Apostles in Leather Pants (Tsukihime)

[Olvelsper]

Tsukihime is the property of Type-Moon. Melty Blood is the property of Type-Moon and French-Bread. Melty Blood Act Cadenza is the property of Type-Moon and Ecole Software. All additional references and parodies belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 6: A cat and a vampire

A/N: The earlier chapters are http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7083560/1/Apostles_in_Leather_Pants

*****

Miyako was shoved up against one of the corners of their hallway by her mother. She was currently screaming gibbering cries of terror as the three glassy eyed pale corpses tore her father apart like a pack of jackals.

On the ground between Miyako and her mother, and the group of corpses, was a cellphone. In his last act, her father had tried a desperate dash to the coffee table in the living room. Unfortunately for him, the corpses were faster.

Even now, Miyako's sharp ears could faintly hear that it was dialing out. The dust bunnies that had been agitated from their eternal rest in the corner descended on Miyako, making her nose itch and the urge to sneeze great.

Her halting breath made her mother begin to gibber even louder as she tried to force Miyako into becoming one with that corner of the hall. Miyako wondered how frightening it must be to be the only thing standing in the way of such terrible monsters.

Sometimes she wondered if her mother should have ran, leaving her alone... but Sacchin and her big brother simply held onto her tightly for the next few hours after she worded such thoughts. It was best for everyone involved if she just stayed quiet.

Like she had at that time.

Simply staring as her father was reduced to nothing different than the meat sold at the butcher's store.

At one point, she felt her arm get jerked, nearly popping it out of its socket as her mother slammed open the door to her big brother's bedroom. The lock to it shattered before her mom's determination, but unfortunately that made it easy for one of the corpses – an elderly looking lady in an old fashioned, ratty dress – to follow after them.

"Get out, Miyako-chan! Find Shiki!" Her mother, Emiko Arima, was resplendent to the young girl. Her green eyes shone with the fierce strength of a wild animal and her profile was more noble than anything she had ever seen.

In that moment, her mother, was glorious in Miyako's eyes. The woman threw herself at the corpse, the tips of her hair turning slightly red, buying Miyako time to escape through the window. She desperately rushed towards the window, heart rapidly beating as she did the only thing she had time left to do.

Miyako threw herself at the window, covering her face with her arms.

The glass shattered as a scream tore through the night. With a start, she realized it was her own.

"SHI-"

...

"-KI!" Miyako woke up with a scream, voice immediately choked off by her desperate attempts to breath. Her chest felt like someone had placed a cold iron vice within it, crushing her lungs between merciless steel. The young girl desperately clawed at her bed's cover as she almost fell off her bed in her desperate attempts to get her breath back.

Moments later, the door to her room swung open, crashing against the back wall as Satsuki rushed into the room. The darkness gave way to light as the older girl flipped the switch next to the door.

"Miyako! What's wrong?!" Satsuki demanded, half of a pigtail awkwardly held up by her blue ribbon as she moved next to Miyako's bed. The young girl desperately latched onto the older girl, breathing slowly coming easier to her as her body quaked.

Satsuki's eyes softened as she let herself fall. As soon as her knees hit the carpet of Miyako's room, she felt the young girl's arms immediately latch around her neck. Miyako continued to wheeze into the crook of older girl's neck as Satsuki ran her hands through the girl's hair.

"Where's oniichan?"

The high school girl winced as she felt a few drops of moisture seep onto her neck, but she remained silent as she continued to sooth Miyako. The room was filled with Miyako's harsh gasps and Satsuki's nonsense words as she let Miyako lean up against her.

"I...don't know." Satsuki's answer made the young girl tense. Satsuki bit on the inside of her mouth in self recrimination. She hurriedly moved on before Miyako could slip back into her earlier state of panic. "Don't worry, though! He's fine. He just had to go take care of some business..."

Miyako slowly gazed up into Satsuki's eyes. The two of them traded glances in silence for the next few moments.

'Please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't ask...' Satsuki prayed that Miyako wouldn't pressure her. She would already feel her face begin to heat up slightly from having to lie to the girl.

As she glanced away from Satsuki, the last of her tensed nerves began to bleed away from her. "Did Tohno-sama offer him another job?" She somewhat bitterly asked.

"Of...a sort." Satsuki allowed, words tasting foul to her. However, she had to keep herself committed to the act now that it had gone this far.

"...Tohno-sama is kind." Miyako glanced down at her pajama clad lap, the blankets having been thrown off by her struggles.

Satsuki winced. She really couldn't say anything in response to that, knowing the reasons that Shiki had been forced to miss so much school recently.

Miyako moved out of bed, and took Satsuki's hand before the older girl could speak. "Can we watch the television for a while?" She quietly asked. "I don't want to go back to sleep until I see oniichan again."

Satsuki's fingers entwined with Miyako's as she silently nodded. Miyako smiled at Satsuki after the teenager put her discarded blanket back on top of her bed and led her back to the living room.

"So then, let's see what we can watch." Satsuki began as she sat down on a western couch. A thin blanket and a small pillow had been discarded on the ground in between the television and the seats around it.

Miyako frowned at them, but said nothing about Satsuki's choice in sleeping arrangements. The younger girl crawled next to Satsuki, leaning up against the older girl as she turned on the television with the nearby remote.

*****

Arcueid finished giggling, eyes twinkling with her mirth as she placed her hands on her hips. "So, did little Altrouge decide to try and be subtle?" She wondered, giving Shiki a friendly smile. "I'm Arcueid. What's your name?"

Shiki took a step back as his danger senses were screaming at him to run and never look back. However, that same sense of danger he had sensed with the Dead a month ago radiated from the innocent looking blonde.

Remembering that time made Shiki grit his teeth, driven by his urge to kill the unnatural thing before her. Assassin's eagerness began to crash against the back of his mind.

'Is this the one? The vampire that caused them to die?' Assassin wondered. Shiki could practically imagine the man perking up. 'She's powerful. We need to go all out.'

"Mou..." Arcueid pouted at Shiki's silence.  Her red eyes sharpened as she peered at something past Shiki's shoulders. "Two wraiths inside of a young magus seem a little much, though..." Arcueid shook her head, long hair swaying with the motion.

The presence within Shiki froze.

"Oh, a reaction!" Arcueid clapped her hands.

"What are you doing, idiot?!" He hissed. When Shiki glared at her hotly, she merely smiled and gestured around them. The thin crowds were keeping their heads down as they walked around the two of them.

"Don't call me an idiot!" Arcueid shouted, looking offended. "I already took care of them..." She quirked her head at Shiki. "You can talk, though." She sounded like the proud owner of a puppy who had learned to roll over.

Shiki reached for his glasses, but when he did...

Arcueid's red eyes glowed.

"Gah!" His wrist felt like it going to be crushed in an invisible hold. Bones groaned as they were strained almost to their breaking point. His fingertips shook as they brushed up against the side of his frames, but the horrendous power being exerted against that arm prevented him from removing the glasses.

"I studied Japan before I came here." Arcueid began, looking completely composed besides her glowing eyes. "They say that Death walks these lands and that it can destroy you utterly if it casts its gaze on you."

Shiki snarled, but his other arm was locked in place by the same force with another glance from Arcueid.

"I'd rather not risk it, Mr. Mystic Eyes." Arcueid simply replied. Shiki's stunned glance in response made her smile. "Blondes aren't that dumb." She paused a beat. "No! I mean we aren't dumb! Not dumb!" She frantically waved her hands before her.

'I...was defeated by her?' Shiki thought in horror.

'Urobuchi says that she traced us ...'

"Hey! I'm talking here!" Arcueid puffed out her cheeks as she glared at Shiki. "You need to pay attention to girls, you know! What kind of man are you?" She leisurely placed her hands behind her head. "Still, you lost before you could even begin. That was pretty sad, Mr. Mystic Eyes."

"My name is Shiki!" He snapped as he tried to push past the bonds holding his arms down. "And my credentials as a man are just fine, thank you very much!"

"So, what were you going to do with that knife if I hadn't stopped you, huh?" Arcueid wondered as she lightly walked around Shiki. The closer she approached, the more his body began to lock up on him as her eyes' inner light began to fill Shiki's world.

Once she arrived a this side, she poked and prodded him at various angles with her hands. "Going to try and carve me up?" Arcueid's touch caused Shiki's blood to try to burn him from within. He let out a hot gasp as his fingers twitched rapidly, shaking his frames up and down his nose. The woman gave him a placid look as she leaned up against him, placing her mouth near his ear.

"I'm not into guro play, sorry." Arcueid impishly smiled into his face. "Fly away, Mr. Mystic Eyes." Moments later, Shiki's whole body was flung high into the air. The further away he rose, the more his body began to respond to his own will.

'Flowing power of the world, embrace him! Appear before us...'

Shiki ripped off his glasses from his head and place them in his pocket. Now unsealed, his Mystic Eyes shone a blazing blue, its anti-demon qualities surging through his body as his magic circuits triggered. The remaining paralysis on him was instantly banished as lines broke apart the city that was swiftly rising to meet him.

'And destroy!'

Prana surged down his arm and into his knife, held in a loose grasp, the blade sharpened as it's ability to cut was reinforced.

