The strike is a surprise, which is appalling enough in itself, that Aziraphale allowed himself to be caught off guard. The worst he'd anticipated was a stream of water to the face. That hurts, and he stumbles enough that this absurdly bullheaded human gets past him, his hearing abruptly and briefly shorted out, now too muffled to hear anything but Melanie screaming - he turns his head sharply, in time to see her up, furious, and the ringing stops just in time to hear her call him hers.

That - that's - he doesn't even know how to begin to react to that. And he doesn't have time anyway. For a split second he just gapes at her. The human has brazenly (unsurprisingly) ignored Niko's command, even as immense and terrifying as he suddenly is, and is now on his kneels, close, too close to Melanie.

"Stop," he snaps, raising his hand. He freezes the human in place. He'll be able to breathe, observe, think, talk (though Aziraphale's keeping his finger on the proverbial trigger for that one), but he will not make another move toward her. "Enough. Don't hurt him, Niko. I'm all right."

He brushes himself off, disappears the sword and his wings, and stalks around the human to Melanie. He reaches out, and Orisa gladly crawls back up to his shoulders, allowing him to pick Melanie up.

"Everything's all right," he murmurs to her. Like that, her wound is healed, her blood is gone. Simple.

He turns on the human.

"If it is help you wanted to offer," he says, "perhaps you ought to listen to her next time."