And, well, here comes that AU I wanted to work on. Sure, I have a few more chapters to work on for my other fics but, eh, once those are done, I'd probably focus most of my effort on this particular one, with the occasional Sukko one-shots every now and then.
That being said, however, it's amazing how a single picture from a particularly good artist can inspire an entire AU. And yes, yes, I'm well aware of the fact that the picture was supposed to be a DarliFra crossover, but still... And while I'm at it, it's amazing how that crossover picture is basically the only good thing to come from the biggest mistake of 2018. And now said good thing inspired a...Probably mediocre at best thing? Hell if I know.
I'll try my best to go for some half-decent worldbuilding as I keep going, but without shifting the focus from characters too much. And as already mentioned, the shipping won't be too heavily focused upon unless it ends up integrating into the story in one way or another, instead of distracting from the plot proper.
Winter. While many of us humans have rather divided opinions on this time of year, some enjoying the chill and the opportunities to play in the snow while others much prefer the warmer seasons, it was one of those times that both sides could agree that at the very least this particular winter was far from a harsh one. Sure, the snow was covering every single stretch of land for as far as one could see, but at the very least, the air didn't feel like it was made of icy needles.
A couple of young human maidens wandered through the almost knee-deep snow, for the road to their destination was thoroughly snowed over, not letting them take a single step without stepping into the uncomfortable cold.
"Seriously, Diana, how long is this going to take?" – The brown-haired maiden of Japanese descent asked the other, blonde one, as while her partner was treading on with no difficulties, the brunette was far from used to such conditions.
"We're just a few steps away from our destination, Akko. All we'll have to do is check around the derelict for any stray demons, and if there are none, we'll be off." – The blue-eyed blonde replied in a somewhat exasperated tone of voice – for all of her partner's vigor and energy, it seemed as if even the brunette had her limits after all, and was quite impatient to boot. Sure, Diana herself was beginning to feel physically tired, but she tried her best not to show it – she was the stronger, more capable member of the duo after all, having had more field training.
The two girls were part of a small organization stationed within Blytonbury – an average town stationed not too far away from their current destination – known as the Human Order, dedicated to upholding balance between the Humans, the Angels and the Demons. And while their fellow humans and the angels were at least somewhat cooperative in the effort, with the latter having had established an agreement to protect the human towns from the more murderously-inclined of demons, so long as the humans were also willing to cooperate if necessary, the aforementioned demons were… A special case. Most of the demons were downright feral, attacking random towns in groups and rampaging for no discernible reason other than their hatred against humans and angels alike. And, honestly, while the more intelligent demons, like succubi, incubi, inferi and the like were far more willing to cooperate, and were not as murderously inclined as their feral kin… Well, the animosity between them and the remaining two factions was far too great for their own good. Besides, unlike angels, the intelligent demons usually preferred to stay within their own plane anyway… Most of the time, that is.
Although, over the last week, the demons were acting… Rather oddly. Their attacks seemed a lot more coordinated, and they seemed to focus not on the random human settlements that they had the misfortune of stumbling into upon exiting a rift, but on entirely derelict areas. Villages that were previously ravaged by the constantly rampaging packs of stray demons – from lesser imps, to hellhounds and nightmares alike – and now were little more than ruins, somehow seemed to attract the demons' attention by quite a bit for the past week, with the latest attack happening a few days ago right on the same forgotten village that Akko and Diana were headed off to at the moment. The demons were driven off rather quickly by other, more experienced hunters, but just today, Diana was tasked to check around the area for any remaining imps or the like, and take Akko with her for some further field training as she would say it. Essentially, this would allow her to kill two birds with one stone – or, rather, two imps with one bullet.
And speak of the wicked, it wasn't long before a small crowd of imps burst right out of the snow piles surrounding the duo.
These were basically your usual kind of lesser demon – short stature, legs ending in cloven hooves, palms with sharp but short claws, barely functional wings, short tails and almost nonexistent horns. And of course, the usual demonic face. These were basically the lesser of lesser demons, expendable due to just how constantly they spawned.
While Akko was busy fumbling with her gun, firing off one accidental shot and accidentally shooting down a random imp, Diana already had her twin pistols out and was packing the filthy little things full of lead. And while the snow limited her maneuverability, forcing her to stay mostly in one place, it wasn't like she could let the imps close enough anyway – all it took was one bullet to obliterate one of these little things, and Diana's guns were certainly loaded to no tomorrow, so it wasn't long until the imps were disposed of.
