Fire and Fangs [1]

https://discord.gg/ZrWk2jqjbV

A few days later, I once again felt a familiar sensation of soreness within my body—however, this time the pain wasn't only localized around my stomach.

I groaned as my eyelids slowly began to part, only to feel a familiar scaly sensation on my skin.

It was my entire body—Kokuja had wrapped herself around me and seemed to have trapped me into some sort of death grip.

Curse this midget husk of mine.

"I'm not against these 'cuddle sessions' of yours, but can they at least not involve squeezing the air out of my lungs?"

And hopefully not attempting to eat me.

'I can't help it, maybe it's that 'animal instinct' thing you were talking about' she retorted, continuing to confine me within her grasp.

As a matter of fact, I think her grip might have tightened.

"At this point, we've established that your intelligence exceeds that by no small margin—now get up we have training to do"

'Ehhhh…don't be so stingy, just ten more minutes, kay?' Unlike last time, my arms were restricted, so I couldn't even attempt to get her off me.

Not to mention that things like these prevent me from understanding whether she likes me (as a partner) or not—it always starts in the morning with her hissing at me until I give her some sap, and her using me as a body pillow during the night.

"Fine, but you better keep your word—if I'm late, Azazel is going to kick my ass" I mostly agreed because there really wasn't much I could do.

I would try to get her off with my flames, but the whole "inability to harm" thing seems to go both ways as well.

(AN: Except for him disabling her, which he'll never do—as if I'd let him get off that easy)

Not to mention, she has a high resistance to fire, taking her habitat into account.

'When will you learn?' She somehow made the coil tighter than before, laying her reptilian head on my chest without a care in the world.

I really need to find a way around this entire "mind-reading" thing.

After a solid ten minutes of being subject to Kokuja's constriction, I had finally been set free—she actually kept true to her word, shocking.

She reverted to her scarf form and I made my way to the gym—when it comes to keeping my flames stable under pressure, it's just a matter of practice.

According to Azazel, my rate of improvement is "astonishing". I suppose that could be attributed to my somewhat natural aptitude when it comes to control.

Now, when it comes to incorporating Kokuja into my flames—I've managed to come up with an idea on how to go about it, however, I still need Azazel to confirm a few things for me.

I walked into the gym and as always, Azazel was stood there, ready-to-go in full sportswear.

"Figured anything out yet?" he questioned.

"Actually yes, I'm guessing the solution stems within the link a user shares with their golem—currently I'm providing her with [Mana] which means the energy from my Sacred Gear is inside her, but it should be possible to reverse the connection as well"

He nodded in approval. "Good, you're on the right track—but have you noticed a fundamental flaw with that idea?"

"Yeah, even if I manage to get her to transfer her [Mana] to me, there's no point if it doesn't directly link with my Sacred Gear, reversing the connection would just mean she's 'sustaining' me, which is pointless and won't allow me to actively use her [Mana]"

"Exactly" That's it? Is he not going to continue?

"Erm, isn't this the part where you tell me how to fix it?" I queried.

"Why would I do that? That's for you and her to figure out by yourselves, Mr. Independent" Oh come on, he can't still hold a grudge over that—it was just a phase!

"Now then, let's see how far you've come with your flames" I once again adopted a defensive stance, and conjured a longsword composed of ghostly flames.

Although something felt different as I wielded it, normally when I create it, it's like I'm fighting against my flames to force them to take the shape I want.

But this time—it just, kind of, happened. No resistance, no nothing—my flames just obeyed me without question. This means my control must have crossed some kind of threshold, I should be able to start applying them in more complex manners from now on.

"It seems you've noticed it too, this time I don't mind giving you an explanation of sorts—previously you have been forcing your flames to adopt uses that held no purpose behind them"

A bit cryptic if I do say so myself.

"Can't say I really see what you're getting at" I said with a puzzled look.

"It means that you have been adopting things like swords, without the intent to attack or defend—remember the most fundamental component to using a Sacred Gear, is to quite literally bend it to your will"

So he's basically telling me, "you deny your weapon its purpose" but I can see how that hinders me. Maybe that's why it was so easy to cut through the vines when I was in the marshes because I wanted it to "cut".

That's really…simple… I guess. That just means I need to imbue them with the intent to "defend"—but it can't be that easy, can it?

His pellets of light, which I am still unable to track via my eyes, made contact with my flames…and they held up just fine.

Wait, so all this time, instead of focusing on keeping my flames from combusting, all I needed to do was tell them to defend? It was that fucking easy…

Fucking hell do I despise this world's logic sometimes.

"Don't get too complacent—the amount of strength I put behind that was almost non-existent, but we don't have much time, so I suppose you'll need to learn some offensive maneuvers as well, defense alone won't get you very far with Valia"

So he was holding back like crazy—but such was within my expectations, I'm not delusional enough to believe I can even hold a candle to him as I am now.

