A Name for the Vampire
lately, I had changed my sleeping patterns. Training my body in the early morning, falling asleep at noon, waking at night — that was the shape of it. Since gaining combat experience through sparring with the Hundred Ghosts was clearly more useful, I judged it a reasonable arrangement. At this pace, I figured that by the time my coming-of-age ceremony arrived, my body — already pushed past its limits by that meteoric growth — would have matured completely. In the leftover hours, I did as the System had once advised and set aside time to review the legendary records of the Hundred Ghosts one by one. It was simple rote memorization — dredging up memories of my past life and carving them into the memory I held now — so it ought to have been tedious, but the stories entangled in each legend were interesting enough to keep me from boredom. "Hyakki Yagyo. The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons." Time slipped past like that, and one early night, when the sun had withdrawn its light, I summoned the Vampire. In principle I held absolute dominion over them, but that was a separate matter from the Hundred Ghosts showing me respect. We shared many points of contact, and if there was something I could give them, it seemed best to give as much as I could. Among other things, I had been satisfying the Vampire's periodic thirst for blood.
"A good night to you, Master."
A black skirt whose luxurious frills bloomed like roses along the hem. Red laces, strung suggestively across the opening of her bodice, tying together the panels over her plunging neckline. Her back was entirely bared, yet the silver hair cascading down covered it — which only stirred a decadent allure all the more. In particular, her areolae were nearly as wide as her ample breasts, and that unconscious lewdness of hers instinctively snagged my gaze and would not let go.
"……Conversation."
Since I hadn't called her out to appraise her body, I charged my words with the power of the Lingual Command, then half-removed my top and tilted my neck to the side.
"It's about time your bloodlust crept up on you, no?"
"You don't have to feed me your blood, Master."
"I'm doing this because I want to. You don't need to refuse."
Demurring in words even as she was already parting her lips to bare her fangs — that was the Vampire. The moment she realized her own instinctive gesture, she hurriedly covered her mouth, but when I stepped to her side, she finally drew me into a gentle embrace and buried her face against the nape of my neck.
Tzok—!
The sensation of sharp fangs sinking into flesh came through vividly, yet it did not hurt. If anything, it was the way her two hands clung to me, holding tight so I wouldn't slip away, that seemed so childlike I almost laughed.
"Mm……"
I had only recently learned that she suffered from this periodic blood-hunger, so this was the first time I had offered my body to her like this. More than the faint dizziness that came with being fed upon, it was the vivid pleasure that drowned it out which set my body stirring. Did she have more legendary records I still didn't know about? Well — there was no need to interrogate her about each and every one.
"Hey."
"……"
"Would it be all right to call you Bathory?"
Quietly drinking my blood, I broached the subject as if in passing. Among the legends the Vampire carried, there were three names for her kind. One, of course, was the blood-drinker. Another was the Greek — Nosferatu. Derived from the word for the carrier of disease, Nosophoros. Thanks to that, the Vampire held the power to spread sickness as well. And the last of the three was perhaps the most famous — the Blood Countess who truly existed in England. Elizabeth Báthory. She had unquestionably been real, a living human woman — yet she was called a slaughterer who bathed in the blood of countless maidens, and rumors swirled thick that she must have been a vampire. Because of that, her legend had settled in as one of the Vampire's abilities: she takes no harm from any means of harm dealt by a maiden. "If you don't mind, then, gently run your hand down my back." Since she was in a woman's form, Bathory suited her far better than Nosferatu ever would.
Suurek.
Just as I expected, she showed no particular resistance, her cold fingers gliding smoothly down my back.
"Then from now on, I'll call you Bathory."
Honestly, calling her "Vampire" had always felt clumsy on the tongue.
"Done already?"
When she finally lifted her head after that long feed, I swiped clean the area near my nape and wound a light bandage around it.
"Then I'll send you back. See you a little later. We'll be leaving the capital for the sparring anyway."
"……"
Silently, Bathory wiped away the trace of my blood smeared near her lips. The way it spread across her mouth like lipstick was dazzling enough that I swallowed hard without meaning to — but deciding this silence must be her wordless assent, I turned to send her away. No — the very moment I tried, a hand pale as snow, cold to the touch, closed around my arm.
"The fox. You're going to summon her, aren't you?"
"Out of nowhere…… why? Later, when we leave the capital, I'd summon her anyway for Miho's provisioning, but……"
"That's not why I'm asking, Master."
Bathory, head bowed, her red eyes fixing on my lower half.
"While feeding, the prey must not thrash or feel its life is threatened — so while the blood is being drawn, the one being fed upon naturally feels no small amount of pleasure."
"……"
"So I'm asking whether you're aroused right now, and whether you intend to summon that fox to take care of it."
Honestly, the only one who had ever set this kind of precedent was Miho, drifting that suggestive air about her first. Why on earth was the Vampire — no, why was Bathory — doing this too? I tried to answer that I had no such intention, but the Conversation's time limit had already expired without my noticing, and I was left to cough out nothing but stammering silence.
