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But Namie just looked past them, off into the distance at something, seemingly oblivious to them, and mumbled to herself.

“…by my name…”

“Huh?”

“…”

The words she then repeated were so obvious and self-apparent to the twins that they would have been funny if not for the powerful essence of madness behind them.

“Seiji’s never even…called me…by my name…”

It was at that point that the twins noticed that her voice was full of both sheer murder and bottomless jealousy.

Both in levels that were far beyond the ability of the ordinary mind to comprehend.

Thirty minutes later, theater lobby

Allow me to explain!

Carmilla Saizou is a vampire ninja!

He is the son of a vampire father and human mother, an agent of darkness with mastery over the ancient skills of the shinobi!

Despite his hatred for the vampire blood that runs in his veins, he prowls the shadows and fights the dark side of New Tokyo to preserve its peace!

In the first two movies, Saizou saved first New Tokyo, then Edo, and in this third movie, he’s making his second trip through time—to medieval Romania!

There, he’ll meet his father in his old human-hating days…as well as a brand-new enemy.

After a deadly battle that spans space and time, Saizou will find his own truth…

Seiji Yagiri looked up from the movie pamphlet often handed out with tickets in Japan and asked the girl next to him, “How was it?”

“It was sooo exciting! I got to sit next to you the whole time!” Mika Harima bubbled, winding her wrist around Seiji’s arm.

“That wasn’t what I meant.” Exasperated, he turned to Mika and gave her a thin smile.

But his smile wasn’t a reaction to the words she’d just said.

He was smiling in response to the smile that her sculpted face reminded him of.

Seiji Yagiri was a man who lived in love.

He would take on a tank with his bare hands for the woman he loved. If he needed to tear out his own heart to keep her alive, he would do it without questioning (but only if he truly needed to).

Yet the target of this love was not the innocent but ominous girl clinging to his arm.

Technically, it was just her face.

What Seiji loved was the model face, the head that rested atop the body of Mika Harima. If, say, the woman at the ticket counter of the theater happened to have that same identical face, Seiji would just as quickly move on to adore her instead.

Was that really love?

Some might agree, if you claimed that you only loved sculpted heads.

But setting aside any deeper definitions of what love was, Seiji’s individual case was a little bit more complex than just being infatuated with a woman’s physical appearance.

He did not judge people entirely by outward looks. If a woman came along who was even more beautiful than Mika, it would not change his mind in any way.

It was through a great number of twists and turns, following a life driven mad by a particular woman’s head, that Seiji was in his current relationship with Mika Harima.

And until the moment that he found the woman’s real head, Seiji Yagiri would continue his pretend love.

He did it because looking at Mika Harima’s face kept him from forgetting the real woman.

He believed that was love.

Mika Harima was a woman who lived in love.

And what she loved most of all about it was the concept of herself being in love.

So her partner’s concerns were none of her own. She wouldn’t think twice about breaking into her partner’s house for the sake of living out her love. She wouldn’t think twice about planting a hidden bug in her beloved boyfriend’s apartment.

Even if Seiji fell in love with another woman, she wouldn’t hate him for it.

Even if Seiji hurled hurtful names at her, she wouldn’t despise him for it.

She would still love him, because her love was the most important thing in the world to her.

Her love was far, far, far more important than even the feelings of Seiji, the subject of that love.

So she would continue to love Seiji Yagiri—from the bottom of her pure-black heart.

Once, he had confessed his feelings to her: “I do not love you.”

She could still hear the words in her mind, clear as day.

“But as long as you’re around, I won’t forget my love and dedication for her. Therefore, I accept your love. At least, until the day I get her back…”

And then he had embraced her.

Had done it willingly.

That was enough.

That was all the reason she needed to cherish Seiji Yagiri.

He accepts me. He accepts my love.

And so, she thought of the one that he truly loved through her.

The true owner of her face.

When she and Seiji found her, she would break that face into pieces right before his eyes and devour its every drop of blood, its every strand of hair. Then Seiji’s love would truly be hers.

