who witnessed it, they had clashed at practically every opportunity, each trying to make trouble– or catch the other making trouble– for each other whenever they crossed paths.

And Naruto-kun still hadn’t remembered his name.

“What’s a tattooed delinquent like you doing here?!” Saji demanded angrily through grit teeth, a vein throbbing on his forehead.

“They’re not tattoos!” Naruto-kun shot back just as aggressively, offended. “They’re birthmarks! Birthmarks!”

“That… seems unlikely, biologically speaking,” Tsubaki commented, seemingly without realizing she muttered that out loud.

“I know,” he deadpanned, getting a sheepish cough into her fist from the [Queen]. “Tell that to my mother, who got pregnant with me while there was a nine-tailed fox sealed inside of her.” He shrugged after dropping that bomb on the others, like it wasn’t kind of an absurd thing to say out loud. I hadn’t heard that exact detail before and it was interesting to know he wasn’t the first in his family, but it really wasn’t all that high, not even near the middle of the list of ‘Most Absurd Things Uzumaki Naruto Has Said Out Loud.’

“She hated the furball and the feeling was mutual on his end, so I figure he might have had a hand in my whiskers as a way to try messing with her or something.” He shrugged again. “It would make sense, since my friends have mentioned that they grew and darkened whenever I tapped into his power, back in the day.”

Rias opened her mouth, eyes shining, but pouted when Sona cut her off.

“As interesting as this all is, we should move on to the intended topic of tonight’s meeting.” The student council president adjusted her glasses.

Rias turned serious and nodded. “The Grigori and the Five Principals.”

“The five what-now?” He asked, scratching his head.

Saji scoffed in derision despite the fact that he himself probably only learned of them in the past month or two, but before he could make a snarky comment, Akeno answered our friend in a fake-cheerful voice.

“The Five Principal clans are a group of Shinto exorcist families run by decrepit old men high off their inherited power, who despise and try to kill anything and anyone who they don’t consider pure, based on lineage and religious dogma.”

Despite the tone and close-eyed smile, her words gave away the cold, furious hatred she felt.

The others not in the know seemed curious what brought this reaction on, but Buchou and Sona both sent sympathetic looks her way. I scooted closer until my shoulder touched her arm, showing my support, and I could tell some of the tension left her with the way she leaned into me slightly.

“So, a buncha uptight jackasses making things worse for people for no reason, excusing it with dumb traditions. Got it.” Naruto-kun shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve come across people like that.”

“While not an entirely inaccurate summary of the Principal Clans, and at least partially relevant to the discussion,” Sona took back control of the conversation, “the real issue at the moment isn’t the clans themselves, but the Grigori’s motives with their recent actions, and any potential clashes between the Fallen Angels and the clans.”

Rias nodded. “As Akatsuki-san and Yoru-san have so kindly informed us during their extended stay, there are quite a few factions interested in the phenomenon currently affecting Kuoh. We are currently aware of at least four of those factions, with three of those being tentatively confirmed as wishing to either help solve the mystery, help contain potential fallout, or both, with the fourth faction’s intentions being unknown.”

“Uhh,” Issei raised his hand like we were in a classroom. “What phenomenon are we talking about, Buchou?”

“Natural life energy was disappearing for months,” I acted fast, cutting off whatever dumb jelly-donut explanation was about to come out of one of the tengus mouths. “The town’s ambient chakra is basically gone, and remnants started gathering and condensing somewhere between the school and the residential district.” Issei’s hand lowered.

No need to go into detail and confuse him with specifics he hasn’t learned, making this meeting take longer. He was a teenage boy who played videogames and read manga. ‘Ambient energy disappearing mysteriously’ was more than generic enough of a plot hook for him to get the gist and why it might be bad.

“Our mistress Lady Yasaka, her rival in the East, and those clan sorcerers, all think it’s possible a new Daiyoukai might be trying to form,” Akatsuki added with a careless shrug that didn’t match her elegant looks, ignorant of the suddenly-pale faces of Saji and Issei. The two Japanese boys were probably just reminded that the folk-tales and myths they’d grown up on of devastatingly powerful youkai were real and relevant. “The Amatsukami that the Five Principals worship tasked them with handling any containment and sealing needed if that happens, to allow us and our mistress to focus our efforts on investigation and prevention,” she finished.

I pointedly didn’t glance at Naruto-kun, and the tengu twins didn’t either.

