A Certain Scientific Vampire Killer
Chapter 14: Across the Sea
The first thing I remember from my past was witnessing an all too familiar dream. The dream was familiar to me because it was the only thing I dreamt about for a really long time. Even though I remember seeing that same dream constantly when I was a child, I always forgot most of the details that came with it. However, there is one thing that always stuck out to me every time that I was able to witness the dream. That thing I could just never forget was a certain beautiful girl.
The beautiful girl I saw in that recurring dream I had when I was a child, was always drenched in blood. The blood wasn't from someone else, because it was her blood. I didn't even need someone to tell me that it was the girl's blood, I just knew from a single glance it was her own blood. The blood was bright red and it was gushing out of the many wounds that were covered on the girl's body. And even though the girl was utterly drenched in her own blood, her right eye was gone, and she was on the verge of death, she remained calm and composed with a smile on her face.
The beautiful girl's smile was absolutely mesmerizing to the point that I couldn't look away from her, not even for a single second. The girl's smile was also very reassuring; she didn't have to say anything at all because words weren't necessary. The girl's smile insisted that everything was going to be ok and that I did not need to worry about her after she dies. But, I couldn't do anything but worry about her. I didn't even know who that girl was, but that didn't matter. What mattered to me was that the girl was dying and I wanted to do something, anything that would give her at least a chance for her survival. But, there was simply nothing that I could do for her.
"No! No! No! You don't have to die! If you don't leave, then I can save you! I swear to god that I will save you if you just stay right there!" I screamed at the girl, but she didn't listen to me.
In the end, the beautiful girl would always walk away from me, then she would go to some faraway world, and she would cease to exist. This didn't actually happen, because it was all just a dream. The dream was pure fiction, I knew that already, I didn't need to be told what I was witnessing wasn't real. Even still, I wanted to save that girl, I really wanted to save her. That was my only wish when I was a child, but, it was impossible. It couldn't be helped, no matter how much I screamed and cried towards the girl, she wouldn't stop walking away from me.
"Please! Don't go! No one told you that you had to do this! So why? Why are you walking towards your death?! You've done enough for this world, so you don't deserve to die!" I screamed towards the girl as she kept walking away from me, but at the last second, she would stop walking away from me. It was only for a brief moment, a single instance of time, but it was something that happened every single time within the recurring dream of my childhood.
"You don't need to scream anymore. You don't need to cry anymore. You don't ever need to be sad anymore. Because everything will end here. After everything that happened to you, all of that endless suffering, you deserve nothing more than a happy ending. So, please be happy and smile for me. See you later, Nanoha." The girl said as she turned her face towards me with the most beautiful smile I have ever seen on her face, as she proceeded to sprint towards an unknown place and cease to exist until the end of time.
"Nanoha. Hey Nanoha. Hey Nanoha, you need to wake up now." A voice said to me as the recurring dream ended and I was forced back into the real world against my own wishes.
My eyes opened to the sight of my father, who was standing over where I was sleeping. My father was wearing the same clothes he always wore, a white lab coat, a gray t shirt, a bowtie, a pair of nave blue jeans, and his glasses that always had a crack on the lenses for his right eye. The place I was sleeping on was on a grassy hill with a tall tree at the center of the hill. It was the only place I ever felt any resemblance to freedom, though it was always short-lived. Because my father would always wake me up on that hill whenever I was sleeping for too long.
"Good Morning, Nanoha. It's time to get up now, you and I both have plenty of work that must be done by the night no matter what. But, before you do that, you should wash your face. You've been crying every time you have awakened for a while, haven't you, Nanoha?" My father said as he wasn't looking towards me, but towards the distant sky, while readjusting his glasses. I then proceeded to touch my face as I noticed it was wet with many tears flowing from my eyes and onto the grassy hill that I was sitting on.
"Huh? What? How? Why? Why does this always happen to me whenever I wake up from a dream?" I said as I lied to my father and made a clueless reaction to what was happening to me. I acted oblivious towards my father, in order to hide the true reason why I was crying. Because I witnessed the same dream that I always saw during my childhood. The dream about the beautiful girl sacarficing her life so that she could save me for some unknown reason.
"Well, the reason why it seems to always happen doesn't really matter. Let's go, it's time to go back to work, Nanoha." My father said with an emotionless expression on his face as he then reached out his left hand towards me so that I could grasp it. I proceeded to grasp his hand, I then stood up again, and I and my father walked away from the grassy hill with one tall tree in the center of it, in order to do the same thing that we both always did every single day without much time at all to rest.
