Chapter 18: Turning point part 2

Beta read by n1ch, Shigiya and Solitary heart.

.

.

.

-Kuoh-

"Baraquiel-san."

After all these years, he finally decided to reach out, huh? But I wonder why he called out to me first.

"..."

His silence was quite telling, a common answer for those who cannot defend themselves, those who didn't have an excuse so I did not ask why he did such a thing, nor will I pretend to care about him. "You messed up."

"I know."

'The guy actually acknowledged his mistake?' Then why was he talking to me on the phone? His first course of action was to contact a boy he'd barely interacted with, a boy who never bothered to get on his good side instead of his daughter. Talk about dad of the year…

"We are going to have a conversation Hachiman-kun—"

"I would prefer you'd call me Hikigaya."

I may have sounded harsh, but the man lost any respect I had for him at the moment.

"Hikigaya-kun… I know of my mistake and I wish to make amends. That is why I require your help, I need you to be the bridge between me and my estranged family. But as you said before, we need to meet in person first, someone is waiting for you at the entrance. He will bring you to me."

Baraquiel put too much hope on someone like me, this image he painted of me being the key to his solution, was a lie.

I was a firm believer in second chances, but considering he was a being born since the creation of Christianity, I wonder how many second chances he'd gotten before. Wouldn't work well for his image if this turned out to be his tenth mistake.

But for Akeno and Shuri-san, I would listen… for now.

{Break}

-Occult Research Club, Rias POV-

In the darkroom lit by a single source of light, sat Rias filling in some paperwork that came with being one of the co-owner of Kuoh.

As the Gremory heiress, she had the power to grant asylum and residence to foreign beings of different factions in her territory. May they be magicians, youkais, and even other devils, none could settle down without her and Sona's written permission.

"Maous, this is giving me a headache." Lately, with all the commotion between the church and the devils, all supernatural beings decided to maintain a distance from Kuoh. Even if all remaining priests, nuns, and exorcists had long left, no one wanted to live here.

Worst of all, it somehow got out in public that the White Dragon Emperor frequented these parts and no one wanted to confront that monster.

Who in their right mind would choose to live in a city with a roaming Heavenly Dragon Emperor? No one.

No supernatural people meant her title had no power whatsoever. She wanted to prove to her parents that she was a capable ruler and competent heiress, but with an empty territory, it became impossible to do so.

"Maybe I should try to establish a link with the youkais. If it's successful we can have some of their people live here and further strengthen the relationship between our factions."

The only major problem was getting into contact with their leader in the first place. Yasaka was notoriously hard to reach for these last few years. And that was with leaders of entire factions, she was just an heir and not even a powerful individual at that. Without asking her brother or parents for help — it would be pointless.

Last she heard, the nine tails had a daughter. So it was reasonable to assume that Yasaka wanted to maintain a low profile, for now. "Maybe a trip to Kyoto in the future would be worthwhile. What do you think about it, Koneko?"

In the middle of the room, seated on the luxurious sofas was Koneko, snaking on some sweets as she usually did.

"I...I'm not sure about that, buchou." She said hesitantly, not that she was scared of her kind, instead, she feared what they were associated with; Senjutsu.

Not all of them could use Senjutsu as some only practiced with Touki, which was life energy that was present in all living forms. Normal humans could use it, to even devils, but according to her king, she only knew of a single devil who used Touki and he was known as the strongest individual of their generation.

But what she feared the most was encountering her big sister. She still remembered the blood, the fire, the screams, and the carnage caused by Kuroka in front of her eyes.

She was not ready. Not yet at least, if ever.

Rias knew she messed up when she saw Koneko all pale and still from her past bad memories. She shouldn't have brought up the topic of Youkais with her rook, "I'm sorry Koneko-chan, I didn't mean to."

Moving away from her desk, she hugged her precious servant, in turn making the little nekoshou relax.

"Everything will be alright I promise you."