'This is what I'm talking about!' Assassin cheered in the back of his head. The spirit's voice strengthened within Shiki's mind as the pair lightly landed on their feet half a block away from Arcueid. He instantly covered half of it with three steps, making the blonde look intrigued as she came into view.

'Her lines...?!' Unlike the fractured world around them, Arcueid's lines were thin even with his magic circuits pumping prana within his veins. The shock was enough to make him almost miss Arcueid raise her arm towards him, but his entire body jerked to the side as a swirling blast of wind tore across the horizon.

Assassin's senses, sharpened due to their shared prana, let him see the thin crack that Arcueid's attack had caused on the street behind him.

'Shiki! Trade off control of your body!'

'We can do that?!'

'Just do it!' Assassin took over control of Shiki's legs, letting them impressively vault over another swirling blast of air. He immediately handed control back to Shiki, who rolled off to the side as soon as their feet touched the ground.

Arcueid was happily grinning as she continued to project blasts of wind at Shiki, swirling spheres of power that the teenager absolutely refused to allow near him. Shiki moved to hug the ground in his charge, speeding up further as his and Assassin's attempts at dodging were mixed up enough for Arcueid to grow confused.

The blonde's shots began to slow down more as she began to randomly fling larger and larger spheres of air at them. "Hey! What kind of pedophile assassin are you?"  Her accusation almost made Shiki trip up, but Assassin was there to salvage them from having their arm broken.

"The hell are you talking about?!" Shiki roared.

"Mou...?" Arcueid delicately quirked her head at him like a bird. "My sister didn't offer to make you a knight? Or a contract...?"

"...No!"

"Ah...!" Arcueid slammed her fist into her open palm, generating an unavoidable wall of wind that blew Shiki and Assassin back fifteen feet. "Then you can still be persuaded towards the side of righteousness and full figured women!" She declared joyfully.

'Do it now!' Assassin howled, spotting their opening. Shiki's legs screamed their objection at the duo as they tore across the remaining area in between them and Arcueid. Their knife shone in the moonlight as they raised it.

"Henshin!"

But the two were promptly blown away as Arcueid's eyes flashed. Shiki let out a cry of shock as it felt like he had been clipped by a runaway car. The two collapsed on the ground as mana surged towards Arcueid from their surroundings, suffusing her outfit with light.

The massive energy gathering was enough to reach Shirou, who had been viewing the spectacle from Assassin's eyes with horror from the very beginning. '...oh god.' His voice, a very faint and whispery tone in Shiki's mind now, summed up the situation for the three of them very clearly.

Arcueid's outfit released yellow bolts of electricity as it reformed into something...very...skimpy.

A white bodice with golden trim and flared tips over a short purple skirt. Two detached floppy white sleeves. Long white boots that went up to mid-thigh.

Arcueid grinned at the three of them. The golden crescent moon hair pin on the side of her head glowed before it vanished. A small pink heart tipped baton appeared in her right hand.

"This will hurt me more than it will you." Arcueid's full lips pouted. She wiped away an imaginary tear drop from her eyes. "But the most bitter medicine is the one that's best for you!" She set a stoic look on her face as mana surged at the tip of her baton. The area was flooded with pink light. "Goodbye, Mr. M!"

She dropped the baton.

*****

"Shiki-chan, do you think you can go to the market for me?" Naoaki Arima spoke up after Shiki handed him a towel. Off to the side, a few of the remaining students were volunteering like Shiki, wiping down the ground or putting away the boken.

"Of course, father." Shiki's casual answer brought a warm smile from the older man. His own towel was around his neck, soaking up his own sweat. "But are you sure you don't need any help cleaning the dojo up today?"

"No ,it's fine. We'll need some more juice. Some octopus as well..." The man began to list the items.  A mischievous smile crossed the man's face as he looked down at Shiki. "I'll give you enough so you can buy something sweet for you and Miyako-chan, okay?"

Shiki's gaze moved away from his adopted father - a flash of blue from his peripheral vision having caught his attention.

"Shiki-chan?"

Shiki shook his head and turned back to gaze at his father. "Yes sir!" He sharply nodded.

"No need to be so serious, son." Naoaki softly chuckled as he ruffled Shiki's hair.

Still, something was bothering Shiki as he walked out of the dojo. A slight edge of trepidation followed him into the house, but it grew even worse once he went into the bathroom to quickly clean himself off to do his errand.

A cat's call made Shiki look up into the mirror over the sink.

His own blue eyes, shining brightly, broke the illusion.

...

"What do you mean 'I'm picking on a nice girl's brother'?" Arcueid accused. "I'm the heroine of justice here, Len!"

Shiki silently rose to his feet to the sounds of the blonde arguing with herself. His entire body felt drained of life, barely keeping awake thanks to the shock of how his dream had ended.

A field of purple energy, shaped like some sort of bat, surrounded him. Assassin and Shirou's voices were completely silent, but if he was right, that was probably what had tipped Arcueid off about him in the first place. Every moment he remained in this field felt like an eternity to Shiki.

The blonde had her back to him, fifteen feet away. In her hand, the baton she was waving about was resonating with the field, projecting the same energy that was covering his portion of the street. Shiki readied his knife and narrowed his eyes.

A heavy headache began to pound the back of his head as lines formed around the barrier, one of which was positioned just right.

Shiki let his knife fly with all the strength he had left. The blade, now a silver missile in the night, sliced through the barrier, tearing a small rip through it handily as it sped towards Arcueid.

The blonde's eyes widened and she jerked to the side, saving herself but sacrificing her baton as the knife pierced it right in the heart. With a shriek of surprise, Arcueid dropped it as it detonated in a blast of mana, pushing her back three steps and popping the boundary field that had kept Shiki separated from the rest of the world.

The human collapsed to his knees, coughing desperately as his vision darkened and lightened in time to his headache. Prana surged back through his body, restoring his body's strength within moments as he rose into a combat stance to face Arcueid.

"Huh...you win." Arcueid simply replied, making Shiki almost lose his balance. She crossed her arms in front of her chest with a pout. "Good work, I guess. For a human, I mean." She dragged her boot back and forth across the street.

An awkward silence descended on the two.

"So...want to get some pancakes?" Arcueid offered.

Shiki's continued to stare at her in shock.

"Just kidding."

"What the hell are you?" Shiki wondered. The teenager was warily eying the vampire next to him. Only Assassin's satisfaction with the battle and his own control kept him from trying to have another go at cutting Arcueid into little pieces.

The blonde, smiling next to him – and back in her normal outfit, simply quirked her head at him.

"No, I mean. I came at you with a knife."

"Yeah, but Len said you three were okay."

Shiki opened his mouth, but a quiet meow bubbled up from deep in his throat. The demon hunter slapped his hands over his mouth in shock, nearly slicing off his nose with his knife. Arcueid burst out laughing at his expression.

'Possession?!' Shiki stumbled back from Arcueid, hackles raised.

'...my bad...' Shirou's voice faintly reached the troubled boy.

'Woah, woah!' Assassin stayed Shiki's arm. 'That's the boss's problem, not yours.'

Arcueid grinned at Shiki. "Sorry, once I heard you guys, I couldn't resist." She placed her hands together. "Forgive me?"

The innocent hope shining from the blonde's red eyes completely popped Shiki's urge to perforate the woman. With a sigh, Shiki sheathed his knife and placed it into his coat pocket. His glasses slipped over his blue eyes, sealing them back to their normal gray hue. Arcueid gained a look of happiness, immediately taking up Shiki's hand and giving it a firm shake.

"Glad to see you have a sense of humor, Mr. M!" Arcueid enthused. "No need for there to be such dark feelings on both side of the fence, right? Just a little duel to the death."

Despite himself, Shiki felt a genuine smile cross his lips. "Right. Just two people trying to murder each other wholeheartedly." He chuckled.

"Eh, Mr. M, why were you trying to murder me?" She idly wondered.

Shiki's arms drew closer to his sides. "No reason." He curtly replied, not wanting to get into this with someone he barely knew.

For a brief moment, Arcueid's eyes darkened a bit as she appraised him. The strange expression was gone before Shiki could even question it, though.

"Well then, I suppose that's that." The blonde mused as the two of them arrived at an intersection. "You're pretty funny, but I got some business to take care of." She smiled. "Take care not to try to bite off more than you can chew."

'Hey, Shiki, you alright with this? She probably knows something about who you're looking for.'

Shiki stayed quiet.

Arcueid turned and began to walk away from Shiki. The teenager waited a few moments, following her back and brilliant hair as she eventually vanished into the crowd.

Shiki sighed, shaking his head. "Well, that was a bust." He rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

'I suppose so.' Assassin replied, sounded a bit put out. 'What do we do now?'

"Let's go back home for now." Shiki yawned. "I'm exhausted." He rubbed at a crick on his neck as he turned and began to head back home. Before long though, a troubling thought from earlier came back to him.

'...I seriously don't have a demon in me, right?' Shiki wanted to confirm. 'Because I meowed. That's not normal at all!'

Assassin laughed. 'Just a faker and an usurper.' He energetically responded.

Shiki rubbed the back of his head. "This last month has been messed up as hell. I don't need to break out into purrs on top of it." He grumbled as he tried to stargaze a little on his way back to center himself. His pace slowed down as he tried to pierce the veil of smog in the night sky.