Creak!
And then — had she mistaken that silence? Bathory pushed me down across the bed, and in the same motion dragged my trousers down along with my underwear.
Jolt!
Contrasting with the relentless momentum of her advance, she flinched and froze in confusion the instant my cock, bounding free, smacked against her cheek. I was every bit as bewildered as she was — I reached out to push her head away, and yet……
Shloop!
"!"
At the feel of her stuffing my instantly-hardened length into her mouth, working it down with urgent, squeezing pulls, a soundless groan escaped me and my hand clenched hard in her hair. Unlike the slick heat of her mouth, her clinging tongue was soft — but her frigid body temperature, in stark contrast to my burning cock, sent a chilled current of pleasure shivering up my spine and made my whole body curl inward.
Gulp.
Because of it, the hand resting atop Bathory's head was no longer trying to push her away — instead it pressed down, forcing her to take me even deeper.
"Ngh……!"
My length beat against her tonsils and slipped past, plugging her throat without a gap — it must have been genuinely punishing. Yet Bathory showed no sign of suffering; rather, she let out even filthier sounds, her cheeks hollowing slim.
For an instant the faces of Aria and Lapis flickered through my mind — but in this moment, they were coated not with guilt but with a thick, clinging depravity that only fed the lust.
Shk.
Twitch!
She drew her head back slightly, then swallowed me deep again. At that indescribable pleasure, my thighs quivered as I seized her silver hair roughly. My cock, driven deep along the convulsing line of her throat, ground deliciously against the walls of her gullet. With a beauty like this buried face-down between my legs, a strange sense of conquest swelled as well, and I found myself panting ragged silences between my teeth, biting my lip hard.
This pleasure was engraved in the memory of my past life. The body of this life had never known it — and so the climax that came hurtling toward me, following the violent throbbing of my cock, spent itself mercilessly down her throat, thick and clinging.
At that hot, fishy taste, Bathory — who had been quietly keeping her face buried — belatedly trembled, hands shaking where they rested on my thighs, her eyes flying up in alarm, but……
Grab!
I twisted my grip in her silver hair and pushed her head deeper, drawing out the long spasm of release — no, excretion — without pause.
"Hk……! Cough!"
When it finally ended, I let out a faint sigh, drained myself against her mouth and tongue with a clinging deliberateness — using them like so much tissue — then rubbed the glans, dirtied with saliva and seed, softly against her red lips before releasing the hand that held her.
"……Why, all of a sudden. Why did you do that?"
I had invoked Conversation once more, briefly freeing myself of the Lingual Command's constraints, and now I watched Bathory coughing over the briny taste as I fetched a clean white cloth from nearby.
"I think it's cowardly of you to ask me for reasons. Because the fault might be called your favoritism."
"……"
"By nature, we who are bound to you feel closeness to you. Those of us in female forms want your affection; those in male forms want your trust. And watching you — you who keep a peculiar distance from everyone except the yokai of the East, and the fox above all — tell me, how could we not be jealous?"
I held my silence for a moment at Bathory's words. Because the observation wasn't wrong. My past self had evidently been from the East, so I simply knew more of the legends carried by Eastern yokai. The ones I'd had cultural contact with had been Eastern yokai, too. And among them, Miho was without question the foremost.
"The fox holds the greatest store of legendary records among all the Eastern yokai — and if you set up her opposite, who would it be but me?"
"Sorry. My manner of doing things was clumsy."
"There's no need to apologize…… though it's true your way was mistaken. The Hundred Ghosts have long since sorted themselves into factions according to where their legends originate. It was formed over ages, and trying to bridge that gap now is pointless."
"……"
"So it's best that I receive your favor, Master. I'm not practiced at this sort of thing, not like that fox bitch, but……"
The scent of seed spilling out as she spoke made Bathory's voice trail off, and shyly, she covered her mouth with her hand.
"The Hundred Ghosts share their memories with one another. Later, Miho will demand the same of me that you gave her. And then?"
"It doesn't matter. At the very least it makes us equals. No…… I suppose it doesn't, does it. That fox has far deeper experience in this sort of thing, so one day she may well be preening over your reactions."
And with that — she said, gripping the hem of her skirt, revealing the intimate underwear beneath it.
"Your education in women, Master — will you let me be the one to give it?"
"……"
"That way, whatever the fox does, I won't be the one made to kneel."
Where I maintained a long silence at Bathory's words, my cock — despite one release already spent — still surged and strained, and the embarrassment of it was almost unbearable.
"If this is some sense of duty — the feeling of being the head of the Western yokai, and this comes of that……"
"It isn't. No — I can't deny it entirely. If I had to parse it, the fox is my opposite, so she's simply always on my mind. Besides…… we are bound to you by nature, so the wish for your favor only grows, never shrinks."
As though the conversation had gone on long enough, Bathory bent at the waist and slipped off her red panties, then drew close and laid one hand upon my shoulder. Her cool body temperature stood in obvious contrast to my feverish heat.