He might be furious. He might kill her.

She understood that. But it was an entirely trivial detail.

Mika Harima’s thoughts on the matter were thorough and unblemished.

She had faith.

She believed that this feeling, which an ordinary person might consider insane, was actually the thing called “love.”

As for the “real owner” of the face that featured so heavily in this boy and girl’s love—well, it was not quite as mundane as one might think.

For the owner of the face was just the face itself.

It was a woman’s severed head that still lived on today, even after being separated from its body.

She was not human.

She was a type of fairy commonly known as a dullahan, found in Scotland and Ireland—a being that visits the homes of those close to death to inform them of their impending mortality.

The dullahan carried its own severed head under its arm, rode on a two-wheeled carriage called a Coiste Bodhar pulled by a headless horse, and approached the homes of the soon to die. Anyone foolish enough to open the door was drenched with a basin full of blood. Thus the dullahan, like the banshee, made its name as a herald of ill fortune throughout European folklore.

And the head that this knight carried was none other than the target of Seiji Yagiri’s undying love.

A year ago, Seiji stole a test subject from the pharmaceutical company that his family ran. That subject was the very symbol of beauty that had been his object of worship from a young age—the dullahan’s head.

After a series of events, he had to eventually give up the head. Instead, he received the presence of a girl whose face was reconstructed to look just like the dullahan’s: Mika Harima.

Seiji ended up unable to tell the difference between the two faces—the head he loved and Mika’s after plastic surgery.

The final blow was a mocking insult that arrived at the moment he realized his own inability to do so.

“Well, well. Looks like you couldn’t even tell the difference between the real thing and a counterfeit.”

He couldn’t remember who had said it. Probably someone whom he didn’t know very well. But those words became shackles that ensnared his love and tore it to bits.

“I mean, if we’re being honest, that just shows you how real your love for that head is. Nice work, pal.”

Seiji’s love shattered in that moment.

But he didn’t give up.

What was broken could be rebuilt.

So he let Mika stick around, to ensure that he didn’t forget his love for the head—to serve as an admonishment toward himself.

Mika Harima was nothing but a conduit for Seiji’s love for the head; she was but a terminal.

So for the sole purpose of confirming that his love was real, Seiji continued to play out a pretend relationship with a woman he did not love.

Several minutes later, Ikebukuro

After leaving the theater, the couple decided to wander around the area. They started walking down Sunshine 60 Street toward Tokyu Hands, apparently without a specific destination.

Thanks to the extended holiday, the neighborhood was even busier than usual.

The crowds of a Tokyo metropolitan area took on different hues depending on the place. It was rare that they could be summed up and described with a single term, the way people talked about the fashion of Shibuya or the nerds of Akihabara, but even in Shinjuku and Ikebukuro there were distinct flavors to the crowds.

Seiji and Mika stood out somewhat from the general crowds here, but the excitement of the holiday easily hid what distinguished them.

“What did you think of the time paradox in Saizou?”

“Good question. It’s the same thing I thought about the second movie; it didn’t look like the future was changed that much, so what if it wasn’t really the past he went into, but a parallel timeline? One that was close enough for Saizou to learn about his father’s past… That was my takeaway. What did you think, Seiji?”

“Pretty much what you just said.”

“Really?! Yay!” Mika giggled.

Without fanfare, he noted, “When I see stuff with monsters or vampires, I can’t help but think of it,” referring to something highly relevant to the two of them.

“…You mean the head?”

“Yeah.”

Seiji didn’t hesitate to bring up the topic, even out in public like this. He turned to face the girl walking next to him.

Mika Harima was no simpleminded fool. Seiji understood that.

His first impression of her personality was that of a stupid stalker who overrode people and never listened to them. But once they started going out, he realized that this was merely one crazy side of her and that she was also very cunning and intelligent.

Still, there were many mysteries about her.

Why me?

He had to wonder.

