Hi there, people who are using my profile! feel free to suggest fics I might like. I, too, use random people's profiles as handy lists of favourites.

I have odd tastes, I'll admit. Sometimes I'll favourite a story with an absolutely terrible plot, because there's some sort of wierd energy in it that's sucked me in. I suppose it's rather like bad TV, not everything has to be high art to be enjoyable.

Naruto ended eventually: good lord what abysmal depths that fell to, and what a literal sellout. Thankfully that got me reading all sorts of better manga...

Here's some random fic scenarios that might provoke some ideas; currently they involve the DxD world because it's interesting, and they're crossovers because the main DxD cast isn't that interesting by themselves - the story is not great ( definitely not a "better manga" ) but there's so many things going on in the world, even allowing for plotholes.

Misc rambles about supernatural settings

I feel I need to make a point which should be obvious, but seems to get thrown aside in supernatural settings ( mangakas are often just as guilty ) - supernatural entities depend on humans. Sometimes they *directly* depend on humans for existence - not even through posession, minor shinto gods and youkai are directly created by humans - and sometimes they depend on human belief. Supernaturals not caring about humans in some way - even if bad - or treating them like disposable cattle should be a *huge* - probably the *biggest* - taboo no matter what the entity is. Even if the entity in question has to eat humans to survive they *must* care, or their source of sustenance dries up and they die out too. The only ones who don't are ultimate creator figures, for obvious reasons.

That's one thing I really dislike about the DxD story even if it wasn't ever meant to be *that* serious - we're never given a reason any of these factions even exist, and humans are either disposable background or utter pricks with inflated egos ( besides the odd magician & even then, background ). However DxD canon is blatant devil propaganda - my pet theory is it's a wishfic written by Rias - and authors can happily create a more humane plot there without breaking much. Compare it to say, Nurarihyon, where one of the most important themes is protecting humans ( and is a little tighter about japanese mythology ).

Misc DxD stuff

The biblical Grigori left heaven because they *loved humans*. The blatant comicbook villainisation of fallen angels in the early series is just ridiculous, especially for such a complex set of mythological beings. Oddly nearly all the Persoana crossovers I've read seem to explore this in a much more mature way; I've never played any of the games, I guess there's something in them that promotes that type of exploration.

Want the sacred gear God really should have handed to humans? how about the one that nullifies/purifies anything alien to the realm it's in? both the ultimate defense from gods & devils ( but not youkai or other nature spirits given they belong to the same realm as humans ) and - as an extension - the ultimate infiltration tool as it could turn humans into whatever race belongs in the realm the holder is in. Unless it literally purged aliens from a realm you couldn't use it offensively ( unless turning gods & devils into humans counts ) but it would solve every other problem humans have with being abused - but of course it would work on angels too, and we can't have that, can we. I'm amused by the idea of someone getting repeatedly resurrected by devils because of the gear, and then just eating the evil pieces when the gear activates & turns them human again.

Rating games: as vol 22 showed, you don't even have to be a devil to be able to take part, let alone part of a peerage - until later on though obviously non-devils couldn't actually enter due to politics, presumably ( or plot )

If Michael is propping up a system which would fail if humans lost faith, then what the hell are the grigori pulling their power from? and if they've got an independent supply of holy power then why is Michael so worried?

Stupid giant harems: if you can swap the names of characters around without changing the plot, then just take them out - if you don't care about your characters as individuals, why am I going to? this is especially true for collections of partners. Polygamy *can* work IRL, but it's called a *family* and that's how you're going to have to write it, complete with family moments. There's a reason Rias' peerage is so small, if it was full we would never end up caring about all the members because they'd never get enough page space. Even then half of them could be thrown away without making any difference to the overall story.

Someone shoukd write a fic where the MC gets his ( its 99% "his" ) harem & then has to treat them realistically, what with needing to spend time with all of them & all the jealousy & fighting, and then the inevitable "this isn't working, I'm leaving you" while still trying to be happy with the others. Also perhaps read up on what happens in real harems...

Note: this was written up some time ago, when there was much less available info. I've actually had a few more developed ideas about plot, and some divergence from canon events ( which would be background here, mostly ) but nothing worth putting down yet. Kokabiel can be made into a far more interesting character, just like the initial fallen, I've read a few interesting takes on that.

I've been reading a lot of Naruto/DxD crossovers recently; I'm not a major fan of the main DxD cast but the world itself has massive potential. If anyone wants a setup for something a little different feel free to use this ( I mean a little different fairly literally, I've not tried to craft a new world here - this is a canon-as-background idea at the start at least ), I'm not going to be writing; and you'll note I don't have an actual plot either, just a setup and some overall goals. When I talk about Raynare here I'm either talking about just her or her group of Fallen Angels as one, depending on context; for anything other than personal relationships they can be used interchangeably depending on personal taste - Raynare was the only one with any development so she's obviously a focus for discussion.

Scene:

Naruto arrives in DxD universe completely drained, Kurama asleep. Nature chakra is a little different in this world so it will take him time to adapt, so Sage mode is not a convenient get-out-of-jail card if he's taken after that part of his training. It is a matter of flavour rather though ( it'd be daft if it was completely different ), so it's just time and training. Why he was taken isn't important, just that it was a one-way thing so he has a reason to commit to the new world. Just after the Pain fight might be a good point - he fulfilled his main aim in life when he was accepted by the village, is already enormously strong but hasn't got to the ridiculous levels of later. I can't remember if it was hinted he'd learned some version of Hirashin yet but I think it was a given that he'd started learning it on the training trip. He's also not in touch/sync with the Kyuubi yet and also hasn't met his mother.

