Chapter 4

That triggered Mari. “I’ll…!” She dragged the long nails of her left hand on the palm of her right, splitting the skin open. “…friggin’…!” Then she raised her right hand, opening her fingers. “…kill you! “Carmilla, the Bloody Maiden!” Blood gushed from the cut on Mari’s hand, solidifying into the shape of a strange weapon that looked like the combination of a spear, an ax, and a scythe. The red polearm was some kind of a halberd or a war scythe, or perhaps the best way to describe it would be as a halberd scythe. Mari was holding the long weapon in one hand. She swung it with ease, and the huge blade swooshed through the air, leaving behind a bloody trail. Seeing his schoolmate do an outfit transformation and summon a giant weapon took a toll on Ryuunosuke’s sanity. “This can’t be real… Why is today getting weirder and weirder…?” he muttered to himself. Mari leaped up, bat wings appearing on her back. She was heading straight for the wounded dragon, accelerating with a great flap of her wings. She raised her Bloody Maiden dramatically, aiming the giant ax edge toward the ground. “I’m supposed to capture you alive, so I’ll do my best to be gentle… Sorry in advance if my hand slips.” The vampire girl began to spin her weapon around, looking like a red tornado to Ryuunosuke. She was handling that unwieldy weapon as if it were a little twig. Its triple blades were approaching Rinne at high speed. “I…didn’t think anyone could move so fast that eyes couldn’t follow…” All Ryuunosuke could see was a red blur. He was standing near Rinne and could feel the gusts of wind stirred by Mari’s rapid, dance-like movements with the weapon. “A scythe Reginleif… She created both the dress and the weapon herself…using the vampire factor’s blood-manipulation ability…?” Rinne was analyzing the situation, standing right in the middle of the red tornado. “Good guess, but you’re off the mark. You can’t make a sturdy weapon like this just with blood manipulation. My Reginleif, Nosferatu, is augmented through vampire factor blood manipulation and blood creation together. The Bloody Maiden is just one of the forms it can take. That’s why I can do things like this, too.” In an instant, her weapon melted into liquid. “The Impaler!” The liquefied weapon took on a new form, solidifying into bloody spikes, which Mari sent flying at Rinne. The dragon girl shattered them with kicks and tail swings. Mari had leaped up into the air while launching her Impaler. Blood that had drenched the ground flew back toward her hand, turning into the Bloody Maiden once more. She attacked Rinne, who continuously dodged the spear thrusts, ax swings, and scythe sweeps but suffered increasing injuries. Specks of her blood sprayed around. “Hmph! Nice evasion, but you can’t keep it up forever!” Mari teased. Rinne was, in fact, already at her limit. Mari began to spin her polearm vertically like a twirling baton. Rinne’s short reach put her at a disadvantage, so she tried to lunge at Mari, but the vampire girl had been waiting precisely for that. She thrust the Bloody Maiden at Rinne’s solar plexus. “Argh…!” The strike sent Rinne flying like a soccer ball. She fell on her back next to the metal container, the impact knocking all the air from her lungs. But she sprang to her feet and grabbed the vessel. “I’ll get you now!” she shouted, lifting the container, which must have weighed hundreds of kilograms—no, maybe even several tonnes. She threw the container, along with the dirt stuck to it, at Mari. “Somebody pinch me!” Ryuunosuke shouted, shocked by what he’d just witnessed. The heavy metal box flew straight at Mari, but it didn’t hit her. There was an earsplitting sound. “You’re really running out of ideas, huh?” she said mockingly, having sliced the container in half with the Bloody Maiden. Specks of blood still hovered in the air, marking the arc of the weapon’s sweep. Mari began sauntering toward Rinne, the moon shining behind her back. There was a loud thud as the two halves of the container landed on the ground. “…” Rinne fell to her knees. She had to brace her hands against the ground for support. “Looks like you’re in a lot of pain. Makes me wonder what use you’ll be to anyone if you’re already half dead.” Mari stopped in front of Rinne and looked down at her. “You’re at berserk phase one, your dragon heart’s overheating, and