A shadowy figure staggered to his feet and turned a cold eye on Azusa and Kouya.
“Ahh, this really turned into one sucky day. I can’t believe the Akaoni drank Azusa’s blood…”
Kouya swiftly hid Azusa behind him. But Tsukiharu turned on his heel, gesturing he was no longer interested in fighting them.
“I make a point of not fighting battles I can’t win. I can’t compete as I am with the Akaoni after he drank your blood… I won’t be able to take you away with me anymore, so I’ll leave for now and come up with another plan.” Tsukiharu limply lifted his arm, his exhaustion evident.
“Shiro,” he muttered. A gigantic snake slithered out of his shadow. The snake glimmered silver, its original color, under the blood coating its scales. Its right eye was grotesquely smashed in. “Let’s go home.”
“As you wish, Master Tsukiharu,” the snake spoke with Shiro’s voice. It gradually wrapped itself around Tsukiharu. The lower-half of his body sunk into the shadows with the snake.
“See you later, Azusa. I’ll come for you again.” Tsukiharu turned his head toward her, sadness tinged his smile as the ground sucked him in and he disappeared completely.
His absence brought silence to the forest. An owl’s hoot echoed through the woods now that the forest had regained its nighttime stillness.
“…I take it that it’s over?” Azusa asked.
“Yeah, probably.”
Azusa collapsed weakly to her knees, the string of tension holding her together had been cut.
“C’mon,” Kouya grunted.
“I’m so relieved…” She had been on edge nonstop the past few days. Relief brought tears to her eyes.
“You okay?”
“I’m glad everyone is safe. You guys said Ichi is in one piece too… Hold on, everyone?” Something nagged at her mind as she thought of everyone. Then it hit her. “Subaru!”
She had forgotten about Subaru! It wasn’t hard to when a fierce battle broke out in front of her the moment he got blown away. Perhaps it was kind of late for her to worry, but she did nonetheless. She jumped to her feet and looked around. Trees spanned out in every direction and everything looked the same. She had no idea which direction she came from or where Subaru could be.
“I wonder if Subaru is okay.”
“Azusa. You called?” someone said playfully behind her. Azusa spun around to find two people who hadn’t been there before.
“Subaru! And—Ichi?! Why are you here?!”
“I’m sorry, Azusa. I inconvenienced you because of my weak-mind and disappointing failure,” Ichi apologized.
“I couldn’t care less about that! Are you all right?! Are you hurt anywhere? Is the poison out of your system?”
“Yes. There are no problems with my health.”
“Thank goodness… I’m so glad, Ichi,” Azusa said with a teary voice and hugged Ichi. Ichi stared at her in wonder, but softly returned her hug.
“I truly am sorry about what happened this time.”
“It’s fine! Don’t worry about it! It seems like you were targeted because of me after all! I’m the one who is sorry, Ichi!”
“Please do not apologize to me, Azusa. There is not a single thing for you to fret or feel guilty over. Your being safe matters more than anything else.”
“…Have I been forgotten here? I thought I worked pretty hard too. Well, he did get away from me before I could finish the job,” Subaru cut into their girls only apology party.
“My apologies, Subaru.”
“I’m sorry, Subaru.”
Subaru laughed at their mirrored apology and turned his attention to Kouya. He froze when he noticed the vibrant red glow coming from Kouya’s eyes.
“Hm?”
“What?”
“Kou, you drank blood, didn’t you? Azusa’s blood?”
“Yeah.”
The blood drained from Subaru’s face. “I have no idea how much you drank, but I’m impressed you didn’t go on a rampage…”
“I was on the verge of death.”
“You were?” The smile completely vanished from Subaru’s face.
“What are you talking about?” Ichi asked Subaru. He averted his eyes from her and forced a smile that only touched his lips.
“In order to pin down Azusa’s location, we went to plunder the blood sample they have on file at the lab…”
“Plunder?” Azusa interjected.
“Well, it’s a precious and rare sample for the researchers. They weren’t going to give it up, so we decided to take an aggressive approach—both physically and socially!” He flashed a wicked smile. Azusa took a step back.
“Everything went well until we got the blood. Then Kouya went and drank it. He completely healed and was feeling great, until the abundance of power leftover caused him to go on a bit of a rampage…”
“He went on a rampage?” Azusa repeated.
“I stopped him with force! Only used physical force this time! The lab got half-destroyed, I was exhausted, and Kou was like a kid hopped up on a sugar rush. Or should I say a blood rush? Man, my life is over after this… I used the Shiranui name to get us into the lab, so they probably already contacted the family… Ugh, I wish I didn’t just remember about it. My future is bleak.” Subaru crouched and put his hands on his head in despair.
Kouya tossed in his indignant two-cents, “I said I was sorry more than—”
“Shut up! You can keep on apologizing for this one!”
“…Sorry.”
“Your face doesn’t look sorry! Say it again!”
“You’re too fussy.”
“That’s what you say as an apology?!”
“Now, now, Subaru. Please calm down. Your attempts at educating this sourpuss are pointless. Everything you do involving Kouya is wasted effort,” Ichi chimed in.
“Has my entire life and effort until this moment just been casually brushed under the carpet as a waste?” Subaru pouted.
Azusa burst out laughing at the back-and-forth exchange between them. They turned their attention toward her.
“Oh, sorry. Watching you, I couldn’t help feeling there’s not much difference between humans and vampires. I love the great childhood friend vibe you three have! I envy you!”
“…Then why don’t we change it to a group of four great friends vibe? We only recently got to know you Azusa, so we can’t give off the childhood friend vibe,” Subaru suggested.
“Huh?” Azusa squeaked.
“Let’s be great friends, Azusa!” Subaru exclaimed.
“I like being your friend, Azusa,” Ichi added in.
“…I’m up for that,” Kouya said.
Azusa’s cheeks flushed as they all smiled at her. She answered their fang-filled smiles with a broad grin. “I hope we can all get along as good friends!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“OH yeah, Azusa, I meant to bring this up earlier, but I heard you gave Kou your blood when he was on the verge of death,” Subaru whispered next to Azusa on their way back to the mansion.
“Ah, yes, I did,” Azusa responded on the spur of the moment. She couldn’t come up with anything else to say. But Subaru was satisfied by her answer and smiled as he pat her on the head.
“Thank you for saving my best friend.”
“Pardon?”
“You know how he is. Most people get the wrong idea about him… He’s at fault too for taking their crap like it’s justified. His refusal to deny what they say lets them get carried away… In the end, he’s actually a nicer guy than most.”
“I agree.”
“……”
Azusa looked up at Subaru who had fallen silent—his face stiffened with surprise. After a momentary pause, his expression softened.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Nah, it’s just kind of amazing you could agree so easily with me.”
“Why?”
“Just goes to show how few people have been able to until now.”
“Really?”
“Really… So I hope you’ll continue to stick with him. I decided long ago to treasure anything he holds dear.”
“…I don’t really get what you are trying to say.”
“…It’s fine. You don’t have to get it now.”
“Okay?” Azusa tilted her head to the side. Kouya glanced back at them from where he was walking ahead with Ichi.
“I’ll leave you guys behind,” he stated curtly and turned away. Subaru suppressed a laugh at his best friend’s behavior.
“Well, to put it simply, I wanted to say I hope you’ll stick around and get along with Kou from now on as his contractor,” Subaru said with the most brilliant fanged-smirk of the day.