by Nisioisin
“No. You would have become number one in no time,” Dramaturgy said with a straight face. “Incidentally, I am currently number one.”
“…Hunh.”
I’d never taken him for some grunt, so I wasn’t particularly surprised. If such a vampire was so eager to slay her─Kissshot really had to be something.
The iron-blooded, hot-blooded, yet cold-blooded vampire.
The aberration slayer.
I see.
“I see why you wanted to have me join you, paradoxically enough─but next time, try a little harder with the invitation? Shape up or you’d never pick up a girl.”
It wasn’t as if I was endeavoring to imitate Oshino, but I tried delivering a sleazy line. It felt like the kind of moment where I needed to act cool.
“Ah.” Dramaturgy simply nodded.
Of course the quip didn’t land. How embarrassing.
…But this was my chance.
Dramaturgy had probably left those wavy greatswords somewhere in order to recruit me. Although I got that I was immortal, blades were scary, period─so I was grateful for this turn of events.
Dramaturgy’s greatswords─with which he must have had severed Kissshot’s right leg.
Of the four severed limbs, the only wound that had looked smooth, defined.
It actually seemed difficult to slice like that with a wavy edge─but if Dramaturgy didn’t have them with him, it was an opportunity for me.
The winds favored me─perhaps.
“Then let us begin, pitiful boy. Thrall of Heartunderblade. You have no time to waste, correct?”
“Wait, before we do that, let’s go over the conditions,” I said to Dramaturgy, who had begun to loosen his arms, rotating them around and around. “We need to be on the same page.”
“Very well. Then make sure we are.”
“If I win─you’ll give Kissshot’s right leg back to me, right?”
“Only if you’d tell me Kissshot’s location were I to win.”
“Fine by me.”
“Then it is fine with me, too.”
Let us get to it, he said, rotating an arm─and striking at me.
The sheer speed of it belied his massive physique, his fist barreling toward me with his whole weight behind it like a pro boxer’s punch.
I could see it.
I could see it with my vampire eyes.
But─even if I could see it, there was nothing I could do about it.
“Agh… Ah!”
A moment later─my left arm was gone. It hadn’t broken, nor had it been torn off.
The impact of Dramaturgy’s punch had blown it to smithereens.
“Ee…Eeeeeeeek?!”
It wasn’t a matter of pain.
Fear had instantly overtaken my body. I mean─I’d just lost a fifth of it!
Reflexively─reflexively, and instinctively─
I started to run away from Dramaturgy.
But after no more than two steps, I tripped over my own feet and nearly fell─and it seemed to be a good thing that I had. A gigantic fist swooped through the air where my head had been only a moment earlier.
I barely avoided tumbling over, supporting myself against the ground with my left hand.
But my mind was racing─left hand?
Huh? My left arm should have been blown to bits─but it was there?
“……….!”
Vampiric─regeneration!
But really, it worked that fast?
While the fabric that had gone flying along with my left arm didn’t regenerate together with it, my bare arm only emphasized the healing powers of vampiric flesh.
I had tried out my physical strength, but I hadn’t gone so far as to test my healing powers─so I was gobsmacked. Though upon further consideration, there was the time at the very beginning when I’d experienced pure hell after exposing my body to the sun─so there was nothing surprising about this level of recuperation.
“What’s wrong? Are you just going to run, thrall of Heartunderblade?!”
“Don’t call me weird names!”
I began to calm down after seeing my left arm regenerate. All of the fear I felt vanished. Yes.
Yes, indeed.
My opponent was a monster─but I was a monster too now.
What was there to be afraid of?
“Raaahhh!” I yelled as I did a backflip.
My athletic abilities had unmistakably improved as well. I’d always thought that you needed a trampoline or computer graphics in order to do a backflip.
Then─I struck a pose and faced Dramaturgy straight-on for the first time.
“Ah ha. So you’re ready to make a stand.”
“Thanks to you─so I won’t ask you to pay for the clothes you ruined.”
As I said this, I began to think.
Dramaturgy.
A vampire-slaying vampire.
Kissshot had told me that all I needed was a good grasp of the characteristics of a vampire. If I remembered correctly─
They were weak to the sun. They didn’t like crosses. They didn’t like silver bullets. They didn’t like holy water. They didn’t like garlic. They didn’t like poison. They died if you stuck a stake through their heart. Those were the weaknesses, right? What other characteristics were there… Well, first and foremost, they sucked blood, which resulted in energy drain. They didn’t have shadows and didn’t show in mirrors.
