by Nisioisin
But─
Had I been ready to quit being human?
“Well, it’s quite convenient for me. Guess why.” Kissshot drew out her pause─and went on in the same arrogant tone as ever, “It is because there is something thou must do for me.”
“…You said something about having to rely on me.”
─To rely on thee in the days to come.
“Yes. My body could only recover to this point with thy blood alone─I am far from my full power. Going forward, thou must act for me.”
“G-Going forward?”
“Indeed. I always act looking two steps ahead. For that is what makes me the iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade.”
“……”
What a long slogan. How many characters long was that when you added in her name? Plus, only the “cold-blooded” part made sense.
“What’re you gonna make me─”
What are you going to make me do? I almost asked her the question─but that would derail the conversation. If Kissshot was going to try to make me do something, then that was quite worthy of discussion─but first, there was something I needed to ask.
I had the answer to my lead-in question.
So I asked her─the one thing I wanted to know. More than any other.
“Can I─” I began, making up my mind and looking straight at her, to show that I had the resolve─depending on her answer.
“Can I─ever become human again?”
“…Hm.”
That was all.
Kissshot didn’t respond in any of the ways I expected her to.
I was sure she’d be mad, or bemused, or perplexed─but all she did was nod, almost like she understood.
“Aye─I thought so.”
She even said that.
My predictions had been off─but it seemed as though hers had been spot-on. Even the fact that I’d ask. It was as if she knew all along.
“I understand how ye feel.”
“Y-You do?”
A greater existence. Those were Hanekawa’s words, but judging by Kissshot’s tone, I was certain that she ranked humans below vampires such as herself.
For her, humans were lesser beings.
In that case─
Why wasn’t I happy to have become a vampire?
Why would I ever want to go back to being human?
I’d thought she’d reply along those lines, but─
“Of course I understand,” Kissshot said casually. “I was once invited to become a god, but I declined.”
“A-A god?”
“’Twas a long time ago.”
In any case, she said, sounding more interested in changing the subject than getting our conversation back on track.
“I understand─not so much wanting to go back to being human, but wishing to remain as one is. I thought thou might ask for that. While I did say, ‘Welcome, to the world of the night,’ I did not expect thee to wish to stay.”
“I see─” I began, before realizing something.
I hadn’t gotten a reply yet.
“And so? Can I─”
“Sure,” Kissshot said, her voice a notch lowered. Her eyes were still as cold as ever. I might even say her gaze was piercing.
“Sure ye can.” Despite that gaze, she declared with certainty that I’d be able to turn back.
“I give thee my assurance. Upon my name.”
“……”
“But naturally, my servant, to do so thou must do a few things for me. I need not hesitate to issue orders to my servant─let’s not think of them as orders, but as a threat. If it is thy wish to turn back into a human─obey me.”
And then─naturally─she let out a gruesome laugh.
005
Dramaturgy.
Episode.
Guillotine Cutter.
Those were the names of the trio who robbed Kissshot of her parts─or so she said.
While Kissshot told me about each of them and their traits, words didn’t seem adequate to the task.
It was like she was explaining in a foreign language, so my mental image of all three of them was fuzzy. But the most important point about them was beyond easy to understand.
The man named Dramaturgy: her right leg.
The man named Episode: her left leg.
The man named Guillotine Cutter: both of her arms.
They had taken her limbs. Which was why she’d been on the verge of death─in fact, Kissshot wasn’t just on the verge, she would have surely died if she hadn’t sucked my blood.
Despite being immortal.
She would have died.
And she understood that better than anyone else. She’d resigned herself at that moment. Though she narrowly escaped, barely alive, from the trio, escaping was all she could do.
“Why─”
As she explained this to me, I couldn’t stop myself from interrupting her.
“Why would they steal your arms and legs?”
“I am a vampire. Ye humans─well, not thee, but humans call those like me monsters,” Kissshot said matter-of-factly. “It is only right for monsters to be exterminated.”
“……”
“Those three specialize in slaying vampires─it is those bastards’ profession to kill me. Ye’ve at least heard of the existence of those who specialize in eliminating those like myself, have ye not?”
I guessed so. They were discussed hand-in-hand with vampires. My memory was fuzzy, and it wasn’t like I knew all that much to begin with, but I had at least heard of them.
“So they slew you?”
“Don’t be a fool, I haven’t been slain yet─but having my limbs stolen hurts. I’ve nearly none of my regenerative power left, and in my current state, I can hardly fight.”