Honestly his backstory isn't that important, he just needs to be not so strong that he can waltz in and save Issei completely, but strong enough later on that he can matter. My idea didn't have any support structure for him so if he had to *train* his way up rather than recover he's going to need to be some sort of genius. But whatever - he could be a native youkai for all it really matters although then he lacks the important bits of his upbringing unless you contrive a similar backstory, and if it comes to that why not use the canon one.

Naruto befriends Issei somewhat before the main DxD plot, before he's recovered. This might set when he gets taken from his own universe, he needs to be reasonably powerful and fairly close to Issei in age otherwise why would they ever meet? Naruto should probably feel Ddraig a little ( don't take that too far ) & perhaps unconciously labels Issei as something-like-a-jinchurichi; certainly enough to provoke a little sympathy & need to keep an eye on him. Given the world he comes from he's not going to immediately assume there's something too different about Issei.

Naruto is around when Issei is on his date with Raynare - why is left open, could be because he feels something's off, could be because he actually sensed something off, could be sitting in the park working on Sage mode, whatever.

Issei gets stabbed; at this point Naruto attacks Raynare to drive her off - he's obviously recovered a little by now - and leaves a clone attempting to keep Issei alive long enough to call an ambulance. Naruto must have been around enough to know what an ambulance is! also presumably to get a cellphone.

Naruto must believe Issei has a chance to live - whether he really is dying or not.

Rias arrives with one of her peerage - who doesn't matter much - and tries to convince Naruto to leave Issei to her. Failing ( because Naruto isn't one to give up on friends and he believes there's a chance to save Issei & who the hell is this woman? ) Rias reveals herself as a devil & orders - this is a bigger plot detail than it might look - her peerage member to attack Naruto ( clone ), who gets dispelled. Rias reincarnates Issei off-camera, to set up Naruto finding out what happened to Issei later on.

Naruto's clone popping dumps what happened to Naruto himself - Naruto must have been taken from his own universe late enough to realise clones pass information when dispelled - who's fighting Raynare. Instead of trying to just drive her off now he starts questioning her about what the hell is going on, the fight winds down as it turns into an argment and then something of a discussion - and in Naruto fashion he turns an enemy into something of a comrade, or at least a temporary neutral. Raynare's motivations are up to you; suggestions:

- As canon, she was trying to kill Issei - reasons can be just that she's generally not a good person, doing it to impress someone ( Kokabiel? ), she's not that bad but heavily influenced by the Grigori, she's just following orders reluctantly or not, or she is being coerced ( I think that last one is a bad choice, but it's there )
- She was trying to disable him non-lethally so she could take him away & take the gear ( apparently requires preparation so couldn't be done in the park - cf Asia canon ) and screws up; or doesn't screw up, Issei would have lived ( up to the end of the extraction! but there was no need to reincarnate him at that point to keep him alive )
- She has a behavioural imbalance caused / amplified by the process of falling so she actually is currently a bad person but the cause / magnitude of that is due to an external process, which Naruto can sense - time and again in his own series he's shown that he can detect things like that - cf Zabuza, Gaara, Obito et al.

From Raynare's side she's somewhat impressed that a human is holding her off & gives Naruto enough respect that she doesn't just blow him off, and so as the argument about what she's trying to do turns into a discussion, we get Naruto learning details of the DxD supernatural world from Raynare - not all at once, obviously, but either he can keep meeting her or go with her alone, or with the rest of her faction. This area is admittedly a bit of a stretch if Raynare is unredeemably bad, but in that case once Naruto's demonstrated enough power to be interesting he can try and cut a deal with her instead of reaching out emotionally. He might regret it later but he thinks he's in a time-critical situation and there's literally nobody else he can go to.

"Unredeemably bad" requires a considerable amount of terrible behavior for a long period of time with literally no spark of goodness to actually count as actually unredeemably bad in the Naruto world - look how Obito & Orochimaru(!) ended up. If her motivations are one of the murkier ideas then he'd still have to cut a deal, but his intent would be to make it more than just business. Terrible people are not terrible all the time unless they've got something medically wrong, they can laugh, joke, get sad just like everyone else so it's not like she'd spend the whole time treating him like shit. They just have different value systems, extreme selfishness in canon-Raynare's case.

Personally I'd rather see one of the more interesting grey area motivations ( especially the external influence of falling version - brought up below in a little more detail ), I think that'd make a far more colourful story.

Where are we going with this?

Naruto finds Issei walking around uninjured but feels very different. It's up to you whether they stop & talk before or after Issei finds out he's reincarnated. Naruto can explain what he's learned of the supernatural ( obviously heavily biased against anyone but Fallen! ) - whether it's before or after Issei discovers his reincarnation won't change Issei's own upset at the situation. How upset he stays, how much trust he has with Rias ( whether the evil pieces force anything on him also ) is up to you as it's a fairly important plot element. Naruto knows the basics of sacred gears at this point, so Rias' actions are going to look very suspect to both of them. Naruto isn't so naive as to outright believe everything Raynare said ( ninja! ) but this is confirmational evidence rather than confrontational. I wonder what would happen if Issei pulled an Anko & refused to use any Devil abilities ( or his sacred gear for that matter ), what could Rias actually do?

Naruto compares Issei's situation with Sasuke getting Orochimaru's Cursed Seal, compares Rias to Orochimaru himself somewhat ( given available evidence - she turned up, attacked him & then stuck something in Issei ) and is not really inclined to think any better of the other devils - remember he's got the basics of the supernatural from Raynare who's not going to sugarcoat anything about devils - and thus sets his determination on rescuing Issei. Given how far & over the top that took him in Naruto canon this is not a small thing...