My name is Nanoha Nakamura. I'm not the protagonist of this story. The only role that I have to play is the part where I'm always caught up in events that I can't control. As I'm then forced to do things that I never ever wanted to do in my entire life. The only thing that I can do whenever something happens is to stand there and watch what unfolds before me. That is the only thing that the girl named Nanoha Nakamura can ever do. I'm simply a bystander, and nothing else.
I and my father proceeded to walk throughout the small town that was located on a rural island that was nearby Japan. The town itself was nothing special there was no technology in it to speak of, and the civilians that inhabited the town all used agriculture and hunting to get by in life. It was a town that seemed to be forgotten by the rest of the world, even then the people who lived in it were happy with the lives they lived and everyone had a smile on their faces. Except that was a lie. In fact, the only people who didn't have smiles on their faces were both me and my father. The only expressions that we had on our faces were blank ones that lacked any and all emotions whatsoever.
After walking throughout the small town that was coexisting with the place me and my father lived at, we then proceeded to walk roughly a mile away from the town in order to reach that place. That place is the house that I and my father worked at, the place where most of my life took place. The house was your standard two-story building with a small garden right next to it. The house wasn't an awful place to live in it simply hasn't felt like home in my entire life.
When I was first born into this world, I was only ever to look at my mother one single time. I don't remember what she looked like I was only a baby after all. But, I was never allowed to have a second look at my mother, because shortly after giving birth to me, she died. I don't know the reason why my mother died, but it seemed like something that was inevitable, something that I would never be able to change no matter how much I wish for it to be different. And ever since then, my father has always been rigorously working on something that could bring my mother back to life, without ever stopping to take a break. The only time that my father ever stopped working was to wake me up from that recurring dream in order for me to help him with his work.
Bringing my mother back to life was the only thing that my father ever wanted to do with his life as long as I first knew of him. My father was the type of man who was very committed to his work and achieving the best results possible, to the point that he would ignore me all the time. The only times when he didn't ignore me was when he needed me for something. I honestly never liked my old man that much, we never really got along because he was never satisfied with me and that he made me improve my intellect by having me work every single day at my studies. However, I can respect his dedication for putting so much time and effort into his work, and that he made me the person that I would eventually become by teaching me many lessons.
"Nanoha, you always have to work hard, so that you can move forward. Never forget that lesson it's the most important thing you have to always remember. You have to keep moving forward, no matter what." My father said to me, while he was not looking towards me, instead, he was focusing on a small mouse, as he then stabbed the mouse with a needle, and injected a certain drug into the mouse's body. The mouse proceeded to move its body forward until it suddenly went limp and died shortly after it was injected with the drug.
"Shit. This one was another failure. It's back to the drawing board again. Nanoha, what are you doing? Stop standing there and get back to those books that I told you to read." My father said with an emotionless expression on his face with a cold, machine-like voice that told me to never stand in place and always to move forward.
I proceeded to make my way out of my father's laboratory and towards my room or what was left of it. My room was the farthest that you could get from what any other young girl's room was supposed to look like. The only things that existed in my room were tons of huge and heavy books that were lying throughout my room in many unorganized piles since I didn't have any shelves to organize them properly in. And the only other thing that was inside my room, other than the huge and heavy books that decorated the floor, was a small cot that was always rough and painful to rest on, whenever I tried to sleep on it. I also hated that cot too.
It was for those reasons I instead chose to sleep on the grassy hill with one tall tree whenever I was able to sleep because it felt many times more comfortable and also made me feel free from my obligations, albeit only for a brief time. Until I was forced by my father to go back to work and read the hundreds of books that he owned and already read in order to search for something that he may have missed when reading them. Of course, it was a fruitless endeavor that made every single day of my life feel indistinguishable from each other. It was all the same exact things every single day, wake up, read the huge and heavy books until the sky was dark, eat a small portion of food, read the books again until midnight, go to sleep, and repeat those same exact things every single day as long as I was able to move my body.
Every single day for me felt completely like the previous day, and the day before that, and so on. I hated how I had to repeat the same day over and over again for so many years, so I couldn't help but wish that things wouldn't feel the same for the next day. I knew that my wish wouldn't come true. It was painfully crystal clear that my life will not change for the better. Even still, I prayed every single night. I never forgot to pray even once, because I earnestly wanted to believe that my childlike fantasy would become reality. However, after praying for so many years, and nothing changing in the slightest, I was about to give up, but then that fateful day arrived.
