October 4, 188—, 5:00 a.m.
Tokyo Bay
When the coach arrived at Tokyo Bay, the city was still shrouded in darkness.
The coach was the same one Dracula had stolen from the Rokumeikan. Inside were the dying Daigo and also Jigorô.
“Damn, where is he?” Shirô sat in the driver’s seat, grinding his teeth.
“He will have to set sail before the sun rises. That gives him barely thirty minutes,” said Jigorô.
“There are too many ships… The port is too big.” Daigo’s voice already sounded like a dead man’s.
He had stabbed his mother, who had been turned into a vampire, with his own hands, killed Takako, and seen Akane die in his arms. A cold wind swirled inside his lonely eyes.
“We should drive along the edge of the bay. Somehow we must find him. Shirô, please hurry.”
“Yes,” Shirô answered, giving the horses a flick of the whip.
“Please let me off here,” Daigo said.
“What?” Jigorô’s face clouded with suspicion.
“I have the feeling… the count will show himself… if I am alone. Let me off, please. If I find them, I’ll blow the whistle.”
He was referring to the small whistle the police often used when chasing down suspects. In the case of these three men, they were on the hunt for the count.
After considering it, Jigorô said, “All right.” Then turning to the window, he called out, “Shirô, stop the coach.”
Daigo jumped out of the coach with only a sword in his hand.
Jigorô warned him to be careful and to not forget the whistle, and then the coach rumbled away.
Daigo began to walk. He had no clue where to look. One foot just followed the other. That was all.
After Daigo advanced seventeen to twenty feet away from the edge of the wharf, he stopped.
There was a black ship just ahead.
A ladder had been laid across to the stern, and the count was standing in front of it, carrying Chizuru in his arms.
“You made it. Don’t worry. This lady is still human, like you.”
“Why… didn’t you board the ship?” Daigo asked in a raspy voice.
“I was waiting for you,” said the count. “Come with me. It would be a pity to lose a man like you. We can continue our night travels together with this young lady.”
Laying Chizuru gently on the ground, the count stepped toward Daigo.
“It’s just as well you come. But if you insist on bearing a grudge based on human pride, then stab me in the heart with that sword. Perhaps it is my destiny that my life of four hundred years should end right here. But I encourage you to try to imagine another destiny for both of us. Maybe you will be able to change this cursed blood.” The count’s voice echoed strangely, coldly in Daigo’s head.
It was a powerful temptation that Daigo found hard to resist.
A cursed life of eternity.
Or the fleeting life of a human.
Which will you choose, Daigo?
“I…,” Daigo uttered, “…am human.”
His blade rose.
The count did not move.
A steam whistle blew in the far distance. A hint of sunrise began to ripple like water in the eastern sky.
The dying man advanced… to deliver death to the man who was waiting for it.
Five minutes later, worried for Daigo’s safety, Shirô and Jigorô returned to the place Daigo had gotten off.
When Shirô stopped the coach, he grabbed his chest and groaned.
“What’s the matter?” Jigorô asked, opening the door.
“Just now, it felt like a knife stabbed my chest…” He felt his neck with his hand, and shouted, “Sensei, the teeth marks are gone!”
“Shirô, look.”
Shirô focused on the point where Jigorô was pointing.
A black shadow of a ship was pulling away from the wharf.
“Sensei, could that be the count’s vessel?”
“I’m certain of it.”
“Then what about Daigo-san and Chizuru-san?”
“We’ll look for them.”
“Yes.”
The two men came down from the coach.
The wharf had sunk into the depths of darkness. What would they find there?
Would they find Daigo and Chizuru and the count’s dead body?
Or would there be no one…
The black ship was setting sail. And try as they might, they could not make out the deck, shrouded in darkness.
The first glow of sunrise would soon come over the wharf.
Without waiting for the sun to show its face, Kanô Jigorô and Saigô Shirô ran toward the edge of the wharf where the black vessel had just been moored.