Naruto going to school is optional. He'd have to go disguised, obviously, but Rias' only contact with him was with a clone, very briefly. Forget any silly ideas about "special" henges and assume henge changes the user into whatever - the problem is disguising the chakra use. If he goes to the school, Rias & Sona are aware he's more than normal but initially not any more than that; there's a lot of not-baseline-human people around in DxD so he might not stick out as much as you think. He might even just get away with dyeing his hair & covering his whisker marks. There needs to be a good reason he'd go to the school properly rather than just spying because he'd get no plot development out of it; he's only interested in interacting with Issei and anything directly affecting Issei, until he finds out more about the whole situation then being in the middle of a bunch of Devils is counterproductive & possibly dangerous. Spying on Rias' peerage when they're training would be way more beneficial but when do they train? given we don't see them do anything on an individual level that's something completely open to fabrication.

Naruto is not going to be impressed with Freed (vast understatement) who he's going to run into at some point if he's around the Fallen, which is probably going to colour his views of the church despite Freed not actually being in it anymore ( and possibly by extension the angels ). Personally I'd like to see him get mixed up when Freed goes visiting someone and kill Freed defending whoever this victim is. Post event, cue plenty of "how could you possibly think that sort of behaviour is justified" speeches if he's bothering to try & reform Raynare, otherwise Raynare might have to moderate her position somewhat to avoid pissing off a possible ally too much - the result is the same in the short term. If it's the same guy who Freed killed to lure Issei in it might tip off Rias that Naruto is to be noticed a bit too early for plot reasons, but up to you again. He's not impressed with Irina & Xenovia's fanatic attitudes at all, thus cementing his opinion on the church ( did he ever actually meet Hidan? ), however he thinks he can use Irina's link with Issei because DxD never seemed to! Asia being excommunicated is not going to help at all.

Unimpressed with what's going on, Naruto works a little of his natural magic to take the edge off Rayare's crew's self-centredness and aborts the Asia plan ( he hasn't forgotten Raynare did stab Issei not that long ago, he doesn't trust them much yet. He's a ninja though, this sort of thing is something he's used to. ) This wouldn't stop Asia meeting Issei because they met when Asia was arriving. Alternative for truly bad Raynare would just have him somehow convince them it's not a workable plan somehow; the short-to-medium term outcome would still have Asia around, but she'd be rather more vulnerable to being poached by a devil king that way. Naruto in this case would still be a moderating factor but just by appealing to reason instead of emotion. Eventually with that plot direction he'd have to cut his losses and leave at some point if Raynare doesn't change at all, or he'd end up sinking with them when they inevitably did screw up.

Up to you, but Asia could be recruited into the somewhat moderated Fallen crew - it was where she was sent in the first place - rather than ending up with Rias somehow. Personally I'm not a fan of Asia but it would provide a link to Issei - and a pretty amusing one at that given devil-Issei is now going off to see a human working with the fallen angels regularily.

Naruto learns about Valper and is unsurprisingly completely disgusted. Kiba is now on his list of people possibly needing rescuing from devils, but Naruto has no links to him & no reason to form any other than perhaps wanting an informant. You can wrangle his disgust at these situations and his willingness to actually do something as a fresh point of view and a moderating influence on Raynare if you like. Naruto is good at using these sorts of situations to change people's minds.

His encouragement for Issei to disassociate himself from devils would be seen by the devil side as encouraging one of their servants to go stray - no hugs & warm feelings from either side there.

Kokabiel is someone he'd stop if he had any form of free thought still ( in this case he's still technically human so that'd be a yes ) - but he sees he's going to need the backing of a faction, which at this point is either Azazel who would make more sense given he's in with the Fallen already, or Ophis which he'd be rather reluctant to do given she's apparently running a terrorist gang. Azazel wants peace - but is a faction leader & fairly clever, and lets remember he's a fallen angel and not actually another satan. Naruto's ( and come to think of it Azazel's ) lack of available/suitable muscle is going to keep his ability to affect major events to a minimum, but the fic is less about DxD canon drama & more about relationships & what will probably end as a political war with some surgical violence, rather than a giant battle.

Summarizing:

He's still human ( by DxD standards ). He's also powerful enough that the supernatural take notice ( or this wouldn't go anywhere ). He's going to stay who he is too, no converting him into something else. Given he's been stuck with a bijuu since he was conceived ( his mother was the previous host remember ) let alone born, he's some way above DxD baseline human without showing or doing anything.

He's working against the devils. He's in no way going to decide all devils are terrible creatures but he's not going to be very sympathetic to them. He's encouraging Issei to get away from them. If Asia is with the Fallen group Issei coming to see her regularily is also becoming a problem. He might be more willing to have a relationship with a Devil who both doesn't have & has no intention of having a peerage. I can't think of one who hasn't already got one and who'd likely end up with a peerage other than Vali, who's got about as much to do with the Devil faction as Naruto. Given Vali lives with Azazel it's likely Naruto would run into him anyway.

He's not very sympathetic with the Angel faction either given how his exposure has been through the church initially. He might be more sympathetic to Gabriel, but then he might be sympathetic to individuals from any faction - it doesn't mean he's impressed with the faction.

He doesn't trust Raynare's little group but he's working on them and he's around them a lot. Why? because from his current understanding they're the least bad of the available options, and he can't do much on his own. It'd be nice if there was a long term theme of redemption here.

He doesn't trust the Khaos Brigade at all, but he might have to collaborate with them at some point just to get enough backup. Post Kokabiel I'm a little less clear on faction motivations at the moment but from what I can work out they're generally more enemy-of-the-week.

