A rainy night.
A dark moon and a high wind — perfect weather for killing someone.
Through the bedroom window, the girl licked the corner of her lips with relish, watching the black-haired woman writing inside.
Under the loose cloak, a skintight black bodysuit clung to her body, tracing the faint swell of her chest.
"Heh. No guards, no servants... This job's far too easy. There's not the slightest challenge to it."
Elena let out a scornful little laugh.
In the ten-odd years since she had crossed into this world, she had not only had to get used to a girl's body, she had also had to survive training crueler than anything she could have dreamed up in her past life.
Simply staying alive had put her through every kind of misery.
To make money — and even more, to make a name for herself in the underworld — Elena had settled on becoming a killer.
The target was the woman right in front of her: a minor noble of a border domain.
Simple as it sounded, the job paid extravagantly well, and Elena, still a rookie, had been hooked the moment she laid eyes on it.
Just then the bedroom light went out, and Elena dropped down off the eaves at once.
The girl's figure vanished from beneath the eaves — and at that same moment, in the eyes of a bat hanging under them, a thread of blood-red light flickered.
Elena, naturally, saw none of it.
She had already reached the back door she had scouted out beforehand. She drew out a thin length of wire and popped the door's old lock open without effort.
"Heh~ Too easy. I can't believe anyone still uses an antique like this."
She pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The back door opened onto a storeroom, and the storeroom was packed with odds and ends, nothing of any value.
She tossed the rain-soaked cloak into a corner. Her long pale-grey hair spilled loose down her back, leaving her in nothing but the black bodysuit against her skin.
Passing through the storeroom, she was properly inside the villa.
The corridor was dim, lit only by a thin strand of moonlight filtering into the villa through the curtain of rain.
Elena moved to the staircase leading up, pressed herself to the wall, and listened carefully for any movement above.
Just as she had expected, it was perfectly quiet.
The target must be asleep. She was certain of it.
Elena climbed to the second floor on light feet without making a single sound — the professional standard she held herself to as an assassin.
And behind her, a bat hanging from the ceiling watched her intently, tracking her every move like a surveillance camera.
There was only one corridor on the second floor, and at the end of it was the target's bedroom.
She advanced without hesitation and came to the door.
Again she leaned against it, listening closely for sounds from inside the room.
A faint breathing reached her ears through the door, which only confirmed it: the target was asleep.
Elena took hold of the handle and pressed it gently down.
The door was not locked.
Her lips had already curled upward; she seemed to be picturing how lavishly she would live once she had the money.
She eased the door open, and a pitch-black bedroom spread out in front of her.
Even in the dark she could make out the slight rise on the bed and the faint swell and fall of the quilt.
She drew the dagger at her waist. She could not wait any longer. She rushed forward and drove the blade down into the bedding.
But the instant the dagger punched through the quilt and through whatever lay beneath it, she froze.
There was no person under that quilt at all — only a stack of pillows.
Only now did she realize it. She had been played!
Elena panicked. The moment she moved to get up and run, countless ropes shot down from the ceiling above her.
The ropes coiled around her limbs, cinched them tight together, and then yanked violently upward.
And so poor Elena hung by the ropes above the bed, suspended in midair, the dagger falling from her hand onto the mattress.
At the same time the room's lights came on, and a girl with silver hair and red eyes, wearing a pink nightdress, walked in from outside.
Who was she?
Elena's confusion flared, and she started studying the other girl closely.
Her features, her height, her build all matched the target she had come to kill — the only strange part was that the hair had gone from black to silver, and the eyes from brown to red.
"Oh my. I never expected to catch such a cute little creature."
She walked slowly up to Elena and reached out to stroke her cheek.
"Dammit... Let go of me! You despicable creature, setting a trap like that!"
Elena thrashed on reflex, but the more she thrashed, the tighter the ropes wound around her.
"Hissing now, are we? So cute~ But you don't seem to have worked out your situation yet~"
With her other hand the girl picked the dagger up off the bed and laid it lightly against Elena's cheek.
"Right now, killing you would be terribly easy for me~"
"Cut the crap! Kill me, skin me, do whatever you like!"
Elena was not frightened in the least; she glared right back. Having chosen to be an assassin, she had long since made her peace with dying if she failed.
"That's a good look in your eye. In that case I don't much feel like killing you anymore~"
The girl flicked the dagger she had just picked up off to the side, and it clattered carelessly onto the floor.
"Stay and be my maid. How about it? The house is far too dull as it is, and I've been wanting company."
Her words left Elena stunned all over again, her face full of bewilderment.
"Huh? Are you joking?! I came here to kill you. Aren't you afraid I'll come at you one of these days?"
The girl only smiled.
"By all means, if you can manage it~ But if you fail, you'll accept the consequences like a good girl~"
She reached out and stroked Elena's cheek again, those red eyes carrying some desire that could not be put into words.
"Hmph, arrogant! I can fail as many times as I like — but you had better not let me succeed even once!"
"Confidence is a fine thing~ Introductions, then. My name is Lilith. Though of course I wouldn't mind at all if you'd rather call me big sister. Or Master~"
As she spoke, Lilith snapped her fingers, and the ropes wound around Elena were severed in an instant.
"Oh, and I'm a vampire~"
"Eh? A vam... ngh!"
Before Elena could finish being shocked, she dropped out of the air and sank into the softness of the bedding beneath her.
It was a moment before she shot upright.
"Why didn't you say that sooner?!!"
Elena's shout carried through the whole villa, and was swallowed up again by the sound of the rain.
"It's not too late to say it now~ Or is it that you're frightened, now that you know I'm a vampire~?"
Lilith had already settled into a chair off to one side, toying with Elena's dagger in her hands.
"Who's frightened?! Just you wait... So you're a vampire, so what? You're a dead woman!"
Elena, stung at being looked down on, glared furiously at Lilith.
"Good, good~ I'll be looking forward to it~"
Lilith answered her offhandedly, stood, and came back over to stand in front of her.
"Before that, though — won't you tell big sister your name?"
"Elena! Remember it well, because it's the name of the woman who's going to kill you!"
Elena still wore the same insolent expression.
"Elena... What a cute name~ Well then, my cute little Elena, are you ready to take tonight's punishment~?"
Lilith fished a cut length of rope up off the edge of the bed and laid it lightly against Elena's neck, a rather different smile on her face.
"Eh? W-wait!"
Elena looked at the smile on Lilith's face, and at the rope touching her skin.
Now she really was afraid, and she scrambled backward to put some distance between them.
"Th-this time counts too? Shouldn't it only start from the next time?!"
For every inch Elena retreated, Lilith advanced another, until Elena had nowhere left to go.
"Of course~ Otherwise, how would you ever learn what comes of plotting against your Master~?"
"W-wait a second! Wh-what are you doing with that rope!"
"No... don't come any closer!"
"Eeeyaaa—"