5. Falling

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/5/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

 

After meeting up with Lyle, bringing our number to three, we continued along the fence until we stopped at a certain spot.
Here and only here, a hole had been opened in the fence.
I see. At last, I understood what they intended to do.
Going directly into the city to search would surely be more efficient than scavenging for scraps at the dump.
This fence had most likely been built to prevent the people of the Discard District from doing exactly that.

“Your name was Chigusa, right?”

Just before we crawled through the hole, Lyle spoke to me.

“You’re not from the Discard District, so you’ll be fine, but anyone can tell Ellis is from there just by looking at her clothes. If the guards find us, you run. No matter what. Got it?”
“Even if I could defeat them?”
“Don’t get too full of yourself. I don’t care how strong you are—you’re not beating an armed soldier.”

I did not feel that I would lose, but for now, I decided to nod obediently.
It would only be troublesome if he became suspicious of me.
And Ellis, please try not to glare at Lyle so much.
If he discovered the nature of our relationship, searching for food would become the least of our concerns.

Our conversation over, we got down on all fours, crawled through the hole, and emerged inside the city.
It was a back alley in every sense of the word. Perhaps there was a restaurant nearby, because several bags of rubbish had been left there.
Lyle immediately reached for one, undid the knot, and began rummaging through its contents.
There were even some nearly untouched vegetables inside, which could well constitute a feast for people like them.
While Lyle immersed himself in scavenging, Ellis brought her lips close to my ear and whispered.

“Let’s go over there.”

Unable to content herself until the two of us were alone, Ellis took my hand and silently led me away.
Lyle did not notice. He truly did seem to be obtuse through and through.
Having successfully slipped away, we turned a corner and proceeded deeper into the maze of alleys—until we reached a deserted spot.
Ellis appeared to have forgotten even her own hunger. She pressed herself against me like a female cat in heat.
When I playfully stroked beneath her chin, she obligingly mewed, “Mrrrow,” like a pet fawning on her master.
I continued, and before long her mewing turned to moans, her smile grew flushed with desire, and our gazes intertwined. Just as the mood was developing quite nicely—
An unpleasant intruder arrived to spoil it, much as I had expected.

“Well, what do we have here? The maggots from the Discard District have crawled in again.”

It was an insolent voice, looking down upon people its owner had never even met.
He carried a spear some two meters long and was clad from head to toe in iron armor—and judging by his voice, he was a man.
So this was one of the guards Lyle had mentioned.

“Know your place, you worthless pieces of filth!”

He advanced with his spear in hand.
There was no longer any need to confirm his intentions. He appeared determined to kill us without mercy.
Judging by his complete lack of hesitation, the people of the Discard District were probably denied even the most basic human rights.
Therefore, killing one of them was no crime.

“Chigusa…”
“It is all right. I will settle this quickly.”

Yesterday’s encounter with the thugs had already proven that my body remembered how to fight.
The moment I directed my hostility at the soldier, my nails naturally lengthened into sharp claws.
It would be rather inconvenient if they were always this long, of course. They would get in the way whenever I wished to run my hands over someone’s body. Being able to extend and retract them was useful in all sorts of respects.

“Wh-What are those claws…? Don’t think you can stand against this spear with those!”

As the soldier approached, shouting his bold words, I deliberately charged straight at him.
I drifted past the spearpoint, swept out my arm, and severed his neck—armor and all—with my claws as we crossed paths.
I did not feel so much as the slightest resistance from the cut.
After landing behind him, I gazed at my claws in astonishment at their sharpness.
Meanwhile, his head fell and his body collapsed—and thick, red blood gushed from the severed surfaces.
Yet even with that brilliant red blood spreading across the ground before me, my half-vampire self felt not the least bit tempted.
Men truly would not do. If anything, the sight made me nauseous.

“Amazing… That was amazing, Chigusa!”
“A simple matter.”

I opened my arms to receive Ellis as she rushed toward me, and we embraced tightly.
Naturally, my claws had already returned to normal.
Even so—I had just killed someone, yet you have nothing to say about it, do you, Ellis?
Was that because she was enthralled by me, or because she had lived in a place where death was commonplace?

“You’re so strong and cute and beautiful, Chigusa. Even when you don’t mean to…I can’t help falling in love with every part of you.”
“I did nothing remarkable. I merely kept my promise to protect you.”
“See, saying something like that so casually is exactly what makes you so dashing.”