The fateful day
"Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey." A voice said that same word repeatedly in an effort to wake me up from my deep sleep and after that person said 'hey' for the only god knows how many times, my eyes started to fliker open.
"Aisa?" I said with a bewildered look on my face while I was still half asleep and in a daze as I didn't even know what I was saying or who the person that was in front of me was right now.
"Aisa?! How do you know that name? Uh, I mean, what is your name?" The voice said to me as I was finally able to register the face and body features of the person standing in front of me. The person was not my father, instead, the voice belonged to a man that I have never met. The man had dark black hair, with a few of the hairs on the top of his head being white, which showed that he was an older person than what I and other people like me would have assumed. The man was also wearing a classy business suit that meant he must be quite wealthy, especially compared to me and my father. My father strictly told me to never talk to strangers, but, the man in front of me seemed trustworthy. So, I made the disastrous choice of trusting the man.
"My name is Nanoha. Nakamura Nanoha. What is your name mister?" I said with a questioning look on my face as I tilted my head to the side towards the mystery man in front of me.
"I'm pleased to meet you, Nakamura Nanoha. I honestly thought your father was overexagerating when he said that his daughter was the most beautiful girl in the world, but it looks like I was the one who was in the wrong. Oh, sorry about that! Where are my manners, you have told me your name but I still haven't told you my name? Allow me to introduce myself, my name is-uh, well it's a foreign-sounding name so it might be hard for you to prenounce. So just call me, Shiki. I'm a close friend of your father and I wanted to see how he was doing?" The mystery man said to me as he revealed his name to be, Shiki, as he brushed some of his dark, black hair from his face which revealed an eyepatch where his right eye was supposed to be. When I saw his eyepatch I instintively gulped out of pure shock.
"You are freaked out because of my right eye, aren't you, Nanoha-chan? I understand, it's not common to see a person with an eye patch every day, though it can't be helped. The truth is that I lost the ability to see out of my right eye when I was around your age. So, I wear the eye patch in order to let people know of my disability, but it's nothing to be afraid of at all, Nanoha-chan. In actuality, I'm a very strong man that can defeat any villain that threatens innocent people! I'm a hero! And heroes always protect the weak and never lose against evil!" Shiki said as he made an outrageous pose with his hand on his face and he then proceeded to wink his left eye towards me.
I didn't say anything. No. That's wrong. I couldn't say anything at all, because I was honestly speechless regarding the man in front of me. The man, I mean Shiki, was just so cool! Shiki didn't have any proof that he was a hero, but I couldn't help but believe every word he said. Shiki didn't look like an ordinary person that you would see walking out on the street, but that made him unique! Shiki was an extraordinary person who can only be met in a fateful encounter! Shiki looks and talks like a hero from a fairy tale who defeats the evil dragon in order to save the princess! Does that mean Shiki can save me from my cruel fate of repeating the same day every single day for the rest of my life?
"I just remembered the reason why I'm here! Sorry about taking up your precious time with my rambling tangent, Nanoha-chan! Anyway, I'm here to see your father and catch up with him because it's been so long since we last talked with each other. If I remember correctly, you were just a teeny tiny baby when I last saw your father. And now look at how much you have grown! You have grown into a beautiful young lady, Nanoha-chan!" Shiki said to me with a smile on his face, and I couldn't help but blush bright red because of his kind words. That's the first time someone has ever complimented my looks before, let alone call me something as grand as beautiful. Not even my father has ever addressed me with that kind word in my entire life.
"T-Thank y-you, S-S-Shiki! I-I c-can s-show y-you w-where m-my f-father i-is i-if t-that i-is t-the r-reason y-you c-came a-all t-the w-way h-here f-for!" I said awkwardly as I stuttered every single word that went out of my mouth towards Shiki. Oh my god! Why did I say all of that stuff like that? That's so emarrasssing! Shiki will probably hate me now because I'm such a dork!
"There is no need to thank me, Nanoha-chan! If you could show me where your father is, I would be in your debt for a very long time! Though, I wouldn't mind being in debt to a girl as beautiful as you." Shiki said while he proceeded to get down on his knees as he then grabbed my left hand and kissed it in his way of showing appreciation and gratitude towards me.