"These things just never give up, huh." – Akko remarked as she looked around and saw a bunch of ashes all over the snow – apparently, not all imps managed to escape back to the demon plane while they still could.
"They'll come back anyway. Give them enough rest – and they'll go right back. These things multiply fast, lack any intelligence…"
"And are really ugly, like rat and pig combined kind of ugly." – Akko remarked, looking with disgust at a dead imp lying nearby that disintegrated within mere moments afterwards. Her blonde partner just sighed in exasperation and replied with a blunt "Yes." to the brunette's speech.
"We've still got more checking to do. I might, however, need to melt off some of the snow here, as it's impossible to maneuver in any way whatsoever." – As Diana said that, she sheathed both her guns, knelt down to the ground, and placed both her hands on the ground. Akko understood just what the girl was about to do, and stepped back a few paces.
Even the initiates amongst the Human Order were taught the most basic of holy magics – from the ability to create flames that didn't burn anything, but managed to hurt imps and melt snow and ice alike, to basic healing techniques. And while Akko was far from proficient in these magics, this was most certainly not the case with Diana.
"Cleansing Flames!" – Diana shouted out as both her hands were enveloped in an odd white flame, and as she stood up, all it took was a few hand swings to make the snow before her melt from the resulting flames. As she continued onward, melting the snow off swing by swing, Akko just quietly lagged behind the blue-eyed blonde, looking around.
The brunette couldn't help but sigh dejectedly at the sight. This place probably used to be such a nice little village, with people just doing their own business, kids playing, occasional travelers coming by, and now…
Now there was nothing. The houses were ruined, the roads were snowed over, and the whole place was eerily silent, save for the occasional sounds of winter winds and some odd, nervous breathing, as if someone was still hiding out there, shivering with cold… Wait.
As Diana seemed preoccupied, having had stumbled upon another pack of imps – or, rather, the imps from before, that apparently have regained their "courage" and decided to go back – and was busy fighting them off, Akko decided to head over in the direction of where she heard the odd voice from.
The voice was a rather… Peculiar one. While it was certainly a feminine one, it sounded somewhat… Gloomy. As if the person it belonged to was not exactly the nicest type. But, at the very least, the voice did sound human, so…
It was mere moments in that the realization hit Akko like a freight train.
She realized just whom the demons were after for the entire past week.
Without thinking, the brunette rushed forward to the house she presumably heard the voice from, and threw the door open.
She was… Certainly not expecting what she just saw.
A girl with mauve hair and red eyes, her bangs covering her left eye, and a pair of short blade-like horns protruding from her head, was sitting in the far corner of the small house that Akko decided to check. The choice of the girl's clothes suggested that they weren't exactly her own, likely salvaged off from somewhere – the most that was visible on her, at least on the upper layer, was an old black hooded coat that covered her legs all the way down to her feet, and a pair of barely-holding-together winter shoes.
Honestly, however, the one detail that Akko paid the most attention to were obviously the blade-like horns.
There was no mistaking it. The girl may have looked human, but she was undeniably at least partially a demon.
Akko didn't know what to do. The most she really had a chance to fight were those very same imps that Diana so effortlessly took out in single shots, but this…
Hang on. The demoness wasn't attacking her. Far from it, the mauve-haired girl was instead cowering away from Akko, seemingly afraid of the brunette more than she was of her.
"G-go away… Don't hurt me, please… Those… Those demons, they… They chased me enough, I don't need any demon hunters on my tail now…" – As the violette continued speaking, her voice went from defiant, but afraid, to a quiet and subdued one, further confirming Akko's theory.
"Don't worry, I won't hurt you, I promise." – Akko decided she might as well try to emphasize her point, and reached to take her weapon out so that she could put it down on the floor, showing that she wasn't going to hurt the odd girl… Only to fumble once more and drop it to the floor as it, bizarrely enough, fired off a random shot, provoking a fight or flight response from the mauve-haired demoness as she fired off a bolt of flames, with Akko barely managing to duck out of the way…
And said bolt hitting the last remaining imp out of the pack that Diana fought square in the face, forcing the damn thing to retreat for real.