'Want to talk about it?' He continued cheekily when Shiki hesitated. 'Unlike the vampire, I can assure you that I won't be hopping into any other person's head and tell them. I'm a one brain samurai, as you can tell.'

Shiki sighed. Hell, why not?

'Well, alright, then.' Shiki's thoughts felt slightly clipped, turning away from the smog filled skies to focus on his thoughts. 'I had gone out to hang out with Arihiko and Satsuki Yumizuka.' He paused. 'Arihiko Inui, that is. Satsuki, the class rep, and I were trying to pull up the idiot's test scores...'

*****

"He ditched. Again." Satsuki had a look of dull horror on her expression, arms crossed in front of her chest to try and ward off the harsh realities of life, causing Shiki to wince from his perch on the low stone wall surrounding her house.

The pair of highschoolers were outside her house, Shiki keeping an eye on the streets for a familiar mop of red hair and Satsuki was hammering her house phone's number pad as she kept trying to call  the missing person. With each minute, Shiki felt the ominous chill down his spine rising as Satsuki's expression turned grimmer by the moment.

Shiki idly considered fleeing, but decided he couldn't abandon Arihiko to this fate.

It was kind of tempting him, though.

"Maybe he had something important to do with his little sister?" Shiki idly asked as he rocked slightly, sitting on top of his left left and dangling the other in Satsuki's general direction. "Probably that's why he wasn't at school the last three days."

Shiki knew that was a lie, knowing that his friend had decided to go off on one of his little winter retreats. The jerk hadn't even offered to take him along this time.

'Hm...now I really want to ditch him when he gets here.' Shiki idly mused.

From the slight softening of Satsuki's expression, he could tell that he had bought Arihiko a few more minutes before his execution was decided. Still, this was the most emotive that he was used to seeing the girl.

'Arihiko has a gift for pissing people off, I guess.' Shiki's resulting chuckle from that made Satsuki glance over at him curiously.

"Oh, sorry." Shiki waved her off. "I was just remembering something funny."

"Ah..."

"Yeah." Shiki nodded. The silence that fell on the two of them was comfortable for Shiki. The sudden urge to swing by the mansion to see how Akiha was handling taking over his brother's post as heir briefly made itself known, but he remembered Shiki's warnings about how Akiha's final bit of training would cause her blood to be thick enough to affect him for the next few months.

Deciding to just call it half ways, he pulled out his cell phone and snapped a lazy picture of the neighborhood. At Satsuki's alarmed look, he merely shrugged as he began to type in a message. "I figure I can try to message him again." He smirked at her a little. "Maybe he's dodging because he knows he screwed up already?"

Satsuki sighed, shaking her head with annoyance, but didn't reply. Deciding to take that as confirmation, Shiki began to send out a quick message to both Akiha and Hisui along with Arihiko, letting them know where he was out of boredom.

Not even ten seconds passed before he got his first reply.

'Nii-san, I've told you time and again not to wander into those kinds of neighborhoods! Can't you just stay indoors with Miyako-chan? Girls have delicate feelings about those kinds of things...'

Shiki rolled his eyes. Typical Akiha.

"Nanaya-kun, I'm going to go get something to drink. Do you want something?" Satsuki nervously asked Shiki.

"Nah, I'm okay."

The girl looked a bit depressed for some reason, but she headed back into her house. Using the opening, he quickly messaged her again.

'That's pretty conceited to the people that live nearby, Akiha-chan.' He dashed the message with a smile emote and sent it off.

With amazing speed, Akiha's response appeared. Shiki really hoped that things weren't so boring up in the mansion that she was paying this much attention to his bored messages.

'Don't tease me! It's just that there's two new ...guests in the area!' Shiki blinked at the little blushing smiley face along with the typos in the message. He wondered what he gotten her chain rattled, but decided not to make her mood get worse.

'Shiki is still inviting more?' He frankly found it distasteful on the principals his old family stood for. 'I guess the construction businesses must love him for finding all the new families though, huh?'

The flood of messages stopped at this point from Akiha, and a message from Hisui finally appeared. As usual, it was sloppily written, but he was able to decode a message out of the flood of emote icons and typos.

'Shiki-chan, did your test go well? I bet you passed. Akiha-sama is going to give me some time off in a few days so I can go see Tokie-sensei for my treatment. Would you like to meet me at the office tomorrow?'

Shiki was about to respond to the message, but another message – this one from Akiha- suddenly flashed on his screen.

'The Arima are under attack – we're sending agents in. Please help them!'

"Gods..." Shiki stared at the screen with enough intensity to cause it to combust in any other situation. His body began to heat up as incomprehension gave way to the rage he felt creeping up his neck, feverish heat attempting to swallow his brain up with pain .

"Nanaya-kun, I made some lemonade, and I was wondering if you wan-" Satsuki cut herself off with a gasp.

Shiki's eyes shot up at Satsuki in alarm, and for a brief moment he understood why. The reflective surface of his lenses were showing his blue eyes shining back at him.

He could see Satsuki's body, segmented into several smaller sections by thick black lines, taunting him behind the glass for just a few moments before the lines vanished like a hallucination. Or a waking nightmare.

"S-shiki...?"

The teenager sprang to his feet with a curse, spun around, and began to race away from his classmate. Her desperate, entreating cries on his back were shoved towards the back of his mind, along with the sight of those lines and everything else.

Shiki ripped off his glasses, scrapping the skin of his nose and losing his cellphone, with a harsh motion. The teenager had no time to double back to pick up his phone, focusing on trying to stop a disaster in the making.

The teenager's body flooded with energy as he finished his invocation - foot speed dramatically increased as the new found energy from his environment allowed him to tear his way out of Satsuki's neighborhood in record time. Cries of pain and shock rose around Shiki as he began to practically vault towards the Arima's home, smashing aside the unfortunate pedestrians in his path with his body, not trusting himself to use his hands in fear of cutting someone's limbs off now that the lines had manifested themselves again.

Normally a leisurely half hour trip was reduced to a few minutes.

A small crowd was gathered in front of the Arima home. Several of the nearby houses had their doors open, light flooding out into the dimming neighborhood. For a few moments, Shiki's heart leapt to his throat as the worst of possible scenarios appeared in his mind.

They were blown completely away when he got a good look at one of the things.

Shiki nearly collapsed to his knees. Bile rose up the back of his throat. Staring at him was nothing but Death.

"Ngh...?!" He hacked as spittle and a little bit of acid spilled forth from his gullet as a collection of man shaped abominations, bodies covered from head to toe in the lines of death, moved towards him with sluggish movement.

However, even in those horrid bodies there remained a tiny spot of normalcy that Shiki desperately focused on as he drew his knife. That spot, its location differing based on the creature, pulsed with life. The energy of life trailed away to the north, but if he had a guess, it had to be something that Kohaku had informed him about once.

Familiars.

Shiki drew Nanatsu-yoru, his faithful knife slipping into the groove of his hand once again, and focused at his enemies. The monsters sped up towards him, but he was ready, coiled body springing towards the familiars and his knife springing forth in a deadly weave of slashes.

The fuel of life spilled forth, thick and noxious to his nostrils, driving Shiki further into a killing rage as he sprung through the ranks. Everywhere he struck was a killing blow for the teenager, but a vicious hammer blow to his side with monstrous strength was enough to momentarily distract him from the agony that was settling on the back of his head.

'How can they have so much strength?!' Shiki thought in shock as he was knocked to the ground. A sharp kick, which removed the bicep of one of the monster's groping arms, bought him a few seconds as he tried to get up. However, the blood that was released from his earlier kick treacherously turned on him, staggering the teenager as he stood up, keeping him unsteady long enough for another blow to be struck.

Feeling his jaw shatter was never a pleasant thing. Blood filled his mouth and heady amounts of pain assaulted him with all the subtlety of a jackhammer to the skull. A manic snort erupted from his nose as he recoiled, barely managing to keep to his feet.

Shiki was sure that it would have been enough force to pop his head off if he hadn't been reinforced. The grim thought of what that would look like briefly flashed through his mind in all of its glorious, rotten glory as he stumbled backwards from the familiar that had attacked, arm still extended in the strike that had nearly done him in while his slashed up fellows hadn't been able to do.

In response, Shiki sprang forwards and slammed his fist straight into a mass of lines on the dead creature's head, releasing more tar onto the streets.

Shiki's forward momentum slowed to a crawl with the monster's brain matter pulped up against his fingertips, but the teenager solved that with a twist of his upper body and flattening out his fist into the shape of a knife. The top portion of the mannequin's head went soaring in one direction as the body dropped to Shiki's feet.

A heady cocktail of biological chemicals were surging through Shiki's veins at this point as he glanced at the direction of the remaining creatures. The pitiful things moaned and mindlessly began to shuffle towards him and Shiki, feeling their tar dripping off his face and lower body merely replied with a vicious grin.

"Nii-chan!" Miyako's wail, mixed with the sound of a cat's cry, was the only thing that snapped him out of his deranged state. Shiki instantly rushed towards the sound of the girl's cry from a half a block away.

The undead rushed to meet his rush with equal speed.

One of the dead brought its arms outwards in an attempt to give him a crushing bear hug, but Shiki sprang up and braced his left foot up against the shirt of the former human. Fabric began to rip as his right heel hooked against the dead man's shoulder, but Shiki didn't care as he used his sheer momentum to spring up into the air using the thing's body as a platform.

