Chapter 5: Circumstances
The girl still lay on the ground, and while the woman with the black hair was all smiles, her male counterpart didn't seem to agree with her idea. "Hey, don't go offering our food to some random kid!" he growled.
I backed off, not wanting to test his patience which was already wearing thin.
"Do you have no compassion left in that shriveled black heart of yours?" she coaxed, scooting closer to him, twirling her finger against his chest. "Don't you remember how hard it was for us in the beginning? It wasn't until someone showed us the way that we were finally able to cope with our new lives."
The man blushed, turning away as he scratched the back of his head. He cleared his throat, "But still, we can't be careless. We came here on a mission, remember? This isn't just some sightseeing trip."
A mission?
Who sent them on the mission, and better yet, what could they possibly be searching for? I thought about it, and Kana crossed my mind. Maybe he had unfinished business that followed him all the way out here.
Other than that, I had no clue what purpose two vampires would have to come to this little run-down village.
"Ugh, fine. You make a good point," she sighed. She looked at me, more serious now, but her gaze was still soft. "Look kid, why don't we just all take it easy, and you help us out by answering our questions? If you're honest, we won't cause you any trouble."
"But if you waste our time and start lying, then things are going to get ugly real fast."
I gulped and nodded my head. I could tell that they were stronger than me, much more experienced. They weren't on Kana's level but even I wasn't blind enough to see that I couldn't take them on my own, especially two against one.
"Good. Glad we understand each other. Now then," the man started. He stood up and walked over to me, pacing back and forth with his arms crossed behind his back. "We're looking for a group of rogue vampires. They call themselves the Stray Dogs. They're all just a bunch of leaches who refused to make an allegiance to a Suit."
What the hell is a Suit?
I tilted my head to the side, avoiding his eyes. I didn't want my ignorance to be misconstrued as a lie, but I was genuinely confused. "I really don't know what you're talking about. I've never heard of these Stray Dogs before."
He narrowed his eyes at me, walking closer, checking my bare skin as if he was trying to find something. "So, you say, but you could very well be a Stray Dog too. What's your rank? Are you a number?"
"A-A number? Do you think you could elaborate more for me? What's a number? Better yet, what's a Suit?"
"Jesus, just how freshly turned are you?" The man became more annoyed the more I answered his questions with more questions. "But then again, you are a newborn. Probably abandoned by your creator just like the rest of us."
This was the first I'd heard of this. Perhaps I was fortunate that Kana took responsibility for me, because these guys seemed to have a much different story from mine. Life wasn't as fortunate to them as it was for me. But I wasn't going to tell them that.
"Vampires are not in any way equal. There's a hierarchy, those with privilege and those without. It's easy to tell who from who," the man said matter of fact, as if this was common knowledge.
The woman stood up, joining her partners side. She crossed her arms against her chest, "The most common type are us, the numbers. We make up most of the vampire population, and our power ranking is determined by a tattoo found on our bodies. You must have one too, you just don't know it."
She slid up her sleeve and showed me her symbol. It wasn't anything intricate or fancy, but looked like a tattoo, or better yet, a brand. It was clear as day marked on her skin in bold black ink, the number six.
The man followed her example, showing off his tattoo which was on the back of his left shoulder. And just like her, he too had a number, but his was a seven. If what they said about the power ranking was true, then he was just slightly above her in strength.
"See? We showed you ours, so it's okay to share with us." She smiled, but there was something haunting about the way she smiled. She was an ethereal beauty, and I could tell in my bones that I shouldn't trust her. "Better yet, if you don't know, why don't we help you find out."
She looked to her partner and nodded to him. They began walking closer to me, backing me into a corner. She grabbed my arm, and I instinctively pulled away.
I grimaced, her long, sharp nails drug and cut against my skin, wounding me. "W-what do you think you're doing?" I said, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.
"I told you the gentle approach wasn't going to work. Just leave the rest to me and you search for his mark." The man disappeared in a flash, reappearing beside me and knocking me to the ground with a leg sweep.
I buckled under the weight of my own body, falling forward.
He then grabbed both my arms, pinning them behind my back as he sat on top of me, pressing me into the ground.
My lungs felt crushed beneath him, and my skin crawled when I felt the woman's fingers slink beneath the collar of my yukata, slowly pulling it down. "Stop! Let go of me right now!" I said, struggling, but the man just held onto me tighter.
I felt more vulnerable the more she peeled my yukata away. The little dignity I had for myself, the little ounce of courage I was able to muster from these past two weeks, it all felt meaningless. Here I was, being bound and forced to strip by two murderous vampires.
Nothing about me had truly changed, I gained power, but against those with similar circumstances, I felt like I was stuck in the past. I was still a weakling, despite my transformation.
A familiar sensation which I hadn't felt in a while began to surface. As my anxiety grew, so did a deeper primal instinct. My heart started pounding again, and my face felt hot. My tear ducts burned as tears of blood streaked down my cheeks.
The man looked at my face, perplexed. "What the? Is he crying blood? That's something I've never seen before."