"Demonic flame?" – Diana stated, seemingly confused as to where that random fireball could have come from. The imps were completely incapable of any magic, so it was out of question that she missed any imps during her fight, which meant that there was someone else out here. Seeing a trail in the snow, no doubt left by Akko as she ran into the derelict house, the blonde decided she might as well investigate.
Meanwhile, as Akko slowly but steadily got up, she noticed that the half-demoness was breathing heavily and rapidly, visibly scared out of her wits.
"Look, I promise, I won't hurt you. I'm sorry for fumbling with the gun like this, I'm kinda clumsy… Oh! I completely forgot to ask you your name!" – Oh, Akko, how typical of her to get to introductions at the most awkward of times.
"S-Sucy… My name is Sucy…" – The demon girl shakily replied.
"Aw, that's such a nice name! Mine is Akko! How did you end up-" – Before Akko could finish her sentence, however, Diana had barged into the house as well.
"What is that all about, Akko?" – The blonde asked, calmly, but sternly, before she noticed Sucy, who was now cowering away twice as badly, shivering not from the cold, but definitely out of pure fear. The violette was certain that if Akko wasn't going to kill her, then that blonde most certainly would.
"Lower your weapons!" – Akko shouted, bashing both guns out of Diana's hands, bizarrely prompting a few more acciidental shots, which, mercifully enough, didn't hit anyone, but that still didn't make the situation any easier.
"Akko, what is that all-" – Baffled.
"Listen, this girl right here? She is afraid of us more than we are of her, so-"
"Akko, just let me-" – Annoyed.
"Nuh-uh, you've got to lower your gun every now and then, lady, otherwise-"
"Akko, calm down and hear me out! I was not going to attack her!" – The blonde shouted out angrily, making Akko sheepishly yelp out a "Sorry.", then looked over at Sucy. The demoness was still cowering like no tomorrow, and it seemed that she only barely had enough energy to fire off a firebolt before being unable to use any demon magic whatsoever, so right now she felt completely defenseless, likely at mercy of however cruel the fate decided to be to her.
"So you were the one whom these demons were going after." – Diana stated, slowly walking over to Sucy, much to the girl's fear. Both she and Akko just now noticed that, apparently, the girl was incapacitated not just magically, but also physically – her coat slid up on her, revealing that her right knee was thoroughly wounded. A few deep scratches were present, but most jarring of all were the shards of glass stuck in the girl's knee.
"Oh dear…" – Akko remarked, looking over at Sucy's injured leg. After a few moments, she turned over to Diana, and after her questioning look was met with another, Akko specified: "Well, can't you heal her up or something? I mean, you do have healing magic, so-"
"That wouldn't be such a good option. Holy energy is toxic to demons after all, so if anything, my attempts to heal her would only worsen the condition. First things first, you might want to at least remove the glass shards. Then, I guess some more mundane medicine, like an ointment, might be required."
"Oh!" – As Akko rummaged around in her pockets, she took out a few random things – spare change, house keys, all the usual things, before getting out a small bottle of basic medicinal ointment and asking: "This good enough?"
"For the time being, It'll do. You'll also need to bandage her knee up, so here." – Diana procured a bandage from one of her coat's pockets. – "Take care of her while I check the surroundings for any remaining imps." – Diana remarked, exiting the house while Akko walked over to Sucy.
"So… This is kinda going to sting, so…"
"I'm not a little girl, Akko, I think I can tolerate it. " – Sucy deadpanned, showing her true colors for the time being.
"Oh… Well…Right, the glass shards."
Every single touch was agonizing, to say the least. Despite herself, Sucy often ended up wincing in pain as Akko took one shard out after another. Not to mention that demon blood often ended up burning an average human being's skin, said burns often taking a long time to heal, so-
Hang on, why would she be worried about this? She wasn't seriously concerned that this dim-witted human was going to just carelessly burn her hands, was she?
However, Akko seemed to be strangely capable of toughing it out, even though the smoke coming from the spots where Sucy's blood ended up on was a little unsettling. As Akko was finished with the nasty procedure, Sucy looked over at the brunette's hands – to her surprise, there wasn't a single burn mark on the asian girl's skin.
Perhaps it was only pure demon blood that was corrosive to human beings? Maybe. That was the sole plausible answer the violette could think of for the time being. She didn't have much time to think on the whole thing, however, as Akko went on to retrieve the ointment bottle she left on the floor for the time being.
