50. I’m Home, Poor World That Still Does Not Know Love

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/53/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Which she would choose had been a settled matter from the start.
I set in her hand a sword ornamented with jewels, said to have been passed down in the royal house. She went forward without hesitation and raised it.
The killing intent was aimed at her prince.
Which is to say: it was the princess who had taken up the sword.
The two of them had originally been a most affectionate pair of lovers.

“Why … would you do this …!”
“Because my Mistress’s hands make me far happier than you ever could!”

The princess’s cheeks flushed. She gave a cute little “ei!” and brought the blade down on the prince’s neck.
The prince, his expression remaining comically desperate, shed a great quantity of blood and died.
Clatter—the sword slipped from the princess’s hand, struck the ground, and rang with a dry sound.
Then she turned toward me, wore a full smile she had probably never turned even on her prince, and flung herself against my chest.
How dear she was.
We had met only a few days before, and yet I certainly loved her from the bottom of my heart.
In this embrace, and in the words of love I whispered at her ear, there was not a shred of falsehood.

“Mistress. This is all right, isn’t it. I can finally become yours, can’t I?”
“Yes. Let us go together. To a place humans cannot reach.”
“—Ah … nnaaaaaah!”

I sank my fangs in. I let her fall.
Farewell, mankind. Hello, the inhuman.
I drew up the sweet, melting red of her humanity, and poured into the princess the stuff of a new birth.
As she was taken from, given to, and remade, she was wrapped in a rapture no human could possibly confer; and I, swallowing the blood, tasted a bliss the human body cannot feel.

Who, then, is the one at a loss?
I, who had only ever been oppressed, powerless and incompetent, had at last, by discarding humanity, been able to make someone happy, and to become happy myself.
It is the same for everyone.
In the human world, the instant someone’s love is born, hatred is born somewhere.
Someone’s happiness is someone’s unhappiness; plus and minus zero, and the balance is kept.
What an unequal balance. What an unreasonable world.
Which is to say: strife never ends.
I do not mean to conclude that this affair is humanity’s fault—and yet, as a single fact, one cannot deny that the cause lies with them.
If only, a little more, all of humankind had been able to love other people.

Yes. I understand. The world’s structure will not allow it. Humans are a set of light and shadow, made so that the world will never be free of strife.
And yet, if it had been possible.
If I had been loved by my parents, if I had not been bullied, if I had not jumped from the school roof.
Then Demi-Vamps would never have been born.

◇◇◇

 

When I had laid the exhausted, unconscious princess on the bed, I left the room.

“Thank you for your hard work, Sister!”
“That took a while, didn’t it. That girl has quite a bit of aptitude, don’t you think?”

Ellis and Mya-nee were waiting for me.
Their skin was slightly damp, and a sweet scent hung densely in the air.
I had thought they were waiting for me, but it seemed they had been enjoying themselves together.

“She had been repressed, I suppose, for as long as she had lived as a princess. But it is all right now. She will be able to live freely.”
“That’s right. The country that bound her, the blood, none of it’s left. For that matter, there may not even be any other humans left.”

It might not be possible to say all of them—but with this, the subjugation of the nations was finished.
With the taking of that princess’s blood just now, this entire world had come under Demi-Vamp rule.

“But Chii-chan, what do we do from here? We don’t have to invade any more countries, right?”
“Mya-nee, destroying nations was not my purpose to begin with. It was one goal, certainly, but if every human has become a Demi-Vamp, then that is that. I need only go on loving Ellis and you and the others without limit.”
“… I guess that’s true.”

If the work was done, we need only return to a life like the one we had lived at the church.
In a narrow, closed space, joining with the people one loves as much as one likes.
Interrupted by no one, bound by nothing.
Could there be any greater happiness than that?

“You say that, Sister, but you asked Leia for something, didn’t you?”
“Ah. That—”

It ought to be nearing completion about now.
It might be as well to return to the royal capital once and have her report on the situation.

 

◇◇◇

 

When we returned to the royal capital, we first headed for the Discard District, as if drawing up a memory.
Leia’s business was not urgent, so we still had ample time.

