TWO hours earlier.
“Whoa, Kou, you look like you just walked off the set of a gory horror movie. Was it a hard fight this time?” Subaru asked, spotting Kouya standing in front of the mansion with only the right side of his body drenched in blood.
“It was a cinch. I just got bathed in more blood than usual because the body stumbled toward me without its head. I don’t really care, but can you grab me a towel? I don’t mind going in like this, but blood isn’t easy to clean.”
“Sure,” Subaru casually responded and returned inside the mansion to snatch a towel from the linen closet. He came back outside and tossed it to Kouya. “At any rate, a lot of people have been falling to F rank lately. This is the third this week. There used to only be three a month before.”
“To be exact, I took out two today, making it four this week,” Kouya corrected.
“Two in one day? …This is getting out of hand.”
“It was the Ichishimas. Both husband and wife fell to F rank at the same time.”
“The Ichishimas fell! How? More than thirty years have passed since they both awakened as vampires…”
“I don’t know why, but I won’t deny the strange feeling I got from them.”
“Strange feeling?”
“I don’t really know how to explain that either.”
Generally, people who fell to F rank were unstable vampires who had only recently awakened or those who failed to awaken as a vampire. Not that there were never cases of someone falling to F rank after becoming a vampire, but it was exceedingly rare. The chance of two people falling to Fs at the same time was extraordinarily low and unheard of. Neither Kouya nor Subaru had encountered such a thing in all their years of hunting Fs.
Kouya roughly scrubbed off the dripping blood and went straight into the mansion. Subaru sighed at his irate mood.
“Are you tired? I just heard today that Master Akashi had you strengthen security around town recently. Just how many familiars are you using at once now? You’re going to go over what you can handle.”
“I only stay connected to one at all times. The rest I have set to only connect to me if something happens. I have about thirty out altogether.”
“You have thirty familiars out 24/7? Are you insane?! Are you trying to kill yourself? Master Akashi has been working you to death since the day you contracted. You’re going to burn through your reserves in no time.”
“I agree,” Kouya said, ending the conversation by going into the shower. Subaru stared at his bloodied back with worry and sighed.
✦ ✦ ✦
“FEEL refreshed now?”
“What’re you doing in my room?”
Subaru greeted Kouya from where he laid sprawled out on his couch. He chuckled, ignoring Kouya’s dubious glance as he dried his hair with a towel.
“Isn’t it almost time for Azusa to have lunch? I’m curious about what that Tsukiharu brat is like at school and thought you might let me spy on them with you.”
“Too much time on your hands?”
“I’m busier than most people. What? You want to help me?” Subaru jested as he cheerfully pulled out a mirror the size of a notebook and held it in front of Kouya.
Kouya sighed and took hold of the mirror. The mirror instantly changed from reflecting the room to revealing the school campus. The scenery quickly shifted to focus on the rooftop.
“Where is this? It’s up high. Is this on top of a tree?”
“Yeah. She always eats lunch on the rooftop.”
“Looks like your little brother isn’t there today. I only see that guy waiting for Azusa. I heard the three of them always eat lunch together. Did I hear wrong?”
“Today is… Oh yeah, if I’m not wrong, Youta’s coming of age ceremony is coming up soon. He probably went home early.”
“Then I doubt Azusa will eat on the rooftop. She would be stuck alone with Tsukiharu. Oh, she’s here.”
The mirror showed Azusa coming onto the rooftop from the door. She turned her head in search of Youta. And then, realizing he wasn’t there, she went straight back to the door—or not.
Subaru’s eyes widened with shock over seeing her sit beside Tsukiharu after only a few back-and-forth comments. “Hey, Kou! Can’t we listen in on them? Where’s the sound?”
“Can’t hear from this distance,” Kouya said in his usual manner, but his tone was blatantly deeper and stiff. Subaru felt the blood drain from his face as he felt the aura exuding from Kouya.
Scary! Scary! Scary! Scary! This guy is definitely furious! What the heck are you doing, Azusa? Subaru panicked internally.
“Kou, Azusa isn’t doing this to intentionally go against your wishes, so I hope you won’t get too angry at her when she gets home. Haha…”
“……”
“Ah, yeah, I shouldn’t have said that,” Subaru apologized as cold sweat trickled down his back with just a single glare from Kouya.
Why is it me, and not the person getting in the way of their love, who has to take the blunt of his anger? Sorry, Azusa, you’ll just have to let him get angry at you today. Subaru internally apologized for offering Azusa up as a scapegoat and returned his attention to the mirror.
Azusa picked at her lunch while conversing normally with Tsukiharu. Subaru thought she seriously lacked any sense of danger, but he also found that was one of her good points. Her lack of caution was what allowed her to enter Kouya’s heart and become deeply rooted there. Because of that, he didn’t blame her for her behavior, but he also didn’t know what to do with the encroaching desire he had to flee from Kouya’s room.
Kouya looked as expressionless as usual, but seething anger exuded from him. A piece of the anger was directed toward Azusa, but the majority of it was meant for Tsukiharu chatting beside her.
“A man’s jealousy is unsightly, you know?”
“Shut up.”
“You acknowledge you’re jealous?”
“I thought I told you to shut up?” Kouya glared at Subaru, his eyes a darker red than usual. Subaru quickly looked away from his menacing scowl and back at the mirror. He flinched at what he saw.
Azusa was hugging Tsukiharu.
The image suddenly vanished just as Tsukiharu hesitantly wrapped his arms around her back. Why did it vanish? Because the mirror cracked into a hundred pieces, starting from the handle.
“K-Kou? Take a deep breath and calm down! Please!”
“I’m calm.”
“No. No, you aren’t. A calm person doesn’t shatter a mirror just by holding it! A calm person doesn’t give off an ominous aura!”
“I’m fine.” Kouya’s brow was furrowed deeper than the Mariana Trench. Looking far from okay, he slowly started getting ready to go somewhere.
“Where are you going?” Subaru quickly asked.
“I’m going to pick someone up.”
“…May I ask, just to be sure, who it is you are going to pick up?”
“Azusa.”
“I-I see. Have a safe trip.”
Why are you going to pick her up now? What about her afternoon classes? There were many questions Subaru had for Kouya, but he saw him off without another word.
“What am I saying to a man who looks like he’s on death’s door?” Subaru muttered with a sigh.