Someone’s making fun of me. Calling me pathetic.
Someone’s laughing at me. Calling me a burden.
Why do I keep trying in spite of that?
Why do I want to catch up, to stand alongside them, to puff out my chest with pride?
It’s because I was told to believe.
It’s because I swore to protect.
And yet.
Leon Crossheart.
Why are you so determined?
Why am I so determined?
Night Walker. It was over seventy years ago I first heard that name. His record number of killings could not be matched, even stretching two thousand years back into antiquity.
He only killed at night, and he always left a poem, written in the victim’s blood, at the scene of each gruesome crime. These whimsical acts captured the hearts of writers and storytellers everywhere, and many works were penned about accounts both real and invented.
For a long time, the truth behind this serial killer mastermind lay shrouded in darkness beneath a veil of secrecy.
Namely, that he was in fact a Red-Eyed fiend.
Night Walker was a vampire, a race gifted with strength and unnatural healing far beyond human capabilities. Most normal vampires possessed these two abilities, and though fearsome, they earned only a Class Two designation at most.
Night Walker was different, however. He commanded two further powers not shared with the rest of his kind. The first was transfiguration. He could transform humans into fiends and control them. Furthermore, if those he dominated went on to slay others, those would also become fiends under his thrall.
And for that reason, Yugosland had been thrown into pandemonium.
“Rooooooaaaaghhh!”
Master Claire’s roar mixed with the shrieks and screams coming from all around us. She was outnumbered massively. Much of the entire population of the city had been transformed into fiends, and she was doing all she could just to stay alive.
Meanwhile, there was us. Rheina and I. Standing together against him.
“Ahh, how unpleasant. I only wanted to observe, you know.”
His words fit together like a song, or a prayer. A charming voice that stuck in our minds and refused to leave. The ground upon which he stood seemed like another world, filled with brightness and joy.
Only one word was needed to describe him. Beautiful.
Beautiful hair, beautiful skin, beautiful lips, beautiful face. His bearing, his formal clothes; everything that comprised him was forged of beauty.
But at the same time…it was a terrifying beauty.
Night Walker.
Without once sacrificing his noble demeanor, he flipped to a page in his notebook and began speaking.
“I am a wandering bard, who exists for one reason and one reason only. To observe people’s lives, their deaths, and to write about them in my poetry. And here you come, with your barbaric violence, to obstruct me in my calling.”
Even the man’s plaintive sigh was one of beauty. Glaring at this remorseless killer, I shot a glance at my fellow apprentice.
“Listen to me, Rheina. Watch out for the Evil Eye. Don’t meet his gaze, whatever you do.”
This was the second of Night Walker’s unique abilities. The Evil Eye.
“The second you look into his eyes, you’ll be struck with madness, resulting in death. Only ever look at his feet, got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. But it doesn’t work on you, partner, does it?”
Just before the battle began, I had met his gaze for a moment. For an ordinary person, that moment would have spelled my end. But for whatever reason, the Evil Eye did not affect me. Or rather, not enough to immediately cause a change in my behavior.
“I’ve been feeling strange ever since it happened,” I said. “I think if the battle goes on too long, I might succumb to it.”
“Hmm… Now, that’s concerning. Oh well, I guess we have no choice.”
“Yeah. I’ll take point for this battle. Leave everything to me.”
“Oh, wow! Big strong Leon! You’re my hero!” Rheina joked, but Night Walker did not take kindly to our levity.
“Well, you two seem confident,” he said with a frown.
“You bet your ass,” Rheina shot back. “There’s no way we’re gonna lose to a third-rate goon like you.”
“Hmm. And this seems to mirror your thinking as well, my crimson-eyed compatriot.”
“Of course. As long as I have Rheina by my side, nothing can go wrong.”
For some reason, my answer made him glare at me.
“…I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “I shall construct, at this moment, a fork in the road of your life.”
Then, he looked elsewhere, at Rheina, and his lips curled up into a grin. What wickedness was he planning?
“Rheinhardt Crossline,” he said. “I must commend you on your transformation. It’s good to see you on the straight and narrow when you were once so twisted.”
“…Huh? What are you talking about?” Rheina asked.
