“Satsuki… is really, really a vampire?”
Sakura reached out one slender finger and pressed it against Yumizuka Satsuki’s soft lip, pushing lightly to expose the slightly-protruding, almost cute little fangs.
Yumizuka Satsuki’s overstretched nerves finally snapped.
She snatched up her bento and tried to flee.
Why hadn’t she known Sakura had a side this curious?
This was the fifth-sixth-seventh-eighth time already!
“I am a real, genuine vampire, you know!”
“I’ll bite you!
Get any closer and I’ll really bite you!”
The girl put on a fierce face, lips peeled back to bare her clean, even teeth—a ‘super-fierce’ expression.
(About this fierce)
“You won’t…” Sakura hugged her bento box and shuffled her little bottom closer to Yumizuka Satsuki’s side, fishing out a piece of tempura.
“Didn’t Satsuki promise?
You said you’d never hurt me.” Sakura smiled, eyes crinkling.
Watching that smile rippling in the sunlight, Yumizuka Satsuki’s hand twitched and she set down her chopsticks.
“Ah… right.
Yumizuka Satsuki could never possibly hurt Sakura.” Yumizuka Satsuki repeated it, as if reminding herself.
“But Sakura, don’t sit so close to me!” the girl wailed, certain her own blood was warming up inside her veins.
In Yumizuka Satsuki’s vision, Sakura was lit all over in a red, glowing color—like the warm, bright color you saw when you closed your eyes and faced the sun.
The color that belonged to blood.
That intoxicating sweet fragrance Sakura kept giving off was needling at her sense of smell; the soft sweet taste of Sakura’s skin from the bite earlier seemed to linger still in her mouth.
Which created a problem: Yumizuka Satsuki found her lunch had suddenly lost all its appeal.
“But I’m really curious.” Sakura’s cheeks puffed out.
It was a living vampire, after all!
And one she could pinch and prod to her heart’s content.
“Plus… don’t books say vampires are terribly afraid of sunlight?”
“Little Satsuki doesn’t seem afraid of it at all.”
“No… well, actually, I do hate it a little.” Forcing herself to endure the increasingly rich fragrance and her now-tasteless lunch, Yumizuka Satsuki sighed.
Yesterday, baked all afternoon on Ryōgi Shiki’s roof in the sun, she’d felt every bone in her body go loose.
After the beating, her self-healing seemed to have dropped two ranks; her waist still ached this morning when she got up.
But if she had to do it over again, she’d still go right back up there to lie down.
Just listening to Sakura’s soft little kitten-breathing while she napped—she felt her whole body melt.
Sakura chewed her tempura, then her brow furrowed.
“What is it, Sakura?” Yumizuka Satsuki asked, anxious at the sight of the frown.
“Bamboo rice…” Sakura murmured.
Yumizuka Satsuki’s heart skipped.
That bento had in fact been put together for her by the little maid at the Ryōgi house.
“Ah… well, that, you know—the bamboo grove out in the suburbs had some kind of incident, didn’t it…”
Yumizuka Satsuki laughed it off in a panic. Find the original chapter at g.com.
Sakura threw her a doubtful glance.
…That made sense.
By her sister’s account, the Ryōgi house was a demon-hunter family.
How could they possibly keep a vampire—and even pack a bento for her?
Only… this flavor really did have the Ryōgi house’s signature touch.
Delicately sweet.
Sakura’s sense of taste was rather sharp.
“Sakura…” Not giving her any room to mull it over, Yumizuka Satsuki nudged her gently with an elbow.
“Hm?” Sakura answered reflexively, and following the lift of Yumizuka Satsuki’s head, she found her own gaze drifting toward the sky.
There was something… circling overhead.
Sakura narrowed her eyes—and then she saw it.
A cyan-colored bird.
To be exact, a cyan-colored crow.
The crow was the strange color of patinated bronze all over, glinting with a metallic sheen in the sunlight.
But it was the crow’s eyes, a vivid blood-red, that sent an involuntary shiver through her.
Looking into those eyes was like staring into the eyes of a demon from the abyss.
Yumizuka Satsuki pressed a hand to her chest and panted.
She could see more than Sakura, and the pressure the crow exerted on her was greater still.
How to describe it?
It was very like the girl she had seen the night she was bitten—those blood-red eyes, like flowing dark crimson blood.
The crow suddenly stopped circling and fixed its gaze on Yumizuka Satsuki and Sakura.
Yumizuka Satsuki’s heart stopped.
She grabbed Sakura’s hand, meaning to drag her back to the stairwell.
There were about twenty steps between where they’d been eating and the stairwell door.
But… it was too late.
“Caw—” The crow gave a strange cry and dove.
The plunge was fast—like a streak of cyan lightning.
Yumizuka Satsuki had one hand around Sakura’s, sweeping her behind to shield her; her other hand she struck out at the crow.
Rip—
The sound of skin being torn.
The crow’s keen talons slashed Yumizuka Satsuki’s arm open in an instant; the only price it paid was a few feathers like patinated copper flakes.
Yumizuka Satsuki’s right hand trembled.
She lowered it slowly.
Sakura’s eyes had gone wide.
A long, narrow gash had been opened on Yumizuka Satsuki’s pale arm, and dark, viscous red blood was welling up, sliding down the length of her arm and dripping from her fingertips.
Yumizuka Satsuki let go of Sakura’s hand.
The feather drifted down into the pool of blood.
Its bronze-rust edges were jagged as a saw—Yumizuka Satsuki, caught completely off guard, had been badly hurt for it.
“Caw—”
It pecked at the blood on its talons, as though confirming something, and flapped its wings twice.
Those round, blood-red eyes pinned Yumizuka Satsuki in place.
Yumizuka Satsuki met its stare and confirmed it: the crow had locked onto her as its target.
“It’s all right…”
“It’ll be fine.
I’ll protect Sakura…” Her voice trembled, but she stepped between Sakura and the bird.
Beneath the sun, her self-healing was severely suppressed.
But it didn’t matter.
As long as she didn’t die.
She could take anything.
Sakura—Sakura must never, ever be hurt.
“Satsuki.” Sakura murmured at Yumizuka Satsuki’s back, her left hand reaching up behind her own neck.
“Caw—”
The cyan crow launched itself at Yumizuka Satsuki again.
Yumizuka Satsuki gently released Sakura’s hand and whispered for her to find an opening, to bolt for the stairwell.
The crow was fast—but still trackable.
Yumizuka Satsuki stretched both hands toward it, as if to tear it apart.
The crow and Yumizuka Satsuki passed each other; another spray of viscous blood flew, but the crow took a heavy raking from Yumizuka Satsuki’s claws too.
One wing wasn’t quite working anymore; its flight speed had dropped considerably.
Yumizuka Satsuki watched the crow shoot through the space between her hands.
Good—next time, even if I have to bite it down, I’ll tear it out of the sky.
I’m a vampire.
I’m a monster with self-healing maxed out.
It was just—
Clang—
A sudden ringing of steel behind her.
“Caw!!!” The crow let out a shrill, piercing scream.
Yumizuka Satsuki slowly turned her head.
A short, pitch-black knife had run clean through the crow’s neck.
Half its blade was buried in the concrete, pinning the crow there to die.
And at her side, Sakura was still holding the pose of someone who had just hurled that knife.
Yumizuka Satsuki stood frozen.
It struck her, suddenly.
Ryōgi Shiki had told the truth.
There really was a chance… that she couldn’t beat Sakura.
(Hey, got any votes?
This is a robbery!)