fandom: Nagi no Asukara x Owari no Seraph crossover
pairing(s): Chisaki Hiradaira/Tsumugu Kihara
warning(s): references to minor canon character death
notes: Contains minor original characters who are there for background purposes. This focuses on NagiAsu characters more than OnS ones and so will the rest of the series. All canon NagiAsu characters mentioned in this are at least 17 years old. Each chapter is stand-alone unless marked otherwise.
chapter summary: Chisaki has an encounter with a vampire while on an item retrieval mission with her squad.

"Chii! Behind!"

Manaka's warning shriek is perfectly timed- Chisaki lifts her naginata up and over her back to meet the descending blade behind her, twists away from the sparks created by the slide of metal against metal. She turns around quickly and brings the shaft back up to defend as the vampire pushes forward in attack.

Deep early morning fog surrounds the docks where Chisaki's squad has been working on opening rusted shipping crates and checking for usable supplies in the boats that haven't drifted loose from their moorings. Chisaki had briefly gotten lost due to the fog, ending in her coming back late from her perimeter patrol. She'd immediately been on her guard after hearing Natalie's piercing whistle of warning; now she's fighting her way back to the trucks, but the fog combined with the darkness of the hour is making things difficult. Her vision is more obscured than she'd like it to be and she doesn't have the luxury of overhead light from the long broken streetlights. She can't wield her cursed gear effectively at close range, but she can't break free for long enough to gain ground, either. She thinks about calling for backup, but a gust of ocean breeze clears her vision for long enough to see that it would be pointless.

The rest of her squad is busy with their own problems- Isuzu's been cornered waist-deep in the water by a vampire and is barely defending herself, Natalie and Manaka are keeping an eye on the cargo they've already salvaged while Hikari and Yuri pick off the remaining vampires surrounding them. Whoever it is that Chisaki is fighting, they're stronger than the vampires attacking her squad members and Chisaki curses her luck.

"Chii!" Manaka calls again as another swirl of dense fog obscures the smaller girl's field of vision.

"Manaka! I'm fine," Chisaki calls back. The vampire in front of her hesitates.

"Manaka? Then, are you really…?"

Their voice is low and somewhat familiar- Chisaki's heart starts to beat faster and she leaps backward, raises her weapon and finally begins to push back. They clash back and forth through the shipping yard. Chisaki chases after them even when Natalie whistles an all clear signal, determined to bring her opponent's face to light. There was something familiar about how they'd said Manaka's name, and she wants an answer to her unspoken question.

Chisaki ducks into a row of shipping containers even though it limits her ability to swing, defending with the shaft of her naginata until she's cornered at the end of the row. Her chest is tight with anticipation and her body thrums with adrenaline- this vampire could easily overpower her, and yet they haven't. Chisaki licks salt from her lips and looks up at where her opponent stands, sword lowered by their side. She's only a few feet away from them, breathing hard from the exercise and shivering in the cold ocean breeze. The fog is starting to disperse now that the sun is rising, and the vampire straightens, steps to the side into a patch of weak sunlight, and Chisaki's breath catches in her throat. Dark brown hair, slicked back and damp with salt water, brown eyes and-

"Chisaki?"

"...Tsumugu?"

Chisaki's pulse is racing. It's been so long since she last saw her old junior high classmate- has it been six years, or seven? Everything after the calamity is blurred in her memories, a haze of saltwater and blood.

The last time she can remember seeing Tsumugu was in their homeroom class a few hours after the sudden and violent deaths of all adults on campus, during what she knew now was the beginning of the end. Hikari and Kaname had gone through the school and gathered all their remaining classmates, plus as many other students who hadn't gone home yet as they could find. They had gathered in the one classroom that didn't have a dead adult in it, trying to make sense of what had happened and attempting to calm some of the more hysterical students. A student from the high school- one of the younger ones, a pale girl with bloodstains on her blazer who clutched a cellphone with a broken screen to her chest- had just informed them of the strange people in trucks who were making their way through Oshiooshi and rounding up stray kids, and who were now heading towards the school. In the immediate ensuing panic, Hikari had barely been able to pull Tsumugu aside to inform him that the Shioshishio kids were going back to their homes. Sayu and Miuna, both of whom had been brought back to the junior high by an older student, had started crying again after Hikari had pried Manaka away from them.

Chisaki remembers how cold she felt the whole time, like she was floating away into the sky, and how Tsumugu had looked at her before they left, had held her hand for a moment and murmured "I'll see you again, I promise," in her ear before pushing her out of the classroom. Hikari and Kaname had had to pull Manaka up onto her feet because the smaller girl was still in shock, and then they were rushing up the hill behind the school and down through the forest path towards the sea.

Her heart is hammering in her chest, hard enough to make her throat hurt, making it hard to breathe. Chisaki can only gulp nervously when Tsumugu steps forwards into her space, looking everywhere but his face- at the bloody red spikes receding from where they'd punched through his fist, at the stark white of the Sanguinem uniform and the flex of his boots against his thighs. Chisaki is startled when Tsumugu lifts his free hand and reaches out to touch her cheek.