Knock

Knock

"...?" She wondered who it could be.

Kiba, who brought in Koneko, had already left for the Underworld to train with Okita-san. Akeno accompanied him to visit her mother at the Gremory Castle.

"Come in."

Nevertheless, she invited whoever this person was, only to be surprised to find Hachiman walking in with the same slouch and his same lazy demeanor.

"Yo," he waved at her and Koneko.

"Hachiman-kun?"

"Senpai?"

It wasn't every day when Hachiman would visit her club on his own this was the second time. First, she had to resort to both Akeno and herself to drag the lazy boy to her club for him to meet the others.

Though for some reason he wasn't so keen on Kiba, he clicked with Koneko after a few interactions.

"I'm not disturbing anything am I?" He asked.

"No!- I mean, of course not, Hachiman-kun, you are always welcomed here." Not wanting him to go away, she stumbled on making everything feel normal for him.

"Join us for tea." She invited him, hoping he would accept her proposal. She was in no way, near as good as Akeno with tea brewing, but she knew the basic steps to follow.

Her mother made sure of that.

"Sorry, not here for tea. Just came to inform you I will be late today, so don't wait for me." Huh? Was he going on a stray hunt, again? Almost like he could read her thoughts, Hachiman shook his head, "and no, it's not another hunt, I'm not willing to nearly die again this week. Rather I'm going to meet someone… to resolve some past issues."

That was even more strange in her opinion, Hachiman had never done these kinds of meetups before. But before she could ask any more questions, Hachiman took something out of his pocket and threw it at Koneko, the latter catching it perfectly.

"I passed by the canteen and got you something, don't eat it all up." He immediately left after saying that.

"Wait!" Unfortunately, he did not hear her as the door had already shut behind him. She grew exasperated, this day kept getting more tiring and even her devil magic did not help with the headaches. "That man...can be a handful sometimes."

"Agreed." Said Koneko.

Rias, heard the little girl munching on something, on closer notice, she saw Koneko holding a pack of small daifukus. "Where did you get those?" Was it the thing Hachiman just threw at her?

"Senpai." That answered her question whilst munching cutely on her snack.

"Can I have some?"

"No."

Of course, she wouldn't share.

{Break}

(Hachiman POV)

After notifying Rias, I was set to meet this person Baraquiel had sent.

Walking to the front gate made me feel like I was heading on the front lines of a war or something. It was nerve-wracking and stressful, this would be my first time doing something like this and I was dealing with a Seraph.

'Keep it together, myself. This isn't the worst thing you've done, at least it's not a date with Yukinoshita Haruno.' Not even having all the power in the world would keep me safe from that woman's schemes.

It was then I found the man Baraquiel had sent over. How did I know that this was the guy?

Well, who else would wear full-on tight leather in the middle of a freaking heatwave?

A mentally challenged supernatural dude.

'Hmmmm, that man...' I heard Vritra's mumbling over something.

"Oi, kid over here!" The man noticed me and waved at me to join him. He looked to be in his late 20's or early 30's, black hair combined with streaks of blonde hair and a goatee.

He gave off a chill person vibe that made one want to trust him, and drop their guard around him. He was the opposite of Baraquiel, having a wild Tony Stark look.

What interested me the most was the recognition of this man with my Sacred Gear's dragon. 'Do you know him, Vritra?'

'I...am not certain, for reasons unknown to me, I have this irresistible urge to crush and burn him to a crisp...strange.' He said while growling in anger with a touch of confusion.

Well, wasn't that just swell, a potentially troublesome guy that already set off Vritra. This made me put up my guard even more around this guy as I approached him.

"Nice meeting ya, heard a lot about you from my... subordinate. Call me Az, I'm an old friend of Baraquiel, that old chump helped me out a ton in the past, and not gonna lie, I kinda messed up with him recently so I'm tryna help him sort out his issues." He sure is jovial like I expected him to be.

