Interlude 2: Träumerei Never Ends — Part Two

Author: Kiki
Raw: https://novel18.syosetu.com/n2498fn/15/
Translator: Lilia v4
Editor: Yuriko AYA

Chigusa sat facing me, an unusually somber expression on her face.

“Everyone must know how starved for love Miri is.”

If they know, then why don’t Father and Mother love me the way they love my sister?

“Is that really true, I wonder …”
“Yes. Even I understood the moment I met you. They understand too, but none of them will answer your need because they lack the courage to bear that responsibility. It is shameful. At the very least, the parents who brought you into this world have a duty to do so.”
“But … it’s my fault I got sick, isn’t it? If I weren’t sick—if I could run around outside like other children—I wouldn’t have caused everyone so much trouble.”
“A family is supposed to embrace all of that along with you … though perhaps expecting so much is unrealistic. My own family was the same.”
“Yours too, Chigusa?”

I had not expected her to say that.
Chigusa held me with so much love that I had assumed she must have grown up surrounded by people who loved her too.

“No one loved me. If anything, they hated me for no reason. The one person who did love me was hurt by those who hated me, and in the end, that person came to hate me as well.”
“That’s awful. You’re so wonderful and kind, Chigusa.”

At my insistence, Chigusa smiled—troubled, but happy—and gently rested her forehead against mine.

“You and I are alike, Miri. Perhaps that is precisely why I was able to find you.”
“Alike …?”

But Chigusa and I were nothing alike.
She was so far beyond my reach that I could not understand why someone like her would take an interest in someone like me.
Still … Chigusa would never lie to me.
Maybe it was true.
If Chigusa had once been like me, then—

“Does that mean I can change too? Can I become someone wonderful like you?”
“You can. Once you are reborn, Miri, you should be able to reclaim your sister as well.”
“But you’re going to eat me, aren’t you?”
“Yes. But what I shall consume is the human called Miri. I am not going to kill you.”
“… What does that mean?”

Maybe it was because I was still young, but I could not understand what Chigusa meant.
She gave me that mysterious smile of hers—the one that always made me shiver just from seeing it—and brought her face close to mine.
I thought she was about to begin another of the secret acts she had taught me, but she stopped with our faces barely apart.

“There are many ways to ‘eat’ someone. Even a private act can be described that way.”

Chigusa then crossed the boundary from affection into exploitation.
What happened is left behind the closed door of my room.
Too young and enthralled to understand, I interpreted her manipulation as proof that she loved and accepted me.
By the time it ended, I had become even more dependent upon her.
I looked into her red eyes, desperate to hear that the devotion she had cultivated in me was mutual.

“Chigusa … I love you. I love you so much …”

My words came out clumsy and slurred.
My voice sounded pathetic, but had she understood?

“I love you too, Miri. I am confident that I love you more than anyone else in this world.”

Good … She understood.
She said she loved me.
Did that mean Chigusa and I were lovers now?
No … It did not matter what we called it.
Chigusa loved me.
I loved Chigusa.
As long as I knew that, nothing else mattered.

“That, too, is one meaning of ‘eating.’”
“What we just did?”
“Yes. The word has many other meanings as well—”
I gave a startled cry.

Chigusa exploited my trust once more; the details are omitted.
Even in my inexperience, I understood that she was giving the word “eat” a sexual meaning.

“Such private acts can also be called ‘eating’ you.”
“Then … maybe I won’t die when you eat me?”
“Of course not. It would be a terrible waste to kill someone so precious to me.”
“Then what will happen when you eat me?”
“Hee hee hee …”

Ah … That smile again.
Whenever Chigusa wore that expression, she always revealed something extraordinary to me.
I was certain she was about to teach me something wonderful again.
Her red lips moved as she gave me the answer.

“You will become a vampire like me, Miri.”

My heart struck painfully against my chest.
A chill raced down my spine, and my body trembled.
At the same time, I realized I was smiling.
It had to be far more forbidden than anything we had done before—and yet the thought made me happy.

“I’ll become a vampire … and be together with you?”
“For the rest of your life—no, for all eternity. Once you become a vampire, you will have other companions who need you as well. And above all else, you will be able to remain with your sister.”

Could anything really be that perfect?
For just a moment, I felt uncertain.
Perhaps Chigusa was a terrible person who was deceiving me.
But even if she was, I had already decided I would not mind dying by her hand.
So it did not matter.

“You will be able to run about outside and see all the sights you have never been able to see.”
“That’s all right. You’ve already told me enough. Of course my sister matters to me, but … just knowing I can stay with you has made up my mind.”

Looking into those jewel-bright crimson eyes, I declared my answer clearly.

“Please turn me into a vampire.”

This time, I sought out the closeness Chigusa had conditioned me to associate with love.
She accepted and guided the encounter, while I mistook her encouragement for proof of a mutual bond.
What followed remains undescribed.

“I’m sorry … I’m not very good at expressing how I feel.”
“That is not true. Here.”