The two were weird, and everyone here knew that at this point. It wasn’t a surprise that they wouldn’t show that much alarm at the thought of a daiyoukai forming, their body language was all over the place as a default.

I could still feel both of their auras though, they didn’t tend to try hiding them. Both of them were basically completely relaxed on the topic, the same as every other time I’d come across them goofing off when they were supposed to be “focusing their efforts” on investigation, all but confirming a thought I’d had once or twice.

They probably came to the same conclusion as me.

“Going back to what we were saying, the Grigori have a history of hostility with the Five Principal clans, as do many other non-human factions that have had run-ins with them, so both of them being present in Kuoh after the Grigori’s already made a mess of things here without our permission, is a recipe for disaster,” Rias explained. “On top of that, much like the Five Principals, the Grigori isn’t a singular monolithic organization. Both groups are made up of smaller internal power blocks that have their own goals and are willing to act on their own, regardless of the greater organization’s stance.”

“The fact that they are willing to intrude on our territory so soon after causing a previous diplomatic incident, sending one of the Fallen involved in the previous incident too, no less, is cause for concern,” Sona took the lead once more, after gesturing for Naruto-kun to come in and join us properly. “There are a few possibilities here for why, such as this being an attempt to bait the clans into starting an incident themselves, or simply trying to draw our eyes in the clans’ direction with this overt action.”

With Meguri and Kiba sitting on the other couch with Issei and Asia, and Tsubaki and Sanji sitting in the two armchairs, there weren’t any seats left in the central area of the room, so Naruto-kun just made his way over to stand next to Akeno’s armrest with his arms folded across his chest.

“So, with all that in mind…” Sona pushed her glasses up again, the lenses flashing unnaturally because Sona is a closet weeb. A pale-blue magic circle lit up the floor next to her, and a standing whiteboard rose out of it. “Let’s discuss what we know of both groups, and their potential mindsets and motives.”

Naruto-kun immediately lifted a hand up.

“Would you like to start, Uzumaki-san?” Sona asked, lips quirking upwards approvingly at his proactiveness.

He put his hand on his chin and squinted.

“Do you always have that specifically prepped to summon at any given time, just in case?” He asked, head tilted. “How often would an emergency white-board even come in handy?”

…

“Pfft-!” Rias clapped a hand over her mouth.

Sona flushed. “A-anyway, would anyone else like to start?”

‘Heh.’

As expected, it took only a single comment from him to get the always-serious student council president off balance.

------

Rias and Sona wasted no time grilling Naruto-kun for any detail he could remember from his encounter with Kalawarner. He admitted that he sucked pretty badly at interrogation and didn’t really know how to effectively question people for intel, but he was pretty damn good at reading whether people were telling the full truth or not.

He could confirm three things from his talk with her.

One: One of her higher-ups removed her from punishment duty and sent her to Kuoh.

Two: The task her mission handler gave her was to “keep an eye on things happening in the town” and report back any incidents, with an emphasis on observing the Five Principal clans actions.

Three: She didn’t want to be here, doing this mission.

Everything else he got from her, like Fallen numbers present, overall mission goals, the name of the Fallen who ordered it, all of them were unreliable, all being potentially partial truths or even outright lies.

After that was done, we moved on to talking as a group about anything relevant we could think of that could be useful.

Ten minutes of discussion later, the whiteboard was covered in columns of bullet points, listing things like known individuals involved with each relevant faction, potential third parties, known incidents between factions, and known activity in the area.

There was a section at the bottom reserved for writing down ideas for potential goals, motives, and responses to overt action, which was mostly filled with contributions from the five girls in the room who’d actually had direct dealings with the Grigori and/or inter-clan politics.

“We know there are Fallen willing to go against orders- even within their own factions- if they think their actions will help their leaders in the end, as we saw with Raynare,” Rias began giving her thoughts. “I think it’s safe to say, whether Kalawarner’s presence in town is tied to a splinter Grigori faction or not isn’t all that relevant. She doesn’t want to be here, as Uzumaki-kun said, and she isn’t supposed to be here officially since we haven’t signed off on her presence, so someone with authority is going against the Grigori’s overall wishes to send her here for their own purposes. We should be in the clear, diplomatically speaking, to handle that side of the equation in whatever way we see fit.”