And indeed, even under the moonlight, Dramaturgy didn’t have a shadow.
Just like I didn’t.
Canines─or rather, fangs. I didn’t really notice them on Dramaturgy, who tended to keep his mouth shut in a straight line.
And─they were immortal?
They had semi-permanent powers of regeneration?
They had eyes that could see well even in the dark?
There was also that bit about shape-changing, where they could turn their bodies into mist or darkness among other things, as well as the healing powers of vampire blood─but none of it really seemed relevant at the moment, I thought rather belatedly.
I didn’t want to make light of Kissshot’s advice─but since both Dramaturgy and I were vampires, it appeared as though everything, both our strengths and our weaknesses, cancelled out.
If I was immortal, then so was he.
In that case─was it down to experience and raw ability?
In terms of experience, he had to have a slight edge on me─well, okay, maybe more than slight. I’d only read an aikido manual on the way…
“So be it!”
Maybe Kissshot was rubbing off on me, because I screamed an old-timey phrase that I never thought I’d utter during my lifetime, and charged like a kamikaze at Dramaturgy.
“I had expected some ruse. I commend you for your guilelessness,” Dramaturgy said, meeting me with his own guileless attack.
Guileless. Or to put it another way, one-note.
No matter how massive his fist, no matter its astonishing speed, three in a row was pushing it. Well, it might have worked back when I was human, but now with a vampire’s eyes, three times was enough for me to adapt.
Forward.
I ducked forward to evade his fist─then, as his log-like arm followed a beat later, I grabbed the earthen pipe of an appendage.
Using the momentum of my opponent’s fist, and in one fluid motion─I transitioned into an arm lock.
Aikido from Step One!
“① Take the opponent’s arm. ② Pull it toward you. ③ Slam down your opponent as hard as you can!”
Going back over the words, they seemed a tad breezy for explaining a technique to a beginner. But it worked.
The seven-foot-plus giant fell hard on the more or less unkempt field without so much as an attempt to break his fall.
Well─he couldn’t because I was making him fall.
From there, I pressed down on his back with one knee and stretched his joints as far as they would go.
“H-How’s that?!”
“…Too clever
by half,” replied Dramaturgy, his face still buried in the ground. “Guilelessness served you better─it seems you are still clinging to the common sense you acquired as a human. But I suppose that is only natural─I understand as I was once a human too.”
“Wha? Cut the nonsense and surrender already! If you don’t, I’ll break this arm right now!”
Oops, wait a sec.
I sounded exactly like a character who was about to have the tables turned on him.
It smacked of a cue.
…The common sense I acquired as a human?
Common sense─as in my line of thought?
“Oh…”
Right─of course.
So what if I put an arm lock on him?
What good would that do?
I was going to break his arm? Really?
And even if I did manage to break it─he was a vampire. Wouldn’t it heal immediately?
“O-Oh sh─”
But that wasn’t what Dramaturgy meant, either.
I doubt I’d have been able to do anything even if I’d wised up sooner, but as it was, I only grasped the true meaning of his words after both of my hands, busy twisting his pipe-like arm, had been cleanly severed.
Severed by him?
No, I’d practically severed them myself. By gripping his hand, which had turned into a wavy greatsword.
“Ou… Hrnngh!”
This time, I did feel pain─real pain.
Lacerating pain.
I’d be using that figure of speech with some genuine feeling from now on.
I involuntarily leapt back, distancing myself from Dramaturgy’s body. My two lopped-off hands disappeared before they hit the ground. I looked again to find them attached to my wrists. They had come back into existence.
My physical regeneration didn’t feel to me like I had grown new wrists, like a lizard’s tail─it was as if my hands had simply returned.
And the severed ones disappeared… Or to be more accurate, it was like they’d evaporated.
It was a convenient system, so to speak. Leaving my severed hands on the school’s athletic field wasn’t an option.
Dramaturgy got back up slowly, unhurriedly─you might even say sluggishly.
It was no surprise that it took him time, though. After all, both of his hands had turned into wavy greatswords.
“……”
Shape-changing!
Vampires─could shape-change!
This guy turned parts of his body into weapons!
On that day, too!