“Oh, have you forgotten? Or did you just not realize it?”
With a smile that was hard to stomach, the fiend spoke. Of Rheina’s past, and of the truth concealed within.
“Your sister…Remy, was it? Do you not remember the note placed by her corpse?”
Rheina’s shoulders twitched. Apparently seeing some humor in his reaction, Night Walker chuckled before continuing.
“Well, I don’t blame you. There was a lot on your mind, no doubt, what with the death of your beloved sibling and all. Not everybody checks their feet at a time like that. But let me ask you, did you never have any doubts? Did you never wonder what fiends left your sister in such a state? What…inhuman fiends?”
The repulsive killer gave a deep, throaty laugh. Rheina growled and asked one simple question.
“…Was it you?”
The vampire’s answer?
“Me? No. I merely observed. Observed as my thralls left her a sodden wreck.”
He spoke of how she called for her brother, right until the end. All the while, her young body was torn apart, destroying her both mentally and physically.
“Oh, the way she cried. ‘Help me, big brother!’ It was just so…funny.”
The moment he spoke those words, a violent fury drove the twin swords in Rheina’s hands.
“Motherfucker! I’ll kill you!”
He howled. Like a wild beast.
“Rgh…! Rheina! Wait!”
My words of caution achieved nothing. He hurled himself at his nemesis. At Night Walker, his sister’s killer.
“Oooaaaaaaaaaaaghhh!”
His slices were erratic, careless. But Rheina was a once-in-a-lifetime savant. Even guided by anger and hate, his swordsmanship was just as formidable as ever. In fact, the passion only made his strokes even harder to predict.
“Roooaaaaaaaaaaghhh!”
An unstoppable force. A whirlwind of steel. Looking at it, I had no choice but to conclude that this was the true Rheina. The one I’d never seen. The Rheina I knew suppressed his anger in order to maintain a veneer of civility. He was not even half as fearsome as the beast that raged before me now.
…And yet…
“Dance, Rheinhardt, dance! Fiercer, braver! Show the world how you can truly shine!”
That Rheina, a blizzard the likes of which I had never seen, could not land one single hit on the killer Night Walker.
“Impossible…!”
He was losing. My fellow, my friend. My idol, my pride.
The murderer was going to win.
“Krh…!”
I needed to help, but I couldn’t go near. The fight unfolding before my eyes might well have been taking place on a different plane of existence. I would only hold my friend back.
“Dammit…!”
I gritted my teeth in shame of my cowardice. How arrogant had I been, saying, “Leave everything to me” only a few minutes prior? All I could do now was pray. Pray for Rheina’s victory.
However…
“You’ve granted me an opening, Rheinhardt.”
Night Walker’s bloodred saber descended upon Rheina’s heart.
“Grh…!”
I could only brace myself for the inevitable conclusion. Await the decisive moment.
And then it came.
“Juuust kidding!”
The victor was not Night Walker.
It was my friend and fellow apprentice, Rheinhardt Crossline.
It almost seemed like all the wrath of only a few moments ago had been mere showmanship… For indeed, it was. With deft, fluid movements, he dodged the killer’s blade, and…
“Raagh!”
In one clean slice, he cut the fiend shoulder to hip.
“Urgh…”
A spray of blood, and the maniac crumpled backward. Rheina kept his blades leveled at his foe, speaking quickly.
“You were right,” he said. “I’ve gone straight. It’s all thanks to my master…and my sworn brother, see?”
His words, and the feelings within, stole the breath from my lungs. I was ashamed that, for just one moment, I had doubted him. He was braver than that, I knew. He wouldn’t bend the knee to any of this fiend’s tricks. Rheina was the light that shone on people’s hearts, illuminating them and banishing the darkness. Nothing could occlude that light, even for an instant.
“Rheina! You really are…!”
He was separated from his past, eyes fixed firmly on the now, and working toward a glorious future.
I was so proud of him for that.
“This is the end, Night Walker.”
This was it. In a moment, my fellow apprentice’s sword would pierce the bastard’s heart, reducing him to liquefied rot. Only then would it all finally be over. The rest of the fiends, bereft of their leader, would be easy to mop up, allowing us to bring an end to—
“Yes. It is… For you.”