Romance? Issei/Asia initially, maybe Issei can get some other interesting people later ( Irina, Rossweisse perhaps ). Issei is something of a reluctant devil - although being in and around a peerage means he's more moderate than Naruto - so he's not going to get into anything heavy with a devil at first at least. His internal war between his "attraction" to Rias & Akeno - at least parts of them anyway - vs knowledge of what Rias did to him should be amusing as well as character building. He certainly might have a surprisingly negative reaction when he works out ( it might take him a while to start thinking clearly! ) what Rias is doing in bed with him before the first rating game...

Naruto romance? nobody at first; parallel with Shion and Yasaka for amusement if you like ( Shion wanted sex & a kid from Naruto, not to get married! ), Kiyome Abe would be an interesting side-plot for a bit. Very long term, Raynare would be a very Naruto-esque choice. Otherwise, whatever works, including nothing. If he's been on his trip with Jiraiya before he was taken ( he'd pretty much have to be for a few other elements ) let's assume he's not completely inexperienced, however let's also just not mention anything from his previous universe, ever.

Don't bash anyone: everyone who's a major plot element has good & bad sides; Rias is the teenage daughter of a privileged family, so even without being a devil she'd going to have a sense of entitlement & be rather full of herself; add devil pride & arrogance on top and she manages to be a fairly good person despite all that. She's still a devil, though, and all the other devils should be looked at with a view to devil vices too. The Angels are somewhat inflexible and too orderly, the Fallen are corrupt, the Khaos Brigade are terrorists and have so many splintered aims they're hardly even a faction, and the later groups aren't any better either. Naruto himself is prone to anger & impulsive behaviour, and although tactically he's good later in the series he generally does just wing it. Aside from that, character bashing when either not satirical or massively OTT for comic effect, is boring, unimaginative and immature.

Point: there is plenty of tech in the Narutoverse; they have computers, radios, TV, medical machinery, fridges, aircon, so obviously electricity; trains, airships, ninja-powered aircraft. They don't seem to have small portable generators, which leads me to think they don't have access to hydrocarbon-like fuel so no cars ( not sure why they wouldn't have electric cars though ). Ninja don't really need anything like that but civilians would. I guess airships are either steam or ninja powered. That side of the Narutoverse is so full of holes it's a sieve. He's not going to be that surprised by the DxD world's tech level.

Point: stray devils in DxD are ones who disobeyed their king: that's all there is to it, they don't have to kill anyone like Kuroka and there's apparently no judgement system - someone is declared a stray and the other devils hunt & kill them. The stray Rias & co kill at the start of the series had apparently become rather warped by the evil piece power, but I would suggest given it didn't happen to Kuroka that that was instigated by the devil being horrible to the point of starting to eat humans, not the lack of king to keep the evil piece power intact. Corruption appears to happen to all factions in DxD.

Canon?: the start is obviously quite similar; even leaving Asia unturned & the church Grigori somewhat intact doesn't change anything much for Issei in terms of events either. Naruto would be working to undermine Kokabiel & co but he doesn't really have the strength to do that on his own, so until he can build an alliance to attempt his own aims he's not going to affect the initial big events. His own story is obviously running in parallel & touching on Issei's regularily, but unless it fully involves him the canon plot - we can assume the readers already know the canon plot so the only parts of it which need putting in are anything that's changed - can just be background scenery to Naruto's plotline, connecting occasionally via whoever he interacts with. He's not initially setting out to overthrow the entire DxD establishment, he's starting out by trying to help one friend.

His goals:

Rescue Issei. Initially this is just to get Issei away, but as he learns more this might turn into overthrowing the entire evil piece system ( which is approaching overthrowing the entire devil establishment too ). This one might end in partial failure - he's not really likely to get rid of the entire system - although note that Issei did lose his evil piece in canon ( he died to do it though! not to be taken lightly ). Naruto sees evil pieces as a cross between Orochimaru's cursed seal & the Hyuuga seal with all the negatives he's seen from both. The behavior & intent of individual devils is not a factor - Hinata is a main branch Hyuuga who he'd probably trust not to abuse the seal if he knew her well enough, but just because there's one individual like that doesn't stop him abhorring the seal & wanting to get rid of it.

I don't see devils as naturally atrocious beings, but they do have a pretty rigid and uncompromising class/caste system and an arrogant disregard for the value of human and other "lower" forms of life beyond what that lifeform can bring to their peerage. The whole rating game system is just a way of showing off their collections of other beings, which doesn't say anything good to me either.

Redeem the Fallen. He doesn't want to turn them back into angels as he's initially not impressed with that faction ( may change a bit after Gabriel appears ) but then he's not anything angelic himself; he has plenty of vices. I get the feeling that angels falling is a form of corruption, a bit like brain chemistry imbalance in humans causing mental disorders. I don't believe angels can be created to be inherently terrible, and if they fall to be completely bad people then why do they not become devils? Once fallen hey're always prone to falling so are never going to be Angels again, but once any "corruption" is corrected ( in the way giving meds to humans balances their brain chemistry ) they can at least be rounded reasonable beings - Azazel is a good example - something like humans, in fact. Perhaps Angels are too orderly and have no resistance at all to or the ability to moderate the emotions of vice if they're imperfect enough to start having vices, so the fallen are a little like addicts once they acquire a vice. Gabriel helping this part of the situation might moderate his view of the Angel faction. The DxD Biblical God died so he's obviously not actually omnipotent & presumably not omniscient either, so imperfect Angels with inadequate defenses is not really a stretch. Anyone who's designed any software or any system that has to interact with the rest of the world can appreciate the difficulties.

