Chapter 62: Roaring Growl
Chapter 62: Roaring Growl
A young man walked through the residential area with vacant eyes. All who laid eyes upon him shivered in fear and quickly rushed inside their homes. They patiently waited for him to move to the next area, hoping it wouldn’t be their house he chose to stop at. His long hair rendered his face indistinguishable, but the way he dragged his legs and the abnormal hunch to his back gave away his aberrant state.
“He isn’t there just yet,” observed a silver-haired man watching from a nearby rooftop. His lips curled into a sick smirk; he seemed to be greatly enjoying himself. Another young man soundlessly approached him from behind.
“Shiro, were you the one who made Youta fall to F rank?” asked a voice deep enough to have come from the depths of Sheol and with enough heat to burn its listener’s ears. Shiro turned with a smile to face his guest. He courteously bowed his head.
“Master Tsukiharu, it has been a while since you last graced me with your presence. How many weeks has it been since we last met? You have my utmost apologies for not showing myself until now.”
“I didn’t ask you about that. Answer me. Was it you?”
“What has angered you so?” Shiro asked with indifference. Tsukiharu grabbed his shirt collar and slammed him into the concrete rooftop. He moved swiftly, leaving Shiro no opening to escape from being pinned to the ground.
“You cause people to fall! Did you think I’ve forgotten?!”
The F rank vampire who attacked Azusa crossed Tsukiharu’s mind. The course of events leading up to Azusa’s abduction was enacted by Shiro alone. He remembered watching everything get taken care of without really understanding what was going on.
“You made Youta drink the same drug you forced on that man. And now you are using your special bugs to control him. Am I wrong?”
“There is nothing left for me to explain when you already know so much. Perhaps his recent fall to F is what has kept some portion of his reasoning intact enough to keep him from indiscriminately attacking people. You need not concern yourself with him, as I will control him before he does attack.” Shiro turned his eerie eyes on Tsukiharu.
Rage and the creepiness of his eyes had Tsukiharu increase the strength he held him against the ground with. The concrete beneath Shiro cracked loudly. His face twisted with pain, but his lack of resistance furthered Tsukiharu’s ire.
“Return Youta to normal! I know you can do it!”
“Unfortunately, Master Tsukiharu, I cannot. You can dissolve milk into coffee, but you cannot remove only the milk from the coffee once it has blended in, yes? The same concept applies here.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Tsukiharu’s fist swung down. A loud crack you wouldn’t expect to hear from punching someone rang across the rooftops as Shiro’s shoulder sunk into the concrete. His face warped with the agonizing pain as he bit his lower lip to endure from shouting out.
“Then tell me what you made him drink!”
“Nothing will come from possessing that knowledge.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me! I make my own decisions! I’ll kill you here and now if you don’t tell me.” Tsukiharu intensified his grip on Shiro’s neck, squeezing the saliva out of his mouth. He lessened the pressure, seeing Shiro struggling to breathe. “You can’t beat me. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes…I guess I do.”
“Tell me.”
“…Blood.”
“Blood?”
“Miss Azusa Saito’s blood. I had him drink her blood.”
“…!” Tsukiharu gasped, his eyes wide in shock. Shiro gazed up at his face with amusement. “Where did you get her blood?”
“…That is a secret.”
“Do you want me to kill you?!”
“You underestimate me too much, Master Tsukiharu.” Shiro smacked the concrete floor with a composed smile.
Tsukiharu quickly dodged the flash of light rising from the ground. A wave of light spread out around where Shiro stood. The ring of light reached as far as fifteen feet in diameter. A faint smile crossed Shiro’s lips in the center of the ring of light and he stomped on the ring one more time. A legion of butterflies spilled out of the ring of light. The butterflies flocked Tsukiharu, shedding their sleep-inducing scales all over him as if their lives counted on it.
“The most difficult aspect to this skill is that I must buy time until the spell is ready. Due to that, I had to inform you of things better left unsaid, but I am glad to see everything worked as planned… Sweet dreams, Master Tsukiharu.”
“Damn it!”
Tsukiharu could have easily dodged the attack if he hadn’t let down his guard, but on top of being distracted by Youta, he failed to keep an eye on his surroundings. He burned and liquefied thousands of butterflies, but for every hundred he killed, another thousand seemed to attack him in their place. Eventually, the legion of butterflies forced him on his knees. His body stumbled forward and he collapsed on the rooftop with all his limbs spread out.