The dead crashed down to the ground as Shiki began to rapidly descend, aiming towards another monster. His left foot slammed into the monster's forehead, pressed down into it with enough force to snap the unfortunate creature's neck, and allowed him to leapt the rest of the way past the remaining twenty monsters.

Shiki saw a glimpse of Miyako, herded up against the corner of a neighbor's yard by a pair of dead things. She was huddled up in a ball, trying to desperately avoid seeing  what was in front of her. His glimpse ended as he landed on the street.

The teenager let his body loosely roll along the cooling surface of the street for less than ten seconds before he began to crawl on his hands and knees. Pain had long since stopped being a factor, both with the adrenaline and his reinforcement, so the rapid fraying of his pants were ignored as he shifted his hands.

His speed increased as he moved on the tips of his fingers and shoes – abandoning his knife at this point and picking up a few stray pebbles. With a roar, he shoved himself up with his fingers, and began to dash the last bit of distance towards Miyako as he vaulted the fence.

Miyako, face bloody and with bits of glass stuck in her raw hands, let out a scream as the dead hissed as they moved towards her. Shiki whipped his right fist out in their direction with all his might – unleashing several stones that whistled as they slammed into and through the undead.

The little girl simply passed out as the majority of their heads simply vanished in a haze of gore. The bodies, no longer sustained by the brain, simply collapsed to the ground like marionettes which had their strings cut.

Shiki continued his dash at Miyako, palming the remaining stone he had in his left fist as he recalled the feline cry. His worry was proven correct as a small tabby cat, with a disgustingly long and ratty looking tail, threw itself at him from the rooftop of the nearby home. The creature's tail ignited in a flaming whip – which the creature swung towards Shiki's face.

The teenager feeling the heated air blast at his face, went into a roll, the smell of burnt hair and a hiss of disappointment lingered in the air. Shiki bounced off one of the perforated bodies of the undead, but came to a halt in front of Miyako.

The smell of urine assaulted Shiki's nose.

Both cat and human came springing back to their feet, Shiki getting his feet underneath him and an arm wrapped around Miyako's slight form awkwardly. Their tense standoff ended when the sounds of blaring horns and the cracks of firearms going off could be heard.

The cat let out a mournful cry before it turned and began to race away. The flames on its tail extinguished themselves, but Shiki's remaining stone soared through the tip of the beast's appendage before it could make a complete get away.

Its cry of pain briefly echoed like a curse before it raced out of sight.

Shiki, feeling his last nerve fail him, collapsed onto his rear as he stared in the direction the cat – nekomata had run off towards. The sounds of the Tohno Family sweepers rushed up to him, each layered on top of the other in an incomprehensible mess as the situation he had gotten into finally hit him.

'Don't Panic.'

The self rebuke forced Shiki's eyes to slam shut as he tried to distance himself. From Miyako, face broken into bloody patches with deathly pale portions that hadn't been stained red; the neighborhood,  slashed to pieces thanks to the death lines; and finally the two rotting bodies two feet in front of him. 

His breath, harsh and rapid, was the only noise he made.

The sound of crunching footsteps caused Shiki to open his eyes once again.

Kohaku, expressionless and backed up by one of the family's sweepers, gazed down at the meat in front of Shiki for a long moment. "What did they look like to you?" She finally decided to question.

"They were unsightly."

"Hm..."

The man, looking like he was about to be ill, broke into their conversation. "Nanaya-kun, those were...!" He wheezed.

The bottom fell out of Shiki's stomach.

Kohaku gazed away from the bodies and towards Shiki. "Don't do it." She warned, amber eyes glittering.

His left hand shakily reached towards his coat pocket.

"Shiki-kun..."

The Mystic Eye Killers glinted in the night.

"Idiot, help me!" Kohaku hissed over at the stunned agent. He immediately moved with the redhead to block Shiki's view as he donned the glasses, banishing the death lines from the world around them. A wedding band glinted on the mangled hand of one of the bodies.

"...move."

"No. I refuse." Kohaku simply retorted. She and the man with her proved an effective enough blockade  with the darkening skies. "Radio for backup. I want those corpses taken away to be burned." She commanded.

"...yes, ma'am." The hired arm reached for the radio on his waist and began to call in their location.

Kohaku silently extracted Nanatsu-yoru from beneath the obi holding her kimono closed. The blade, sticky with blood, was silently wiped up against Kohaku's knees before she offered it towards Shiki.

"This is yours still."

A terrible, unknown fear kept Shiki's words trapped in his throat as he took the knife from Kohaku. The two of them simply remained silent until the bodies had been moved away.

*****

Assassin mulled on Shiki's story as the pair finally approached Shiki's neighborhood. 'Why are you still living here, then?' He prodded.

'It was a clan of nekomata assassins. They had gotten past all of the security the larger branch families hired and killed their heads. Hell, one even got through a few years ago and killed Makihisa Tohno.' Shiki, thoughts dark even twenty minutes later, responded with the unfiltered truth.

'So no escape.' Assassin sighed. 'What happened to the girl?'

'Kohaku.' Shiki's gratitude could be heard in his tone. 'She's a user of witchcraft.'

Assassin felt vaguely troubled. 'So...she doesn't remember about her parents?' He aired out his grievance.

'It's there. She's just ...detached from those memories. Witchcraft can only modify memories.'

Assassin let out a small noise as he considered this.

'I'd need the help of someone that uses a traditional system to actually erase them, but neither Shiki nor Kohaku can do it.' Shiki rubbed at his chest uncomfortably. 'Until then...she can still remember...'

'And feel them subconsciously, correct?' At Shiki's stunned silence, Assassin quietly continued. 'It's like a magical induced state that you go into to handle your stress in battle. It isn't a long term solution at all.'

Shiki remembered the crash he had felt after coming out of his Nanaya state. He silently agreed with the Heroic Spirit.

'The withdrawn girl knows about our world because of this?'

The teenager walked the final approach to his home.

'No, she started down the path because I dropped my phone," Shiki grimaced as he recalled his own stupidity. 'She harbored suspicions for years, though. I was always an clumsy guy around her.' He shook his head.

'Then what happened...?'

Shiki began to open the door to his house, but the door slid open before he could reach for the door.

"Well, we're sorry to trouble you both." Akiha, clad in a high collared long coat, stood before Shiki. "I'll just see about talking to Nii-san tomo-" She trailed off as her head turned to fully glance at him. Her expression reminded Shiki of a puckering fish, but he decided to keep his thought to himself.

Hisui stood behind Akiha, dressed in a dark sweater with a large white scarf and an ankle length skirt. She raised an eyebrow, but otherwise remained cool under Shiki's sight.

Miyako and Satsuki, both showing slight distress, gazed at Shiki imploringly from over Akiha's shoulder, having moved further down the hall so they could connect their line of sight with Shiki's eyes.

"Nii-san..." Akiha's stunned expression positively melted as delight shone forth from her blue eyes. He rather enjoyed contrast that she now had between her complexion, hair, and eyes.

"Akiha-chan." Shiki greeted the younger girl casually. Just as Akiha's eyes began to narrow with her annoyance, he decided to finish her off in one blow. "Looking as wonderful as always. I like your new look."

'And how I haven't been driven insane by it.' Shiki finished the thought.

'Yet.' Assassin didn't leave well enough alone.

A pink blush crossed her cheeks.

Hisui glanced away.

Miyako looked like she wanted to tear something apart.

Satsuki woodenly turned and marched in the direction of the kitchen.

"Ah...it's decided, then." Akiha cleared her throat, banishing the flush on her cheeks. "You two are coming home with me tonight."

"What." Shiki blurted.

Assassin somehow projected a tangible aura of schadenfreude.

*****

Wise Up!

It is dark.

You are likely to be eaten by an Oni.

Oh? What's that? You need a distraction?

Well, let's me see how the other Masters are doing for you...

*****

A tall man, with a bronzed complexion that could only naturally be produced in regions further to the south, walked amongst devils. The hulking, furred beasts were manifestations of a foreign folklore that had been imported from Canada.

The howls of the Wendigo brought forth a crushing snowstorm to descend on the city below. Terror began to stir in the hearts of the populace as nature turned on them.

"Now go!" The man pointed a muscular arm in the direction of the community. Its lights began to die out in various portions as the high speed winds knocked down electric poles throughout the town. "Gorge yourselves, feed until you are hungry no more, and return to Master Wallachia so we may travel beyond this land to Misaki – source of our desires!"

The wild beasts let out eager grunts as they began to bound down the hillside to the city.

"And I..." Servant Berserker flexed his neck, popping his joins as he shook his arms to ready himself. "Shall show the knights the error of their ways before I banish them to Tartarus." He grinned, summoning forth a bolt of lightning in his left hand.

*****

...oh no.

Angra Mainyu did it.

The almighty idiot actually went and copi-ckztttt!

[Olvelsper]

Tsukihime is the property of Type-Moon. Melty Blood is the property of Type-Moon and French-Bread. Melty Blood is the property of Type-Moon and Ecole Software. All additional references and parodies belong to their respective owners.

Chapter 7: Night of Wallachia I

Arcueid glanced off to the northwest with a pensive look on her expression as she ran her fingers along the fabric of the carpet beneath her. "Something's wrong out there." The blonde spoke up, trying to stare past the wall on the other side of their apartment as she leaned against wall next to the exit of their room.