As we held one another, my gaze happened to fall upon her neck.
It seemed to me that she, too, had deliberately positioned herself to bare it to me.
I opened my mouth, determined that this time—only to hear footsteps approaching once again.
Lyle had apparently noticed that we had left him behind.

“H-Hey…Chigusa. Did you do this?”
“Yes. He attacked us.”

When Lyle arrived and looked at the corpse on the ground, his face went pale.
Judging by his reaction, Ellis’s complete indifference to the soldier’s death did indeed appear to be a result of her enthrallment with me.

“How did you do that? What kind of blade cuts a suit of armor clean in two like this?”
“I am not sure what answer you expect. All I can say is that I cut through it.”
“Like hell I’m going to accept that!”

Lyle raised his voice.
Then again, I was not attempting to convince him in the first place, so it was only natural that I would fail to do so.

“Stop it, Lyle. Chigusa did it to protect me.”
“What? Ellis, you know what’ll happen if they find out someone from the Discard District killed a soldier, don’t you? We’re garbage to them. They could purge the whole lot of us any time they felt like it!”
“Is that so? Well, even if they do, I will protect Ellis.”
“Hee hee…Chigusa…”

Perhaps Ellis clinging to me so adoringly finally alerted Lyle that something was wrong, because he glared at me.
Then he drew a knife from his waist and pointed its gleaming blade in my direction.

“Lyle, what are you doing? This is a joke, right?”
“I’m not joking. I’ve thought something was wrong since yesterday. Even if it’s true that Chigusa saved you, there’s no way someone from the Discard District would trust her just for that. You’re being far too defenseless!”

I agreed with him entirely. For someone accustomed to living in such a dangerous place, Ellis truly was careless.
That did not mean I wanted him to blame her, however.
I was the one at fault, after all.

“What the hell did you do to Ellis?”
“I fell in love.”
“Don’t screw with me!”

I told him the truth and he shouted at me. Could anything be more unreasonable?
Lyle’s appallingly self-centered accusation made me giggle despite myself.

“I am not playing with you. I am sincerely in love with Ellis. And Ellis feels the same…do you not?”
“Mm-hm. I love Chigusa. As long as I have her, I don’t need anything else!”
“Not even Lyle?”

When I glanced his way, Lyle swallowed hard, his expression tense.
Yet I thought I could still detect a certain composure in it.
I caught a glimpse of his confidence that Ellis would surely choose him.
Even though it was futile.

“I don’t need him. I don’t need Lyle either! Anyone who points a knife at Chigusa should just disappear!”
“You can’t mean that… What are you saying, Ellis?”
“You have startled him, saying that so suddenly. I thought you loved him?”
“I was wrong. It was all in my head. That wasn’t ‘love’ at all. Once I learned what real love was, I stopped caring about him!”
“Ellis…”
“Heh heh. You truly are adorable, Ellis. Meeting you taught me what real love is as well. I love you so deeply that I want to make every last part of you mine.”
“Ahh, Chigusa…”

As I spoke, I placed a hand beneath Ellis’s chin, tipped it slightly upward, and brought my face closer.
She naturally closed her eyes and waited for my lips to descend, like a fledgling awaiting its food.

“Ha…mm…”

I pressed my lips to hers and savored the sensation for a moment before promptly knocking against them with the tip of my tongue.
Perhaps the dozens of repetitions last night had borne fruit, because she readily opened her mouth and welcomed my tongue inside.
It was tantamount to relinquishing all ownership of her mouth.
When I slipped my tongue into the lukewarm confines of Ellis’s mouth, she began to attend to it with practiced ease.
First she caressed its entire surface as if scraping away the saliva coating it, then swallowed.
Next she glided her tongue along its edges.
I luxuriated in the shivering sensation she gave me, not unlike being tickled.
Whenever I rewarded her by playing with her tongue in return, Ellis cried out happily, “Hah…mm!”
I poured in still more saliva. She rolled it over her tongue, savored it thoroughly, and swallowed—then shuddered for an instant before falling into a brief daze.
Heh heh. Merely watching her made it abundantly clear how much she loved me.
I must lavish still more affection upon her. I must repay her feelings still more fully.

“S-Stop… Stop it! Stop it!”
“Haa…haa… Lyle, you’re noisy.”
“This is wrong. It has to be wrong! You two only met yesterday, didn’t you? So how the hell did it come to this? Chigusa…what are you?”

It seemed cruel to continue withholding the truth, and I did not wish to keep it from Ellis either.
For the first time, I decided to reveal what I was.

“A Demi-Vamp.”