the tranquilizer’s side effects have kicked in. You really are unwell, aren’t you? I’m impressed you put up a fight at all… On second thought, you shouldn’t even have been able to stand up,” the vampire said with pity. Rinne was panting heavily. “But I can’t hold back just because you’re not at your best today. That’s the code I go by. You might think it’s dishonorable, but I just think the stronger side should win.” Rinne’s face was drenched with sweat. Even breathing seemed agonizing. And no wonder—Ryuunosuke had felt how insanely hot her body was when he touched her earlier. She was in no condition to fight to begin with, and now she’d also suffered additional injuries all over her body. “The dragon factor’s regenerative ability is supposed to be better than the vampire’s, but it looks like suppressing your berserk phase also stops it from working correctly. I’d have recovered from that almost instantly.” The vampire swung around her bloodred weapon. It cut the air with a high-pitched swish. “Don’t get me wrong, I do feel sorry for you. I’m just doing my job, though. It’s nothing personal.” The giant scythe blade sliced through flesh. Blood spattered into the darkness of the night. “No…” Mari gasped in disbelief. It wasn’t Rinne she had struck. “Ryuunosuke…Dazai…” Ryuunosuke had jumped in to shield Rinne. The scythe cut deeply into his arm. “Ngh…!” His eyes widened. He jerked his arm away. Blood trailed down to his hand, dripping from his fingers onto the ground. “No… Why… Why did you…?” Ryuunosuke was sweating profusely. He forced himself to smile. “You haven’t killed me, Abara. Don’t look so horrified. It’s just a little scratch; I’ll be fine. I’m your senior—you’ve got nothing on me.” He was putting on a brave face, knowing full well that she had sliced through major veins and nerves in his arm. “Abara, I guess I don’t really know who you are, but you’re also my junior, and I can’t condone this behavior.” His injury was serious, but it didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected. A spike of adrenaline had numbed the pain. “I’m going to protect this girl. Leave her alone, Abara. If not…” Ryuunosuke raised his uninjured arm and took a fighting stance. “…I’m going to personally fight you off!” His voice was shaking. Hopeless as it might be, he was desperate to shield Rinne. As for her, she was watching him from behind, narrowing her eyes as if he were a ray of bright light piercing the gloom and doom of her situation. The world had decided everyone would be better off with her dead, but this one boy was trying to save her. “Thank you,” she said quietly, but the wind blew away her words before they could reach him. The dragon girl’s eyes lit up with determination. The glimmer of hope was faint, but it was there. She stood and leaped upward. A cloud of dust and sand rose around Mari like a small cyclone, solidifying into a wall. “What…?!” Mari was unable to see what was going on around her. She was still reeling from the shock of having hurt her crush, so she wasn’t thinking clearly. She froze, expecting an attack, but that wasn’t why Rinne had walled her off—she’d done that to escape. “Wh-whoa?!” Ryuunosuke exclaimed. “We must get away quickly…” Rinne had lifted Ryuunosuke up onto her shoulders and was running off with him into the thicket. “Argh! Vampire Knights of Sigismund! Capture them!” Mari shouted in outrage. Ryuunosuke saw blood rise from the ground and transform into knights in armor. They gave chase, their armor clattering, but they weren’t as fast as the dragon girl. The landscape was a blur to Ryuunosuke, who kept bobbing up and down, carried by Rinne. Every now and again, he’d bump into one of her hard horns. “Why are we running away? I’m sure we could come to an agreement with Abara if we only talked things through—” “Be quiet, unless you want to bite your tongue and die. You have no right to… No, I did not mean to say that…” Rinne shook her head. “Talking to that girl is pointless. Even if you convinced her to side with you, it would not make a difference at this juncture. Since you got involved, she would not be able to just let you go. The Order would not tolerate it. I will not allow them to capture you. We are not running away like cowards—we are buying time.” “Who are those Order people…?” They ran through the woodland and out onto a