"W-well! T-Then I-I'll d-do j-just t-that a-and s-show y-you w-where m-my f-father is, S-Shiki!" I said with a face that resembled a tomato due to how much I was blushing over Shiki's kind words.
After meeting Shiki for the very first time, I then proceeded to guide him throughout the small town that was not too far away from the house that I and my father live at. While in the urban town that lacked any technology to speak of, Shiki got along very well with the citizens that lived all around the town. Shiki insisted that we both play soccer with the kids from the small town, I couldn't say no to him, so I agreed. Me, Shiki, and the urban town kids played soccer with each other for what felt like hours, though I didn't mind because for the first time in my entire life I felt like I was having fun for once.
But then somehow I scored the decisive point in the game of soccer that made me the indisputable winner of the game. In response, Shiki lifted me up high into the air as I cried tears onto his body and the ground beneath us. I wasn't crying because I was sad. Instead, I was crying tears of joy since I was happy. I had a cheerful smile on my face as Shiki was holding me high into the bright blue sky above me as tears of joy dripped from my eyes. I think that was also the first time I smiled in my entire life up to this point too. That game of soccer was far from a life-changing event for me, it was a simple and trivial thing.
But, that's exactly why I was overwhelmed with happiness at that moment. All I have ever wanted to do was trivial things with others to the point that I wished that my life would change. And now, it appears that my wish has been granted, how can I not be overcome with pure joy after receiving what I have always desired?
Afterward, Shiki bought me some apples for the both of us to share as we made our way towards the house that I still can't call home because of all the bad memories I have of it. However, because of Shiki's generosity and the fact that the apples were indeed very delicious, for both of those reasons I was able to still have a smile on my face as we both got closer and closer to that house and my father as everything was about to change in my life forever.
I and Shiki finally arrived at my house as the sky was now twilight as the sun was now setting. And at that exact moment when both me and Shiki were only a few meters away from the door, someone proceeded to slam the door open after sensing our imminent arrival. That person was someone I know very well, it was none other than my father. But, for some reason, my father had a very worried expression on his face, I think that was the first time he ever showcased emotions.
"Nanoha! Where have you been?! Do you know how long I searched and searched everywhere while trying to find you?! Do you know much precious time we have both wasted because of your foolishness?! My father screamed towards me with blind fury in his voice and bloodshot eyes as he then started walking towards me. I'm surprised, I have never seen my father genuinely angry before, so I had no ideas whatsoever on how to respond to him in this unforeseen situation.
"Hello! I have been accompanying your daughter, Nanoha-chan, all day so you had nothing to worry about." Shiki said with a smile on his face as he waved his hands towards my father.
"Nanoha! I have told you many times to never talk to strangers! So for what reason did you disobey me for?!" My father said to me with anger permeating his voice as his eyes were still completely focused on me and bloodshot as well. I don't understand? Why is my father acting like this towards me?
"Father, I know that I didn't do my daily obigations as you said, but I'll work twice as hard tomorrow! It's just that I wanted to have a day, just one day, where I could have some actual fun for once! And Shiki, your friend that you have known for years, played soccer with me and it was so much fun!" I said with a bright smile on my face as I looked directly into my father's eyes with my own kind eyes.
"Shiki? I have never met a man who goes by such a name in my entire life! And I have certainly never met this man who is right next to you ever!" My father said with an exasperated expression on his face as he revealed that he has never met Shiki in his entire life until now.
"Huh?" I said as that was the only word I was able to say as the bright smile that I was maintaining on my face instantly shattered to pieces after hearing those words from my father.
"First, I want to apologize to you, Nanoha-chan. Your father is indeed speaking the truth, me and your father have never met, that is because I lied to you. For that reason, I'm sorry. You are a kind and sweet girl, I'm sure you and my daughter would have gotten along very well, you might have even become best friends in a possible future. For that reason too, I'm sorry. Finally, I want to apologize in advance for what I'm about to do next. Hello, Nakamura Naoto. My name is Himegami. Himegami Shiki, and I have come to take your life." Shiki said as he revealed his full name towards both me and my father. Himegami? Why does that name sound strangely familiar?
"H-H-Himegami?! Why? Why is someone from that clan of ruthless assassins here in front of me now?" My father said with a terrified expression on his face as he started to move towards the house and away from me and Shiki out of pure fear. The whole situation resembled a small bunny cowering in terror over a massive, viscious bear that wants to devour the bunny.