The words came naturally from my lips.
Rather than the plain phrase “half-vampire,” the name “Demi-Vamp” had most likely surfaced from Camilla’s memories.

“A vampire…? Then you really did charm Ellis!”
“I do not know, but perhaps that is what happened.”

Until now, I had not found a term that felt quite right, but charm…
Yes. It did seem remarkably apt.

“Release Ellis! Change her back, you monster!”
“That’s not true! I really do love Chigusa!”
“Wake up! That thing isn’t human!”
“That doesn’t matter when you love someone! And Chigusa loves me too. Right?”
“Yes, that is true. I love you more than anyone.”

I was not such a beast that I could answer her at once with a lie.
I truly did love her.

“Don’t let it fool you, Ellis! Vampires charm their prey so they can feed on them—so they can kill them!”

He appeared to be laboring under some misunderstanding.
I had no intention of killing Ellis. Devouring such an adorable girl would be an appalling waste.

“Chigusa would never do that! And…even if she really did mean to kill me, if it was Chigusa…I wouldn’t mind.”
“Elliiis!”

Apparently realizing that persuasion was no longer possible, Lyle planted his feet, preparing to drive his knife into me.

“…Huh?”

And yet—for some reason, his legs would not move.
He could not budge, as though something within the shadows had seized him.
I could have torn his body apart then and there, but a more entertaining diversion occurred to me, so I decided to keep him restrained.

“Damn it! Something’s holding my legs? What is it?”
“Darkness is the domain of vampires. If you were determined to pick a fight with one, you should at least have done so beneath the sun. Choosing a dim alley was your mistake.”
“You’re doing this…? Let me go right now! I’m going to kill you and take Ellis back!”
“That is what he says. What would you like to do, Ellis?”

When I asked the Ellis nestled in my arms, she answered with a rapturous expression.

“I don’t care about Lyle anymore. Make me yours past the point of no return, Chigusa.”

Having obtained her consent, I brought my face toward her neck.
I kissed the graceful curve of her throat—

“Ah…ahhh…”

And sank my fangs into it.

“Ngh…uh…ah…”
“Stop…please stop! Ellis! Elliiis!”

Lyle’s anguished screams served only as spice to heighten the emotion of the moment.
As I drank the sweet blood welling from the wound, my body grew as hot as it had when I consumed her saliva.
Blood, which I had once thought smelled only of iron, tasted so exquisite that I was struck anew by how inhuman I had become.

“Ah…haa… More… Chigusa, drink more…”

Plunder. Possession. Domination.
For one who had never possessed anything, this was my first taste of the pleasure of turning something into mine alone.
Ah, how could something like this possibly not become addictive?

“You’re coming inside… Chigusa is coming inside me…haaah…!”

As I drew up her blood, I shared myself with Ellis to fill the emptiness it left behind.
What I gave her was my soul—a genuine fragment of my own being.
Though we shared no blood, this made us mates joined in soul, or perhaps sisters connected along the same continuum.
Once I had drunk a certain quantity of her blood, Ellis’s body began its transformation into a vampire.
First, the pigment drained from her healthy tan skin, leaving it the same translucent white as mine.
Even the slight roughness of her skin cleared away until it was as smooth as a newborn infant’s.
As I continued drawing up her blood, I wondered whether this was less a transformation than a purification.
After all, vampires were vastly superior to human beings.

“Ah…ahh…”
“Uuugh… Ellis…Ellis…”

Seeing the color leave her skin, Lyle seemed to mistake it for her life fading away.
Tears spilled pitifully down his cheeks, and the knife he had gripped so tightly slipped from his hand.
It appeared that the tragedy before him had robbed him even of his murderous intent.
In other words, the nuisance was gone.
All that remained was to transform her however I pleased.
Ellis had fallen silent and closed her eyes, and I drew still more blood from her body.
As both my stomach and my desires were filled and happiness enveloped me, the next change began.
Her scent was growing stronger—the suffocatingly female musk of Ellis that had saturated that room from last night until this morning.
It was an aphrodisiac fragrance that made me long to devour her lips and join my body with hers merely by breathing it in.
Moreover, her body, thin from want of food, was gaining a pleasing fullness little by little as it acquired a vampire’s power.
In my arms, she was gradually developing a body that seemed to exist solely for my embrace. There was no possible way to contain my excitement.
Breathing heavily in a most undignified fashion, I drew out exactly the requisite amount of blood—then pulled my mouth away with a gasp.