“I see.”
“Which is why,” Kissshot went on, as if stating an obvious conclusion, “ye shall contend against the three and simply return to me my limbs.”
“Huh?” I was dumbstruck. “‘S-Simply’?”
“Well, though I cannot provide thee with details at the moment, in order to turn thee back into a human, I must be at my full power, in full form, so to speak. And for that, I absolutely require those limbs.”
“B-But me, fight? It’s totally not my thing, you know?” I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I started to sound like I might have. “I guess my reflexes aren’t terrible, but they’re not great, and you can see how I’m built. I’ve never been in a fight before… Oh, and, wouldn’t they just try to slay me, too?”
I, too─for the time being─was a vampire.
The chances were high. After all, I would be up against a trio whose specialty was slaying vampires. Even if they let me off the hook because I was a former human, why would they simply hand back limbs they’d won in battle?
“Fool. That was when ye were human,” Kissshot said, appalled. “As my thrall, and now that I am at my weakest, it would be simple for thee even to slay me.”
“Ha, are you weak for a vampire or what?”
“Nonsense!”
I got scolded. Basically, she was a scold, this one.
“How can thou reach such a conclusion from what I’ve said? I’ll have thee know that I sit among the top rank of vampires. They call me the aberration slayer.”
“The aberration slayer…”
If that was supposed to sound fearsome, I wasn’t, you know, feeling it? To begin with, what was an aberration? Was it like a yo-kai? Whatever.
“Um, even if I’m stronger than you in your weakened form… Even if I am, those three were able to take your limbs from you when you were at your full strength, right? Your full form? In that case─”
“I slipped up only because there were three of them. I’d made light of them and was completely unprepared. I’d presumed I could take even three of their ilk together.”
“Huh…”
“In short, faced one at a time,” Kissshot said─overbearingly─“they pose no problem
for thee. To put it plainly, ’tis an easy job, and a cheap price to pay for turning back into a human.”
It wasn’t as though her vague reassurances had persuaded me, but that was how I ended up walking around town at night.
It was a while after the sun had set that I was finally able to leave that abandoned cram school and grasp exactly where I was. The place’s coordinates were on the outskirts of my already provincial town─in fact, I’d had no idea that such a building, some bankrupt cram school, even existed out there. I imagined that it was forced out of business when one of those major cram school chains decided to open up in front of the station. While it was perfect as a hiding spot, I was amazed that Kissshot had found it…
I’d already called home.
Fortunately, it was my little sister, the older one, who picked up. I asked her to tell the others that her big bro was using spring break to go on a journey of self-discovery.
She seemed to buy it.
…But didn’t that mean she saw me as the kind of older brother who was at risk of setting out on “a journey of self-discovery” at any moment? Kinda pathetic.
Immediately afterward, I received a text from the younger of my two little sisters.
Both of them were still in middle school and weren’t allowed cell phones. She’d sent the message from the computer in our living room.
“Dear big brother,
“I know that, at times, we all have to lose our way. But when you have a moment to reflect, try to remember. Where was it that Mytyl and Tyltyl found the bluebird of happiness?”
………
Chastised by my little sister…
I was honestly upset when I realized that I’d wasted some of my phone’s battery on receiving the message.
I did have to recharge my phone somewhere… I couldn’t just go home and pick up my charger, and maybe I needed to buy a new one at a convenience store. Since there was no way the electricity was turned on in the remains of that cram school, a battery-powered one. Of course, it wouldn’t have to come to that if I wrapped it up before my battery died.
“No problem for me? They aren’t my problem, okay? I should’ve told her they’re her problem.”
But…maybe it was an easy job after all?
While I didn’t fully believe her at first, it did seem as though my abilities as a vampire were the real deal─but explaining how I tested them might be incriminating. In light of laws against the destruction of property, permit me to remain silent.
Hey, if a building is abandoned, then a little damage here or there─you get the idea.
“At any rate─I feel like we’re overlooking something,” I’d said.
Kissshot’s words had left me wondering. That, plus the fact that the whole exchange had proceeded at such a clip.
“So, where are these three?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“You haven’t a clue…”
“Thy concerns are unneeded and uncalled for. Walk around at random, and they shall find thee─these are professional vampire hunters, remember. Finding vampires is what they do.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Aye. They should pose no problems while we rest easy in here, but if we walk outside at night, when our vampiric powers thrive─they will surely come buzzing like insects to a lamp.”