"What do you mean, you stupid vampire?" Elesia's voice cut through the sound of bubbling liquids as she stepped away from the electric oven. The blue haired woman wiped her hands off on a moist rag from next to the sink before walking up to Arcueid.

Arcueid briefly glanced at Elesia before dismissively looking back in the direction she had been facing.

"Don't ignore me, dammit!" Elesia loudly complained. "I hate when you get like this!"

"It's Nanaya." Arcueid mused, making Elesia freeze up. "Even though he no longer lives with the Tohno, that air of misfortune around him I sensed earlier got stronger all of a sudden." 

Elesia froze in front of the oven. "You mean...the wraths, right?" She asked.

"Yes." Arcueid hesistated. "Don't worry. It's nothing like a Demon possession." She hummed. "Or Roa's equalvalent."

Elesia turned away from the burning food in front of her. The soup bubbling in front of her was ignored in favor of the vampire, which she pierced through with  cold stare. "Still, I don't understand why you'd leave something like that on him." She growled, angry at her long time acquaintensce.

"It wasn't harmful." Arcueid drawled. "It was doing the opposite, even. He reacted faster than a normal person should have. Plus his agility was much more impressive when the wraith latched onto him." She sounded a bit confused, feeling like she was lost in an old memory. "Plus...there was something familiar about it."

"Are you sure it isn't this city's boundary field messing with your senses? Even I can't tell up from down in this mess."

"You're going to burn our food." Arcueid's nose wrinkled as she complained.

Elesia gestured back in the direction of the stove. Her magic circuits flashed. The sound of boiling food instantly stopped. The smell of cooking food took longer to vanish.

"That's an abuse of Magic."

"Cry more, 'Phantasmoon'."

Both women shared a faint smile.

"No, I don't think so. I could tell right away that the boy wasn't possessed." Arcueid tapped the side of her temples, left eye briefly flashing gold. "The eyes are a window to the soul. He took off those glasses you gave him and used his frightful Mystic Eyes."

"They weren't red, then?"

"No, blue. He's still clean."

"Was he suspicious about how you knew about his eyes?"

"No. Shiki Ryougi is a convenient excuse for people to be wary around Japanese people with Mystic Eyes."

Elesia closed her eyes. "Power attracts power, huh?" She muttered the bitter truth, reaching up to rub the nape of her neck tiredly.

"Are you going to be alright?" Arcueid asked, eyes narrowing slightly. "If it's too much work, we can give up on investigating the Tohno. You're already pulling double shift on me by patrolling and going to that school."

"You need to conserve your power by resting in the day." Elesia shook her head. "I'd be nothing but a load to you if I had you wandering around."

"Well...you warned me about Nanaya's eyes." Arcueid flashed a perky smile Elesia's way. "I surely appreciate not having to turn one of my humans into bloody mist."

"We aren't yours, stupid vampire." Elesia muttered, cleaning her hands against a moist rag she had near the sink. "Despite your claims of sovereignty."

"Still...do we want to keep Nanaya out of this? He's clean, but that adopted family of his might not be. Especially with everything we've found out about how this barrier is set up."

Elesia considered the situation. "Let's talk to him. He has a right to know what's going on in his home town." She concluded with certainty in her tone.

"Ignorance is the greatest sin of them all?"

Elesia remembered waking up in a broken church, staring up at the blonde before her in a gown spun of silver and gold.

"Of course. There can be no forgiveness for that." Elesia replied, trying to shake the image away before she could remember the bodies around her.

"I'd forgive you." Arcueid had a sad smile on her face.

"You've done plenty for me already by introducing me to Aoko." Elesia shook her head as she looked away from Arcueid. "So the least I can do for you now is to use Ciel to completely annihilate that monster from your world." She growled, Magic gathering in her left fist, countless bubbles of blue light floating around her hand in an unbroken chain.

Elesia closed her eyes – remembering the mountains of corpses created at her clawed hands.

"Then I can die too."

1

An unforgiving snow storm pelted their group with chunks of ice, causing them to cinch their magical reinforced capes tightly onto their bodies to prevent heat from escaping out into the hungry white void. Boots which had been hurriedly thrown on their feet fought desperately for traction as they leaned forward against the winds to even take a step forwards.

The twelve knights that remained had split off into six groups, with Sion sticking with Riesbyfe as she was the one holding onto the ritual rubbing gleaned off Atlas' contract. Her unit consisted of the shield bearing knight, Sion, and a spear wielding knight.

The six groups split slightly apart with Riesbyfe's in the center of the formation.

"Can you read me, over?" Sion adjusted the harness beneath her cloak, trying to filter through heavy static caused by the snow as she and her unit relied on miniature radios to simply speak to each other over the thick snow.

Eric, the spear wielder, glanced at Sion and fell back slightly from where he had been leading.

"What is it, Miss Atlasia?" He asked, brown hair ruffling in the chill winds.

Sion winced slightly at her goof up, but the older man merely smiled.

"We won't need that procedure." The static did a good job of hiding his amusement. "No transmission beyond extremely short range thanks to this storm."

Sion nodded, and simply held up the chained whip she had been given. "Should I keep this? Wouldn't it be better in Miss Riesbyfe or your hands?" She wondered, the metal jingling slightly as she held it towards him.

"Best if you keep yourself armed." Sion was interrupted by Riesbyfe, who shifted her large weapon to the side. "With this storm we can't tell when someone gets attacked. Best if you hold onto the weapon just in case."

Sion was faintly disturbed that the two knights were being so blunt, but realized that it was probably foolishness in the extreme to not realize what their chances were. She glanced up at the boundary field high in the sky, seperating them from the rest of the world. Ripples of light, reflected by the frozen water in the skies, danced far above her reach.

Just like this mission was going completely out of her calculations.

"Are you alright?"

"I will be. I just need to set up that weapon you had me build, right?" Sion shook her head as she tried to shake off the grim thoughts in her mind. "Tell me, what do you know about the Night of Wallachia?" She pressed the two knights with her.

"It sucks blood." Riesbyfe shrugged, resting her shield against her shoulder. "We kill it."

Sion's eyebrow twitched as Eric laughed.

"Well..." The spearsman replied as he tested a snowbank with his spear, watching it break apart at the slightest prod as they moved past it. "It's like our weapons, right? It takes on concepts. The last group of knights that killed it didn't have to deal with snow."

"Not really." Sion wrapped her whip around the latch on her cloak. "Its reality marble takes in fears and manifests them, specifically."  The other group had fought Wallachia in an arid part of the world. Several of the knights had come back nearly dehydrated husks of their former selves. "I don't think it can apply conceptual ideas to itself."

"Hmph." Riesbyfe snorted. "Fears or concepts. It'll still go down once we stab it enough."

1

"Gah!" Tonio Bianchetti let out a muffled squeak as the ape like Wendigo made him stagger backwards with a clipped blow to his sternum. His fingers tightened against the enchanted axe in his grip as he rolled backwards, letting the weapon fly at the monster.

The beast swept to the side, dodging the axe. It flashed yellowed teeth at him, beady eyes shining with blood thirsty malice.

"Not dying yet, Kong." The knight jerked his hand, causing the axe to suddenly spin back and slam into the back of the Wendigo's back.

It let out a bellow of rage, misty breath erupting from the depths of its mouth as the axe ground deeper into its body, making the large creature stagger towards the knight. The man rushed forwards to finish it off with a glow from his spiked guantlets, but the ape's face erupted in a burst of gore as a dozen knives slammed into its face.

The Wendigo let out a wet rattle before it fell onto its side.

"That was my kill." He complained, reaching forwards and ripping the axe from the Wendigo's back. His partner merely smiled and shrugged, making her knives vanished from the bodies of the three beasts in their clearing.

"I have enough knives to spare." Elias Jönsson joustled the large pack around her hip. "What's some more between friends?"

A bright flash of light preceeded a thunderous roar as a bolt of lightning tore down from the heavens and promptly split the male knight in half. The female knife wielder let out a scream of agony as her eyes were blinded by an explosion of white light. Her body was lifted into the air and roughly thrown away as an explosion rocked the clearing, rock and dirt raining down noisily.

Her breath rapidly puffed out before her lips as she groped about in the loose snow.

"Hm...what's this...?" A strong, masculine voice spoke up above Elias, the snow crunching loudly before heavy footsteps. "It seems my aim isn't as exact as his was."  She gagged as her entire face was palmed by the man's hand.

"Let me g-" Elias's voice cut off into a gurgle as her neck was easily snapped.

The dark figure holding the limply dangling woman casually flung it away, body warping as the desperate fear both knights had felt  a split second before their deaths made his form more tangible as he stepped back into the snow storm, vanishing into it despite his dark skin tone.

1

The Heinemann siblings, four of them in total, sharply looked up once they heard the explosion. The four knights, knowing what Tatari was capable of doing, quickly moved towards the flash of light in the distance, the two squads cutting through the snowy embarkments.

"Damn it, I can't believe that Tatari was able to use a boundary field this time!"

"Isn't like we can blame the locals, Leon. They can't control what they believe in."

