What Exactly Am I?
Squelch.
A boot came down in the red puddle that had begun to pool on the ground.
The man with the greatsword in his hand wore a foul little smile as he surveyed the satisfying work he had made.
One woman slumped trembling against the wall, and one child beside her.
The woman's body — the child's mother, by the look of it — was scored with countless bright red cuts.
"Should've been more careful, bitches. Who the hell wanders around outside at this hour?"
"P-please, spare us… J-just the child, please… Aagh!"
He kicked away the woman clutching at his pant leg with shaking hands, then set about wiping his blade clean with a scrap of red cloth once more.
"Look at this untrained whore… I'll fuck you raw and then kill you, so just sit tight."
Quite the haul.
For months now he had taken his pleasure among the unawakened and the freshly bloomed novice hunters, and nothing delighted him more than watching terror curdle into resignation.
The weak ones especially — women, children — the nakedness of what he could put in their eyes when he tormented them was a pleasure beyond words.
"Well, well. Pretty face, too."
Pretty enough that he was already looking forward to the exquisite thrill of killing her.
"M-Mom…"
"Haeun…"
The woman gave her child's back a gentle shove toward the mouth of the alley, desperate to draw the man's attention onto herself instead.
It did no good.
"You little—"
"Augh! Aaaagh!"
"L-let go! Please, please!"
Crack—
He struck the woman across the face as she grabbed at his collar again, then, breathing hard, seized the child by the hair and flung her to the ground.
"Augh… hah… nnngh…"
"Fucking bitches. Enough of this."
He tore off his outer clothes with a haste that almost looked urgent, clamped the blade between his teeth, and started toward the two of them moaning on the ground.
If only there hadn't been a voice that pulled every eye.
"Hello."
In the middle of a scene that anyone could see was chaos, a calm tone rang in his ear like an echo.
Past strange and into suspicious, the man whipped his head around at once, hunting for the source of the sound.
A girl, standing in the dim alley. Something else seemed to flicker at the edge of his vision, but what caught him were the deep blue eyes.
"The hell is that supposed to—"
A lurch.
What he felt in that instant was a bizarre sensation. Something liquid bursting from his mouth along with the breath he had shoved out.
And immediately after it, a dizzying agony that slammed through his entire body.
"Urk— ghhk— khaaagh. Uerp— pwaaaah!"
His body was heavy. The air that suddenly pressed in on him was dense and cold. Far too cold.
The last thing his reeling vision caught was his own abdomen, carved open countless times by a blood-red blade — and the face of a girl wearing a smile so distant it defied description.
Terror.
A primal fear began to swallow him whole.
Endless screams batter my ears.
They gather into one mass and set my whole body boiling.
Fierce and fervent, as if mocking me for being so lost in rapture I cannot climb back out.
Nights like this are when I find myself wanting to see Erika again.
"I-it's okay… Haeun… it's okay…"
"M-M-Mom… hic… hhik…"
I kept driving the blade into the man's gut, and past him I could see the unawakened pair he had been tormenting — the child and the woman clinging to each other, shaking hard enough to rattle.
"How pitiful."
"Not really."
I answered offhandedly and severed the joints of the man's fingers. Another breath, another round of screaming that rang out and echoed away into the distance.
"Gyaaagh— augh— urk— hhk— s-spare m—"
"Could you keep it down a little?"
He was too loud, so I cut his throat deep. His breathing thinned, and small whimpers began to leak out instead.
Well. Nights like this happen. You bury a knife in someone's heart and find out they were a wanted Awakened, or that they had been putting their filthy power to use in a place like this.
Looking at it, I felt neither rage nor sorrow. It had simply become that way. Familiarity was like that.
"Ha. Haha."
I let out a hollow laugh and looked back and forth between the blood on my hands and the man collapsed on the ground, clutching his abdomen.
Either way, it was real progress. A life that used to kill three people a day had thinned out to one every few days — or once a week.
My reddened vision began to clear. As my breathing settled, it was… truly peaceful.
I lowered my gaze for a moment. A specimen slowly making its way toward death.
A man — or at this point, was it better to write him off as a male?
Because he wasn't human. And if that was the case, then neither was I.
A creature that deserved to die. What was it again. Damphir, was it?
Nausea surged up. My mouth fell open helplessly and I retched. Filthy.
"Hic! Hhihhk…"
With my reason returning, I looked at the woman and the child, then stuck a cigarette between my lips.
"Wow. Hello. You two managed to survive somehow."
"S-s-spare us… p-please… I'll do anything…"
I had no particular intention of killing them. They were just a woman and a child, after all. I didn't imagine their blood would be anything special.
Hmm.
Well.
Look at you, playing at mercy when you aren't even human.
Disgusting beyond words. Right. Since when did you start pretending to be a person?
Maybe I should just kill them.
"Orly."
"Excuse me."
"Hic!"
The way they trembled was rather… pitiful.
"What do I look like to you?"
"Y-yes…? What?"
"Me. What do I seem like?"
I swung my arm in an exaggerated flourish. The knife plunged into the man's heart, and a feeble death rattle answered.