"You've changed," he says quietly, looking her up and down. She flushes and readjusts her grip on her naginata. Even with the food shortages she and the other Shioshishio kids had suffered, Chisaki had emerged from puberty as a beautiful young woman, soft and curvy and someone that made heads turn when she entered a room. Discomfort curls in her chest at Tsumugu's statement.

"I could say the same," she replies just as quietly. There's an edge to her reply though, one born from the fact that she is wearing JIDA blacks and he is wearing Sanguinem whites. Chisaki wonders what must have happened in that underground city to change her old classmate into this, a young man who is stronger than the vampires she fights on a regular basis but whose eyes are still the same calm, soft, human brown they've always been.

Tsumugu brushes a lock of hair back from her face. The look on his face is strangely fond; Chisaki can feel herself blushing at having been caught staring.

It's been years, and still the words from that day echo in her head. They'd been a promise that had carried her through the horror of what had been waiting for her and her friends back in Shioshishio, through the years spent underwater without so much as the feel of sunlight on their bare skin, and had been her anchor when she'd finally surfaced and gotten recruited into the JIDA. The feelings she'd harbored for Hikari back then had faded the more time passed, lost in the constant struggle to survive and take care of each other and the two other kids from Shioshishio who had been left without parents or other relatives. On bad nights when she couldn't sleep due to nightmares, or when she woke early before everyone else, she'd repeat those words to herself out loud until she felt calm again. She clung to the memory of Tsumugu's hand holding hers and how he'd promised to see her again.

Tsumugu's still standing close to her, watching her intently. Chisaki's not sure when she started trembling but she is- she might even be crying a little, but her face is already wet from ocean spray so she can't really tell. There's so much she wants to say to him but all the words are stuck in her throat. The pounding surf behind them echoes the beat of her heart. Chisaki's lips are starting to chap but she licks them again anyways, conscious now of how Tsumugu stares at her mouth and throat.

He starts to say something and takes her free hand in his, leans in close. She only has to tilt her head up a bit and their lips brush once, then again in a kiss that feels like the inevitable conclusion to those words she heard so long ago.

"Chisaki! Heeey! Where are you?!"

Hikari's shouting breaks the atmosphere around them and Chisaki jumps back, bringing her naginata up defensively. Tsumugu looks back up towards the street too, cocks his head to the side like he's listening for something she can't hear.

"I have to go," she hears herself saying. "Tsumugu, will you- will you be okay?"

"Yes," is all he says as he leads her out of the maze of shipping containers. "I have been so far. Now I know I will continue to be."

"Hiradaira! We're leaving! Where did you go?" It's Isuzu's voice this time and she sounds closer than Hikari. Chisaki is reluctant to leave Tsumugu, but she knows how badly her squad members will react if they see him.

"I'm on my way back!" she calls, and Tsumugu squeezes her hand. She turns to him for a quick kiss before letting him go. He pushes her towards the trucks that have appeared by the shipping yard's front gate. "I'll see you again," she says when she's halfway to the trucks. She didn't look back, and Tsumugu is gone from her sight anyways, but she knows he can hear her. "I promise." She presses the hand he'd held close to her heart.

Manaka runs up to her from behind one of the trucks, her signature feather earclips bobbing up and down.

"Chii!" she cries, "I was so worried! The fog rolled out and I couldn't see you and then you didn't come back when Miss Natalie gave the all clear-!"

"Sorry for worrying you," Chisaki replies, giving her friend a one-armed hug. "I, uh, I got lost in the shipping containers."

"Hiradaira, Mukaido," Isuzu barks from where she's now sitting in the driver's seat of one of the full trucks. "You can chat later, let's get going before they come back."

"Did we get everything Kaya asked for?" Chisaki asks absently as she helps Manaka climb into the back of a second truck and follows after her. Manaka nods excitedly and begins to chatter at her friend, post-battle stress evident in how tightly she's gripping her crossbow to try and hide the way her hands are shaking. Chisaki is only half-listening, lost in thought as Hikari slides into the driver's seat of their truck and starts it. He follows Isuzu out of the shipping yard and back onto the road towards their unit's headquarters. Manaka goes quiet after a while and leans against the taller girl, playing with one of her feather clips absentmindedly.

"Hey, Chisaki," she asks suddenly, "What happened to your glove?" She touches Chisaki's hand, the one Tsumugu had held. It's bare, unlike the hand gripping the shaft of her naginata.

"I don't know," is the only reply she can think of. "I guess it came off when I wasn't paying attention."

That's a lie: Tsumugu had slipped the glove off her hand when she let go of him and he'd pushed her towards the gate, she'd felt the soft fabric against her skin and the sudden cold air on her palm. He slipped the plain black glove into a pocket somewhere, given her one last half smile before turning to run in the opposite direction of the trucks.

Chisaki flexes her fingers and finally relinquishes her hold on her weapon, carefully stowing the blade away in the sheath at her waist and lowering the shaft to the floor between the seats. Hikari is watching her from the rearview mirror and once she catches his eye he looks back out at the road instead. She gets the feeling that he knows she lied, and wonders if he was close enough to see Tsumugu when he left. For now, she'll hold this secret close- meeting Tsumugu again- until she can feel out how her friends will respond to the news. She wonders if they will even remember him.