They went quiet after that, flooding their bodies with prana as they prepared themselves for combat. Their silver watches, Mystic Codes that allowed their usage of their combination boundary field, were readied as they saw a tall feminine figure make her way through the snow.

The sound of a chain rattling could be heard.

The four knights, trained for years to stay unflinchingly composed, balked as the snow storm parted, revealing the woman in the flesh. Their senses inverted as the four of them were slammed with an overwhelming curse, causing their vision to blacken as foreign prana surged into their bodies.

They lowered their weapons as they stared rapturously at the woman.

Her hair was like spun gold, with a impish smile and shining eyes, projecting her force of personality into them at first sight. Their gazes grew increasingly lustful the longer they stared at her, dressed only in the flimsiest of pink silk outfits.

"Get out of the way!" One of the brothers roared, reaching for and drawing forth his knife. Before the other three could react, he had buried it into his brother's throat, spilling a fount of blood as he threw himself like a wild animal towards the smug looking blonde.

"You son of a bitch, she's mine!"

The woman's smile turned slightly mocking as she saw the three remaining men begin to grapple at her bare feet, unbothered by the cold nor the dying croaks of the fourth brother, who was lying in a pool of blood. When one of the men desperately reached for her bare ankle, she simply took a step back and wagged a finger at him.

"Nuh uh. Only the winner gets me." She breathed, voice intoxicating the brothers to even greater violence as she simply twirled with the chain tied to her neck, following the links of into the storm as she wondered where her master had gone.

The blonde paced over to the dying brother and plucked his knife as she waited for the final fool to crawl out of the melee a few feet away from her.

1

"We're almost there!" Eric called out to them as they ascended the final peak. The winds were biting into them deeply at this point. "Get the weapon unsealed, Stridberg!" Riesbyfe unslung a large package from her back, setting it down amongst the snow.

"Alright, let me see how badly the parts were mangled." Sion muttered as she walked up past Riesbyfe and began to rummage through the box. The frame for the latest invention that Atlas had created the church – the Black Barrel Replica, gleamed within. As she quickly made to assemble the weapon, she felt the presence of Riesbyfe next to her.

"What is it?" She wondered.

"You okay?"

Sion blinked and actually looked up in surprise. Riesbyfe was standing guard, moving herself to keep as much snow from hitting her in the face as she possibly could.

"Yes, I am." Sion blinked.

"Oh, okay." Riesbyfe faintly smiled, expression genuine.

"...why would you ask?" The alchemist pressed as she moved back to assembling the weapon.

"Not many people are comfortable after their first kill. Even if it's something inhuman." Riesbyfe drawled, shifting in place as she brought her shield down to cover Sion a little bit more. "I'm glad you're tougher than I expected. All the other alchemists up to now have been needle necks that screamed and locked up."

"Well, excuse me for not training myself more." Sion's eyebrow twitched.

Riesbyfe laughed. "No, no! It's okay! You've got your head screwed on straight, so it's okay if you don't know everything right away." She reached down and ruffled Sion's hair, sending her cap askew.

"What do you mean by that?" Sion asked, slightly offended as she began to load the gun.

"You've got the instincts of a fighter. You actually did great." Riesbyfe nodded. "You just need a little bit of practice and you'd be all set."

Despite herself, Sion found herself smirking at the ridiculousness as she finished assembling the gun and drawing it out of the box of seals. "Those instincts are things I've plundered from others." She replied, trying to throw the older girl off.

"Hm...then you have a very fine eye for thieving!" Riesbyfe clapped her hands. "Keep it up." Sion laughed as she finished her preparations. Both women had ascended next to Eric as they looked over a pitch black city.

"Ready?" Eric wondered.

Sion slammed the clip of bullets into the gun.

1

The city was a frozen graveyard when they arrived. Corpses lay scattered about, ripped to pieces on the snowy streets. The faces of several buildings along the street they were prowling down showed that the bricks had been practically scooped out, several dusty bodies buried beneath masonry and support beams.

With a start, Sion realized that not a single drop of blood could be seen despite the gore and destruction.

"Finally noticed it?" Riesbyfe asked with a flinty smile. "Unlike some other monsters, the Night of Wallachia leaves the bodies behind."

"Why's that?" Sion asked, damning her own curiousity a few moments later. "It creates more fear for the survivors, right?"

"We'll have to remove the head of the beast before it gets too powerful." Riesbyfe replied, shifting the shield shaped pile bunker she was holding.

Eric held a hand up, making the two women pause as he moved to scout ahead, once he was ahead by a block, he waved them forwards. The three of them kept low to the ground, only pausing when they could hear the howl of another Wendigo in the distance.

What's going on out there?Was that the other knights moving into the city? Sion thought, moving her hand towards the whip on her hip. Their group quickly fell back, using the ruins of a coffee shop as cover, when the roars of the ape like beasts grew louder.

The ground beneath their feet trembled, forcing them to tense as a group of humans, screaming for their lives, rushed across the street in front of them, followed by three Wendigo. Riesbyfe and Eric traded a glance before nodding.

Both of them let out their own roars as they leapt over behind cover, knocking over a green and white sign of a crowned woman as they rushed the Wendigo. The beasts let out cries of shock before Eric and Riesbyfe slammed into two of them, the stake on the end of Riesbyfe's shield stabbing into her target just as Eric's spear did.

The third ape let out a cry of fury as it turned to crush Riesbyfe's back beneath its fists, but Sion sprang up and let loose with her whip. The chain tore through the flesh along its arm, ripping sinew and skin apart easily as the beast howled as it stumbled backwards as Sion rushed forwards, lashing out with blow after blow.

The Wendigo that Riesbyfe and Eric had pierced desperately began to struggle, their fists clawing at the knights. Eric growled and leaned forwards, pressing the Wendigo away from him with his spear, but Riesbyfe received several blows to her shoulders as she barely dodged having her head get pulped. "Fuck you!" She cried as she triggered a switch within her shield.

With a loud thud the spike on the end of her shield fired deeper into the body of the ape she was facing. Blood and spittle flew from the Wendigo's mouth, eyes shrinking to pinpoints as the force of the explosion was threw the monster's body away from her like a rag doll.

Riesbyfe hissed, arms trembling as her shield rumbled, another blessed silver stake sliding out of her shield. She glanced over to see that Eric had managed to pin his target to the ground and was waiting on it to bleed out. Off to the side, she could see five people huddling beneath the ruins of the coffee shop, but she paid them no further attention than that for now as she saw Sion get knocked back by her opponent.

The Wendigo breathed out a cone of ice and snow at the fallen alchemist, but Riesbyfe imposed herself between the girl and the monster, feeling her arms go numb as the full force of the ape's attack smashed into her shield.

"Riesbyfe!" Sion shouted in surprise, trying to pull herself back to her hands and knees as Riesbyfe was forced to crouch down in front of her, holding up her massive shield at an angle to keep them covered as small pieces of ice rained down on top of them from above

Their protection screeched as the shield was pelted by razor sharp iciciles at frightening speeds.

"Stay down!" Riesbyfe shouted, arms screaming as she forced her arms into holding the shield as snow piled down on top of it.

Eric, seeing his Wendigo's struggles finally end, turned towards the two women in alarm. Quickly palming a throwing knife from inside his cloak, he launched it towards the Wendigo. The beast let out a stunned yelp as the blade stuck into its side, forcing it to cut off its attack.

The beast's eyes flashed as it turned towards Eric, fog pouring out of its lips.

The male knight let out a curse as he rushed the monster, his bloody spear sliding out of the corpse he had taken out.

Sion and Riesbyfe sprang to their feet, with the former drawing Black Barrel Replica and taking aim. However, she wasn't able to pull the trigger quickly enough. Just as the Wendigo's head vanished as her gun fired, Eric was impaled by three icicles without any mercy.

Blood flew into the air as the male knight crashed onto his back, spear flying away from his loose grip to embed itself into the ground. The heavier body of the Wendigo sent up a plume of snow as it fell onto its side.

Sion gasped for breath, slumping to her knees in shock from the recoil of the weapon.

"Eric!" Riesbyfe gripped her shield tightly as she ran to her fellow knight's side. Once she was by his side, she finally let her shield drop to the ground as she stared down at his pale, lifeless face. "No!"

The humans that had observed all of this began to stumble out, the majority of them looking shellshocked. Two of them, seeing the raw rage on the silver haired knight's face, chose to pull their number closer to Sion.

"Miss! Were you sent here to save us?" Their cries shook Sion out of her slight daze as she stared at the gooey mess that was left of the Wendigo's skull.

"I..." Sion shook her head to compose herself. She glanced up at the frantic looking group arrayed around her. "N-no, we were here to stop the creatures attacking the city." She reluctantly stated the truth.

"What?!"

Getting more control over herself, Sion coolly rose to her feet, snow falling off her cloak. "I apologize but the creature that's attacking will not rest until it's stopped." She replied to their anger and shock, trying to make them understand. "Even if we took you with us out of here, we would be hunted down and killed like dogs."

One of the town's people, a large woman, growled and reached to grabbed Sion. Her arm was stopped in mid-air as Riesbyfe's hand gripped her wrist.

"She's right." Riesbyfe droned, voice harsh and low as she stared at the townspeople. Hints of moisture were in her eyes as she glanced over at Sion. "Don't try to aggitate them." She complained.