"Just hold him still! He's starting to panic and kick more!" The woman shouted, continuing her search for my mark. My yukata was finally passed my shoulders, and the woman brushed the hair on the back of my neck to the side. Then, suddenly, there was dead silence followed by a gasp.
"You see what I see, right?" she said, her voice trembling.
The man gulped, sounding equally as nervous. "This guy's not a number at all. He's a damn Suit!" He grabbed my head and slammed it into the ground. "So, you're some fucking noble blood? You must have thought it was real funny acting like you feared a pair of numbers!"
I coughed, continuing to cry. "I beg you, just let me go! I'm not lying about anything! I have no idea what you're talking about, I swear!"
The woman bit her nail, clearly bothered by the violence. "Maybe he really doesn't know. He probably just found out, like we did."
"None of that matters now, he's a fucking Suit! Which means his master is probably nearby. There's no way a Suit like him would be some random stray. We need to get rid of him. Now."
"Are you sure this is the best course of action?" the woman replied, still in doubt.
"I'm sure. He's a Suit, and he doesn't belong to our faction. We should cut off any loose ends before things grow out of control and our masters gain a new threat."
My face became pale as I looked over my shoulder.
The man raised his hand in the air, his nails growing longer and he pointed the tips of his fingers together, wielding them like a blade. "Sorry kid, but this is where we say goodbye. I'm not taking the chance of letting you go free."
As he plunged his hand down, time started to slow again. The rapid beating of my heart came to a stop, and suddenly my vision was taken over by a flash of red.
"I thought I told you to get the hell off."
The words didn't even feel like mine anymore. They felt foreign, like something–someone else—had spoken them for me. My blood boiled, and I didn't even recognize the power coursing through me. It exploded out of me all at once.
CLANG.
The blood from my arm swirled in a brilliant crimson light, folding and reshaping in the air and turned into a liquid blade. My blood collided with his nails, causing sparks to fly.
He deflected my attack and frantically leaped away, gaining distance between us. "What kind of power is that?" he gasped, his voice rising in panic. "It's nothing like the powers of the four Suits!"
Something took over me, because all my anxiety was washed away in an instant. I exhaled a controlled breath and stood up, pulling my yukata back into place. The blood that swirled around me like a protective barrier formed into a crimson saber, floating in front of me. I grasped it, the comfort of the hot liquid steel fitting perfectly in the palm of my hand.
"So, you've finally decided to show your true colors, huh? That's fine by me. I was hoping to get into a fight anyways!"
I just stared at him, my mind calm and collected. But beneath the calm, a storm was brewing. I lifted my blade, pointing it at him, as if coaxing him to come at me. "If it's a fight you want, then come at me. I won't hold back."
The man scoffed as he shook out his jitters. "Cocky little brat! I don't give a damn if you're a Suit or not! You're not even a full vampire yet!" He lunged at me with quick precision. "I'll teach you what it means to respect your elders!"
"Wait, stop! You're no match for him—" The woman begged for her partner to listen. But it was too late.
My blade sliced cleanly through his neck, like a warm knife through butter. His head rolled on the ground, thumping, before stopping in front of her.
His body slowly dropped to the floor, lying helplessly at my feet.
The silence was deafening more than anything. The woman, shocked, fell to her knees and picked up his motionless head, cradling it in her trembling arms. She stayed frozen, her eyes wide in horror, disbelief etched into her face.
"For fifty years me and him have survived together," she said, her voice surprisingly calm despite her distress. "And you cut him down, just like that. You killed him."
I stood tall, the blade in my hand glowing even brighter now that it was coated in the essence of another. "If it wasn't him, then it was going to be me. So, forgive me if I don't feel that empathetic."
The woman started to laugh, at first it was a slight chuckle, but quickly evolved into hysterics. "You know what I find so funny? Is that even though he's gone, I don't know whether to scream or cry! But instead of doing either, all I can do is laugh about it!"
She rose to her feet, dropping his head which made a nasty splat against the blood-soaked tatami mat. "You know, I truly meant what I said earlier about you. I felt bad for you, because I thought you might have been one of us."
I raised my brow, barely noticing and dodging when an almost invisible swipe grazed my cheek. I clutched my face, looking at the blood which coated my fingertips.
"When I was human I dreamed of having children. When I saw you I had a selfish thought," she said, her gentle nature replaced with grief. "I thought we could take you in, raise you as our own. But just like the Suit that you are, you're the real monster, not us."
She pulled her sleeve up, and suddenly the six that was on her arm started to rotate, showing her real rank. She was never a six, she was actually a nine.
"As you get older, little tricks like this just come easy. We were turned together, and out of my respect for my love, I didn't want to make him feel inferior. Even now before his death, he thought he had the strength to protect me," she glared at me, her eyes glowing a bright, threatening blood-color.
"But I should have taken the initiative instead."
It was too fast for my eyes to track, she disappeared, I couldn't even hear her footsteps. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain in my side where she kicked me. I was sent flying, bashing through the door to the private courtyard. I tumbled through the grovel, slamming my back against the stone wall of the hot spring.