plaza, where Rinne finally stopped behind a large ginkgo tree growing at the center. She gently set Ryuunosuke on the ground. She was struggling for air, as if she was dying. She didn’t seem just in pain, but actually on the verge of death. It was obvious at a glance that she was on her last legs. It wasn’t because of the wounds she’d suffered. There were many, but none were critical. Something else was killing her. Rinne was sweating nonstop, but her body wasn’t cooling down. Her face was bright red, as if someone had dumped hot water on her. Even though she was mostly expressionless, her suffering showed through. Ryuunosuke could feel the heat radiating from her body without touching her. And, on top of that, she had those wounds all over. But let’s not forget that Ryuunosuke, too, was wounded. “Oww…!” Once the fear and agitation from earlier died down, the sharp pain that his adrenaline had been suppressing hit him with a vengeance. Rinne looked at his right arm. “You are bleeding out…” The blood wouldn’t stop flowing, and with it, Ryuunosuke’s life was draining away. “I wish to ask you a question.” “Y-yeah, sure?” Ryuunosuke was in so much pain, it took all his self-restraint not to scream. He didn’t want the girl to think he was pitiful. “Tell me why you protected me. You could have stayed out of it and not gotten hurt. You have no reason to be my ally.” “You want to know the reason, huh?” That voice he couldn’t match to any person he knew replayed in his mind. “Help as many people as you can, for the both of us.” “…I protected you because I wanted to. I don’t need a reason to help others.” He made it sound so casual. Rinne gasped at his reply, deeply moved. Of course, Ryuunosuke had no idea how much what he’d said mattered to her, and he didn’t think much of it, either. It was a lie that helping people was a hobby to him. He was driven by a strong sense of duty to help. For as long as he had that voice stuck in his head, he’d keep helping others at whatever cost to himself. It was a cruel destiny. A self-destructive path. Yet he’d stay on it, for as long as there were people he could assist. “…Ah, so you are a hopeless altruist.” “People say that to me all the time.” Rinne’s breathing became more even. She looked at Ryuunosuke. Beams of moonlight made their way down between the leaves and branches of the ginkgo tree and illuminated the two of them. Rinne could clearly see her reflection in the boy’s eyes. Her face in the reflection was no longer displaying hostility. “I believe you,” she said. She closed her eyes briefly, and when she opened them again, she looked Ryuunosuke directly in the eyes. “You are no longer just an unfortunate bystander. If the Order captures you, there is no telling what they might do. And I do not have much time left. Ryuunosuke, listen carefully to what I have to say.” “O-okay, go on…” “You see…,” she began uncomfortably. “This is something I can only ask of you and no one else. The light I saw around your finger when we met convinced me of it.” “Ask away. I’ll do whatever I can.” “You do mean it?” “I never go back on what I say.” “Very well.” Under the night sky, she said to him: “Wed me.” Sweat drops were running down Rinne’s face, but her eyes were intense, determined. “Sorry, I think I misheard…?” Ryuunosuke was lightheaded from blood loss, and a marriage proposal was the last thing he’d expected in those circumstances, so he couldn’t make sense of what she’d said. He’d probably doubt his hearing even if she’d said it on a perfectly normal day, though. “I am at my limit. You will soon bleed out to death. This is the only way,” she insisted. “Wed me.” It sounded like a bizarre joke. Except that Rinne’s voice was dead serious. “You have the right to refuse, Ryuunosuke. It is a pact that will most likely bring new difficulties into your life. Once you make the decision—even though you don’t know what it fully entails—you will not be able to undo it. But right now, you can decide whether to take my offer or leave it. I cannot tell you what hardships to expect after taking the vows. Yet I will make you this offer: Face the adversities the future brings with me, and I swear upon my life to protect you. Perhaps that was too vague. Save the world, Ryuunosuke. By saving me.” No other proposal could have been as effective on Ryuunosuke. “It sounds crazy, to