Bound by Blood
Plain brown hair and strangely lifeless green eyes. Even the drab gray-brown trench coat completed the picture—if you'd passed her on the street, you'd have filed her away as pedestrian number three and forgotten her the next second.
Yet the aura radiating from that utterly ordinary figure was anything but ordinary.
That woman was a vampire. And a fairly powerful one at that.
I didn't think I'd lose… well. Would I? If I fought poorly enough, maybe. She was definitely strong enough to make that thought cross my mind unbidden.
Still, she showed no open hostility. Or perhaps she was simply masking her enmity while she asked her questions.
Either way, I couldn't deal with her while still holding Na-rae.
"You. Vampire, aren't you? Let me guess. Superior of the ones who were bound here, right? Their parent, even? Come to avenge your children's deaths?"
I tossed out a light provocation first, hoping to pull every scrap of her attention onto me.
She didn't so much as flinch. She simply fixed me with those murky, algae-green eyes and kept staring.
Seizing the moment, I tossed the bound Na-rae into a corner that looked reasonably safe. She let out a little "ugh," but this wasn't the time for gentle handling.
"…And you who speak that way—are you a Child of the Night?"
After studying me a while longer, the woman suddenly asked whether I was a vampire.
A vampire? Well. About thirty-three percent, give or take?
"Can't you see these fangs?"
I stuck out my tongue and opened my mouth wide, but the woman remained utterly unmoved, her expression as flat as ever.
Other vampires usually went bug-eyed at that. How boring.
"Children of the Night possess neither dragon-like wings, nor horns, nor tails. More than that—they do not carry impure, turbid blood like yours."
"Oh-ho. I take that as an insult directed at me."
I could let the rest slide, but the sly dig calling me a mongrel was more than I could stomach.
It was true, of course… but even so, I didn't know why it needled me so badly.
Had she scratched my pride?
"I had no intention of insulting you. Please, set your anger aside."
Whether it was because I'd made my irritation so blatant, or because she'd never planned on fighting in the first place, the vampire unexpectedly offered a polite apology and asked me to calm down.
I accepted it. I never ran from a fight that came to me, but I wasn't enough of a battle maniac to go hunting for one either.
More importantly, this woman seemed like she might know something about me.
If she could pierce my identity at a glance, maybe she could tell me things about myself that even I didn't know.
"So. Why come all the way here? Surely not just to look at my face."
"To convey my gratitude—and a request."
Hmm. Hmm? A request? That was genuinely unexpected.
"Before that—what language am I speaking to you right now?"
"Standard Romanian… is it not?"
Hmm.
Some genuine magic must have been at work after all.
…In that case, lingering here too long might be unwise.
"Fine. Continue."
Receiving my permission, the vampire launched into a rather long and tedious tale.
To summarize: this city had originally been her family's territory. Ten years ago, some accident had caused their elder to go missing, and the family's fortunes had declined sharply.
Neighboring houses had begun eyeing their lands, and the family of the vampires I had just killed had been especially aggressive.
They hadn't dared open war—being ganged up on would have shattered the house completely—so they had simply endured. Then I had conveniently slaughtered those particular pests for them.
That was what she was thanking me for.
I hadn't been trying to help them, but being thanked still left me feeling faintly awkward even as my shoulders lifted a little.
Vampires were proud creatures, or so I'd heard. For one of them to bow her head like this…
It probably wasn't that big a deal. Still, I felt a touch embarrassed inside, so when the vampire pointed out that we hadn't even exchanged names yet and suggested introductions before the request, I went along.
"You may call me Ilie. I hold a position roughly equivalent to… acting elder. What is your name?"
My name… I still hadn't decided on one.
I still hadn't settled on a name for myself.
If I could have remembered my real name, I would have given her that—but even that was gone. Regrettably, I had no memory whatsoever of the name I'd carried as a man.
I could have given her Shining White's name, but then there was no telling what Radiant White might do. That was out of the question.
After a moment's thought, I decided on honesty.