“It’s kind of nostalgic. It hasn’t even been years, though.”

Mya-nee was considerate enough to leave Ellis and me alone.
Our destination, of course, was a room in the castle of scrap where Ellis had once lived.

“When I think of it, it began here, didn’t it. At first I never imagined we would truly be able to change all of humankind.”
“I didn’t think I’d get pulled into something that big either. But I’m glad. If I hadn’t met you, Sister, I would’ve just gone on smoldering here.”

We talked that way as we walked through the half-collapsed building.
And when at last we reached the door of the room, we stepped into the dark, narrow, damp interior.

“When I think I would’ve had to live in a cage like this forever, I don’t even want to imagine a future where I never met you, Sister.”
“There is no need to imagine it. Ellis is here beside me now. That that should change is impossible, for all eternity.”
“Nnh. Thanks.”

Looking at Ellis as she said it, bashful, affection overflowed, and I wanted terribly to touch her.
I let our fingertips meet, and watched her response.
The instant they touched, she wound her fingers actively into mine.
Seeing our hands firmly clasped, we grew a little embarrassed, even now, and smiled at each other.
And when we had laughed a while—naturally, we brought our lips together.
Kisses that were only a light touching, twice, three times.
A restless, impatient tickle wrapped our mouths.
The fourth kiss went a little deeper; the tips of our tongues met as our lips grew wet.
Before the fifth, we set our brows together with a small knock and exchanged a single word.

“Ellis. I love you.”
“I love you too, Sister, more than anyone.”

Words a little more special than I give to others, for you.
Then at last we laid our lips together properly.
Another’s warmth entering one’s own body.
A deep, deep oneness that heart alone, words alone, cannot give.
I do not believe in a love that is only of the mind.
True love, I think, lies beyond that joining; that is why we hunger for blood, and why we seek one another so greedily.

 

◇◇◇

 

When we left the Discard District, we stopped at the church and exchanged greetings with Nunnally, Miri, Rellie, Ai, and the others who lived there.
Besides that, we were reunited with Lilina and Liza, parent and child living affectionately in town as mates joined in soul; and at the castle we received an invitation from Ashera, Lalilalai, and Kishiri, who had thrown themselves wholly into their remade bodies.
We also came upon Sakuna and Toka, who had been drawn in by those three and their particular games—all of it in a span of perhaps a few tens of minutes, and yet it felt unusually dense.

“Honestly, you and me and Chii-chan are probably the same to other people, aren’t we?”

Is that so.
Well, if Mya-nee says so, then I suppose it is.
Incidentally, Lily and Sara were not at the castle.
They are living quietly, just the two of them, in a remote part of another country, I am told.
… That aside.
The purpose of our coming to the castle was to speak with Leia.
She had said it was better to have the laboratory she was used to, and so she, too, had remained living in the royal castle.
When we knocked at the door of her own room, we heard the voice of Lina, who lived with her: “Come in.”
We entered as the voice invited—and what we saw there was Lina and Leia sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders together, both with greatly swollen bellies.

“Oh. It was Lady Chigusa and the others.”
“I thought it was Ashera or someone … coming to place another order. I had heard you had gone … to bring some country down … so you were back.”
“I thought that magic of yours might be nearly complete, so I came to see how things stood. Even so, you have grown rather large. There ought still to have been time until the due date, no?”
“They seem to grow faster than human fetuses. We were surprised too—we didn’t expect it.”

The two of them were pregnant with each other’s children.
As a rule, the vampire species does not perform reproductive acts.
They increase their numbers by turning humans into vampires.
But it had been foreseeable that humans would soon vanish from the world, and this had been one of the countermeasures Leia devised.
Though I cannot help feeling that the larger reason was simply that the two of them had wanted each other’s children.

“It looks like it would be hard to do research in that body.”

Leia shook her head at Ellis’s words and denied it.

“That side of things is proceeding properly on its own.”
“For Leia, researching magic is kind of a hobby. She actually seems restless if she isn’t doing it.”
“Then is it actually already finished?”

At Mya-nee’s question, Leia this time nodded in affirmation.

