CH 27: MANIPULATION
Asia Argento was frightened. She was frightened out of her wits…
'What's happening? W-why?'
Her mind was in a complete frenzy of complex emotions and horrifying thoughts.
After being exiled from the church, she had been lost and confused. All her life had been dedicated to the church’s order and the only notable skills she had were praying and healing.
That's why, when the Fallen Angels came to find her, while she had been utterly hesitant, she had been in a state where she could have tried anything as long as it could help her preserve her life— how far and worse she could go… she didn’t quite know herself.
They had assured her that even though they were Fallen, they were still loyal to God and wished to repent for the sins that led to their fall. They also told her that they needed her powers to help in that endeavor and bring salvation to even more people.
How could she have rejected such a sweet proposal? And that too in the vulnerable state she was in.
Since then, everything was relatively smooth sailing for her, and even after coming to Kuoh City despite losing her way to her destination inside, she had been fortunate enough to be guided by a kind and gentle young man.
But this was where her good luck met its end.
After meeting the Fallens in the town’s abandoned church and the cuckoo priest named Freed, she instinctively understood that she had been duped into their heinous scheme.
Even so, she refused to believe in her intuition and deep down hoped that she was wrong.
During this mission, her role had only been to set up the barrier and wait in silence, but something had been ceaselessly nagging at her psyche. Finally, after entering the house and seeing all the blood scattered throughout the room paired with the mutilated corpses of the people this house belonged to, she could do nothing but dreadfully accept the cold reality of her circumstances.
———
When Asia woke up, her unfocused eyes stared absentmindedly at the ceiling above.
'An unfamiliar ceiling...'
Even though her mind still felt sluggish and moderately strained, she understood that she wasn't in a place that she recognized.
Slowly, her heartbeat began to accelerate while bloody images of the previous dreaded incident flashed in her mind.
"Ugh!"
Heaving up, face pale with horror and fear, she rolled towards the corner of the bed and dry heaved, coughing loudly whenever her breath got caught in her throat.
She remembered everything that happened not long ago.
"*Hic* *Hic* What... What have I done?"
Tears began to stream down her face as she hiccuped loudly with intermittent sobs.
While she had not personally participated in the murder of those innocent people, she was an accomplice nonetheless.
She had helped those wretched people… healed those people, and even set up a concealing magic barrier for them.
"You are awake."
Her cry was interrupted as a silver-haired voluptuous woman wearing a maid uniform entered the room she was resting in.
"W-who?"
Asia immediately became wary of this individual and was then surprised by this unknown feeling that was welling in her heart.
After all, this was the first time she had felt such a feeling — the feeling of doubting someone.
The feeling of not knowing whether the individual facing you wanted to use you for their own twisted purpose or genuinely help you.
This was a completely foreign feeling for her. After all, in the past, she did not even hesitate to save a dying devil which was the sole reason for her current miserable condition, the reason for her exile from the church’s order.
Lucia on the other hand was carefully scrutinizing Asia's plethora of expressions.
It was almost entertaining, seeing someone switch between different emotions so fast.
She knew very well the kind of girl Asia was.
Some people called them kind, but for Lucia, they were simply naive.
Because they did not know the reality of the world they lived in.
Because they never received true pain from the world.
They managed to keep a child-like naivety and understanding of the world; a world that wanted nothing but to swallow them whole in its distorted pit of darkness. However, for devils, these kinds of people were the tastiest prey.
After all, there was a great difference between someone who decided to stay kind after witnessing all the horror of the world and someone kind because they purely didn't know the true evil lay within the mask of beauty and peace.
'She could become the first piece under Basara’s control.'
At the end of the day, Lucia was a succubus.
Corrupting young and naive virgins was the very basis of her job.
Showing a calm smile, she took the end of her skirt and gave an elegant curtsey.
"You may call me Lucia. I am currently serving as a maid for Basara-sama. He is the one who brought you here and I helped nurse you."
"Basara... helped me?"
The young man she met just this morning. She had been overjoyed at the idea of possibly meeting him again. But…
'Who would have thought that their second meeting would go on like that?'
Thinking about Basara, she couldn't help but remember the disgusting scene of Freed tearing apart the upper part of her clothes and molesting her.
It had been the first time a man had touched her. But this experience was something she would have a very hard time forgetting.
'Are...are all men like that?'
She shuddered as she felt the need to vomit again.
Those lust-filled eyes as he looked at her like an object to vent his carnal desires. Those vulgar words and disgusting actions.
Asia was about to drown herself in a sea of self-doubt when — while hugging her trembling body — she felt a jacket being wrapped around her.
Immediately, she remembered how even while her body was on display, Basara showed no lust or desire to drown in her female form.
She remembered the anger in his eyes when Freed threatened him with her being the lunatic man’s hostage, and she remembered the kindness gleaming in them when he tried to check up on her condition.
While she was unconscious, Basara could have done anything he wanted to her, vent all the carnal wants he may have on her defenseless form.
Rather, with how powerful he was, he could have ravaged her as he wanted even if she were to be awake and fully capable of defending herself.
But he didn’t.
Basara was not like Freed.
This simple conclusion that was as obvious as 2+2 was enough for Asia’s psyche, which was falling in the abyss of despair, doubt, and mortification, to crawl back.
"That’s right.. It was Basara-sama who brought you here as I have said earlier. If you were awake, you would have seen his face and how worried he was about you as he kept you in his arms like a princess."
Lucia was not exaggerating on this part. She had been a little worried as she waited for Basara to come back home, and had even decided to walk out and search for him if he were to be a bit more late.
Thankfully, he came back just before she could and asked her to tend to the unconscious Asia.
Initially, Lucia wanted to put Asia in more comfortable clothes, but she decided against it a little later. After all, the jacket would be a constant reminder of the gentlemanly way in which Basara acted towards her.
This was very important because, most of the time, women who went through sexual aggression from men, tended to stop believing in men in general, even going as far as to hate their very existence, as a subconscious way to protect themselves.
In some cases, they could even completely forget the events of the aggression itself and only remember it years later.
While Lucia could live for more than ten thousand years, and even longer if the right conditions were to be met, she wasn't willing to wait too long for Asia to come round.
At least, the current Asia wasn't worth that long of a wait.
Of course, the easiest way would be to drug her with stimulating agents.
The fluids from the body of a succubus were powerful aphrodisiacs. Just a bit of her saliva or sweat would be enough to put Asia in perpetual heat.
But doing too much from the start would be severely detrimental in case Asia was to become more than a piece and enter a true contract with Basara.
Asia on the other hand felt her heart beating faster than it ever did all throughout this hectic day.
She wanted to meet him.
She wanted to thank him.
But more than anything, she wanted someone to show her the way forward, and she wanted that individual to be Basara and him alone.
"I want to meet him…. Please, can I meet him?"
She pleaded, nigh desperately, to Lucia.
"I don't mind but he is currently taking a...Ohoh…"
Lucia was about to answer her but stopped short as she realized something and gazed at Asia with a mysterious enigmatic smile.
"Do you really want to meet him now?"
"Yes!"
"Then... let me help you change. We wouldn't want your clothes to become wet, would we?"
Her smile grew even larger, and strangely lewder, as she thought about how entertaining the next events would be.
[ A\N:- In the original novels, the author made too light of those deaths. It was utterly inconsistent with Asia's naive and pure personality. Like bruh, imagine seeing dead people one night and getting nearly raped, then happily going on a date the next morning as if nothing happened, that too after being a naive person that never knew the dark part of society before. No matter how much I spin these events, I can’t make any sense of them, so this is my take on a more… believable string of events. ]