There's a problem here if you've decided Raynare killed Issei just because she's naturally terrible, but then I start questioning a god who made Angels *that* terrible. If she was born a fallen then perhaps it works, but you've then cut off just about every ally Naruto has available and this is going to be a struggle unless he's so OP he can get started all by himself. That's not terribly interesting though.

Protect humanity from the supernatural, which puts him at odds with the Khaos Brigade ( although not with Ophis specifically ). This might lead him to the youkai faction, and somewhat confused feelings about Yasaka ( especially if he hadn't made up with Kurama when you took him out of his universe ).

So, I want to see this taken somewhere; it involves all factions on a long term basis, it doesn't bracket any of them as good guys or bad guys, there are actual goals involved and they're Naruto-plot levels of revolutionary. So why the interest in the Grigori? mostly a process of reduction and opportunism, to be honest: Naruto obviously can't go to the Devils, while he could eventually get hold of the Angel faction he has no immediate contact & he's not impressed with what he's seen of the church, so who is left? there's no sign of youkai in Kuoh either ( Koneko is a devil, aligned with the Devils ). Factions of the Khaos Brigade aren't initially visible. Either he sees the possibility of redemption for the fallen angels at least ( unsure about the mass of exorcists ) or he decides they really are unredeemable, but they're currently the only viable resource.

In addition the Fallen Angel faction is somewhat under-explored; why are they like they are? why are they not devils? what makes angels fall? why do they appear to have no organisation at all?

Misc Notes:

Asia: the early situation with Asia could make or break the plot, very easily - actually this could have broken canon easily too. At this point

- Rias is desperate and mostly absorbed with her own position.
- Rias has even less control over Issei than canon, thanks to doubts about his reincarnation.
- In canon, Issei stated straight out he was prepared to choose Asia over her. I'm surprised people don't make more of this actually, it's quite easy to read between the lines that Issei isn't quite as happy with Rias resurrecting him as he might show at this point. Of course it's easier to read it just as he's a good guy ( he is despite everything else he also is ).
- Asia isn't in any danger and Issei would not be going into a Fallen Angel base to see her, there's no need - thus he's not going to see any reason why he should back down.
- Rias is a peerage king and a devil noble heiress, and is used to being obeyed if she demands it. She let him get away with it in canon because it was a convenient way of attacking the grigori base - nothing like that in this situation.

Bad ending start; Rias demands Issei stops seeing Asia as she's supposedly aligned with the Fallen. Issei doesn't see any problem as she's still human, is a great person ( Rias has no idea because she's not bothered to meet her - same as canon ) and he's not going anywhere near the Fallen. Issei chooses Asia over Rias & walks.

- Worst ending branch: Rias is actually desperate for his sacred gear and so declares him a stray so he's legally a target. The rest of the peerage are quite capable of subduing Issei, Sona would give Rias full support, so in a somewhat ironic situation they start extracting Issei's sacred gear rather than lose control of it ( not sure who they'd stick that into though ). Naruto's got wind of Issei saying he's trying to leave & attempts to get some support - all he can get are the local Fallen ( remember the irony? ) who aren't really going to put themselves at that much risk here, even for a possible sacred gear user ally. Naruto is strong; but thanks to Sona's peerage there too & that he's only got four harassment allies with him, he takes too long to make it to Issei & Rias has the gear out of him - he's dead ( is there a DxD canon moment where a gear is pulled out of a devil? I wonder if that would actually kill them ).

Naruto pulls out some Kyuubi chakra, grabs his body, kawarimi's with a clone holding a Rasenshuriken and... people inside die. Sona's crew are outside - what they've seen is the sister of a Satan being killed by someone who's got Fallen Angel allies, using what feels remarkably like youkai and also senjutsu ( "senjutsu" appears to be the DxD equivalent of chakra it looks like, rather than Naruto-senjutsu ). Obviously the youkai deny any involvement ( as they weren't ), Azazel denies any involvement ( as he wasn't ) and oops, there's a three faction war. Ophis comes for Naruto & he's got no choice but to go because practically everyone is after him, and now it's a four way war. This might actually be an interesting story on it's own, but don't ask me to pick a winner out of it. Even if Naruto doesn't blow everyone up Issei is still dead, so there's not much reason for him to stay around any longer and definitely no reason to actively involve himself. He might stick around by choice to throw spanners in the Devil works but that's a reaction rather than an aim.

- Bad ending branches: Issei goes to Naruto; meanwhile Rias gets Asia and basically blackmails her into becoming a Devil so Issei isn't hunted as a stray. The silly selfless girl would agree, I suspect, without thinking of the leverage she's handing Rias.
= Path 1: Issei returns to Rias because now she can control him via Asia. Now Naruto has to get both of them out. Oops. Might not be something he can manage.

Path 2: Rias doesn't know Issei has actual allies so he doesn't come back, just goes either with Naruto or to somewhere safe Naruto can find for a stray devil. That's likely either Azazel where he'd run into Vali early, or the actual Khaos Brigade, where he'd probably not have a good time at all ( and the Old Satan faction is even worse than the current Devils ). The plot is now Naruto-and-Issei-save-Asia, which is exactly the same as it was already only with a character Naruto has no links with; the only interesting difference is Issei being a stray, and he's not strong enough yet to do anything. I don't believe this is anything like as strong a plot situation; for starters does Issei need rescuing? he might grow to tolerate being in a peerage. Issei is also not passive and is capable of getting himself into significant trouble; Asia will do what she's told & try not to rock the boat so she's predictable and thus a somewhat dull heroine, and so we're a bit disconnected from the Devils and can start depersonalising Rias & co into "bad guys".

