Chapter Text
Like Salvation
Rage of Bahamut (c) MAPPA
Like Salvation (c) fhclause
Chapter 1: More!? Kiss!?
Nina sighed, staring over the lake at nothing. Her fingers fiddled mindlessly with her bounty hunter bracelet. Only it wasn’t a bounty hunter bracelet anymore—never was—but now had been modified into something more useful.
Nina sighed again.
“Oi.”
She looked over her shoulder. “Oh. Azazel.”
“What are you still doing here? Go prepare. We have a battle to go to.”
“Hmm. Okay.” But she still stayed as she was.
Azazel narrowed his eyes and brought them to the bracelet she had been playing around with. Rita had suggested to Nina to modify her bracelet into something that can help her regulate her heartbeat if she came across beautiful men. Azazel didn’t agree, obviously. He still needed her power to stop Charioce.
But Nina had insisted and argued that she could take it off when he wanted to use her power. He had begrudgingly agreed.
So why the hell did she look so sad?
Azazel scratched the back of his head, agitated. If her head is not in the game, she could get hurt. If she got hurt, he won’t be able to use her.
If she got hurt, Rita would give him the zombie punch of the century.
He clucked his tongue in annoyance. He had learned that it was faster to persuade Nina to do his bidding than pulling her around, so he sat beside her. He ignored her surprised squeak and her useless effort to hide her face in her knees. He stared at the lake. “What’s wrong now? Shouldn’t you be happy you can now drool over good-looking guys without changing into a dragon?”
Nina gasped, offended. “I don’t drool over them! And this isn’t about that!”
He rolled his eyes. “Then?”
Nina scowled at him before turning to look at her bracelet. “I just wonder...if I can ever be normal. I want to look at people, stand near them and hold them without worry that I’ll change into a dragon.”
“But you can.”
“Yeah, but not with the good-looking ones.”
Azazel stared at her as if he just discovered she had the plague. He frowned in disgust. “Pervert.”
Nina instantly turned red and punched him on the shoulder. He fell with a grunt. “I don’t mean all of them!” She looked away with a huff. “Just with the person I love. What if I fell in love with someone and I can never hold him or kiss him? Or even look at him?” Nina fiddled with her bracelet again. “I know I can use this bracelet, but that’s a cheap way of doing it, don’t you think?”
Azazel stared at the passing cloud, wondering why he sat beside a girl with a love problem.
Oh, right. Her power. Charioce's downfall. Demons' domination.
He sat up and rubbed his still aching shoulder. Love wasn’t his forte, but control was. “Take off your bracelet.”
Nina’s face turned twice shade redder. “Wh-what? What are you gonna do?”
He looked at her in the eyes. “You trust me, don’t you?” A nod and he repeated, “Take it off, then.”
As she put her bracelet beside her, he continued, “Close your eyes. Listen to the lake. Can you hear it?”
Nina closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes.”
“What else?”
She straightened her back, trying to listen better. “Birds. And the wind. Oh! The grass makes a sound too when the wind blows!”
“Good. Focus on those. Just listen and don’t open your eyes.”
Nina did just that and was about to tell Azazel other things she could hear when an arm came around her shoulder. She snapped her eyes open. “A-Azazel!”
His other hand covered her eyes. “I told you not to open your eyes.”
“But you’re—”
“Nina. Trust me. Close your eyes.” When she stopped squirming, the hand on her eyes lifted. He didn’t move the arm around her shoulder. “Listen to the lake. The birds. Pretend I’m not here.”
Her breaths came in and out quickly, but she did as he told. When her breathing calmed somewhat, he put another arm around her. She whimpered. “Listen, Nina. If you want to hold someone like this, close your eyes and listen.”
But she had stopped listening. All she could do—feel—was Azazel. His warmth all around her. His hair that kept brushing her ear. His smell of leather, blood and just Azazel and—
She could hear his heartbeat.
Her own heart was pounding like crazy, but strangely, she wasn’t worried that she would turn into a dragon. Her senses were overloaded with so much Azazel that she couldn’t even think of being a dragon.
But before she could wrap her head around why, Azazel let her go. He smirked at her. “See? A hug and no dragon.”
She knew she was blushing, but she couldn’t stop staring at him. “Oh. Ah. Yes.”
“Just do as I told you and maybe next time you can do more.”
Nina slapped her red cheeks. A dirty thought had just passed her head. “M-more!?”
“Yes. Didn’t you say you want to kiss?”
“Kiss!?”
Azazel frowned. Why was she getting red? And why was she glo—“Shit! Nina! Don’t —”
She turned into a dragon.