Sion nodded, accepting the knight's rebuke.

"So, what? We run until we're slaughtered?" The woman that Riesbyfe was holding yelled at the impassive knight. "It's your responsibility to protect us!"

"Look how well that ended for my friend." Riesbyfe snapped, making the woman flinch. She shoved the woman's arm away from herself as she continued.  "What drove you five to even be out here in the first place?!"

A slim teenager pulled the stunned woman away from Riesbyfe.

"The town is done for. We wanted to live, so we ran away from that man." A middle aged woman spoke up, shivering from the cold. "He sent those monkeys to drag us back to city hall along with everyone else."

"We need to go." Riesbyfe glanced back at Sion. "We can't let it finish off the rest of this town. It'll be impossible to stop it if it consumes the rest of their blood."

The alchemist glanced over at the fearful humans. "...alright." She reluctantly agreed to the knight's demand.

"Wait!" One of the survivors shouted, rushing the two women. He jerked to a halt when a shining string flew out from beneath Sion's mantle and pierced his head.

"Sleep." Sion commanded, overriding the man's control of his own motorfunctions as he collapsed at her feet.

The remaining four people screamed and started to run, but two of them were swiftly smashed into unconsciousness by Riesbyfe, who rushed after them. One of them collapsed as Sion stabbed into the back of her neck with her etherlite while the last one successfully fled.

"...tch." Riesbyfe scowled in the direction of the runner. "He's a goner." She sadly shook her head as she wrote him off to the beast's in the snow storm. "Finish up with them and we'll move them inside this store." She thumbed in the direction of the destroyed coffee shop, already slinging Sion's first victim across her shoulders as she dragged him into the shop.

Sion quietly started rewriting the memories of the other two that Riesbyfe had knocked out. "What about Eric?" She spoke up, shifting through the memories of the night that the two below her experienced, editing their memories.

Riesbyfe glanced in the direction of her fellow knight. "We'll carry him a block away, destroy his brain, and bury him in the snow." She replied in a monotone. "Only our team knows about the replica. I don't want Wallachia knowing if it turns him."

"Alright then, let's go." Sion agreed as she dusted her hands off. Both women grabbed the last two humans and dragged them into the rubble, covering them with broken pieces of chairs and tables before walking away, each of them using one arm to carry the corpse of their ally between them.

In her other hand, Sion held onto Eric's old spear.

1

Justine Bois kept a firm grip on the hilt of her sword as she and her partner entered the meeting sight. Roman Still, her partner, relaxed as they saw the Japanese knight in front of him.

"You're a great sight to see." Roman called out, grinning at Takane. His cheerful greeting to his friend died away when he saw the blood splattered on his robes as Takane Hamaguchi approached their group. "Where's...?"

"She's dead, Mister Still." Takane shook his head, nervously palming a blue gemstone in his hand. "Some freaking giant broke through a wall of a building we were passing and pulled her in before I could even blink."

Justine tensed as her eyes narrowed sharply at Takane.

"D-don't look at me that way, Miss Bois. I used one of my gems to destroy her head before he could do anything to her." Takane took a step back from the woman.

"Wait, you didn't even try to help her?" Roman demanded angrily.

"Nothing worked on him! My gems couldn't pierce his skin and Miss Cruz's water magic just slipped off whenever she tried to burn his hand away." Takane defended himself, tone harsh as he glared at the two of them. They hadn't had to see that viciously glowing red eye as closely as he had! "I had to use up half of my gems just to get here in one piece!"

Justine tiredly sighed as she looked around them. "I suppose we have to move on, then." They had to double back a few times when they caught the sound of a chain on the wind. She doubted anyone else would arrive here after they did.

"And that's where you should be wrong." Riesbyfe's voice cut through the wind, which had died down significantly inside the town. The silver haired woman was being followed closely by the Atlas alchemist.

"So he's dead too, huh..." Justine sadly spoke up as she saw her countryman's bloody spear in Riesbyfe's other hand.

"Sorry Bois..." Riesbyfe awkwardly consoled her rival. She quickly glanced around the area, expression falling as she came to a troubling conclusion. "Has it really gotten so powerful that it took nine of us down so easily?"

"Regardless, we've found out from the locals that Wallachia is trying to sacrifice the remaining townspeople over by city hall." Sion spoke up, directing everyone's attention back to her. "I was able to read the location from their minds. It's best that we go before it's too late."

"Then let's go. We won't let the deaths tonight go to waste." Justine focused her attention on Roman and Riesbyfe. "I'll trust you two to protect us going in, right?"

Both knights nodded, expressions firming. With that, the group of five headed out towards the west, lead by the alchemist. Riesbyfe let her pace slow down a little as she moved towards Justine. The swordswoman glanced up at her rival, but Riesbyfe simply handed over the spear.

"When it was all said and done, I think he would have wanted you to have it instead of me." Riesbyfe simply responded. Stunned silent, the swordswoman simply accepted the spear as the silver haired woman continued. "I'm sorry I couldn't save him, Justine."

Justine's heart ached.

"Don't sell yourself so short." Justine took the spear from Riesbyfe with shaky fingers. "You are every bit as important too."

Riesbyfe gave Justine a faintly morbid smile as she moved back to Sion's side.

What a classic way to end a rivalry, Eric.

1

Sion had a look of distaste on her face as she gazed through her binocular. Down below, a giant of a man was reclining on the steps of what her stolen memories told her was city hall. A woman with a minimal outfit was leaning up against his lap, a bronze collar and chain leading up to the man's fist. Both of them were gazing down below as two apes flayed a man apart with their claws.

The woman covered her lips with the back of her hand, but her blue eyes were dancing with mirth.

The giant was simply gazing upon everything with a bored expression, his single red eye glowing softly.

"That's them, huh?" Riesbyfe softly spoke up besides Sion, setting down her own binoculars as she gazed at the three knights that remained. "Or are they curses like the apes? Can you tell which of them is the manifestation? Still? Hamaguchi?"

The group's two mages had difficult looks on their faces as they gazed upon group. Occasionally, one or the other would have to forcibly glance away from the direction of the blonde woman.

"Remember what she represents." Justine quietly hissed, ripping the binoculars away from the two men.

"I'm...not sure. The both of them are on another level compared to the Wendigo that manifested due to the curse." The American shook his head. He looked like he wanted to say something more when he gazed at the blonde, but he chewed on his lip instead, drawing his bible out from his mantle.

"Furthermore, that man was the one that killed Miss Cruz." Takane nodded in agreement with his American counterpart's analysis. "These gemstones I wield had the prana of several of the Church's magi fed into them. They should have killed him."

"So, we're going to have to rely on the Black Barrel Replica." Riesbyfe spoke up, when the other three knights glanced at her in alarm, the silver haired woman merely sighed. "Surprise." She drawled, completely unenthused.

"Don't blame her." Sion called out before the other three knights could say anything. "Your order requested that we attempt to mass produce the Lance of Longinus." She shook her head, sending her braid flying back and forth. "Unfortunately, this is going to have to be our first real trial."

"That's..." Justine hissed in outrage, but the unhinged laughter of Takane and Roman caused her to look at the two men in shock. "What are you tw...ugh!" Roman's fist smashed the woman in the face, knocking her back onto her rear. She quickly scrambled backwards as he pounced at her direction.

Riesbyfe hauled Sion away by the back of her cloak as Takane threw a blue gem at where the alchemist had been crouching. The blast of the gem threw Riesbyfe and Sion backwards as the japanese man drew more and more gems from inside his mantle.

"My, my, what foolish mortals you all are." Roman spoke, voice feminine and husky. "I think I'll see if I can kill you all before Master Alcides grows bored of his toys." With that, both of the men went back to back, Roman ripping out pages from his bible and Takane facing the three women.

The sheets of paper glowed before they rose around the two of them, spinning around them like a barrier.

Two massive Wendigo landed next to the men, snarling at the three women and throwing themselves at them.

"No!" Justine cursed as she leapt back from a sphere of flame that was lobbed at her by Takane. With a vicious snarl, she swung Eric's spear, cleaving the sphere in two and dispelling the attack. Several more were launched at her, forcing her past Riesbyfe and Sion.

The silver haired knight was desperately blocking one of the ape's ice attacks with her shield. The force of this monster's attack was much worse than before, forcing the knight to quickly give ground. The second Wendigo chased after Sion, who was desperately trying to keep back with the chain whip.

"My, you three have much better armaments than the others before you." Takane admired. The man sacrificed another gemstone, summoning a sphere of wind that was launched towards Sion, but Justine moved into its path, breaking the magecraft apart with the spear. "But why won't you show us this 'Black Barrel Replica'?"

For a bizarre, almost perverse in its awkwardness, Sion almost felt inclined to grant the woman's voice her answer.

"Don't!" Riesbyfe shouted over the concentrated storm she was desperately fighting against. "It's an enchantment!"

"Hahah. This is why I like men much more than women. Those that have known the touch of a man are so persistent in seeking it out again." Takane's expression was cruel as he casually launched half of his spheres at Justine. "Please die so I can play with this innocent one, okay?"

On that command, the Wendigo that had been pressing Sion back surged forwards, smashing the alchemist aside as it roared its own breath attack at Riesbyfe. Both Justine and Riesbyfe were both consumed by elemental fury as the spheres of elemental attacks simply overwhelmed Justine at the same time that Riesbyfe was blindsided by the attack of the second Wendigo.