- Slightly worse branches: someone from Rias' peerage ( I don't believe Rias herself would sanction this, just a step too far ) arranges an "accident" for Asia so Rias can swoop in and rescue her for Issei. Unfortunately Naruto's keeping a long distance eye on Asia and videos the whole thing ( a clone isn't going to be enough to fight off a devil, we've proved that at the start ). Issei goes crazy and activates the gear ( like the church ), Naruto tries to keep him alive and in this case Sona I suspect would stay out of it given public evidence like that. Either someone dies, which is not a good ending at this point whoever it is, or Issei & Asia escape but are declared strays. What makes this a bad route for the fic is that Naruto's now actually achieved a main aim, hasn't been around Raynare long enough to put redemption above getting Issei the hell out of the place so aim two is gone also, and he's basically left with the rather nebulous "defending humanity" part as well as "defending Issei" which as we're fairly canon-ish isn't enough to make a fic - survival isn't a "goal", it's a continual state of being. Getting Issei free of his stray devil status is an admirable goal, but not in itself as exciting as the original one. Rias is fairly shortly no longer a Gremory ( arranged marriage match, no Issei ) and so not relevant either.

There are some other scenarios to avoid too which I'll attempt to clarify if I get some time, but basically for it to work Issei is going to need to learn a little subterfuge and both him and Rias are going to have to learn to compromise. Oy Vey. Naruto is going to have a hard time keeping himself under the radar - well he has to make his name known sometime - and Rias is going to sniff Asia's secret gear & definitely want that; I'm not sure she's mature enough to do that without fracturing something; this would be a terrible time for her to look like she's manipulating someone, yet one of her bright ideas around this period is to throw Issei under the devil society bus by using him to lose her virginity.

Naruto does not want peace at all costs: in fact I don't think he ever mentioned anything about peace until Jiraiya died, so I don't even know where that idea came from. I think I need to go back and reread his little conversation with Nagato but I'm not sure he even mentioned some idea of peace there; iirc it was mostly about forgiveness and breaking the cycle of retribution, which isn't quite the same thing ( and he said straight out he really badly wanted to kill Nagato ). It was Nagato himself who said "here comes peace" which could be meant in a few ways at that point if it's even translated properly. He does what he thinks is right - from the start of the series he's had no time for how people "should" act if he thinks they're being stupid or wrong, and personal relationships always come before politics. He's not going to put peace between the factions above Issei or anyone else he's befriended, he's not going to help anyone save face when it's affecting his friends either.

Relative power levels, especially concerning reincarnation: At the end of his series Naruto and Kurama are fully synchronized & basically share each other's power, and look how utterly insanely strong everyone involved is then; and yet people reincarnate him - without any particular attempt at explaining how it's possible - as a peerage member with one piece! go and check the Kyuubi's power level by himself ( Tsunamis with a wave of the tail etc ) and compare to DxD entities, and then try and find a devil stronger so they can actually reincarnate him, which is how DxD does things. Rias doesn't have a hope, not even with a mutated piece - that would only save her some other pieces, she's still not stronger than him.

Taken earlier before he syncs with the Kyuubi and it's different, much more like Issei's situation. It's debatable whether Rias is stronger than Naruto at any point, but that's much more easily fiddled and kept believeable. The other way would be if the two universes have incompatible power systems, but then Naruto is a plain human with schitzophrenia & no Devil would be interested in him in the first place ( and wouldn't really make any sense: Naruto ninja use life energy to power things, so if there is life they have energy. ).

Anyone can do what they like to jam their characters in any situation they choose, but if it's not consistent with the worlds you're borrowing characters from it's not going to suspend disbelief, which is the main aim of fiction. Even if your characters are breaking the fourth wall & you're writing a farce, you still want to believe the characters are actual personas talking to you. If you make your own characters up you can make your own background for them & providing you don't contradict what you've already laid down then it doesn't really matter what you do, they should feel "real".

If you take someone else's character with an already existing backstory then if you just arbitrarily change something important without any process of change, readers are going to go "wait a minute, this isn't who I read a series about" and their suspension of disbelief comes crashing down ( and you've basically made an OC who is a little bit like someone's existing character ). Making someone well OOC is entertaining too, but provided there's enough backstory to make a reader care; otherwise they'll just be wondering who this person is & why they should be interested in what they're doing.

Strength isn't everything, of course - I'm doubtful Madara could do anything as calamitous as a bijuu but he has all the requirements to control one, so he wouldn't need to anyway. Rizevim is similarily cheaty but a jinchurichii would be a natural counter given they have all the traits of a dragon-type sacred gear without being prey to his ability. Naruto by himself was neutralized by Pain's control rods but broke out when he started channeling the kyuubi - it seems bijuu are toxic to foreign energy as well as flesh.

Why Naruto? why not someone from DxD, or some other series?

Well, first off Issei's situation is both very like and not at all like Sasuke, so there's no need to bend Naruto's character to fit the plot - and it's also an opportunity to let him grow as a character, not least because he can contrast with his past. He's also both human, technically, and a supernatural entity - he can use chakra/ki/chi unlike other dxd humans, would that make him a youkai? he did turn into a baby kyuubi at some point! - containing and capable of channeling / merging with an energy being on the level of dxd dragons... rather like Issei and perhaps Yasaka. I mean, I suppose some characters from other supernatural series set in our universe are a little easier to introduce, but none seem such a natural fit without changing anything about them. The only DxD characters likely to do anything would be the Hero faction & they're a bunch of dicks - a fic where they really were fighting for humans and not themselves would be a good read & easy to out them in a standard superhero role too.

One other thing that something could be made of: out of all the supernaturals who turn up, youkai and vampires are natives of earth & should have a vested interest in it. Gods & demons all have their own realms they can retreat to & earth is just a big game board, but those two at least should have more empathy & a closer relationship with humans.