I gasped, the pain shooting through my body. I lost focus, and my crimson blade lost its shape, returning into a simple puddle of blood.
She stepped through the tattered remnants of the wall, all the while continuing to laugh. "You probably look at us and think we're the monsters here. But you should understand that it took years to harden our resolve. Killing didn't come easily to us; it was something that we learned."
Her eyes were dark and calculating, but there a coldness to her gaze, as though the warmth of humanity had long been extinguished.
I groaned as I forced myself to stand, my body protesting with every movement. The impact of her blow had shattered whatever semblance of composure I had left. It wasn't just the pain; it was the reality of it all.
My body ached in way I had never known before—every breath felt like shards of glass tearing through my chest. I hadn't been hit like that since Kana shoved me away from Kaito. But this? This was far worst. It wasn't just a warning; she wanted me dead.
I coughed, tasting the metallic sting of blood on my tongue. My fingers instinctively reached to wipe it away, but I couldn't stop trembling.
"But you," she continued, her voice lowering, becoming something more intimate, more unsettling as she fell into madness. "You Suits are different. There's a reason we numbers were taught to fear you. You're all animals. You kill on instinct, without even a thought. No hesitation. No remorse."
She knelt before me, her eyes studying me, like she was trying to see within the depths of my being. Her nails, once delicate, began to lengthen, sharp as daggers, and she leaned in closer, her presence suffocating.
"I shouldn't have argued with him. Unlike me, he was right to be skeptical of people. I on the other hand tried to retain some piece of my human heart, but that weakness left an opening. My hesitation to kill you has led to my lover's death!"
She slowly started to puncture my throat with her nails. It was slow and painful, but the entire time her eyes shined with excitement, happy to watch me suffer rather than give me a quick death.
"Look," I strained, my eyes staring up at her, "This might mean nothing to you, but I truly am sorry. If only things had gone differently, maybe we could have understood each other."
For a heartbeat, something flickered in her eyes—a brief tenderness, a trace of the woman she had been. A ghost of the past she had lost. Her smile was gentle, the kind you'd give to someone you cared for, someone you knew would never see the sunrise again. It was almost… tender.
"If only," she whispered, her voice thick with something unspeakable. "But life isn't a fairytale. People don't get their happily ever afters after all."
I closed my eyes as I waited for that final plunge.
Her nails cut through the air, a swoosh in the wind as she went to strike for my throat. What was only a moment felt like an eternity to me.
"That's enough of the dramatics, don't you think?" Immediately, the temperature started to drop. The night air became frigid, and frost began to form on the glass of the windows.
The surface of the hot springs glazed over with ice and then rang out in the night the reassuring sound of Kana's bell.
He appeared almost like a phantom or a defender from the dark. He stood gracefully atop the frozen surface of the hot spring, the air around him was both cold, in a physical and emotional sense. "Do you mind letting go of my pupil? I didn't save him just to die at the hands of a filthy number."
The woman stared at him, a loss for words. She took in his radiance, and her hand that was just at my throat dropped to her side. "That silver hair and those red eyes… I can't deny it; your presence is both a blessing and a curse."
Kana smirked playfully, and the ice around his feet began to shift and creak, echoing eerily into the night. The flat surface of the ice changed form, growing rapidly around him into dangerous, large spears of ice.
"H-had I known he was sired to you, I would have never… I mean, I wouldn't have even tried to—"
"Tried to what? Take what was mine? You should have learned your place, number. This mistake just cost you your life."
The woman stared toward the ground, her eyes bouncing frantically in their sockets.
I half expected her to argue, but her change in demeanor was striking.
Kana's appearance alone was enough to stop her murderous intent. Just what did it mean to be a Suit? And what did Kana's status mean to her, exactly? Just who the hell was Kana anyway?
"I apologize, my King… Forgive me."
"Only in death will you be forgiven," Kana sighed as he looked at her. He might have been ruthless, but his tone wasn't all that harsh. "Any last words before I end this?"
She stayed quiet for a moment, still on her knees, then looked up. "I regret what's happened. I too, regret these turns of events. That's all I have left to say, my King."
Kana didn't even reply to her. He just continued to smile, and the spears of ice around him followed his command and shot out at all sides, growing and folding dangerously, before puncturing into the girl's body. It was gruesome and horrible, not a peaceful death by any means.
She groaned and choked on her blood, her body lurching before she became still, fear being her last expression before she took her final breath.
"Are you alright, Rui?" Kana asked me, softly. He walked off the ice and knelt before me, putting a reassuring hand against my shoulder.
It was like all my trauma hit me at once, and my courageous bravado disappeared. I started to cry out loudly and I pulled Kana close, burying my face into his chest.
Fear and anxiety flooded my entire being, and all I could do was cry. I had witnessed too much death and had caused too much death to be able to move on.
Kana stiffened for a moment, but he reluctantly returned the hug. He stroked the back of my head, holding me tightly. "It's okay now. Everything is going to be alright."