It may have been at night─no, I could see fairly well at night with my vampire eyes─so my lingering human common sense was to blame. I’d dismissed the possibility because it went against common sense!
Putting his wavy greatswords away in order to recruit me had been an idyllic fantasy.
The two greatswords─had been one with Dramaturgy.
“What’s wrong? Finished already?” Dramaturgy said.
Despite his advantage, his stern expression remained unchanged─in fact, having bared his blades, he looked to be getting serious only now.
There was too much of a difference in experience. Too much of a gap in general.
We were both vampires─but I could never be like him. His size, the length of his swords… Now that we were squaring off face to face, it seemed impossible even to approach him. His giant body alone must have given him three times my reach.
“I asked if you’re finished. Are you not going to answer me? Was that not─the ‘judo’ of this nation?”
It was aikido.
But I wasn’t good enough at it to be able to say that in reply.
It had been a fluke─I wouldn’t even be able to repeat it, so if he asked about any variations, I wouldn’t know what to do!
Dammit, why had I shown up empty-handed to begin with?
I’d never imagined they were a part of his body, but I was quite aware that my opponent used greatswords.
I should’ve come properly armed, too! If I’d only brought a cannon…
“Only”? I didn’t have those kinds of connections!
“Hm?”
Hold on a second…
Maybe I did have a hand to play.
In that case─
“……”
“I see. So you’ve given up. Very well, then I will go next. And I will keep on carving up your body until your powers of immortality expire─or you cry out for death.”
Dramaturgy began to move─and so did I.
But while he moved forward, I moved backward.
I was making a retreat─in other words, I ran in the opposite direction from Dramaturgy.
“! You would run?!” he yelled.
But I hadn’t taken flight, nor was I routed. I was strictly retreating─retreating in order to set up a reversal.
A coherent plan had yet to take shape in my head, but I couldn’t afford to hesitate─“so be it,” indeed. It was somewhat inelegant, but I had no other hand to play!
I had Dramaturgy beat at sprinting speed if nothing else. By my rough estimate, Dramaturgy weighed over 400 pounds─and now that both of his arms had turned into those wavy greatswords, he could be closer to 650.
No matter how fast his fists, it didn’t mean that he could move fast. Punching was a question of shifting your body weight perfectly.
While I was sure that he could run faster than a human, there was no way Dramaturgy could match me and my pure body weight of 120 pounds. I had to use my advantage to its fullest!
Still, I wasn’t running away. And I wasn’t fleeing at random. I had a destination in mind─it was about “locational advantage.”
I wasn’t the most serious of students, but I’d spent two years at this school─so I at least knew where to find the P.E. storage shed.
I arrived at the shed having put a fair bit of distance between me and Dramaturgy still giving chase─and kicked down its sliding steel door. I knew it would be locked, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t have time to fiddle with the latch.
And─bingo.
Yes, P.E. class at our school included baseball practice!
I took one of the many balls from inside a cage and then tried to remember the contents─of that guide to baseball that I bought together with the aikido manual!
Thank goodness I’d flipped through it after reading the aikido manual just because I’d had some spare time. I would’ve been in trouble had my fingers itched for the classical music book instead!
“① Wind up. ② Transfer your lower-body strength to your upper body. ③ Swing your arm through!”
Again, this was too breezy for a beginner. It seemed like I had no talent for picking out reference materials.
Still─the ball flew in a straight line toward Dramaturgy.
As someone with no experience playing youth-league baseball, this was of course my first time ever throwing a ball in this way (unfortunately, baseball was an elective in P.E. class. I’d selected soccer), but as with the earlier aikido technique, this was what they called beginner’s luck─the hardball landed right where Dramaturgy’s lungs were.
“Guh…”
Dramaturgy, who’d been charging toward me like a freight train, crouched over on the spot as the ball rolled away. He may have been a vampire, but his internal organs seemed to function like normal internal organs, and he was having trouble breathing. Come to think of it, a stake through the heart killed a vampire, so it was natural for the lungs to work as lungs.
That meant an attack on the sensory organs would be effective, too.
Even in the face of immortality, there were ways.
Okay, let’s keep this up, I thought as I grabbed the next ball.
I had a full cage’s worth of them, an embarrassment of riches.
But my control was an embarrassment as in poor.
I seemed to have exhausted my beginner’s luck, as the next five balls I threw didn’t so much as graze Dramaturgy’s squatting body.