Drop me a PM if you're interested & want to chat a bit more.

Beelzebub/DxD - why are there not more?

Can someone try a decent Beelzebub/DxD cross? you might have to tweak a few details about ages; Rias & Sona are third years in DxD canon, I think they'd be better as the same age as most of the Beel cast, and Beel himself at pre-school most of the time ( some elements of Beelzebub are fun in visuals but not quite so great in words, DxD is marginally more serious than Beelzebub ) - Hilda can pick him up & bring him to school at kick-out - but look at the characters you end up with.

I would imagine the starter hook would be when they managed to destroy Ishiyama & had to go to another school for a bit - it just so happens that Kuoh were thinking about going co-ed and took a bunch of them on as a test ( laff ), which leaves the Beel characters a lot of growth room still. If you think that is a little far-fetched then you obviously missed the baby appearing out of a hollow guy who doubles as a dimensional door, or the fact that the entire supernatural world seems to fixate on one high school - if you really need more spin then Ishiyama is an entire school full of fighters for devils to cherry-pick for peerages ( so think whoever runs Kuoh at least ); the devils who manage Kuoh don't know anything about existing supernatural connections at Ishayama.

Baby Beel would still be the descendent of a Beelzebub, but in this case the Old Satan faction Beelzebub & sent away to the human world for marginally better safety. The old faction - other than those in the Khaos Brigade - should be assumed to be around *somewhere* so they can still have contractors.

The peerage system was created by Ajuka - we can assume that the old faction used the Beelzebub-series contracting system and there's no clash at all with differing devil power-sharing systems. The King's Crest system is peerage-lite; it just boosts the recipient's power, but they have to acknowledge the giver as their king *first* ( couldn't do that to Issei ) and it doesn't make them devils. Apparently *using* devil power with enough will makes you at least partly a devil eventually, though. There's an interesting theme of "what makes a devil" available here, although that is already a big theme in Beelzebub. Also something of a Celts vs Roman society thing with what we see of the old faction vs the new devil society.

People:

- DxD crowd are generally elegant, refined, somewhat straight-laced ( more so with Sona ) and definitely mostly teenage princesses still, in Rias & Sona's case and Sona's peerage somewhat. OK so they can fight, but you don't actually see them fighting much - ie they generally aren't shown training and they don't turn up to school to get in a fight either.

- Oga Tatsumi. Already superhumanly strong from a young age, is able to borrow devil power in a way devils used to having peerages might be quite surprised at - a contract is rather different to being in a peerage - given he isn't ( debatable at various points in the series ) a devil himself. Has zero respect for practically anyone, quite happy to start a fight anywhere, would imagine he'd beat the hell out of either of their peerages, although it'd be a fight. By the end of the series is quite insanely powerful, effectively co-opts everyone he knows into his own human "peerage" so he can draw power from them by being so utterly badass they can't help it - and beats the equivalent of a satan.

Hilda calls either him or Beel "King"; usually from Hilda it'd be referring to Beel but at this point it's deliberately ambiguous ( given the King's Crest - which shows up on Oga's friends some time before it's fairly obvious though ). It's also implied - the crests are a bit of a giveaway - that he's partly a devil by then, although his & Saotome's status isn't really clarified. Anyway, just look at the ridiculous potential and imagine Rias or Sona trying to get him in a peerage... the culture clash would be endless. His sister is crazily strong too.

- Hilda. Another uber strong devil combat maid! not as stand-offish as Grayfia, quite the sarcastic mouth. Plays as Tatsumi's wife when it suits her - in this case might also extend to "when it's politically expedient", ie she wants to make a point to the DxD lot - but they have fantastic chemistry and about as much romance as the series manages ( IE, they skipped past pre-marriage courtship and post-marriage settling in, and went straight to the comfortable-worn-in-with-a-kid stage ). Wouldn't be around school all day to get in the way, would be equally amused and alarmed by the attention of high rank devils. Would also be nosing around background events all the time. Obviously attached to Oga no matter how much she denies it. She'd have to bodyguard Beel all day in this sort of hostile environment - having him at the school seems a *very* bad idea unless there's a more extreme threat than the school devils which is quite probable after a while. At that point you can jam Hilda in the Kuoh uniform :P and she'd be as snappy as a cat trapped in some kennels.

- Furuichi: initially weak, very clever, has Oga's back. Later on can summon Devils all the way up to Behemoth, who's the leader of the army. I know Serafall has a Behemoth in her peerage but maybe that could be a successor somehow - either that or a) ignore it, or b) Furuchi can summon him *despite* that! ( this could be extended for much comic effect ). Sona would want him. Sona wouldn't quite understand what she was after, because he *is* still part of Oga's group. Would definitely be Issei's sempai.

- Kunieda Aoi: fairly approachable, normal seeming girl when she's trying - like when she handed leadership of the Red Tails to Nene - could probably fit in Kuoh. However... great with a sword, obvious devil peerage bait. Is however ex-leader of the strongest girl gang in the school and ( iirc ) has a bunch of spiritual training and is *very* strong minded. Has fallen for Oga badly ( he is either unaware or pretending not to be - despite what their friends say I do suspect the latter as he is pretty aware generally ), but while that might look a possible weak point the epilogues suggest otherwise. Would make a good bridge character.

- Nene & Yuka could probably fit into Kuoh reasonably well too ( Nene's family looks fairly well off at least ). Ryoko... not so much. Nene especially is pretty strong. They're all quite loyal already, which would make recruiting them into something pretty difficult.

- Saotome Zenjuro; well this crazy guy could stir up all sorts of things, who knows how strong he is - he's like perfect Oga.