“That’s assuming the Grigori doesn’t know about this,” Kiba warned. “This could easily be a deniable asset mission, where they can lay all the blame on Kalawarner and her handler while coming off only looking incompetent instead of actively malicious, just like they tried with Raynare’s mission to kill Issei-kun.” A dark expression flickered across his face for a moment. “Just like…” He trailed off, his fingers tensing subtly in his lap as if to grip the hilt of a sword that didn’t exist yet.

Issei stilled at the mention of his ex, and I heard his breath subtly hitch for a split second.

“That’s true.” Sona nodded in acknowledgment. “However, the likelihood of that being the case is much lower. Sending Kalawarner is barely a step down from if it were Raynare herself in how blatantly insulting it would be to us.”

She took a moment, seemingly to order her thoughts if the crossed arms and tapping of her finger on her bicep were anything to go by.

“Either the Grigori itself is trying to hamfistedly cause tension between our factions with this mission of hers for non-obvious reasons, or an individual or splinter group is trying to accomplish an unknown goal while attempting to undermine the credibility of the leading Grigori faction,” Sona reasoned. “The latter is more likely by far, and if it were the former, then it was done obviously enough that the result is the same regardless of how we treat it; either they intend to cause tension and we call them out on it, which they deny and point out how obvious a setup it is, or they have a rogue actor and the same occurs anyway.”

When Kiba nodded in acceptance of that logic, she moved on, pointing to a section on the whiteboard.

“We know thanks to our youkai guests-” she nodded towards said tengu twins, who gave simultaneous thumbs-ups back, “-that the Himejima are the ones heading the Five Principals’ current operation, and that the old clan head has recently stepped down and been replaced by Himejima Suzaku, who is reportedly much more respectful and accepting of non-humans than previous heads. How likely do we think it is that the other clans will cause an incident in a bid for status, while the Himejima’s have their hands full?”

Tsubaki and Meguri glanced at each other seriously for a split-second, nodding.

Meguri opened her mouth. “There’ll probably be some troublemakers, but with the orders from their patron kami-”

“It is a guarantee,” Akeno said with a calm certainty, grabbing everyone’s attention. “The rotten ideals they hold aren’t concentrated at the top of their leadership, they permeate the clans as a whole. Whether or not an incident will happen isn’t the question, it’s whether it will be planned and organized by the whole, or done spontaneously on a whim by individuals. That, and the scale of the incident.”

Tsubaki frowned, tapping her fingers on her chair’s armrest in thought. “Isn’t that too strong of an assumption? They may have hostility for non-humans, but they have shown a willingness in the past to make deals with, and at least back down from unnecessary confrontations with other factions outside their own territory, even without the intervention of their deities. If I recall, wasn’t there an incident years ago in this town where they negotiated with Devils?”

Akeno’s aura darkened and her hands smoothed out her skirt as she rose from the couch. I felt something uncomfortable in my chest watching her, and almost reached out to grab her sleeve and stop her, but I stiffened when a warm palm landed gently on my shoulder. I turned my head and traced it back to Naruto-kun, who was now standing behind me with a serious expression aimed at the clearly agitated girl. As much as I wanted to comfort our friend, I decided to trust his judgement and sit back.

Akeno stepped towards the open space next to the couch as she spoke. “The Principal clans and their members are, above all else, obsessed with their own image of purity. Tradition, religion, race, affiliation, if you do not conform with them to all of the above you are exiled or killed. Friend and foe are not the most at risk-”

She released her wings, both sets.

“-Family is.” A twisted smile appeared on her lips. “That incident from years ago that you heard of? That was Lord Lucifer’s Bishop cowing my grand-uncle and his band of murderers right before they could kill me like they killed my mother, despite her loyal worship of the kami above. Lord Agrippa forced them into a deal that they could do nothing but accept, or be made to look worse than the beings they hunt.”

It wasn’t a secret anymore that she was a half-Fallen, but it also wasn’t something our friends in Sona’s peerage had any real reason to think about unless it was brought up. This was a reminder.

The newest three devils present were understandably horrified, and even Tsubaki and Meguri seemed disturbed, but the rest of us were either already aware of that fact, or had been faced with equally horrific situations, so we only had grim and sympathetic expressions showing.

The only ones who were unaffected were the twins, but that was pretty much expected. The way their minds seemed to work was almost alien on the best days, even to a fellow youkai like me.