"Don't play dumb, Nakamura, you already know the reason why I am here right now. But, I'll just say it so that Nanoha-chan can understand. Nanoha-chan, you almost certainly don't know what exactly your father is trying to do, so I'll spill the beans on everything. Your father's plan is to resurrect the ultimate evil that has threatened this entire world for centuries. That ultimate evil's name is cursed, so I will not reveal his true name. However, I will not let your father revive that monster. In the name of the Himegami family, I will kill you myself, villain!" Shiki said as he bolted with such speed it resembled a lightning strike and appeared right in front of my father as I stood there in a dumbfounded trance, not understanding at all of what's going on.
"Himegami! Please! Hear me out! You don't understand! You don't understand what I'm trying to do! My plan is to revive the Vampire Emperor, but that's not my goal! My goal is to use the Vampire Emperor to resurrect my dead wife! I just want to see my wife's face one last time! It's all I have ever wanted!" My father screamed with tears dripping from his eyes and running down his face and onto the ground as he begged Shiki not to kill him. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. Why is my father crying right now?
"So that's your true goal?! Not only do you want to revive my family's arch-enemy, but on top of that sinful act, you want to bring your wife back to life with the use of dark magic?! You are a true villain, Nakamura! And a hero of justice must defeat the villain that threatens innocent lives, no matter the cost!" Shiki yelled as he proceeded to grab my father's throat with his left hand and hold out his right hand into the sky as the sun was falling and the moon was rising.
"Red Katana!" Shiki said as a blood-red katana suddenly appeared out of thin air into his right hand and then what happened next was resolved in less than a second. No, it wasn't just less than a second, it was an instant. In an instant, the battle was over, and everything ended. I still couldn't understand what my father and Shiki were quarreling about, but that was no longer necessary knowledge. Because, in an instant, Shiki, while using his blood-red katana, stabbed my father directly in his chest and in that moment, I knew my father would soon die from that wound. However, that fact alone didn't stop the tears that proceeded to flow out of my eyes.
"It's done. Now that ultimate evil will never come back. My family's long battle against vampires has finally ended. Farewell, Nakamura. Burn in the fires of hell, you villain." Shiki said as he proceeded to pull the blood-red katana from my father's chest in a swift action. The action was so quick that it didn't even allow my father a single moment to scream. And then my father's blood gushed out of his chest with a rapid force which covered both me and Shiki in red blood as I stared in absolute horror at the event that happened right in front of me.
"Why? Why? Why? Why would you of all people commit such a horrible act of murder? Why would you, a self-proclaimed hero of justice, do something as cruel as to kill my father?" I said as I couldn't fathom the true reason why Shiki would decide to kill my father. Or maybe I already knew the true reason behind Shiki's action but I simply refused to acknowledge them.
"Nanoha-chan, this is what I wanted to avoid by apologizing in advance. But, I already stated crystal clear why I killed your father. That reason is because your father is a villain that had to be defeated no matter what. Your father was the last villain in a long line of crminals that have tried to resurrect my family's most ruthless enemy. So, I killed your father in order to fully rid this world of such an evil's return. It's that simple, that is my only reason for doing what I have just done to your father, Nanoha-chan." Shiki said with a face that lacked any emotion whatsoever as he stared directly into my eyes with his own eyes that lacked the light that they featured earlier.
"Liar! Liar! Liar! You are lying! My father has never done a single thing that was evil in his entire life! My father has never done anything that could even be considered as wrong in his entire life! I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I can't understand the reason why you would murder my father!" I screamed at the top of my lungs in a hateful voice towards Shiki as he didn't move an inch or show any emotion at all over my words that I yelled.
"I understand. No matter how evil your father was, there is no way you would ever understand why I did what I had to do against him. At the end of the day, he was your father and you were his daughter. So it is impossible for you to understand the choice that I made to kill your father and save the world." Shiki said while maintaining an emotionless expression on his face and a voice that lacked any emotion whatsoever as he spoke those words towards me.
In the next moment, a small sound echoed throughout the air. It was such a small sound that it was comparable to a whisper of some words that someone said to another person. But, both me and Shiki heard the small sound and noticed what had just occurred. My father who was not dead like both me and Shiki assumed that he was no longer in this world was somehow alive. My father who survived Shiki's attack was now stabbing his left arm with a needle that contained some kind of fluid that I didn't recognize.