- Kanzaki's probably too loyal to be turned and he'd be someone the Kuoh crowd couldn't stand. Himekawa on the other hand is absurdly rich despite his appearance, is clever if oddly motivated and occasionally appears to have doubtful loyalties. However he's also quite underhanded & in the end is very loyal, so he would make an excellent undercover agent. He can play the rich kid game pretty well so he could easily fit himself in with the devil aristocrats, there's probably a lot of mileage to be made out of that. Tojo would be a candidate for a peerage member, but he'd have to find someone as strong as Saotome as a king first... but he does love cute things, so, ah, Serafall? that would be a riot.

- There's an entire gang called "Fallen Angels"!

- The top tier devils are equally as nasty as the DxD ones.

Plot-wise, the obvious main theme is the culture clash between Kuoh and Ishiyama schools and the culture clash between Old & New Devil when it comes to human power sharing and also just in general social terms - the "old faction" ( Beel devils ) seem considerably rougher & less inclined to taking on noble airs & graces - and the fight to keep Baby Beel safe against ... well, there's elements of the Old Satans ( presumably also the ones in the Khaos Brigade ) who'd want to use him or get rid of him, the New Satans who'd probably also like to nullify him somehow or perhaps as a long shot gain an ally, and the Grigori & Church who'd most definitely want to get rid of him, and a bunch of teenage girl Devils who'd probably want to mother him.

Other than the situation being resolved so Beel is basically safe for a while I don't really have any ideas for plot - it'd be good to start some way before DxD canon if there's any canon used at all otherwise there'd be far too much going on at once. Perhaps this could be the story of the year or two before DxD canon, compressing/cherry-picking events of Beel a bit as a base. I'd be amused if some resolution ended up with Oga recognised as technically a peerage king & sponsored to stay in Kuoh so the satans can keep an eye on Beel ( and him by that point ), and that's why it went fully co-ed. Who'd be the real King of Kuoh by the time DxD canon starts...

If friendlier relations are assumed at some point you might have room to bring in some more of the background DxD cast - I can see Ajuka wanting to study Oga at least ( the irony of him being the current Beelzebub is not lost ) and Sirzechs might be a little wary about Rias & send Grayfia over more often ( for the lulz of her being around Hilda ); likewise Serafall might show up "looking after" Sona more often & I'm not sure how the Beel cast would get on with her. Furuchi & Lamia might be ok and probably Yuka, but the others I don't think would know what to think. Oga would probably want to fight her :P

Notes:

- Further to the school culture clash mirroring the devil culture clash, it might be an idea that the devil civil war didn't ever completely finish. I mean it didn't really finish in DxD canon until the peace talks anyway, but having the old faction lose and then back off to lick it's wounds is a bit different to having them all lose completely and the only ones left being an odd terrorist or two. You might want to have the school clash personify the civil war faction clash in a way, and also perhaps change the Old Satan faction into something nearer a group who pretty much only values strength rather than the overtly repressive regime they're portrayed as in DxD - history is written by the victors, let's not forget. The new faction aren't paragons either; compare the Evil Piece system where unless you start as a king the only way to get any sort of freedom is to play the game and stomp on everyone else, vs the King's Crest where the powerup is a reward for a concious pledge of allegiance to someone else, and presumably just goes away if you're no longer loyal. No way out of the evil piece system other than dying.

- Generally the Beel guys all seem to use surnames with no honourifics. I think Oga's parents & sister are the only ones who've called him Tatsumi ( maybe Hilda post memory loss, would have to check ). He calls Aoi "Kunieda", which may or may not indicate he thinks of her as one of the guys but isn't too promising for the romantics :P Furuichi might call Lamia "Lamia-chan", would need to look that up too. Hilda doesn't have a surname.

- Where does the ability to do magic actually come from when someone in DxD reincarnates another race as a Devil? especially a baseline human. Is it already in the piece, or is it drawing on the King, or is the piece some sort of interface to the magic system, or is it inherent in being a devil so when the piece does the reincarnation it rearranges the reincarnatee's being? Beel contracts just seem to connect the two people together & what the holder of the contract does with the power is up to them, rather than giving pre-formatted abilities.

Name translations: why do people keep mangling what are obviously western names used as near as possible in Japanese? for instance:

- "Raiser Phenex" ( DxD ); why is this not "Phoenix"? he literally is a phoenix. Given his siblings end up with five letter words as names I suggest he's Riser or even Risel/Rizel ( which matches Ravel and Ruval better ), too, if that isn't horribly mangled either. Ed: ok so Phenex comes from bad transcriptions (wikiP ) of Ars Goetica - there are many references to a demon called Phoenix, who is a phoenix.

- "Serafall" (DxD): the symbols for Sera are the same as the first part of Sailor Moon, which has to be intentional what with the whole magical girl schtick - that would make her SailorFall at least. That is a dumb name, but well, it fits. Would hope there's something better sounding... quite a few other more western DxD names are a bit dubious.

- "Shelley Blendy" ( Fairy Tail ); come on, this is obviously "Cherry Brandy", at the worst "Sherry Brandy". "Chelia" - Celia. "Merudy" - Melody. Gildarts' first name is Clive, I've seen that used as his surname several times. Facepalm. I've seen "Cana Clive" also, deary me. Ed: well there was Robert Clive, "Clive of India" who was a bit of an ass, but Clive is generally a first name in English speaking countries.

- Even in Naruto the character filters here have "Bolt Uzumaki"; really? Why is "Naruto" not "Nalt" then? The last two syllables of their names are the same.

This sort of thing shows up over and over - please just apply a modicum of common sense.