"It will be…… rather rough. Because this isn't a living body……"
Sliding her hand down, Bathory gripped my rigidly hardened cock, pressed the head against her mound, and lowered her hips with excruciating slowness.
Just as she had warned me, her insides were quite dry — and cold. Yet the friction that friction offered carried not only pain but a strange, illicit pleasure seeping through it.
Rip.
Soon, with a faint sound of something being pierced, my cock drove ever deeper and came to rest before her womb. The scar of her breaking. Perhaps the blood seeping through it was what stood in for her body's fluids. Bathory, who had been absently stroking her own lower belly, met my eyes, and after a moment's bewilderment, opened her mouth in an awkward stage delivery.
"Ah. Ahn. It feels…… good……"
As she had said before, she moved — but she was not a living body. And so pleasure from the act of joining simply could not exist for her.
"……"
Was that why? Watching Bathory put on her trembling little performance, pity welled up in me, and I wrapped my arms around her waist, pressing my warmth against her at closer range.
Bathory, acting out the motion of living in a body that was not alive. Even if this union had begun for some other reason, there was no need to bring that reason up — not now, not in this moment.
Grab!
My hand slid down from her waist to seize her hip hard, and pressing my lips to her cheek, I began to move my hips in slow, languid strokes. A dead one who had never known the joining of the living, mimicking the living and letting out those awkward, theatrical moans — it might have killed the mood in an instant. Instead, I found the sight endearing. I stripped her top away and bared her entirely.
Perhaps because her skin was so deathly pale, the pink of her areolae and nipples stood out vividly to the eye.
Creak!
Then I turned her over, made her kneel, and drove deep into her from behind. Her blood, flowing out through the scar of her breaking. I couldn't tell how much was the right amount to ease the passage — perhaps I had simply failed to moderate it. To any observer, it might well have looked as though what I was driving into her was not a cock but a blade.
"Ah……"
It felt good to grip the plush swell of her hips and toy with her from behind, her head bowed low, savoring the conquest. But I deliberately raised her upper body instead, pressed my body tight against her back, and snapped my hips forward. And in the mirror beyond, Bathory — recognizing her own reflection performing that terribly awkward act — flushed red with shame. Rather than her ill-fitting performance, this reaction of hers excited me far more; I seized her breasts hard and pounded against her womb.
Some might say that coupling with such a body was no different from taking an exquisite doll to bed…… But the figure of the dead, desperately aping the living, was — in a sense — a sight even more heartbreaking than the living themselves.
"You can…… finish inside. Master. My womb can't serve its purpose anyway……"
Continuing, repeating — Bathory's bitter self-mockery. Even as I felt sympathy for it, the sadism rising alongside it — why was it so keen, so piercing?
The dead one, playing at being alive so that she might receive affection. The fact that I was handling her like a tool — no, the depravity of trampling that very sympathy beneath my sadism stoked no small excitement. Every time the breath of the one holding her from behind grew more and more ferocious, she flinched in startlement, and through the glass beyond she met the frightened red eyes of her own reflection, and——
Jolt!
Then I spent my second release.
Grab!
Trapping her in my arms so she could flee nowhere — as though I meant to warm that cold body of hers with my own heat. My arms, corded with fine muscle, wrapped around Bathory's slender frame, our joined bodies pressed flush without a gap as I poured my seed into her.
Spurt.
Through the glass, the seed spilling free, mingled with her blood, had never looked so lewd.
"Ah……"
She could feel no pleasure, perhaps. But she could at least clearly register the sensation of her own lower belly growing warm. Finding it strange — the seed steadily filling a womb that could never conceive life — Bathory slid her hand down.
And I too sank onto the bed, still joined, seating her upon me, and quietly savored the afterglow of this strange bond. It seemed tonight's sparring was out of the question.
"You can just do it, you know."
Two days later, in an uninhabited forest outside the capital, Caym spread his wings and fluttered over to Bathory, who was basking in a bath of moonlight. The memory-sharing of the Hundred Ghosts is forced. Which meant there was not a single Ghost who didn't know that Rohen and Bathory had joined their bodies.
"Get lost."
Having her bare face laid open for all to see was mortifying enough to make her sick — and for Caym to bring those memories up, raw and unvarnished, right in front of her? Bathory flung her hand out roughly and sent him skittering far away. Watching the shower of feathers drifting down loosened her mood a little, but that was as far as it went.
Still……
Across the clearing, she caught sight of the Nine-Tailed Fox, sitting as quietly as she herself had been, sipping at a cup of wine while watching their master spar — and a smile escaped Bathory before she knew it. Just as Rohen's words implied, she could use this as her pretext to lure the fox into his bed as well. But she chose not to. Pride, most likely. Proof, too, that the fox was keenly aware of her — of the one whose Western legends stood utterly unrivaled in their overwhelming volume. Which meant that to join with Rohen using her own precedent as the excuse would feel, somehow, too much like the surrender of a beaten foe.