Chapter Text
For the very first time in Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade’s long, long life, somebody had helped her.
Somebody had saved her.
And, most astonishingly, somebody had given their life for her.
Kiss-Shot had lived many centuries, had met many humans and oddities alike - had killed many humans and oddities alike - but never had this happened before in her dull and empty time as a vampire. She did not remember nearly anything of her human life, though it seems she came from a fairly well-off family, but she would not be surprised if such a thing had never happened in her comparably short time as a human, either. This truly may have been a first.
The legendary and regal vampire thought such human-like sentiments to herself as she silently sucked the blood of the child who had offered his body and soul to her.
Why had he?
It's true that Kiss-Shot had haughtily demanded him to do so, but she had been desperate , grasping at whatever rope she could find to pull her out from her certain descent into Hell, and was not thinking rationally. She did, of course, believe that it should be a great honor for a lowly human to become her flesh and blood, but no sane human would actually volunteer to do that, she now realized.
She thought back to his words as he resolved himself to die. How he spoke of becoming someone better in his next life, and how he had no reason to value his own life over another’s. Strange words to a prideful and self-serving being such as Kiss-Shot.
He must have been a very sad child , was all she could think of it. Indeed, she could taste the bitterness in his blood. Blood was like a window to the soul. As such, the taste would correspond, although a vampire would normally not care to analyze whatever emotions they tasted in an insignificant human. It was rare for Kiss-Shot, too, to be curious about a human in this way, to view one as more than food.
She also could not help but notice that, contrary to what she would normally assume as she lay on his chest and held her prey’s neck tight to her fangs, yet similarly to his outward appearance and tone of voice, his blood had a male taste to it. Well, this sort of thing was not particularly surprising to Kiss-Shot. She took note of it, and that was all. As someone who had lived a long life, she had naturally met many different types, and a human( or oddity) like this was not surprising to her.
This was likely the only thing about the boy that was not surprising to her.
Like that, she continued to do nothing but ponder this perplexing human as she drained gulp after gulp of blood from his body, drinking even more greedily than usual. It was not that he tasted especially delicious or anything, and she thought of herself as a vampire with no particular preferences, but for the first time in her life she knew what it meant to be “grateful for one’s daily bread.” Not only because she had been on the verge of death, cowardly despairing at the thought of no longer existing after a five centuries long existence that felt even longer, but also because she'd been saved from it. Because a human being who had just met her, was rudely demanded to give his neck to her, was so frightened he initially ran screaming, and, like her, cried because he didn't wish to die - had saved her life at the cost of his own.
Just as he cried as he offered her his life, she, too, felt tears solemnly stream down her face as she took it from him.
And it was then, as she drained the final drops of blood in him, soaked in her own bloody tears, that she thought.
What am I doing?
For the first time in her long life, Kiss-Shot had met a being who chose to hold out a hand and help her. And yet just as she found such a soul, she was almost immediately going to end their existence.
It wasn't as if she had another option, not if she wanted to live. If she didn't feed, she would perish. And as she lay on the verge of death, that prospect terrified her so much she could not express it in words, as if the fear would stop her non-beating heart even before she died naturally of blood loss. She felt ashamed, something she thought she had long since forgotten how to feel, over letting her fear of losing her own life cost her another that she did not wish to lose.
She tried to reassure herself, the boy himself had chosen it, had graciously asked her to do just that.
But that was only shutting her eyes to but one part of the truth. Yes, he had asked her to kill him, but he was also crying as he did so . How, in even another five hundred years, could she forget such a baffling sight?
…There was still another option. That other option. She did not have to kill this child. It was entirely possible for the both of them to live.
She had already finished draining all of the blood in his small, fragile body. She had not fully regenerated yet, but the blood was enough that she managed to take on an incomplete and hollow childlike form. Though she was currently weak and devoid of nearly any vampiric power, to an immortal such as herself, such an issue was a minor one that would resolve itself in time.
If I simply stop here, and let things run their course…
-If she did that, she'd only be repeating the mistakes of the past! Had she not learned anything from four hundred years ago?
To not end what she started would be far more selfish. No, not even selfish, only foolish - it couldn't be called a “selfish act” if it was one that was only going to hurt both of them in the end. Just a foolish one. He would resent not only himself, but her even more. He might even do as that man did. What vampire in their right mind would subject themselves to that a second time?
There would be no going back if she didn't kill the boy right here and now.
And yet.
She could not.
She knew what would happen, but yet, as she looked down at him, at his lifeless yet peaceful face, his face that smiled for her so gently in his last moments, as she looked at him with her now satiated hunger and rational mind, no longer thinking of the cold embrace of death but only of the warm embrace he reassuringly held her in - she just couldn't.
For all she knew, her mind wasn't even any more rational than before, and she was making an irrational decision that would surely seem as such when she came to her senses. No, she did know that. And it already seemed as such.
Yet she couldn't.
Looking up at the night sky, seeming all the more grand and overpowering to the short form she now stood in, that light-scattered dark sea that was normally so enchanting yet now seemed as if it were closing in on her, she despaired. It seems I may be forced to watch yet another kin die before my eyes…
Along with that lament came flooding recollections of the helplessness she felt back then. Flashing before her, she recalled the superhuman screams from two in tandem like deafening drums, the way the orange of the flames and the red of her tears blinded and blurred her vision as if she were looking into hell, the trembling of her outstretched hand that could not reach an inch further lest she descend into that hell with him. How she could not only not bring herself to risk her life to salvage his crumbling and disintegrating body, but was unable to save even his heart before it was too late. She could not show the compassion he needed, did not understand any of his pain, did nothing but further isolate him. If only she simply tried to understand why he was so resistant to his change, tried to see his perspective as a former human, didn’t respond to his anger in kind, didn't dismiss his worries… could he have been saved, perhaps?
And it was then that another thought came to her.
Could this boy be saved, perhaps?
Could this be her chance at redemption? Four hundred years after her own blindness cost her what was most dear, she once again met a human who showed compassion towards her - as if to say, “you can be forgiven.” Perhaps she could be. Perhaps this was her chance. Perhaps now, having learned from her mistakes in the most cruel way possible, she could do things differently this time.
She looked down at the boy’s face - still wearing a gentle smile, even at the end. There didn't seem to be much alike between this boy and that man, whether in appearance or demeanor, and yet, she found herself slightly smiling to herself about the irony - it was in this far east land that she had met them both. On both of the only two occasions she set foot here, her heart had been moved and her fate changed.
Was it fate that brought me here? Or was it you, Seishirou?
Kiss-Shot looked once more to the sky. There was still quite some time left in the night, but “quite some time” could very well still be not enough to find shelter for the two of them in this weak, minuscule form she'd been reduced to. If she didn't get a move on, the sun would be up before she knew it.
With a newfound determination rising to the surface amidst the crashing waves of fear, she began to drag the boy’s body.