Blood Moon: CH 10

Chapter 10

He floated in and out of consciousness for an indeterminate amount of time. Didn't expect for things to turn out like this, but then again, who can expect the man.

Slowly he blinked his eyes open, silently staring at the uneven ceiling of his current ward room. Who put a ward room inside a cave? So a thought crossed his mind. It didn't occur to him that it's not really a ward room until a while after. He's probably in an isolated lab somewhere below the church.

Experimentally trying to move proves to be quite difficult; heavy, sluggish. He lost quite a lot of blood from the non-healing wound. And he avoided the man for longer before that. He couldn't bring himself to feed on anyone else. A faint prickle on his left arm had him turning to that side, seeing the long line of IV drip attached to it. Somehow, they managed to get the needle in to start blood transfusion, and stitched up the wound too. It feels rather unnecessary to him.

(Naturally, he knows the other man would beg to differ.)

 

"You're up." Speak of the devil.

"More or less." Should've seen that coming, though. He's not ready to deal with the man yet.

"How do you feel?"

How, eh? Fine? Maybe. "Peachy."  He could swear the following snort sounded like an aborted laugh.

"First time seeing a vampire getting a transfusion."

"Never thought I'd get one like this too." Has anything ever be normal in his life? Maybe, once upon a time ago. At this point, he's already too used to living this way. He did think that maybe leaving that life behind would allow him to live a fairly normal life again. Look how well that goes.

"Are you thinking of running again?"

"..Even if I do, where else can I run off to?" Not even the end of the world is far enough for him. No matter how much he ran, he still couldn't escape the past. He still couldn't escape the other man. And he's getting quite tired of it too.

"Then, I suppose it's high time you tell me what actually is going on with you."

They fall into a pause as he tries to sort out his thoughts. He supposes so too; they're already this far involved, there's nothing more he can do to keep them out of his business.

"It'll be a long story."

"There's plenty of time." He almost laughed at the curtness of the answer. No way out.

 

"..It was for revenge."

"For your squad members?"

"No. For my sister."

An abrupt sound from beside him prompted him to look that way, catching Mikage with a surprised expression.

"I've never told you before. I've never told anyone of it." He turned back towards the ceiling, tracing the uneven contours of the cave walls with his eyes. "I heard you came from the Central."

"Yes. I trained there too."

"Then you must've heard of the lab incident."

"The one from some years back? That case with the research institute's lab burned down? You were there?"

"My sister was one of the researchers. And I was sort of her assistant." A pause follows.

"..So, you were the sole survivor from that time. I've heard from the seniors that they brought someone in, but they lost the person quite soon after." He simply smiled at that. He did remembers running off in the middle of the night while keeping an eye for vampires.

"That whole tragedy wasn't an accident. It was a set up."

"Eh?"

 

 

*

 

It wasn't supposed to be that long ago but to him it felt like it was another lifetime - a common, peaceful life that seems like a long-forgotten dream.

For the longest time, it had been just him and his older sister. He lost his parents at a very young age, and were raised by his sister since then. Even so, there wasn't much to his life then. It was hard but they still managed to get by. Friends and neighbours alike kept watch over them on behalf of their parents and they helped whenever it was needed. Overall it wasn't too bad at all.

His sister was strong, more so than him. Even when that happened.

In between raising him and trying to work out a living, she somehow managed to keep on studying. Eventually she starts working with the professor that taught her. He didn't really understand much of what she told him of her work; something about ground-breaking research and stuffs. To him it only sounded like an alien language. But she truly loves what she's doing, and he can feel her passion for it.

They eventually moved out of their hometown following her trail of job.

"Where are we going to?"

"The Central. Professor Ichijou is opening his personal laboratory over there. Work would get going a lot smoother there than it would here."

"Then there's no need for me to tag along." He'd feel lonely without his sister around, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. He's already old enough to take care of himself.

"But I promised I'd take care of you, didn't I? Besides, I could use some help too." He knows she feels the same way he did. This is just a roundabout way of saying it. And he's more than glad they don't have to stay apart.

They moved out fairly soon after that. It wasn't easy to part with their childhood home, but this is also a part of life.

(Though he was certainly unaware that the entire village would eventually fall to ruin. Wonder what happened to all of them.)

Their move to the central city was just as uneventful, however smooth the process went. The differences in area and environment is so jarring he end up getting a minor culture shock. He remembered getting lost quite a few times too. Thankfully the people around are still very nice and friendly.

They lived not too far from the lab, and sure enough, he started joining them soon after. And it was rather mundane afterward, blissfully so.

 

He should've noticed it earlier.

He should have-

 

The hit came unexpected. It just so happens to be when he wasn't around.

"..-Thank goodness, you're safe.."

 

The entire lab complex was burned down. There were no survivors.

(Except him.)

At first it was thought to be an accident, but he knows it's not that. An investigation later revealed that it was a planned crime, and the church's hunters identified it as the work of the vampires. He was taken into custody by the Central Church soon after.

It was supposed to just end like that. It would have if it's any other person. But he couldn't let it be. So, he ran away and investigated the case on his own.

As expected, it wasn't easy to go around by himself; he had to lay low most of the time and avoided both the vampires and the hunters. Then, his sole purpose, the only thing keeping him alive is his desire for revenge. And from his investigation, he found that man (whose name and face he no longer remembers).

The man was one of the frequent visitors of the lab and supposedly one of its strongest supporters. On the surface, at least.

The man was a mole, sent by the vampires.

His sister was helping to develop a new countermeasure against those creatures. So, they had the man destroy the lab, and everything in it, with all the data and personnel.

What came after was blurry; he wasn't really in a good state following that. He was quite literally running around half mad from grief and anger. And in the same flurry of madness, he had murdered the man, and set his entire estate aflame.

His first kill was a human.

He was meant to burn down together with that mansion that night.

 

"Didn't expect someone else would get to the perp before me. Certainly didn't expect for it to be a simple guy too." A gruff voice came from between the flames. Who?

"You're okay, kid?" Turning around, he sees a rough looking man in black suit with a silver cross across the chest. Strange, that is not the standard hunter uniform.

"..Leave me alone." There's nothing more to him in this world. But the man refuses to heed.

"Can't have that. More so you managed to accomplish this feat on your own. There's a potential to you." What is this man talking about? He just killed a man.

"If you have nothing else to live for, then come with me. We live to kill people like the bastard you just set fire to. The kind that have no qualms over killing his own for the vampires." For some reason, the man's words resonated within him. Maybe because he's still unsatisfied deep inside. He thought by killing the bastard the burning fire of revenge would die out on its own. He was wrong.

"Even so, do you still wish to burn away in here?" The man puts out his hand, waiting for his response.

He took it. Why, he wasn't quite sure. Perhaps it was his fate.

 

And he lived as an assassin ever since. Though surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as it sounds.

Then again, that was really just the start of everything.