"Uh...I'm...Hikigaya Hachiman, nice meeting you." I shook his hand while looking around, "So, where are we going? I don't see any vehicles, so around the neighborhood?"

Az, burst out laughing out of nowhere like a psycho, earning some weird looks from the passerby and s step back from me. 'Don't tell me Baraquiel sent over a madman.'

"Hahahaha! You're a funny one, I'll tell you what, just close your eyes and hold my hand. You'll soon be where Baraquiel is in a blink of an eye!" He said before extending over his hand towards me expecting me to hold it.

As if!

"I rather not hold hands with a random old man in front of the school. I may not care that much about my image, but I do like not having more unnecessary attention on me." I was more than capable of following him around, from walking to flying… kinda. So there is no need to make things weird.

My comment was not received well.

"Hurg! Old!? I'll have you know kid, my charms are widely acclaimed, I have won the hearts of countless maidens throughout the world... but I am indeed old." He sighed, "Now come on kid, don't make Baraquiel wait for long, or else you'll be late and worry your girls."

"Oi, I'm not a playboy." Okay, he was getting insistent as well as annoying, very quickly. "Listen, I still would prefer if you'd tell me where we are-"

"Oh, for the love of Gabriel's massive tits, come here!"

In front of me, 12 glorious gigantic jet-black feathered wings sprouted behind Az's back, shadowing the sun itself from me. My eyes popped out in realization. 'A Seraph!'

"!" Suddenly, my hand was caught by force, and I found myself soaring upwards to the skies, beyond any speed I ever experienced!

'Oh, I finally remembered! This guy is the one who has probed my sacred gears countless times as research, Azazel the damn crow!'

WHY DIDN'T YOU REMEMBER THAT SOONER!?

"Waaaaaaaaa!" I screamed my lungs off as I felt the wind pressure hitting my face in full force! My vision went all white from the clouds and the sky being the only thing I could see. "Are you insane!? I will die!"

Out of instinct, I tried prying myself of this crazy lunatic, unconcerned whether I fell or not. At least then I had a higher chance of surviving.

In my panicked state, I called out [Delete Field] and spammed its ability.

[DELETE FIELD!]

[RESTRICT!]

[RESTRICT!]

[RESTRICT!]

[RESTRICT!]

No matter how many times I used its abilities, it did not seem to affect nor slow down the man at all. My actions only made him amused.

"HAHAHAHA! That tickles, no wonder Vali had some problems bringing you in, his arrogant ass was guaranteed to fail against opponents with tricky powers like yours." I did not hear whatever the guy had to say, as I kept screaming for dear life and wished to wake up from this weird nightmare. "Oh, come on kid enjoy the breeze, the cold air rushing past you, and witness the beauty of nature! You're a dragon, you'll fly sooner or later, so get used to it!"

Not having any idea what to do with this situation, I turned myself towards the only capable person I knew of. 'Vritra, what do I do!?'

'...this is Azazel we are dealing with...just go with the flow partner.' He gave me a brief answer before going completely dark.

'Vritra?'

'Vritra!'

'You're ignoring me now!? Why are you silent all of a sudden! Did I wrong you in any way before?'

In my short moment of clear thinking, I promptly remembered a few keywords uttered by Azazel, 'Vali.'

It immediately dawned upon me who this guy was.

"Wait a minute, did you say Vali!? That silver-haired bastard!? So you're his boss! That psycho nearly killed me, and now you plan to do it yourself!? Let me go!" This was double bad, not only was this guy crazy but so were his subordinates! Was this an assassination attempt orchestrated by Baraquiel!?

'Forget punching, I'm gonna burn that stupid beard off your face, Baraquiel!'

"Ha! Sorry about that kid, he is a bit messed up in the head. But you're right… I should have come by myself and taken you up for a drinking party!"

The high-speed flying, the huge amount of panic, and my constant screaming were getting to me. My stomach churned while I started feeling continuously nauseous. My face was green, moments away from letting it all loose.