"NO! You wouldn't dare! You would go so far into the realm of villainy by turning yourself into a half-vampire in order to fulfill your selfish desires?! You are worse than a villain, Nakamura! You are a monster! And I will NOT allow you to live for another second, you monster!" Shiki roared at the top of his lungs in retaliation over my father's action of stabbing himself with that needle. Shiki then proceeded to lunge at my father in order to stop whatever it was that my father was trying to accomplish by stabbing himself in his left arm with that needle.
But then, in the next moment, my father proceeded to hold Shiki in an imitation of a popular wrestling move known as a body lock. My father performed this action in an effort to accomplish something that wasn't killing Shiki. No. My father had an ulterior motive for imitating that wrestling move against Shiki, though I can't possibly fathom what that motive is exactly.
"Nanoha, listen to your father, one last time. What your father is about to say to you is of the utmost importance, so you must listen with your full attention, no matter what. I'm sure you won't understand what you must do next so I'll make it as clear as possible. Go back inside the house and into the laboratory. In the laboratory, you will find another needle just like the one I stabbed myself with on top of my desk there. What must you do next is kill this man that I'm restricting right now. This man, Himegami, is your enemy that you must defeat no matter what happens to you because of it. After that, you must finish my plan and revive the Vampire Emperor. And then your mother will be alive again, and the world will be much better off with your mother in it compared to the despicable Himegami family. That is everything that I wanted to say to you, now GO!" My father said towards me with a voice that demanded me to do what he said as he screamed the word "go" and then used all of his strength to restrict Shiki for as long as he possibly could.
What happened next was kind of a blur, I couldn't really understand the reason why I did what I did next I simply did what my father said for me to do without any second thoughts to speak of. I ran towards the house that will never be a place that I can call home no matter how long I live because of all the resentment I hold towards it. I ran past my father as he didn't say anything else to me like he previously said he was going to do. I ran past Shiki who was yelling towards me in the last ditch attempt to stop me from what I was about to do next. But, I didn't stop. No, that's wrong. I refused to stop moving. So, I ran, I ran, I ran, and I kept on running with such speed that I have never used in my entire life up to this point as I then reached my final destination and the fate that awaited me there.
After what felt like an eternity of running throughout my house which probably only lasted a few seconds at most, I finally arrived at the place where my father told me to go to, the laboratory. I approached my father's desk while gasping for breath after running so hard, and I then found the needle that rested on the top of my father's desk just like he said where it was going to be. And in the next instant, without a moment of hesitation to speak of, I grabbed the needle off of my father's desk and stabbed myself in my left arm with it. I then injected the unknown fluid that was contained in the needle into my left arm as everything was now going to change forever.
"So, we finally meet at last. You are the one that will resurrect me after all of this time, and you are a little girl no less." A voice that I have never heard of before in my entire life echoed throughout my mind while a single tooth of the teeth that were in my mouth became a sharp fang and tons of raw strength exploded inside of my body. I didn't even need to be told what just happened to me. It was painfully obvious. So even a little girl who does not know or has experienced many of the things that the world she lives in has to offer can still understand what she just became. The girl named Nanoha Nakamura is now a monster that was thought to be fiction known as a vampire.
After I gained an immense amount of raw power due to doing what my father requested me to do by injecting the unknown fluid from the needle into my body and becoming a creature of the night commonly known as a vampire, I knew what I had to do. I never really liked my father that much, I might have even hated him for making me suffer a boring and repetitive existence. Even still, with newfound determination coursing throughout my vains, I sprinted from the laboratory that was under my house all the way to the first floor of my house in a single second.
And then in less than a single second after arriving in the living room area of the house that I hated, I was already outside of that house as the front door was shattered into many pieces due to my overwhelming speed. Before I took in the sight that was before me, I was already prepared to defeat Shiki no matter what it takes to do so and rescue my father. I then opened my eyes and saw what was right in front of me, and to my absolute horror, my father's head was separated from what was left of his body as his corpse disintegrated before my own eyes. I was too late and my father was already dead.