“Make no mistake,” Akeno shook her head, her wings folding away and disappearing. “The clans can only be trusted to act in a way that maintains their self image, even to the detriment of their own members. My cousin may be trying to change that, and she may eventually succeed, but she will have made many enemies by now who’d wish nothing less than for her to be ousted, by any method. Those rotten fools will try something, even if only to make things harder for her politically, that much is certain.”

“If,” Rias emphasized. “They will try something if they can find a reasonable excuse, one that they can spin to make them seem in the right, such as the Grigori poking around where they’re not invited.” Rias offered her [Queen] a reassuring look. “As long as we can deal with the Grigori issue quickly and quietly, give the clans no opening to cause a mess, all they’ll be able to do is grumble and follow Takamagahara’s orders.”

Naruto-kun pulled away from me.

“You don’t know that,” Akeno argued with pursed lips and furrowed brows, crossing her arms under her bust. “The Fallen aren’t the only group with members that would love to take the opportunity to bait the Principal clans into conflict. The Eastern Youkai have eyes on the region too, remember? The clans are still the most volatile variable here!”

“And if anything sets them off-” Naruto-kun stepped up behind Akeno, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder this time. “-then we’ll just have to deal with that when it comes to it.” Akeno snapped around with a retort on her lips as she turned on him, but she was cut off when he continued, staring her in the eyes. “All we can do is the best we can.” He grinned up at the slightly taller girl. “Until then, there ain’t any use worrying about things we can’t control or account for, ya’know?”

After a few tense seconds of looking into his eyes, she glanced at me for some reason. A moment later, she backed down.

Akeno’s own eyes slid shut and she took a deep, calming breath, before letting it out with a nod.

“You’re right.” She turned towards our master and bowed deferentially. “I’m sorry for my outburst. I let my emotions get the better of me when you were just trying to help.”

“Apology denied,” Rias refused with a scolding tone that was at odds with her smile. “I don’t ever want a friend of mine to say sorry for feeling strongly about something, you silly girl.”

“Honestly…” Akeno scoffed with a shake of her head as she straightened. “What kind of [King] allows their servants to raise their voices at them? Sometimes I even wonder if I would have been better off with Sona as a master.”

I let out a breath I had held unconsciously, the knot in my chest loosening. Despite the words, the teasing voice they were said in was much closer to her usual lighthearted tone than moments ago.

“Only sometimes, I hope?” Rias’s smile turned into an amused smirk while Sona rolled her eyes with a dry look, not-quite suppressing the upwards twitch of her own lips.

“Of course.” She confirmed with a close-eyed smile. “I couldn’t bear to serve eternally under that stick in the mud.”

Saji and Meguri naturally took offense to this and began causing a ruckus, but Tsubaki sighed in resignation while Sona simply scoffed, turning her head to hide her amusement.

Akeno allowed Naruto-kun to steer her back to her seat next to me, and as she sat down and the discussion got back on track, I felt the warm sensation of her soft palm ghosting over the back of my hand between us. I looked up at her, just to see her looking down at me with a gentle smile as her fingers laced through mine with a light squeeze.

A light and airy feeling of appreciation hummed through her aura.

I relaxed as the last bit of tension within both of us drained away.

------

“Oh man, so much of that political stuff went way over my he-”

I stopped listening to Issei’s conversation with Kiba as the door shut behind me. I could still hear what he was saying if I wanted to, but placing a barrier like a shut door between my ears and peoples’ voices made it really easy to tune out and ignore any random chatter.

I could also just transform away my ears to make things like that a non-issue, but I really didn’t want to. I liked not having to hide my features around my friends.

“So, what’s with the giant box you’re carrying?” The blond doofus walking next to me asked curiously as he glanced down at me with his usual idiotic grin, his hands clasped behind his head. “I didn’t really think to ask about it until now.”

“It’s Gaspy’s favorite box,” I said plainly, definitely without any hidden amusement. “I’m bringing him back to his room before we leave.”

In the end, it was decided that until the new Fallen situation was handled, any one member of our peerages not busy with doing contracts would spend their nights in pairs patrolling the town, on the lookout for any suspicious supernatural activity, with a focus on making sure any obvious members of the Principal clans don’t interact with other supernaturals. They were technically here to help, but Akeno was right, we couldn’t exactly trust them to not cause trouble anyway.