Though, I still fail to see how I'm going to manage to keep up with Valia with merely two weeks of training—I guess I have no choice but to trust in Azazel's regimen.

I showed him my current two methods of attack that I have developed so far, one being the longsword for close quarters, and the arrow as a projectile.

He instructed me to focus on my projectiles, as with my lack of training I just don't have the technique to engage in any close-quarters combat.

When it comes to stationary targets I'm already quite proficient with my aim, but Azazel is trying to prepare me for sparring—thus my ability to hit moving targets is far more important.

Apparently, unlike with my sword, I can't just will it to hit—not to mention I already tested it back in the marshes. The only thing I could do with that method is increase the strength of the arrow.

Which I think is mad bs, but that's just the DxD world summarized, so what can I do?

The amount of concentration it requires is substantial—manually controlling the direction of my arrows means I have to control flames that are not only disconnected from my body but a good distance away.

I'm essentially like a Wi-Fi Router, and the further the flames are from me, the weaker our connection is—not to mention I have to continuously maintain its energy, so it doesn't lose all its power.

And the only way to make it easier, is to have a stronger router, which in essence—is me.

…

Azazel's rigorous training sensation finally came to a close, I had a light lunch as I felt as if I was on the verge of throwing up—and went back to my laboratory.

Alright time to work on the other goal Azazel gave me, I needed to somehow incorporate Kokuja into my flames.

"Kokuja, do you know what [Mana] is?"

'Hah?' Ah, I'm meant to speak in Kokuja terms, almost forgot.

"Can you feel a funny energy inside you right now?" That should work.

'Ohhhh, is that what you call [Mana]?' Success.

"Basically there should be two separate forms of [Mana] inside of you right now, one that comes from me, and the other being your own—are you able to distinguish them?"

I know when it comes to me my [Mana] is just generalizing my Sacred Gear when in actuality it runs off my stamina, but Kokuja's brain might fry if I try to explain it to her.

And concerning Kokuja, her [Mana] is most likely some form of [Ki] though I doubt it's [Senjutsu] considering she isn't a Youkai, anyways, Azazel will most likely tell me eventually.

Well there's one energy that doesn't feel like my own, and another that does—so I suppose I can'

"Excellent, since you can already sense our connection, I'm going to need you to replicate it, but instead of my [Mana] going into you, put your [Mana] into me" I have no idea if she understood that or not.

'Are you sure it isn't dangerous?'

"What's this now? Concerned for my safety, even after you nearly ground my ribs into dust this morning?" I mocked.

'Koen…'

"Truthfully, I have no clue—Azazel hasn't said anything, so at the very least it shouldn't be life-threatening" Or so I think.

'Alright then…'

And just like that, I felt a foreign energy invade my body—she did it that easily? I expected even a little bit of trial and error.

Does that mean her control exceeds mine? And by what margin?

Anyways—right now I have her [Mana] in the form I described to Azazel, it's just [Mana] that I can't do anything with, it's in a passive state. Now taking into account that Azazel specifically told me to incorporate her into my flames, I most likely need to transmit the energy into [Flame Shake].

I held out both palms, and in my left hand I conjured my flames and in my right appeared a mass of purple fog. I presume this is Kokuja's [Mana]—it's quite pretty.

'Aren't you the little playboy?' She teased—she really has a knack for picking up on human vocabulary.

"You know what I meant, now quiet down for a bit I need to focus" Now one approach I could take is attempting to will [Flame Shake] into fusing with Kokuja's [Mana].

However, the main problem I see with this is that only one energy is willing to mix, I need both of them to combine with each other—anyways, I'll just treat it as a little experiment and see how it goes.

The two energies interacted and "combined" to form a ghostly flame, with very faint specks of purple within it.

And upon analyzing it…no changes—just as I expected, this method causes [Flame Shake] to overwhelm Kokuja's [Mana].

Hold on, Azazel said to incorporate my golem into my flames—not just her [Mana], would that mean?

"Kokuja, by any chance are you able to control your [Mana] whilst I'm channeling it?"

'Dunno, let me try' I conjured a mass of hazy energy once again, and waited to see what would happen. And then it began to change, the energy started to move all over the place, despite the fact I wasn't doing anything to it.

I get it now—it's fairly simple, I just have to will my flames to combine, and Kokuja has to do the same with her [Mana], and here I was thinking it was going to be rather complex.

"Are you able to do it?"

'Most likely'

This time both energies combined with one another, instead of one trying to force the other into submission—and the result was a perfect harmony of white and purple dancing among the flames.

Now then, shall we see what this can do?