"I'm sorry, Nanoha-chan, I did what I had to do to prevent the return of that monster who has threatened all of humanity for centuries. I had to kill your father, he was a villain, and I'm a hero of justice after all. I really want you to understand that the only reason why I take lives is to save the world that is my only reason for fighting against villains. However, I know you won't understand, not only are you that monster's daughter, but you are now also a vampire. And just like him, now you too have to die- Shiki said to me while maintaining his emotionless expression until the very end, but before he could finish talking to me, I broke through Shiki's chest with my left hand and annihilated his heart. Himegami Shiki was now dead along with my father.
I then proceeded to pull my left hand out of Shiki's chest as massive amounts of red blood gushed out of his dead corpse and drenched me in the assassin's bodily fluids. I was honestly surprised as to how much blood was contained inside a human body, it was an utterly ludricous amount to the point it would probably be impossible for a single person to eliminate all traces of blood that now stained the outside of the house blood-red. But, what shocked me even more than the amount of blood that was gushed out of Himegami Shiki's corpse, was the fact that I killed that man without much effort to speak of. It was easy, pathetically easy, and I couldn't understand what I was feeling as I stood there motionless over Shiki's dead body.
That man named Himegami Shiki lied to me and killed my father. So shouldn't I be satisfied that I achieved my revenge against my father's killer? But, why do I feel absolutely no emotions over Shiki's death? I don't feel happy. I don't feel sad. I don't feel angry. Why do I feel so empty because of it? I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand at all! What the hell am I supposed to do now? What the hell can I do now without my father or anyone else ordering me what to do next?!
"You don't ever need to worry about not knowing what to do with your life any longer, young girl. I'm here for you now, and I will never abandon you as long as I exist within your body. So all you have to do is listen to me and do what I say and you will always know what you have to do. Didn't your father tell you to always keep moving forward? Then that makes everything simple. I agree with what your father told you to do. Now remember his words and finish what he started, young girl." That same voice from earlier in the laboratory echoed throughout my mind again, reaffirming what I had to do.
"After that, you must finish my plan and revive the Vampire Emperor. And then your mother will be alive again, and the world will be much better off with your mother in it compared to the despicable Himegami family." I remembered my father's words while staring towards the night sky and the beautiful moon that was above me.
"That's right. Thank you, father, I know exactly what I have to do now. I can see with my own two eyes, my vision is utterly unclouded. It was so obvious that I'm completely dumbfounded as to why it took me so long to realize it. All I have to do is to do what vampires must do in order to survive. I'll kill, kill, kill, and keep on killing until every single fake hero is erased from existence. And what better humans to kill are there than that murderer's family. My life has finally become a bit interesting. Haha!" I said with a sadistic smile on my face while letting out a small chuckle due to the satisfaction of realizing what I want to accomplish after becoming who I am now.
"But first, I have one question that I want an answer to? Who are you, voice inside my head? Do you really exist? Or are you a fragment of my imagination? If you are the latter, then I must really be crazy. No, that's wrong I have always been crazy from the beginning." I said while maintaining that sadistic smile on my face as I accepted the type of person who I have always been since I exited my mother's womb and my life started.
"You are completely insane just like you said you were, young girl. However, I'm not a fragment of your imagination. I'm the same individual that your very own father set out to resurrect over the course of many years while neglecting you during all of that time. I'm the true Vampire Emperor that was the firstborn vampire into this world and once upon a time ruled the entire vampire race with an iron fist. I'm also known as the ultimate evil that threatens the entire human race. The very same ultimate evil that Himegami Shiki mentioned before you killed him. My true name is Franz Ferdinand." The voice in my head said to me within my mind while revealing his true identity as the Vampire Emperor Franz Ferdinand.
I then proceeded to light the house that once lived on fire and walked away from it as all of those awful memories that I experienced there burned to the ground and returned to nothingness. That house burned to ashes, along with my father and the man named Himegami Shiki while I left behind what remained of my childhood behind and as I disappeared into the night.
Hello everyone! Ren Here! So for this chapter, we go back in time to what happened before the events of this story, in order to explain how and why Nanoha suddenly showed up out of nowhere last chapter when she was apparently dead. This chapter and the next one after this at the very least will be from the point of view of Nanoha as she is integral to what happens next in this story. But before we can get back to what is going on with Aisa and Frenda after that major reveal we must reach the events of that night that literally started this entire story back in the prologue. This chapter was a little shorter compared to recent chapters, however, the next chapter might just be the longest chapter yet. The next chapter should release on Friday at the earliest or Sunday at the latest, so look forward to it! Get excited! Ren Out!