“I warmly welcome you, Azusa. Welcome to my abode,” said a boy Azusa’s age as he held out his hand for a handshake.
He appeared like a male student found anywhere in Japan. He had black hair and black eyes. He stood at about five feet two inches—just below Japan’s standard height. This average-looking person—looked like nothing other than a commonplace human. Yet this ordinary young man was the master of the old church.
Azusa had been carried to an antiquated church abandoned on the outskirts of the forest. She was led into a chapel that could easily fit a hundred people during mass. Dust covered wooden pews lined the right and left side of the large open room, leaving an aisle down the middle leading to a gorgeous stained-glass window.
Cracks and holes caused by the passage of time marred the window, but the moonlight beautifully shone through it nonetheless. A full moon lit the night. Several candles were the only lighting used in the chapel, but the moonlight pouring in through the stained-glass window was enough to make everything visible.
Azusa stood in the middle of the chapel, her eyes locked on the boy. The wooden cross that once adorned the wall below the stained-glass window had rotted with time and fallen onto the ground. The man sat on top of what was left of the once finely carved cross. He sat dressed in a school uniform, his legs spread out, looking up at the night sky through the cracks in the broken stained-glass window.
The silver-haired man urged Azusa inside the chapel. Her eyes met the boy’s—he broke out in a beaming smile. Being faced with a smile similar to one reserved for seeing a long-lost love again perplexed her. He welcomed her then.
Azusa swatted away his hand and glared at him with all the spite welling up inside her. The boy’s eyes rounded like saucers for a moment, before immediately regaining his smile.
“That hurt, Azusa. I’m a normal human, so I wish you would go easy on me,” he jested and held his hand out a second time, seeking to shake hands again. His expression overflowed with affection as if he were trying to tame a wounded animal. “Sorry for doing things the violent way. But I had to meet you no matter what.”
“……”
Azusa turned away, ignoring his hand. She was shocked he admitted to being human, but didn’t let it show on her face. She only knew Ichi and Kouya for two months, but she had no desire to speak to the cretins who put their lives in danger. Escaping by herself was unlikely as long as the silver-haired man was nearby. Thus, this was the best she could do to put up a fight.
“Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you my name yet. Sorry about that. I’m Tsukiharu Hiragi. I don’t mind if you casually call me Tsukiharu,” he proclaimed with a sickeningly sweet smile. He dropped his hand, his expression and voice gentle. But Azusa could only take all of it in with disgust.
“……”
“I see. So that’s how it’s going to be? How sad. Looks like I need that Ichi girl and the Akaoni’s assistance to get you to talk to me.”
Clearly, that was a threat. Kouya could protect himself, but Ichi’s consciousness was locked away by the silver-haired man’s poison. She would move however he ordered her to.
Azusa bit her lip. “…What do you plan on doing to them?”
“You finally spoke to me! I’m thrilled! I prefer things the pacifistic way.”
“You’re the last person who can say that after today.”
“Everything that happened was because Shiro acted on his own. I didn’t give him any orders. I only requested he bring you to me. I couldn’t sit still ever since the day I heard you, the girl I have been searching for all this time, had been captured by the Red Coven! I wanted to meet you so badly, Azusa.”
“…You, the Blue Coven, are who found me first, right? Aren’t you the ones who used the Yakuza to kidnap me?”
Tsukiharu stared at her puzzled. “That wasn’t us, and I don’t think it was the Blue Coven vamps’ doing either. It sounds like a bad joke to use normal humans to kidnap someone as important as you. After all, it would be much faster for us to get you ourselves rather than ask someone else to do it. Besides, I would have never let the Red Coven get their hands on you if I found you first.”
“Then who kidnapped me first?”
“No idea. We only learned you were carried into the Red Coven mansion in the middle of the night because Shiro happened to see it while staking out their town.”
“Who was it then…?”
It’s frustrating, but makes sense. If they were responsible for the first kidnapping, they would have been as aggressive as they were this time. There’s no benefit to them for using weak humans when they want me badly enough to attack a whole coven, Azusa thought.
“Who knows? I don’t think it was the Blue Coven either, but it’s not like I actually confirmed it with them. It’s also a possibility the Blue Coven isn’t aware of you too,” Tsukiharu muttered.
Azusa felt something off about the way he referred to the Blue Coven. “Aren’t you guys from the Blue Coven?”
“If it comes down to whether we are with the Blue or Red Coven, I’m human, but Shiro is with the Blues. I wonder if that makes me a part of the Blues too. But we’re acting independent of any coven. The Blues and Reds have nothing to do with us.”
“Then why are you after me?”
“If I were to sum it up with one word, I’d have to say it’s because I am your fate and you are my fate, I guess.”
His theatrical elocution and air of importance had Azusa furrowing her brow.
He widely opened both arms and laughed mockingly at her, “I’m the other successful experiment. Azusa, I am your other half.”