"H-hey, Kisuke... You mentioned it was a mansion.", asked Riveria while standing in front of the enormous structure, "This is a castle."
"It's technically a castle, and it's even wider inside. But most of the locals here refer to it as the Gremory Mansion. Whether it's something that they came up with themselves or someone pushed for it from the background, I don't know."
Kisuke and Riveria were currently being escorted through the wide drawbridge by several Gremory Agents. After some security clearances, they went through the front door where Yuuto Kiba and Xenovia Quarta were waiting, "Good morning. Welcome to the Gremory estate." Yuuto greeted them with a refreshing smile.
"Good day to you too, Kiba-san, Quarta-san. It has been a while."
"Yes. It has been a while." Xenovia then turned to the agents around them and said, "We'll take it from here. Thank you for the hard work."
The agents nodded before all of them exited the castle to resume their duties.
After all of them went away, Yuuto stepped in front of Riveria and introduced himself, "Excuse me, but I believe we haven't met before. It's nice to meet you, I'm Yuuto Kiba, Knight of Rias Gremory."
"And I'm Xenovia Quarta, Knight of Issei Hyoudou. Glad to make your acquaintance."
The Elf in a black suit and high heels slightly bowed her head and responded, "It's also a pleasure to meet you. I'm Riveria Ljos Alf, Queen of Kisuke Urahara."
Yuuto and Xenovia had their eyes wide open when they heard her and looked at each to make sure that they weren't hearing things.
Meanwhile, Riveria took a peek at Kisuke to ask him if she was doing it right. Although he did say that a normal introduction is fine, she's still worried knowing that the Gremory is one of the 72 pillars of the Underworld.
Kisuke patted her shoulder to reassure her and addressed the two Knights' surprise, "No need to be surprised. Even though I'm like this, I'm still the heir to the House of Belial. This is the least I can do."
Yuuto immediately started shaking his head, "No, no. We apologize. We didn't mean to demean you. We were surprised that you actually established your own peerage when we thought you couldn't possibly be pressured into making one."
Riveria furrowed her brows and asked Kisuke, "Just what could you have possibly done for them to react this way?"
While Yuuto could only smile wryly, Xenovia didn't have the same reservations and answered blunty, "There's just too many to list. Overall, he's so eccentric that there's no use questioning his actions. Even in today's meeting, I'm expecting him to do some things out of the norm and one of those is insisting that he's just a small store owner."
Offended, Kisuke immediately corrected her, "Hey! I'm a humble candy store owner before everything else!"
But Xenovia just rudely pointed at him and turned to Riveria with a 'See?' expression.
"So it wasn't just your disguise?"
Kisuke responded with a shocked expression, "H-hey... Weren't we doing business when we met? That's my primary job, you know?"
Riveria recalled the small shop that Hestia Familia had beside the abandoned church and sneered at him, "Well, you're clearly not very good at it."
Without any rebuttal for that, Kisuke decided not to pull his punches and took out a deck of pictures and gave it to Riveria.
Riveria doesn't know what these are but she became careful and turned around so that only she could see them. As she went through the pictures, however, her body began shaking and seething in embarrassment, "You bastard... Since when did you take these, you perverted bastard?"
It was the pictures of their date, but not the normally captured ones, instead, all of it was her 'blunders' with the worst ones being when she was in the clothing shop and was sneakily trying out some risque choices, "You're slandering me~" Kisuke replied with a grin, "I never peeked. You were just wrong to trust that clerk. But don't worry, I made sure to ask her not to take anything when you were not 'completely' dressed."
With a flushed face and ears, Riveria shoved a photo of her in black underwear with an expression similar to what she's making now, "This is completely dressed!?"
But instead of a reply, Riveria was only met with silence with Kisuke just staring at the photo with a serious expression, "W-what's wrong?"
"This is the first time I've seen it," Kisuke answered honestly.
"...Huh?"
"Although I have them printed out, I haven't actually seen any of them due to how busy I was this past week."
Riveria hurriedly took her photo back, "Y-you...!"
"Thank you for the treat."
Riveria swung her foot and kicked Kisuke's shin in retaliation, but she'd forgotten that something like this had already happened in the past. As soon as her foot made contact, she was reminded as the pain assaulted her toes... once again, "Kuuhhh..." She groaned in pain, "Why does it always end up like this?" She questioned her reality.
Yuuto and Xenovia peeked at each other and both of them concluded that this regrettable Elf could be trusted to some extent.
"Er... Everyone's waiting inside so I'd like us to go in now, but if you want to rest for a bit, we could lead you to a private room." Yuuto returned to the topic at hand before Kisuke, the Elf, and Xenovia derailed it further.
"She'll be fine. Please lead the way."
.
.
.
Kisuke looked around the hall and found that most of those present were familiar faces. As the head of the house, Kisuke first greeted Zeoticus before everyone else, "This is our second time meeting, Zeoticus-sama. I'm glad that you're in good health."
Zeoticus shook Kisuke's hand and replied, "The first time was the class observation day, wasn't it? I've always wanted to talk to you regarding various topics but you seem to be a busy man, so I was reluctant to arrange anything. I'm happy that you're here, regardless of the reason."
"Thank you very much for your kind words."
Letting out a small laugh from the side, the head's wife interjected, "Please be at ease, dear. Today is just an informal meeting among friends. Your mother has also taken care of me in the past so let's not treat each other as strangers."
"So Venelana-sama knew my mother."
"Indeed." Zeoticus nodded in agreement while adding, "Venelana was a bit of a tomboy back in the day and would always ask Sarah for treatment since she could keep her injuries from the Bael Hou..."
Riveria wondered why he had stopped talking, but she immediately figured out the answer when she saw Venelana's hand hovering on Zeoticus' side.
"Ahem..." Zeoticus feigned a cough to diffuse the situation and changed the topic, "Kisuke-kun, would you mind introducing the lady beside you?"
"Pardon us. This is Riveria Ljos Alf, the first member of my peerage."
While Zeoticus and Venelana were not really surprised, those of his peers who knew him well enough didn't have the same stoic reaction... Except for Issei who muttered loudly, "A new girlfriend?"
Riveria, who had stepped forward to introduce herself, almost tripped over nothing.
Normally, Kisuke would have teased her here, however, he didn't have enough attention to give her when Benihime was suddenly pulling out a lot of his energy reserves for her own use, [Hey! What's going on!?]
[I found something interesting while exploring the Realm of the Dead. I'm currently fighting over a thousand Devils and Grim Reapers to get to that interesting thing. I'll give you the cue to open a spatial rift for me to escape once I get my hands on it.]