"Oh, we're here-hey! Don't vomit on my clothes, these are true vintage antiques!" Too late.

If anyone were to look up at the sky, they would see rainbow-colored glitters falling down. Hopefully, no one was unlucky enough and gets a face full of it.

Trying to compose myself now that we stopped at Mach speed, I tried assessing our location."Wher-where even are we? I only see clouds."

Yeah, being thousands of feet upward made it hard to recognise any sort of landmass.

Azazel merely had a small mischievous grin on his face that did not bore well for me. "Well, you're about to find out." His fingers which were holding my arm slowly loosened themselves.

"...Azazel I swear I will have my revenge if you—" I put two and two together and guessed what was going to happen next. This guy was planning to drop me!

"Don't care, have a nice fallen experience!" With a few twirls of his arms, he threw me away like a wet towel!

"Ahhhhhhh!" Having no control of myself, I kept plummeting down towards the ground while spinning a hundred times a second!

My head felt like it would split in two.

"We'll meet again soon, kid!" I heard his faint voice from far away.

"Fuck off!"

I had to take hold of my current situation fast! My Levitation spell would not work when I was so out of control, I needed to be on stable ground to use it. "Vritra!? How can I survive this fall!?"

Thankfully it seemed he had an idea, 'Remember, a Sacred Gear evolves and changes forms depending on the wielder's will and desires if they are strong enough.'

No shit Sherlock, I was not an emo kid so, of course, my will to live was strong!

"Well, I certainly desire to not die!" And still, I saw no change with my gear! Next time I got an anonymous phone call like that, I would just ignore it and not face potential death like this!

'Concentrate, partner!' scolded Vritra.

Right, no time for snarky comments, I got to make this work...or else I died.

Come on!

I channeled my desperation to survive.

Come on!

I had every moment of my past life and the current one flash before me. I still had so much to do, I did not want it to end so abruptly!

Come on!

And I channeled my anger, my rage at Azazel and Baraquiel for being the ones responsible for literally dropping me into this situation.

COME OOONNN! "You better evolve you useless piece of junk, give me wings!"

[B̸̲̋̇̿̇a̶͉̰̳͚̋̔͐̀̃̃͝l̶͎͉̖͕̮̎̾̆̾͑͆͠á̸͖̬̼̳͕̻̿̆̄͛̊n̶͚͇̓͜c̵̦͖̾̊ề̸̠̫̄̌̏͝ ̶̛̫̈͜b̵̧̼͕̦̫͔̬̳́̂̎̾̚͝͝r̵͓̝͇̈́ḙ̴͉̥͔̭͋͛͒̌̅̄̕͝ã̵͈̘͖́͆͆̽̎͜͜k̷͕̭̥̹̽̀̒̉̚͝é̶̛̮͓̦͙̥̰̽̑̍̾͛̚͠r̶̨̋̆̂̽]

[̶M̶A̷*̶*̶B̸O̵L̸*̸E̸ ̴V̷R̴I̴T̵R̵A̸ ̴*̴R̷O̷*̵*̸T̸I̷O̵N̸]̴

.

.

.

[̴I̵n̷c̵o̴m̶p̶l̸e̶t̸e̷ ̷g̴e̶a̶r̶]̶[̴E̸r̷r̸o̷r̷]̷ ̴[̷R̵e̸s̸e̷t̵]̶

[Dark Prison Wings!]

The black pauldron that covered the right side of my chest blew in a vibrant black and purple coloured light!

It began changing, expanding, covering both my shoulders and my stomach. It now had the appearance of a black chest plate, a smooth black shiny cuirass with two small glowing gems on my shoulders, and a larger one in the middle of my chest.

Every second, I felt a strong pulse of power streaming through my body, making me feel stronger by the second. 'What is this?'