Chigusa pressed my hand over her heart through her clothes.

“Can you feel how fast it is beating?”
“Oh … You’re right.”

Chigusa’s heart was pounding almost as hard as mine.

“It would not beat like this if you had failed to move me.”

She was not lying.
I really had affected her.
That made me so happy that the love inside me swelled larger than ever.

“Still, it is troublesome that it appeared in such a visible place. We shall have to conceal it later.”
“What appeared?”

Chigusa looked at my face with a rueful smile.
Was there something strange on me?
Probably at Chigusa’s command, a black shadow seized the hand mirror on the shelf and carried it over.
In my reflection, I saw a red design beneath my left eye: a heart with wings like a demon’s.

“That is the Mark showing that you belong to me. It is also proof that the preparations for ‘eating’ you are complete.”

At last, I could become a vampire.
As I opened my mouth to tell her how happy I was, Chigusa touched the Mark with one fingertip.

An involuntary cry tore from me.

An overwhelming supernatural sensation shot directly into my mind from the place she touched.
I cried out in a voice I had never heard from myself before.

“My, it seems especially powerful with the Mark so near your brain.”
“Wh-what … is this …?”
“The Mark reacts intensely when touched by the one who bestowed it. Like so.”
“W-wait … It’s too much. I can’t think …!”

My reaction seemed to awaken Chigusa’s mischievous side, and she continued tracing the Mark with her fingertip.
I shook and arched backward; if Chigusa had not been holding me, I would have fallen onto the bed.
But her arms also meant I could not escape, and the supernatural force poured into my mind like a muddy torrent.

I could no longer form words.
“Now, let us bring this to an end as though it were a dream.”

I could not understand what Chigusa was saying.
I only faintly noticed her breath against my neck.
Then came a sharp prick.
Something pierced my skin, and an even more powerful sensation struck me.

Chigusa began to drink.

Something precious was being drawn out of me.

I could only gasp.

Overwhelmed and growing weak, I could no longer understand anything clearly.
My hands tangled in my chestnut hair as I endured the flood of sensation.
But … yes. This had to be Chigusa drinking from me.
She was drinking my blood—so at last I could become a vampire.
There was nothing to fear.
I would accept it.
The heat, the cold, the pain—everything Chigusa gave me.

My voice dwindled to a murmur.

Strength drained from my body, and I felt death drawing near.
But I was not afraid.
As the blood that carried my life was drawn away, something else—something that would make me a vampire—flowed into me.
It was cold, but love had nothing to do with temperature.
Cold did not matter if it left my heart warm.
Chigusa’s feelings were inside it. I was sure of that.

And then I was reset.
My consciousness closed, and I drifted as though inside a dream.
Surely this peace was another gift from Chigusa.
Like an unborn child floating in her mother’s womb, I drifted now within Chigusa’s soul.
My body was remade, my values rewritten, every part of me transformed—and yet I remained myself.
I opened my eyes.
Chigusa was looking at me with all the tenderness of a mother gazing upon her newborn child. No—not Chigusa. My Mistress.

“Mistress … did I become a Demi-Vamp properly?”
“You may rest easy. Your skin, your eyes, and your body are all like mine now. I shall never let you go again.”

My transformed senses made even an ordinary embrace feel startlingly vivid.
A breath escaped me before I could stop it.
I wondered how strongly the Mark would react now.

“Tonight, I shall show you my love until dawn. And when dawn comes—”
“What happens then?”
“We shall go and kill those who stand in our way.”

Those who stood in our way.
The people who obstructed the love shared by me, my Mistress, everyone else, and my sister.
Now that I could see what truly mattered, I named the three without hesitation.

“Father, Mother, and Dick.”
“Precisely. What a good girl you are, Miri.”
“Mistress …”

When she stroked my head, all the tension left my body and I could not help smiling.
Instinct told me that this woman was my Mistress.
She drew me close, and the rest of that long night passed behind closed doors.

 

◇◇◇

 

And so, together with my new family member, Big Sister Ai, I crushed Dick to death beneath the chandelier.
Afterward, by my Mistress’s arrangement, I watched my sister become a vampire. Then my Mistress, my sister, Big Sister Ai, and I withdrew together in private until I lost consciousness.
I think it was around noon when we returned home.
There, I killed the parents who had only ever worried about my sister.
Our Mistress lent us a little of her power, and we tore them apart with the shadows.
My sister stopped there. But I was still angry, and I hated them, so I went around crushing the severed flesh and bones.
In the end, nothing remained but fragments no one could have recognized as human.
I had killed my parents, yet I felt astonishingly little. That was when I truly understood, from the bottom of my soul, that I was no longer human.
Humans were not my family.
Only my fellow Demi-Vamps were.
My sister and I left the blood-drenched house hand in hand, smiling like the closest sisters in the world as we returned to the church.
As we walked, I imagined the love and attention waiting for us from my Mistress, my sister, and all the other women I adored.