Justine let out a short cry as her body was consumed by flame, a shadowy sphere locking her screams within it. Riesbyfe didn't even have a chance to shout before her body was completely covered by a thick coat of ice from head to toe.

"No!" Sion snarled, stumbling onto one knee. Fury filled her as she dropped her whip and gripped her gun tightly as she fired on the two apes' unprotected backs. Two thin purple rays of light erupted out from the smoking barrel, consuming the upper bodies of the massive Wendigo in a blink of an eye.

The alchemist rolled to her side as the ground she was standing on erupted into ragged ice as a sphere of ice slammed down on top of her former location.

"My! That's rather frightening." Takane mused, looking a bit disappointed that he had missed as only five spheres of elemental magic surrounded him now. "We can't have this near Master Alcides, no no. I'll have to protect him..."

Sion began to back away from the two men as they began to step towards her.

"I wanted to play with you, but you're too dangerous..." A leer crossed Roman's face as he moved next to Takane, the pages of the bible surrounding the two protectively. "So, I'll just have to live vivaciously through these boys."

Unseen by the three, thin, hairline cracks formed along the surface of the shadowy sphere and the ice covering.

"You monster." Sion hissed, bounding backwards as Takane swung the sphere of elemental power in her direction, making her desperately dodge away from the attacks. Her own attempts at striking back with her etherlite were simply blocked by pages of the bible, the sheets as solid and unyielding as steel.

"No, that was my mother." Roman replied. "I'm Aphr-what?!"

He spun back around as the shadowy sphere shattered. A bloody, burnt figure trembled within a circle of ash for a moment before flinging the partially melted remains of a spear straight through his chest, piercing the barrier of scripture.

Roman wheezed before he collapsed, taking the barrier down with him.

With her final sigh, Justine collapsed, fingers unlocking from the sheathe of her undamaged sword.

Takane, who was stunned for a brief moment, was no match for Black Barrel, the weapon's hollow point round being less effective against another human, but still every bit as capable of splattering their brains across the street.

The spheres, no longer under control, went out of control, annihilating an area a good three feet in every direction from Takane's spot.

Sion gasped, heart thundering inside her chest from terror at her near miss with disaster. Her eyes cleared as she glanced towards Riesbyfe. She quickly raced across the annihilated streets towards the silver haired woman, mind racing as she tried to figure out how to save her.

The fractures on the ice covering Riesbyfe widened

Then she heard the voice of what was presumably Alcides – booming across the heavens.

"My good mortal," Sion's desperate attempts at finding the man were met by the sight of a bronze giant in the distance, moving in her direction from the direction of city hall. "You, who have survived this Night until the end, are worthy to speak to my esteemed self."

The blonde woman behind him flashed an angry glare to Sion, but her head was bowed with a tug of her collar by the large man.

Sion's vision went red as she gazed upon the man that had slaughtered everyone. Her index finger rubbed along the firing pin of her Replica.

"Hoo? What would that rebellous look be for?" Alcides grinned, showing off sharp fangs at her. "Master Zepia values you, but that does not mean that you need be in one piece before you are turned, child."

When Sion went pale, Alcides began to laugh, a hearty, rich sound.

"The sins of the father always come back to haunt the children, don't they?" Alcides asked as he reached into his leather tunic, drawing out a bottle of blue liquid. "But then, that's a story that's told in all religions. Including this 'Church' of yours."

"Master Zepia said..."

"Hush, Aphrodite. Yours isn't to question me." Alcides growled at the blonde, shutting her up. He turned his gaze back towards Sion. "You don't deserve to be turned by Master Zepia yet, but don't worry..."

His red eye flashed.

"I, the Sovereign, can always refine you with a few Labors." Golden power surged up his arm and into the bottle of liquid. The bottle shattered within his massive hand with a simple squeeze just as the snow storm around them went still.

"Nine Lives Storm!" Alcides roared, throwing his hand into the skies above as a downpour of rain came down hard on the city.

Sion screamed as the first drop struck her, burning into her skin, followed by several more. The wooden buildings around them were quickly lit aflame as agony quickly consumed Sion, but before her mind was forcibly shut down she heard the distinct sound of something shattering besides her.

1

"Hm...my old body and the True Ancestor are back." Shiki Tohno mused, several of the co-opted youkai in the city lending him their eyes as he observed the True Ancestor and Elesia within the city. The youkai, nature spirits themselves, were almost instrincally drawn to the blonde beauty through their mutual connection.

The best early warning system he could create.

Shiki returned away from his landscape view of Misaki's skyline when the phone on his desk began to ring. "This is Shiki, go ahead." The teenager spoke up, answering the line as he calmly drank in the moonlight hitting him in the face.

"Oniichan, this is Akiha." His sister's voice made Shiki disconnect his senses, banishing the image of Arcueid from his mind's eye, "I wanted to see if you were going to be coming home tonight."

Shiki softly smiled. "I'm sorry, but it's turned out that we'll be too busy finishing moving everything into the Shrine. I won't be around until tomorrow night." He paused. "Did Hisui cook for you?" He worried.

Akiha's rich laugh bounced around his office. "No, we went out to eat." She replied happily. "Don't let her hear you ask that, though."

"Well, you'll have to survive without Kohaku until dinner. Should be easy with class tomorrow, right?" Shiki reached for his desk and grabbed a pen, lightly rolling it around in his hands.

"Mmm...oniichan," Akiha's tone grew slightly guarded. "I wanted to call you for a consultation too."

Shiki blinked, "Go on..." He sounded intrigued as he leaned up against his desk.

"I...talked to Shiki-niichan."

The pen snapped in the older brother's hands. "Oh, and what did you talk about?" He coolly asked, ignoring the ink dripping onto the front of his suit.

"...I want him to come back home with Miyako-chan." Akiha regally stated, ignoring the tone that Shiki had used. "Father adopted him. He's as much of a member of our family as Kohaku and Hisui-chan." She quickly concluded, trying to reinforce her words.

Or maybe that's just what you're using as an excuse. Shiki thought, face twisting into a scowl.

"Is that so?" He simply said. "Well, you're the head of the family now."

If only because the other heads overruled me before I could remove them.

"Miyako-chan is all alone whenever you send Shiki-niichan off on errands too. This will be good for them, you'll see."

"Mmm...of course, Akiha-chan."

"Good, then they should be moving withiin two days. Hisui-chan will be getting their rooms ready. Come be a responsible big brother and greet them warmly tomorrow, okay?" With that, the connection was dropped as Akiha disconnected.

"Fufufu, she always has to get the last word, huh?" Kohaku's voice spoke. Shiki looked less than impressed when he glanced over towards his apprentice, who was sticking her head into his office.

"You'll lose that head if you're not careful." Shiki warned the redhead as she pushed the door the rest of the way open and strode into the room.

"Oh my, would you add my head to your collection, then?"

"You're not that special, sorry."

Kohaku reached for her chest, clutching at the spot over her heart. Despite the energetic motions as she squirmed back and forth and slight smile on her face, her golden eyes were cool as she focused on Shiki.

"That hurt. It really hurt." Kohaku shook her head. "Almost as much as when Makihi-"

"Kohaku." Shiki narrowed his eyes at the girl, who's smile widened a little bit more.

"Shrine has been brought online." The redhead mechanically intoned, running a hand through her loose red hair. "Operating systems and power are suboptimal."

"Where's your ribbon?" Shiki wondered, noticing the lack of such on her head. The girl merely shrugged.

"Shiki gave it to me. I don't want it to be bloodier than it already became."

"Hmph. That's fine, then." Shiki turned his back on the maid and continued to gaze out at the moon. "You're dismissed."

"Oh good. I've been dying to try out my latest copy of Castlevania."

"Is that so?" Shiki leaned back into his seat as he started looking for the two invaders again. "How is it?"

Kohaku, who was at the exit to Shiki's office, paused in surprise at that question.

"Spoiler: The vampire dies." She replied.

Shiki's laughter followed Kohaku out of the room.

1

Wise Up!

Gods and Elemental Spirits

What is a god?

A miserable pile of sec-

Actually, it's a combination of faith and a common elemental! Elementals are spiritual bodies of animals and nature itself. Kojiro isn't considered an elemental despite being a spiritual entity. Why's that?

1. He's a ghost. Wraiths of humans aren't considered part of nature.
2. Shut up.

Elementals can take on human shape, but you have to remember that they have very alien thought processes despite that. Think of our youkai or the faeries of England. Arcueid herself is considered an Elemental too. The highest model.

How do I know that? Let's say I dream of scary cats and tigers when I sleep. They grant answers to all of life's mysteries.

If humans believe strongly enough in something, our home planet of Gaia may allow one of her elementals, children of her will, to graduate up to what you or I call 'God'.

Gods possess frightful abilities, able to use Marble Phantasm or even a type of magecraft called a 'Reality Marble' at will. They also possess all manner of other powerful skills and magicks that we granted to them with our belief.

In the end they're governed by human belief, though. If we stop believing in them, they'll go back to being an elemental.

Oh yeah! By the way...

There's a very thin line between Demon and God.

On a scale of one to Arucied: Gods are about lemon meringue pie.

Sorry, I was never very good with power levels...