We Devour
Yu
Kill them all.
Kill all the vampires.
That's all that matters.
Revenge-it's like oxygen to me, as easy to breathe in as air. It's my sustenance. My bread, my water. My raison d'etre, as Guren once told me (that's supposed to be French, but I don't know, I was never any good with languages. One doesn't have to be good at languages in order to kill vampires). Revenge is what gets me up in the morning, makes me put one foot in front of the other, gets me out the door. It puts the sword in my hand and the untethered rage in my heart. Revenge is my entire reason for existing.
Well, it was. Up until now.
For years, I avoided people. I simply couldn't stomach the idea of being close to anyone ever again. I had lost too much, you see. The thought of losing someone I cared about again made my stomach cramp up and my heart race just a few paces too fast. So I avoided people all together. It certainly made it easier for me to focus on my goals. To make it into the elite vampire extermination squad. To kill the vampires. To get my revenge.
Revenge is easier with other people out of the way.
Other people make things messy. They cloud your judgement, interfere with your focus. They bring emotion into things. Places where emotions have no business being. Like out on the battlefield. In combat. In death.
It's hard to dole out death when you're being all touchy-feely.
Death is easy. At least when it comes to vampires. I can slay those pointy toothed suckers all day long. People, humans: they're more difficult. They're hard to read. They keep secrets. They worry, they fuss. So full of emotion. I wanted to avoid that, but in the end I couldn't. And it's all stupid Guren's fault. He made me care again. He made me go out and make friends. Tch. Friends. Like I need those. Who needs friends when all you want to do is kill vampires?
Turns out, I do.
Your squad is your family, Guren said to me. And I actually listened to him. I took what he said to heart. Shinoa, Yoichi, the others-they are my new family. With them, I can move forward with my life. And why shouldn't I? I have friends now. I have purpose. I have hope. Is it so silly to think that maybe I could start looking ahead, instead of looking behind. Finally, I can have a future, completely unclouded by the past. Because things are changing. Things are coming together for me. The past-it can finally be buried. I can at last shake off the cold, clammy grip of the past like so much bad mojo. I can finally let it all go. And I did, I wanted to let go of it so much, and maybe I could have if the past hadn't grabbed me-not with cruel, icy guilt-ridden hands-but instead with hands that were full of love and desperation, clothed all in white, reaching out to embrace me on a bloodstained battlefield. Out in the last place I expected to find it.
To find you.
I couldn't believe it was you. I still can't. As I look out the window of my dorm room, at a sickle-shaped moon that keeps darting in and out of the clouds like a child playing hide and seek, I think of you. Of what you mean to me. What you meant to me. Your feathery blond hair and your summer sky eyes. A new vision of you to replace the old one: of a young boy lying in a pool of blood on the floor, telling me with your last breath to flee, to run. Run, Yu. Don't let our deaths be meaningless. It is for you that I want to kill all the vampires. To make them suffer. To make them feel all the pain and agony that I felt on that day-the day they took you from me. It is for you that I want revenge. For that boy lying in a pool of swiftly spreading blood, running red over the floor like a medieval tapestry. But that boy-he doesn't exist anymore, does he? That boy didn't die there, on that cold marble floor. There is a new boy, a new you, to replace the old. That boy is dead, yet not dead.
I don't know how I feel about the new you.
You are not human. That is obvious to me. You are more angel than anything else-a golden haired seraph who wanted to speed me away from that wretched battlefield. But I couldn't go. You are a stranger to me now. I look into your eyes and I don't see the boy I used to know, the boy who encouraged me to dream of freedom, who gave me a weapon and told me that I would need it to kill the vampires. But, how am I supposed to do that now? Huh? How can I kill the vampires, all the vampires, when you yourself are one of them. What am I supposed to do with that? What does this mean for us?
I am torn. Shinoa says there is no way to turn a vampire into a human again. But I can't allow myself to believe that. Because if I believe that, then that means I have to give up on you. On us. And I don't want to do that. Because if there is no way out for you, then there is no way out for me. You see, I am duty bound to follow orders, to protect my squad. To protect my family. Even if that means sacrificing you, my beloved, bloodsoaked angel. And I don't want to do that. To even think about doing that sends a chill up my spine that freezes me to the core. Freezes me like the day I stumbled out in the snow, away from the underground city, your dying words in my ears and your name upon my lips. I don't want to think about my options, because they are as dark as the night outside my window. I don't want to think about the choices ahead of me, because those choices aren't choices at all.
You are breaking my heart all over again.
My hand unconsciously grasps the hilt of my sword, the same sword that I ran you through with on the battlefield. The look on your face in that moment could have shattered me into a million little pieces. Disintegrated me. But I'm not so fragile now. I am strong. Because my family needs me to be. And you-you are my family. One way or another, my war-torn angel, I will save you. This I vow to myself. Nothing will stand in my way. We are fated, you and I, and nothing will stop me. I say to myself, to the stars outside, to the moon in the sky: I will save you, Mika.
One way or the other.
I will save you.
Even if it means death.
Next up: Coming together!