Honestly, Akko did end up using a bit more ointment than she should have, but overall, she didn't seem to have any trouble from there on. Interestingly enough, despite the stinging, Sucy found herself feeling rather… Odd as Akko continued to do this. Strangely calm, even. Perhaps being near someone who was willing to alleviate her pain instead of causing more of it was having such an effect on her? No, it was probably just a side effect or something. Then again, somehow, when that brunette's apparent partner wasn't present, and she was left one-on-one with this little dimwit, Sucy felt strangely… Safe.
Before she could take these thoughts any further, however, Akko was already finished with the procedure. There was a bit of awkward silence until…
"You really didn't need to go that far. You could have just handed me the ointment and left, you know." – Sucy remarked in a semi-deadpan tone.
"Sure, but that wouldn't be very nice, would it?" – As much as the mauve girl hated to admit it, that air-headed human had a point. Still, she didn't dare admit, not even when Akko was finished with the overall pretty unpleasant procedure and continued to bandage her leg up as well.
"Whew. All done." – Akko remarked as she admired her handiwork – sure, the bandage was a little sloppily placed, but at the very least, it managed to cover the demon girl's wounded knee just enough. – "So, how did you get yourself injured so badly?"
Sucy just sighed and pointed over at a broken window mere meters away. The trail of dried blood leading over to where Sucy was when Akko found her gave enough of an idea what happened.
"Whoa… You had to jump straight through a window? But what were you-"
"Akko, are you done here?" – Diana called out as she entered the building. Looking over at Sucy's bandaged up leg and getting her answer, she added: "There are no more imps in the surrounding area. Seems like we scared them all off after all. Let's head home now."
"Wait, what about Sucy?" – Akko asked, not exactly keen on having to leave Sucy all alone in this filthy derelict.
Diana took a look at the demoness, then back at Akko, and afterwards, sighing in frustration, remarked: "Akko, we can't let her anywhere near the city. You know all too well how the inhabitants of Blytonbury react to demons. Not to mention that the Angel Sentinels won't let her anywhere near the city at all."
"But-"
"Akko, we did everything we could for her. At the very least, she should recover quickly enough to be capable of fending for herself. So there is no-"
"Do you two always talk about present company as if they're not here at all?" – Sucy deadpanned. Then, looking over at Akko, she remarked: "Besides, it's not like I'm going anywhere. I don't really have any point to go off from here anytime soon, and I can't travel through the Abyssal Plane like the pure-bloods. At the very least, I should be capable of fending any remaining stray imps off if they do come after me again. And if it gives you any consolation, Akko, we might just meet again."
"Oh… Alright then." – Akko dejectedly replied, getting up from the building's cold floor. – "Goodbye, then."
As Akko and Diana left the village, Sucy was pretty much left with her own thoughts.
As she took a few experimental steps, seeing that, while her knee still hurt a bit, she wasn't nearly so incapacitated as before, she sat back down on the floor, wondering about Akko's rather sudden display of hospitability. She did nothing to deserve that. And yet, there the brunette was, perfectly willing to help her as much as she could, and looking downright dejected when she was forced to abandon her for the time being instead of helping her even more.
She didn't seriously have any feelings for Akko, right? The brunette likely helped her out of pure altruism, and the most Sucy felt towards her was gratefulness, even if that help was completely pointless from a rational point of view. They just wasted quite a few valuable supplies for what? For helping out some random demon? And yet… She knew just what made her so curious about that dim-witted brunette.
There was no human being she knew that would be so hospitable to demons, that is for certain.
Yeesh... I feel like I might have fumbled greatly with the prologue here. The character interactions seem to be a little all over the place here, and while I tried to keep Diana in the neutral here, I feel like I might've messed it up badly, and my attempts at subtlety on certain moments probably weren't even there.
For my current work schedule - the second year really is proving to be too much of a handful. Whereas the first year was just hectic, with just too much happening in rapid-fire, this year, it's all a complete and utter mess due to the new schedule. Let's just say that a second-shift schedule is what I needed the least, especially considering my slight OCD when it comes to spare time, and leave it at that. Hopefully I'd still have enough spare time to write without making my university work pile up to no tomorrow.
And so, after a completely unrelated to the fic rant...
Darky Out!