Yes, he had saved her and her friend from some thugs about a year ago. But he’d heard that even before that, she’d fallen in love with him at first sight during tests.

However. However.

This love at first sight, the gratitude of his help—whatever “fate” she might feel about their connection—were they all really worth risking anything and everything to make good on?

He had once split Mika’s head open. He had tried to kill her.

And yet Mika Harima was still madly in love with Seiji Yagiri. She had put irreversible fake scars around her neck (albeit largely through coercion) and went under the knife to replace the face that she’d been given by her parents. She didn’t regret any of this.

That was why it was so hard for Seiji to understand. If asked whether he could risk his life for love, he would answer yes. But he’d never had a broken arm or been in a situation with fatal consequences. Looking back, he thought the closest he’d ever been might be that moment when he picked a fight with the man in the bartender’s outfit, but he’d been so worked up that he didn’t have time to worry about his safety.

Could he, for example, continue to uphold his love through terrible torture? He believed he could, but there was no way to know the truth without actually experiencing it.

But he bet that Mika could probably keep loving him, even through torture. He just had a feeling.

Why?

If Seiji was a total narcissist, he might reach the conclusion that he was just that irresistible. Or if he fell in love with her, too, that doubt might never arise. If their relationship was half-hearted, he would grow afraid of her love.

Yet, to him, she was nothing but a conduit. So when viewed objectively, he was left with nothing but questions.

What does she see in me?

Seiji had pondered this question many times.

But every time his mind wandered down that path, he eventually remembered the real head and told himself that this question wasn’t worth worrying about. Over and over again.

He got so tired of wondering that he just asked Mika outright. Predictably, she just answered, “Why, because it’s you, of course!”

Now that they were on closer speaking terms, she would just say, “Because it’s you!” but that didn’t make it any better of an answer.

And today, after more than a year of the same thing, Seiji once again said, “I know I keep telling you this, but it’s not you who I love.”

“…I know.”

“So why do you love me?”

“Because it’s you, Seiji. I have no other reason.”

Her answer was the same as always. Seiji sighed and decided to move on to a different subject.

“Sis has been missing for over a year, too… I’m guessing that she knows where the head is.”

“…Are you worried about her?”

“Huh? Why would I be?”

“I mean, she’s probably on the run from all kinds of people… Maybe she’s in danger,” Mika suggested, surprisingly thoughtful for once.

Seiji just grimaced and said, “She’s not that helpless. She’s tough—and evil.” He didn’t seem to want to get any further into the topic, as he cracked his neck and looked around them. “Let’s get some lunch.”

The street was packed with a variety of fast-food options, cafés, and coffee shops, as well as Taiwanese food and ramen down cramped side streets. Seiji patted Mika on top of the head and asked, “You in the mood for anything?”

“I’ll eat anything you like, Seiji!”

This, too, was an utterly typical exchange.

I feel I read a passage in a book once that said men didn’t like women who were too passive. Not that I really care. I’ll accept the head for whatever personality it has, assuming it can actually talk.

Anyone else would have found that statement creepy, but Seiji merely followed his gut like always and picked out a direction for the meal.

“Maybe we should get some sushi for once.”

They headed for Russia Sushi, right next to the bowling alley.

Along the way, Seiji’s eyes were drawn to a particular spot.

“…Hmm?”

He realized that a familiar face had just passed before his eyes.

“Ryuugamine. Is that you, Ryuugamine?”

“Huh?” replied a surprised boy with a youthful face. He glanced at Seiji and Mika and then smiled. “Ohh, Yagiri and Harima. Out on a date?”

“Yeah… Hey, what happened to your face?”

Their schoolmate at Raira Academy, Mikado Ryuugamine, was walking through the crowd with bandages and bruises all over his face.

“Oh, this? Nothing much… Just fell down the stairs at my apartment.” Mikado laughed. Seiji sensed something amiss but judged from the smile on the other boy’s face that he wasn’t going to get a straight answer anyway, so he decided to play along.