Naruto-kun volunteered to help out, and since he’d already had contact with Kalawarner that ended amicably, and I have the best tracking abilities out of all our allies, the two of us were paired together with the task of finding and retrieving Kalawarner for a more thorough questioning. Akeno and Rias would be making a visit to Mittelt’s current lodgings, and be placing her under house arrest for now, if only to keep her out of trouble.

No one who’d interacted with her since her initial capture thought that weirdo was involved in the current troubles.

“‘Bringing him back’? Don’t you mean ‘it’?” Naruto-kun raised an eyebrow. “What, did Gasper give the box a name and gender like it’s some famous sword? The legendary demonic ‘Muraboxa’, rolls right off the tongue, heheh!” He snickered at his own joke.

“Aauuw…”

Naruto-kun’s head snapped to the box at the muffled sound of a pitiful whine.

“Yes, no, and yes.” I answered his questions in order with a tiny smirk. “Uzumaki-kun, say hello to Gasper, and his favorite hiding place, Boxamaru.” I paused for dramatic effect, and gave the box a little shake. “He’s a scaredy-cat weakling who can’t control his Sacred Gear, so he has to stay in the box when he’s not being a shut-in. He wanted to be with everyone at the meeting, but he’s too shy to talk to so many new people, so he never got the nerve to say anything.”

“W-waahh!? Please don’t shake meeee!” Gya-kun squealed girlishly. “A-and you didn’t need to say all that, Koneko-chan…” 

Naruto-kun just slowed while staring at the crossdressing-dhampir-containing box in my hands, so I smacked his arm with my tail as I continued past him down the hall.

That seemed to snap him out of it, and he caught back up within a second.

“Eh, alright.” Naruto-kun shrugged it off. “Heya Gasper. Koneko-chan’s mentioned you a few times before, so it’s nice to finally meet you. ”

“Ah, that’s right!” Gya-kun’s voice noticeably brightened despite the muffling. “I’m also glad to meet you, Naruto-san. Koneko-chan’s told me so much about you too, I’m happy she found a great friend like you!”

We continued talking– really just the two boys, I mostly just listened– as we walked the rest of the way to Gaspy’s sealing room, with schoolwork and hobbies being the primary topics. After Naruto-kun mentioned what club he was in, Gaspy asked if he knew a student named “Tatsu-senpai”, who I think I remember being that gyaruo we met on the day he signed up.

“Yeah, he’s a really cool dude!” Naruto-kun replied with a grin, even though there was a box blocking them from seeing each other. “He helped me out when I was stuck on a project a couple months ago, got me into contact with one of the guys he knows through the school messenger tool and everything.”

“You use Kuoh Academy Online too?” Gaspy asked hopefully. “The others don’t really use it, so it would be nice to have someone to talk to on it that isn’t for contract work…”

Naruto-kun shrugged, again, not that Gaspy could see it. “What’s your username? I’ll add you.”

Gaspy told him.

Naruto-kun paused again, and this time, I stopped to glance back too.

“... Huh. What are the odds?” He scratched the back of his head. “Good news; you’re already on my friends list.”

“Eh?”

It was a little interesting to learn that two of my best friends had already ‘met’ each other online through the school’s student network, but soon enough we reached Gaspy’s room, and it was time to say goodbye for now. I would leave him and his box in his room, then step out and close the door, reactivating the seals that kept his [Forbidden Balor View] suppressed within the room before he left his box.

“It was fun talking with you face to, er, box,” Naruto-kun commented a little awkwardly.

“Um!” Gaspy hummed cheerfully, “Maybe Koneko-chan can bring you next time she comes to hang out, and we can all play videogames, and cosplay.”

My tail twitched as the mental picture of the two blonds standing next to each other in matching girls' uniforms flashed through my head.

“Yeah, sure. Sounds fun,” The whiskered boy agreed easily as I stepped into the room to set the box down with warm cheeks. “See ya next time, Gasper.”

“Um. See you!” The crossdresser called back as I backed out of his room and began closing the door.

Naruto-kun called out one more time with a cheeky grin. “See you too, Boxamaru!”

“W-waaah-!?” Gaspy’s wail of embarrassed despair was cut off by the door closing, blocking all sound.

Naruto-kun turned to me, his grin smoothing out into a smile. “Well, should we get going now? Kalawarner probably isn’t going to just make herself easy to find, so let’s put your skills to the test.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

Time to get to work.