“I can activate it whenever … what will you do, Lady Chigusa?”
“We will be able to come and go at any time, yes?”
“Because it takes the form of opening a gate and linking them … just by passing through, you should be able to move from either side. And with my magic as it is now, I think I could even … construct a gate that stays open permanently.”

In other words, returning here and going there would both be entirely free.
Then there might be no need to leave an interval of time.
I myself am not without interest in the situation over there.

“Then let us do it at once. I dislike imposing on Leia in her condition, but may I ask it of you?”
“Of course. Even as I am now, my body is lighter than it used to be, if anything.”

Leia stood and went out of the room.
We followed her, and headed for the laboratory underground.

 

◇◇◇

 

Having turned all of humankind in this world into Demi-Vamps, I might have been satisfied.
If Leia’s research advanced, it would likely become possible to have children between myself and Ellis, or myself and Mya-nee, and living in anticipation of that would be a lovely future as well.
I am not saying I will not bear children.
It is a matter of priority. I wished to finish first a certain magic I had asked of Leia.

“I’ll begin.”

A huge magic circle had already been drawn on the laboratory floor.
Leia stood at its center, closed her eyes, and began to gather her concentration.
The drawn circle gave off a faint light, and grew brighter as the quantity of filling magic increased.
At last, when the array shone dazzlingly enough to illuminate the whole room, Leia spoke the spell of activation.

“Gate Open.”

Crack-crack-crack!
In the space before Leia, a cloud arose of a size that could fully enclose a person; lightning ran through it, scattering sparks.
Presently the cloud warped space and began to destroy it.
Then, at the center of the cloud, a pitch-black sphere was born.
It had been the size of a fist; it grew rapidly—and when it reached about the same size as the cloud, the cloud that had been raging so violently vanished, and the array, its role apparently finished, lost its light.
The magic seemed to have activated without incident.
Lina, who had been watching with us from the edge of the room, approached Leia, who was sweating and breathing hard, clung to her, and said,

“Good work.”
“Nnh …”

The two of them remained in their embrace, rubbing cheek against cheek.
I had meant, as the one who had commissioned it, to offer my thanks, but that role had been entirely stolen from me.
Left at loose ends, I approached the opened hole—or rather, the gate—and observed the state of “the other side.”
Leia had said, I believe, that she had linked it near the point of summoning.
Asphalt ground; beyond, a fence; and a dark sky.

“This is the roof of our school, isn’t it.”

Mya-nee, who had come up beside me at some point, said it.
Now that she mentioned it, it looked exactly like the place from which I had jumped.

“So this is the world Sister lived in … the atmosphere really is different from here.”
“The degree of technological development is different, after all. Though over there, of course, there is no such thing as magic.”

The world I had come from lay within reach of my hand.
Thinking so, my chest grew tight.
Coming to this world had resolved several of my traumas, but not all of them had vanished.
What I had left behind still remained in that other world.

“Are you … going already?”
“Yes. Over there it happens to be night as well, a convenient hour for moving.”
“I see … take care. Though … that may be a word Lady Chigusa doesn’t need.”
“It’s a place we’re way more used to living in than here. I’m scared, honestly.”
“I am frightened as well. It is a far crueler place than this world.”

Everyone there lacks love. That is why a person like me is born.
Tragedy must not be allowed to repeat itself a second time.

“And that’s exactly why—right?”

At Mya-nee’s words, I nodded with a strong heart.
I, who had been able to save an unknown world, could hardly fail to save the world of my home.

“Yes. Let us go. To fill that cold world with our warm love. To make a world in which everyone can be happy.”

Ellis and Mya-nee answered my words with a “yeah.”
And I took a step—and I had come home.
To this place I had visited prepared to die, on the day I met Camilla and ceased to be human.
Overhead, a familiar starry sky was spread.
Beyond the fence, the townscape I had hated so much was spread.
And yet it looked, a little, like a different view from before.
Because now I have power, and companions, and love.

“Please wait. I will save everyone soon. I will show you!”

I leapt the fence, clad myself in shadow, and ran through the night.
That night, no one yet knew that the end of humankind had begun.