“So you did kill her after all. You monster… Are you happy now? You took everything from her! Are you satisfied?”
“Haa…haa…ha…heh…heh heh…heh heh heh…”
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. I was merely thinking how very little you understand.”

I gave the furious Lyle a loose smile, and all color abruptly drained from his face.
He looked just like one of my kind.
Was it truly so frightening? I had only smiled.
…Well, it hardly mattered. Not when it came to a man like him.
I placed a hand against the cheek of the limp Ellis in my arms and called to her.

“It is time to wake, my beloved Ellis.”
“What are you talking about? Ellis is already dead—”

Setting aside that man who understood nothing…
Ellis slowly opened her eyes in answer to my call.
Her once-clear amber irises had turned as vivid a red as blood—the surest possible proof that she had become a vampire.
Awake once more, she looked at me, her mistress, and smiled seductively to display her newly sharpened fangs.

“Mis…tress?”

When our eyes met, that was what she called me.
I placed my index finger against my chin and hummed thoughtfully.
Somehow, being called that by Ellis did not feel quite right.

“I believe another form of address might please me more.”
“…Sister?”

My heart gave a powerful throb.
Yes. That was what I had desired.

“Sister…I’ve been reborn, haven’t I?”
“You need not change the way you speak, Ellis. Not for me.”
“Um…all right. Then I’ll talk the same way as before, Sister.”
“Yes, that is much lovelier. Now, how does it feel to have been reborn?”
“It feels wonderful… My head is even more full of you than it was before, Sister. I feel…amazing.”

I had been a little worried about what I might do if she said she felt unwell, so this came as a relief.
I embraced the newly awakened Ellis, and she immediately returned my embrace.

“What the hell is going on…?”

That stunned murmur reminded me of his presence.
Ah, yes. Lyle was still here.

“But she…she was dead just now…”
“As you can see, she is not dead. Indeed, does she not look far healthier than she did when she was human?”
“When she was…human?”

One would think her skin, eyes, and figure made the answer immediately apparent.
For the benefit of the slow-witted Lyle, I whispered into Ellis’s ear and prompted her to explain.

“Thanks to Sister, I stopped being human and became a vampire!”
“No… No, that’s a lie! That’s impossible!”
“It’s not. Here, look.”

Ellis extended her claws for him to see.
They had the same shape mine had taken when I slaughtered the soldier.

“These claws are incredibly sharp. They match Sister’s, after all. I bet if I swung my arm at a human, I could slice them clean in two.”
“Ellis…”

Smiling, she left my side and slowly approached Lyle.
I did not recall instructing her to go that far, but if that was what Ellis desired, I would stand by and watch.
Lyle’s existence was proving a nuisance to me in several respects as well.

“Watch, Lyle.”
“N-No… No, stop… Please, Ellis!”
“No. Why should I have to listen to a man like you?”

Shk!
Ellis brought her raised arm down, severing Lyle’s arm and leaving behind a beautifully smooth cross section.
She swung again at once and cut off the other.

“A-Aaagh! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!”

I regarded the shrieking, wretched Lyle with a dispassionate gaze.
Ellis looked down at him in the same way, displaying no interest whatsoever.

“Aaaah… Wh-Why? Why? Why? Agh…ga…ugh… Ellis, I…you…!”
“Ellis.”
“Yes, Sister!”
“He is noisy. Let us kill him.”
“Mm-hm-hm. I was thinking the same thing. He’s an eyesore, so I’ll finish him off nice and quick!”

As Ellis drew back her arm with a smile, Lyle—

“I…love…you…”

Put into words the feelings he had never been able to voice. But those words never reached Ellis.
In that instant, she severed his head and ended his life.
I released the shadow. Freed from its restraint, his body crumpled limply to the ground, soaking it in blood just as the soldier’s had.
The unpleasant stench of male blood spread throughout the alley.

“It stinks…”

She covered her mouth and nose in disgust, apparently sharing my sentiments.
There seemed little chance of creating a romantic mood here now.
And I wished to make love to her—to the new vampire Ellis—as soon as possible.

“Let us hurry back to your room, Ellis—to somewhere we can be alone.”
“Mm-hm, Sister. And, um…give me lots and lots of affection.”
“Of course. I will adore you until you lose consciousness.”

We left the alley with our arms entwined.
Two corpses remained behind.
Lyle’s corpse in particular seemed to stare after me resentfully, so before leaving, I crushed his head with my shadow.
At the sight, Ellis gave a delighted little laugh.