be honest…” He gazed back into her golden eyes. “Are you sure I can save you by doing this?” Rinne nodded solemnly. “Okay, then.” Ryuunosuke nodded without further hesitation. Rinne considered him for a moment before saying, “Thank you.” Then she suddenly ripped open the front of the straitjacket, exposing her bare skin to the air. “Wait… What are you doing…?!” A glowing red symbol appeared on her delicate chest, centered on her breastbone. Soon after Ryuunosuke saw it, he felt something on his left ring finger. He looked down at it—a pale ring of light had formed around the base of his finger, just like before. The pattern on the ring resembled the symbol on Rinne’s chest. “What is this…?” “It is what they call the Sacred Sealing Ring, if I am not mistaken.” “The…Sacred Sealing Ring?” “I have been told that such a ring of light appearing around the ring finger possesses the power to suppress evil, at the cost of sharing the burden of sin we mythical girls carry. If my assumption is correct, you must touch your Sacred Sealing Ring to the Stigma on my chest and make your vow for our marriage to become official. I do not know why you possess the ring…but this is our only hope.” “T-touch your chest?!” While Ryuunosuke was willing to agree to everything else, he objected to that part. It wasn’t only because he got burned from touching her last time. For some reason, touching the glowing symbol on her chest seemed sacrilegious, unforgivable. “I grant you my permission,” she said in a benevolent tone. “You may touch me.” They heard clattering from the direction of the dark woodland—Mari’s Vampire Knights had almost caught up to them. Ryuunosuke had to make his decision quickly. She was waiting, gazing at him with urgency in her eyes, which silenced his internal objections—that he feared burning his hand, that he didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of touching her chest, or that it was all just too weird. “Okay, I’m going to touch you…” “Please proceed.” He reached toward her chest. The closer his fingers were to her skin, the more intense the heat radiated from her. The light around his ring finger also intensified, enveloping his hand in an intricate pattern that made him think of an electric circuit. He touched her. Images flashed in his mind—the darkness of the night, flames, a girl, a burning house. There was a sensation of powerlessness, and someone’s voice. It lasted only for a moment. Rinne closed her eyes and began speaking as if in prayer. “In sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow, for richer and for poorer…” He recognized what she was saying as wedding vows. “…do you vow to stand by my side, to be my support, my companion, and my ally until death do us part?” With each word, the light around Ryuunosuke’s ring finger became hotter. It rose like a flame, burning his finger. “Say I do!” she prompted him. “I… I do!” Their fate was sealed. A ring of light appeared around Rinne’s ring finger. A glowing tiara in the same color materialized on her head briefly—and then its light dispersed, disappearing. Other effects soon followed. The wounds on Rinne’s body were healing, and her infernally high temperature was dropping. Ryuunosuke was also affected. “Huh? My arm… How’s this possible?” His injury was healing rapidly, as if in response to Rinne’s own recovery. “Since we are now wed, you share my regenerative ability.” Rinne closed and opened her fists tentatively. “Thanks to you…,” she began. She was no longer a pitiful wounded dragon. She was radiating power. “…I am now this planet’s apex predator.” Mari spread her wings, which she’d created from blood, and ran in pursuit of the dragon and the boy. The wings boosted her speed. Vampires could fly in short bursts, but their blood wings weren’t really meant for that. “I can’t transform my body to have real wings like dragons and phoenixes, so I’ll have to make do with this…” Mari admitted she’d made a mistake letting the dragon girl escape after she used that dirt-wall trick. She hadn’t been thinking logically and went on the defensive for no reason. It was a mistake she could correct, though. Her Vampire Knights of Sigismund were excellent trackers. All she needed to do was follow them. The dragon girl was too weak to have run far, and in her frail state, she might even lose to the Vampire Knights.