'This is you tapping into your true potential, partner.' Even his voice became clearer, as if he was by my side talking to me. 'You were just on the cusp of achieving [Balance Breaker].'

The biggest change was my new addition.

Wings!

Resembling those of Vali's, mine was like a black version of the [Light Wings]. Its wingspan was twice of my height, the skeleton was mechanical with sharp stone edges and the wings themselves were like a black holographic-looking glass.

"Yes!" Even as I continued to fall down, I no longer feared for my life and cheered on loudly.

'You did it! As expected of my host!' I could feel Vritra's joy and pride brimming from inside my soul.

Now, I needed to start using my [Dark Prison Wings] before I touched the fast approaching ground.

'Be careful! Relax and let your wings do the rest, let them make you glide through the air.' Don't even think about their movement or anything like that, let them do the work and you just focus on where you want to go.

I listened to his instructions and let my whole body relax, my idle wings reacted and began moving on their own.

'Yes, just like that, you're learning.'

My fall was slowly halted as I now hovered in the air. No...this felt more secure, more relaxed than anything my [Levitation] spell could ever hope to achieve.

This felt right.

I enjoyed this feeling, I basked in the surreal realization that I was now flying for real! 'So this is how Akeno and Rias felt whenever they flew, no wonder they do it often.'

Unfortunately, my musing did not last long as I heard an unpleasant voice behind me,

"See, I knew you had it in you kid, just needed a little push." There was Azazel, acting all cheerful as if he hadn't just kidnapped me and threw me from thousands of meters above the ground.

"You again!? Did you plan on killing me and also, where did you bring me? I have no bad blood with you, why are you after me?" Like seriously what did they want, I was willing to cooperate with them if only they would leave me alone afterwards.

"Don't worry kid, I ain't your enemy, we'll talk about this later, just follow me to Barachiel, he's just over that building." He waved off my question and gestured at a building far away in the distance.

Just like Kuoh Academy, this building was fancy and was a Victorian-era large mansion. The garden alone was big enough to fit an entire Kuoh neighborhood.

'Is every supernatural being a billionaire?' If so, then I would have to rethink my decision.

Even my hunts only earned me the equivalent of an average yearly wage. I only kept a few thousand yen with me while the rest I would anonymously donate to my parent's savings.

They deserved their early retirement, especially my hardly present father.

What caught me off guard was another monument in the distance.

'Isn't that the Eiffel tower?' Yes, it was, there is no way I would ever mistake one of the world's most well-known pieces of art."You kidnapped me to Paris!?"

That flight felt like it lasted a minute or two, so how did we end up from Japan to the capital of France!?

"Hey, hey kidnapped is a rather strong word, I would prefer...dragged you against your will to halfway around the world."

"That's the same thing!" This dude was gonna be the death of me if I don't keep my distance. Just why in the world did Baraquiel send him of all people I don't know. But this will affect our talk, and I'll be clear to him about that.

"Haa… Okay, let's just get over this farce."

With a mental command, my wings flashed in a dark purple light as I flew across the skylight like a black beam at speeds I only ever dreamed of.

"Aren't you going to thank me for the new dragon wings?"

This guy just wouldn't leave me in peace, wouldn't he?

.

.

.

Coming to face a man for which I held little to no feeling was weird. The years did not seem to affect him, he remained the ever stoic individual as I remembered.

He was waiting for me, near the entrance of the mansion with no one by his side. Now that I noticed such a big estate I haven't even seen a guard or servant anywhere.

"Hikigaya-kun" I did not miss his now polite tone of voice, which put me more on edge.

"Baraquiel-san." Just like our first meeting, we were locked in a staring contest, once this was between a young child and a father. Now I more or less saw it as a staredown between myself and a stranger. "Your 'friend'' kidnapped me and made me fall from the sky."

"..."

"..."

"Wait, what?"

"Hahahaha!" Azazel burst out laughing in the background.

-------------------

The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 3 other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post monthly commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.