“……”
“They must be roaming this town at this very moment, searching for me. With any luck, it will be settled tonight.”
Keh heh heh, Kissshot had let out a disconcerting laugh.
Hmph.
Well, not having to look for them was neat… Because how would I even do that? I had nothing, least of all personal connections. No way.
Still─that conversation proceeding at a good clip didn’t sit right with me. Shouldn’t I be questioning a whole number of things? Even if it was a hard fact that I’d become a vampire? For example. I leapt straight on it when she said it, but…would I really be able to turn back into a human again? What proof did I have that Kissshot wasn’t lying?
She could be using me in order to recover her arms and legs. Feeding on me hadn’t been enough, so she was literally using me as her right-hand man─not to mention her other limbs.
No, Kissshot was clear from the beginning─these weren’t orders, they were a threat. She would be relying on me.
…But if I got nothing in return, there was no way I’d agree to help her. And to get me to, she lied─and said she could turn me back into a human. Was that it?
Luring me. With a lie. I wanted to become human again─and Kissshot had predicted that from the beginning.
“……”
No.
If I was her servant, she didn’t need to do anything so convoluted. She could order me, right?
…Mmh.
No.
In her current state, she had lost most of her skills as a vampire─so maybe she had to lie to keep me under her command?
That actually made sense…
While she did look to be about ten now, with that ten year old’s body of hers…when I recalled her original visage, she seemed to be quite intelligent. At the very least, if she’d spoken truly, she’d lived for five hundred years.
She couldn’t be dim.
And anyway─it felt like I hadn’t asked the most basic question of all. It was as if I’d been so caught up in becoming human again that I was neglecting a crucial point: I hadn’t asked why Kissshot was even here in Japan, and moreover, in such a provincial town, to begin with.
Yokai really didn’t seem to be the right word. But in any case, vampires were Western monsters, right?
As for the three guys─hadn’t Kissshot essentially brought them to Japan?
“…Hmmm.”
Whatever the case, all I had were guesses. Whether or not Kissshot was scheming, I had no choice at the moment but to believe her, to cling to her words. It was she who had grasped the initiative, without question.
First I would get her limbs back─we could talk after that.
Her story may have been made up of whole cloth, but she couldn’t have been lying about the vampire-slaying specialists, too.
And it was then, as I was doing as Kissshot had told me to, trudging along a sidewalk-less street as bait, that I came across a fork in the road─and it happened.
I had to wonder, for someone who had lived for five hundred years, could that vampire called Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade actually be pretty dim?
Faced one at a time, they pose no problem for thee─or so she’d declared, but where did that premise come from? She was the one who lost because there were three of them. Her own words!
Far from proceeding at a good clip─what an idiot I was.
But─it was too late.
Or, in a way, maybe I had realized just in time? I did envision that very situation a second before it occurred.
With any luck, it will be settled tonight─that was what Kissshot had said, but without any─it would also be settled tonight.
With me dying for a second time.
“Wh-What am I supposed to do?”
First, from ahead and to the right─
A massive man who looked over seven feet tall was walking my way, a greatsword with a wavy blade in each hand. They talk about a mountain of a man, and I could see his powerful frame all but bursting through his clothes; I could have used each leg of the jeans he wore as a sleeping bag, and you could’ve made five of my shirts from the material it took to make his.
As if to hold back his unkempt hair, left to grow for God knows how long, he wore a hairband above his forehead.
A grim expression on his face, his mouth shut and perfectly straight, this man slinging two wavy greatswords who seemed to be made of pure muscle─glared at me.
He looked exactly as he’d been described to me.
That man─was Dramaturgy.
The man who took Kissshot’s right leg from her.
“U-Uurgh.”
And ahead, from the left─
A man was closing in on me who seemed to cut a slim figure, and not just in comparison to Dramaturgy. There was still some youth left in his face, but there was nothing innocent about the look he gave me. While it’s a common saying, if looks could kill, I’d have died then and there. That was how sharp his sanpaku eyes were. He wore a white traditional school uniform, which, depending on your perspective, really did make him appear young─but the gigantic cross he balanced on his shoulder with one arm did much to dispel that impression. It looked like someone had taken one of those plain crosses you wore as an accessory and multiplied its size fiftyfold. A lump of silver, the cross was comically large, about three times the size of the man, and probably his own weight cubed. It wasn’t a stretch to imagine that the cross was used not as an instrument of worship, but in combat.