"Th-th-ah, augh, I-I'm sorry! I-I was wrong, just spare my l—"
"Trash, right? Trash! You cut people's throats and then — look at you — you're happy about it!"
"I'm sorry!! I'm sorry!! P-please spare us!"
"Isn't that right? Like this! Driving a knife in like this!"
A powerless arm dropped toward the ground. The man groaned, and then his head lolled with a soft thud.
"Shouldn't I die too? Whatever kind of human I used to be, whatever kind of animal — in the end I turned into a bad bitch, didn't I! A lunatic! A psychopath! A murderer!"
My breathing was rough. It was hard. My head hurt.
The noisy little spirit beside me seemed to be chattering about something.
"Here! Take it! I'll give you the knife, so kill me with it! Hurry!"
"A-augh…! I'm sorry…! I'm sorry! Please… hhik, hhuuk…"
It was stifling. My chest felt clogged and my stomach churned.
"Why? Why won't you stab me? Do you feel sorry for me? Is it pity? What am I? What exactly am I?"
There was no strength left in my arm. The knife slipped free and rang out with a clear, bright sound as it hit the ground.
I had tried to hold on to a self. Even while committing murder, I had tried to keep a grip on reason.
I had wanted to know that identity of mine.
I had wanted to understand it. To break through the fear of the unknown. Even if that unknown had been born from me.
Species.
Damphir? Vampire? Human?
Or something else entirely.
Something mixed.
I had agonized and fretted and suffered over it.
But I could not find an answer.
And then I met that girl.
Somehow, it felt as though she would be the one to find me.
Villain, saint — I didn't care which. I just wanted her to hand down a verdict.
Out loud I kept calling myself trash, a lunatic.
But I was tired even of thinking that way now.
"That is quite enough."
Enough of what? Of me walking toward them with a knife? Or of this pointless thrashing about?
At the firm voice, I lifted my head to the side.
The colors of the street, as if strewn with stars, flushed green, and flowers began to bloom.
Vines unfurled, filling the walls and the ground before soaring upward to climb the sky itself.
And at the end of it all stood a man who seemed utterly at odds with the transformed surroundings — draped from head to toe in a dark, drab robe — his eyes flashing open.
A vast gaze unraveled the space around him.
"…They are nothing more than a weak species. And from the look of things, you do not appear to be one of ours…"
I spat out the blood that had tumbled from my mouth with a soft tuck, then pushed myself upright.
"Wow. Thanks for talking to someone like me. So who are you?"
Suddenly—
I had the feeling I had seen him somewhere before.
Our eyes met.
"Those eyes…"
The robe swayed as the man faltered.
"Surely not… that would be absurd…"
The flowers and vines all began to wither. The ground cracked and dried out.
"No — if that were so, I would never have come to this place to begin with…"
"Sorry? You're too far away, I can't hear you!"
A red current stirred, and a small spirit wrapped in a cloak drifted up into the air.
"Orly. 'Tis Seran."
Ah. Seran.
There's a name I haven't heard in a while.
Light footsteps approached, the robe dragging and swaying across the ground.
"It has been far too long, Lady Orly. Seran, King of Spirits, greets you."
The cumbersome great sleeves folded back. The man bent one arm, brought it to his chest, and bowed his head.
"Your gender… appears to have changed, I see?"
So he was still wearing the Crown, then.
Inside a long glass bottle, red cubes began to stack higher and higher.
"Wow. Are you sure it's okay to give me this? Blood's precious in the Spirit Realm, isn't it?"
"Haha. I would be the happier one, if you would accept it."
"Then I won't refuse."
It was a gift. And the more blood, the better.
"Had I not seen the wings, I might not have recognized you."
"Eh, those red cumbersome things? I haven't even taken them out."
"Even so, they are visible to my eyes."
Whatever that was supposed to mean.
I ignored him and shook the glass bottle, admiring the cubes.
"Still not dead, I see. Make haste and go get thyself poisoned, why don't thee."
"You still dislike me, I see."
"'Tis less dislike than a physiological revulsion. Wouldst thou care to face the one who raised a rebellion, were it thee?"
"The purge order couldn't be helped. To smash every last one of those rotten higher-ups, we had to deal with the brainwashed legions first."
Nice. This stuff. A luminous color wrapped around my body. Pretty. I like it.
"Did the Princess not wish for it as well, in truth? He was no longer a king. He kept women close. He kept drink close."
"I don't like alcohol."
The two of them looked at me, then turned their gazes away again.
What? Why are you ignoring me.
"That one did need smashing, true enough. But even if it aligned with righteousness, it nearly cost me my own life, did it not!"
"I will apologize for that once more. Even the spirits under my direct command proved beyond my control. Fortunately, thanks to Lady Orly scattering her salvation, the scenario of mere foot soldiers slaughtering the royal family and the people never came to pass."
Their eyes turned toward me again.
Is it my turn to talk?
"Me? Well, I am something of an irregular, yeah. You have no idea how hard it was saving Bloody back then."
"Truly magnificent. I aspire to follow your example. Take me as your disciple."
"Is that a joke?"
"It is a joke."
"About as funny as that drab robe of yours."
"Haha."
Ugh. I stuck my tongue out at him, thoroughly disgusted.