"I don't have one yet. I've been alive less than a week."
When I stated it so boldly, Ilie looked flustered and asked how someone with power like mine could still lack a name.
"So you do have a rough idea of what I am. Interesting. I still don't know who I am myself."
The fact that she possessed knowledge of the anomalous even among vampires only deepened my interest.
Children of the Night cared for nothing beyond themselves and the blood they drank.
Considering that, the bloodsucker standing before me was extremely—extraordinarily—unusual.
"You wish to know who you are."
"Wouldn't anyone?"
"Then… help us. In return, we will cooperate as fully as we can so that you may learn who you are."
She dangled a rather tempting bait, but my answer had been decided from the start.
"I refuse."
"…I know it is shameless of me, but I must ask again. Please help us. Because of your actions, war with them will soon break out. We lack the strength to win it. With your power, however, we could certainly overcome…"
"I said I refuse."
She kept pleading, but I cut her off cleanly.
What did I care about some squabble among bloodsuckers? It was just "an ugly fight between villains" anyway.
So my actions had sparked a war among the bloodsuckers. Fine. That could happen. But that didn't mean I was obligated to help, did it?
Besides, bloodsuckers couldn't live without preying on innocent civilians.
Honestly, this Ilie bloodsucker should have been twice as grateful. The mere fact that I hadn't killed her on the spot was already me being lenient.
"…Without me, you will never even learn who you are."
Oh-ho. A threat.
"Then I'll just find out myself. There. We're done talking. Leave. Don't test my patience."
"…I cannot do that. Lives are at stake."
She kept whining, so I decided to slap some sense into her with a punch.
But the fist I threw did not strike the bloodsucker's body. It simply slid straight through her.
Huh. Hold on. Timeout. Why did punching a person sound like I was hitting water?
"I will take you with me—by force if necessary."
Whatever was happening, I could tell things had gone seriously wrong. I designated the bloodsucker as my enemy, triggered Time Acceleration, and tried to yank my hand free.
But far faster still, her blood burrowed into my body.
Agony as my blood vessels were forcibly dilated, and a dizzying loss of consciousness. Something that should never have entered me was invading.
Danger. I have to cut the arm off. Instinct screamed the warning, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.
And so my consciousness slipped awa—
…It didn't.
Ilie's blood, which had been boring into me, suddenly stopped at a certain point inside my body.
Seizing the chance, I swung my arm with all my strength and flung the blood off in a spray.
I still didn't understand why the fist that had passed clean through her earlier now refused to pass through and instead sent her flying into the wall.
But I did understand that I shouldn't chase after her and hit her again.
When time resumed its flow, Ilie muttered blankly:
"Mother…? Why… are you there…?"
"Get out. Now."
Fighting her did not seem like a wise decision. That strange ability of hers… was dangerous.
So I snarled the order to leave, packing every scrap of malice I could into the words.
Ilie looked back and forth between me and her own hand in confusion, then fled the place as if running for her life.
"…What the hell was that about."
What had that just been, and why had she called me Mother? My head felt ready to explode from the complications, but I decided to handle the practical matters first.
I needed to untie Na-rae—and then make her do the thinking for me.
The emotion Radiant White felt upon arriving in Romania was a puzzled surprise at how surprisingly normal everything looked.
According to her research, Romania was a nation thoroughly infested by vampires—one of the varieties of anomalous beings.
The vampires themselves would have been furious at being compared to such trash, but to Radiant White that distinction hardly mattered.
Both were villains the world would be better off without.
That was precisely why she was startled. In her mind, Romania had been a den of monsters.
A place overflowing with corpses, people about to become corpses, and vampires wherever you looked.
Even so, she did not let her guard down. She knew full well that night made everything more dangerous.
Guide any new magical girl to the Association; eliminate any new special-grade anomalous. Having set her policy, she transformed at once and set out to find the user of that unknown starlight.
If my sister is still alive somewhere, that's exactly what she would have done.
Carrying that blind faith with her, the girl rose into the air and lit up the night sky.