“I was ordered not to kill you, you see? So I shall not kill you yet. However, you inflicted some pain on me earlier, so please allow me to repay you for that much.” Shiro smiled icily and kicked Tsukiharu in the abdomen.
***
“HE’S here. You ready?” Subaru asked looking to his left and right in the middle of the schoolyard. Ichi and Kouya silently nodded. Azusa, who posed a high chance of working negatively in their favor during the battle, watched them from where she hid in a corner of the schoolyard.
“Let’s go over this one last time. We’re forbidden from killing him unless it’s unavoidable. We’re to try our best to keep his limbs attached. Cut the Achilles tendon in both legs and secure him with silver wire once his movement slows. I borrowed the wire we’ll be using from the school.”
The school was a place of learning, but it doubled as a shelter. As such, the school was equipped with various items in preparation for whatever disasters a vampire town may face. One of those items was a silver-wire woven rope created with the purpose of tying up suspicious people. For a vampire town, the most common suspicious person was other vampires. A normal rope couldn’t hold a vampire, bringing about the creation of the silver-wire rope.
The students gathered at the rooftop fence to watch what was taking place below. Their chatter instantly grew louder. Even screams could be heard. Their attention focused on the aberrant young man at the school gate. Everyone sucked in their breath—including Kouya.
“…Youta,” Azusa whispered, a lump in her throat.
His uncharacteristically long hair rendered his face indistinguishable to Azusa from where she stood in the schoolyard. The students watching from the rooftop had no idea it was Youta—a blessing, in a sense.
Youta’s head lifted with a jerk. It turned left to right as if in search of something and stopped upon spotting Kouya and the others. They took that as a sign to spread out. Ichi swiftly moved to sever the right Achilles tendon with her katana, and Kouya nimbly severed the left tendon with his bare hand. It happened faster than Azusa could blink.
Subaru wrapped the silver-wire around Youta once he fell to his knees. He firmly secured the rope around his legs and arms until it was confirmed he couldn’t move then proceeded to tie him up. Youta groaned painfully from beginning to end, but was helplessly subdued by them. Everything finished in less than thirty seconds.
“Phew, good, no casualties,” Subaru sighed with relief. Azusa stepped out of the brush at the sound of his voice. She looked to Subaru, silently asking if it was okay for her to come out, to which he nodded with a strained smile. With his permission, she approached Youta. The four of them surrounded him.
“Youta,” Azusa said with heartbreak as she watched him painfully struggle against the rope, drool dribbling down his chin. Kouya looked at him the same way before averting his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to watch anymore.
“It’s great and all that capturing him went smoother than we expected, but what do we do now? Should I take him back home with me? I’m sure you don’t want to see your little brother like this more than you have to, Kou.”
“…Please take care of it,” Kouya answered.
“Mmkay. Well, we can think of what to do with him from here and if we can’t do anything to help him, I’ll take him out.” Everyone looked at Subaru after his ridiculous announcement. He gave a nonchalant nod. “It’s not like Kou has to be the one to kill them. It’s just that power and strength-wise, Kou would have the easiest time of it. As long as the F is taken care of, the person who deals the killing blow doesn’t matter. Meaning, I can be the one to do it.”
“I understand what you want to say and that you’re thinking of me, but I—”
“I get you want to be the one to finish things with your younger brother, Kou. But, you know, it’s hard for me to watch you mope around about this. So this only applies to the worst-case scenario, okay?” Subaru pat Kouya on the shoulder to get his consent, but he only scowled in return.
“Okay, let’s decide on this after we get home then. I’ll return home with him first. I doubt he’ll be able to escape after I put him tied up in a silver cage, but I don’t want you getting close to him, Azusa.”
“Do we have a cage at the mansion?”
“We do.”
Azusa had lived in the mansion for months and never saw anything like that, but she had no reason to doubt them. She didn’t ask why they had one. Why? Because the mansion was prepared to keep her from escaping. She knew the answer without asking.
“Okay,” Subaru said taking a breath and reaching out his hands to pick up Youta. And then he froze. “You’ve gotta be kidding me. What the hell?”
The other three turned their attention to Youta just in time to jump out of the way. Kouya picked up Azusa and put distance between them and Youta.
Youta growled wildly as he tore at the silver-wire rope wrapped around his body. Such resistance would normally end as a futile effort, but he was on the brink of ripping it completely off.
Just as everyone jumped back, a violent torrent of power erupted from Youta and the rope ripped off him. His power erupted with a wild roaring growl.