Chapter Four:
Welcome Home!
I sighed. "Man! I'm already tired from walking through the freakin' desert and now I have to walk ALL the way to Stein's lab... Sheesh... I just wanna go back to the apartment and sleep."
"You never stop complaining..." Ikki commented.
"You never stop... being mean!" I said, pounding the side of my fist on Ikki.
"Familiar wavelength detected. Human." Ikki stated.
"No duh! We're back home ya dumb-" Before I could finish speaking to him, I heard a crash coming from the infirmary. I stopped walking and decided to be nosy and check it out.
I creaked the door open slowly and saw Stein standing up. He was breathing heavily with his chair knocked over on the floor. I opened the door all the way and stepped into the office. He still didn't notice me.
"Stein... Are you okay...?" I asked.
Stein shook his head. He sighed deeply, turned around, and bent down to pick up his chair before sitting backwards on it. Then he looked at me, flashing a small smile.
"Sai-chan! You and Vergil finally came back... I'm guessing that its not because you finished your assigned missions, though, is it?" Stein greeted.
"You'd guess right if you were to say that... Unfortunately." I answered.
"You need some more blood tablets, I take it?" Stein asked.
"Yes. I'm running on my last bottle... I guess I would've had to come back anyway even if this all didn't happen." I said with a small smile.
"That's an odd thing to say..." Stein said.
"Why's that?" I asked.
Stein stared at me sternly. "I gave you enough for about two and a half years... One of those bottles has enough tablets in it for you to survive about four months."
My eyes went wide. "Y-You're joking r-right...?"
"You'd guess wrong if you were to say that... Unfortunately." Stein answered.
I remained silent until he spoke again. "You consumed more than twice the amount your body needed to survive off of in half the time..."
He paused for a second. "Tell me, Sai. When's the last time you had real blood?"
"I-I can't remember..." I lied, turning my head away.
"Alright then... Let's hope you keep it that way... I'll just leave you with this; You may want to make sure you're more conscious of your actions and maintain control over yourself at a time like this... As you get older, you naturally become more susceptible to the Al Bhed Insanity... I suspect that the madness wavelength emitted by the Kishin will have an effect at speeding it up. I also suggest that you keep an eye on that tether of yours... Vergil is still a Devil and the madness will be able to take hold of him easily as well..." Stein said.
I nodded to Stein. He wheeled over to the medicine cabinet across the room from where he was and opened it up. He looked around for a little bit and then stood up, reaching on the very top shelf. He pulled out an old pill bottle and blew the dust off of it.
"Ah, here we go! This should hold you down until I can make a brand new batch for you." Stein said wheeling over to me.
He placed the pill bottle in my hand. Before I could take it, he grasped my hand. I looked up at him.
"Remember, Sai... They're not madness suppressants... There's no such thing as 'madness suppressants'..." Stein said, releasing his grip on my hand.
"I know..." I said. I put the pill bottle in my pocket and then walked out of the infirmary, closing the door behind me.
"Well that was certainly a 'hello'..." Ikki said.
I didn't answer him. I was too deep in thought about what Stein had said. How could I have consumed so many tablets in such little time...? I shook my head and ran to one of the balconies, where I could be alone. I sat own with my back leaning against the railing of the balcony. Then I took the pill bottle out of my pocket and dusted off the label with my thumb, reading it over again.
"Directions: Immerse tablet in about 8 fl oz. of liquid.
Take ONE every TWO days."
I cursed at myself... I had been drinking one to three every day. The need for real blood was growing stronger. It was to the point that it was hard to control my fangs. The second a craving started, they popped out and it would be hard for me to retract them... The last time I had difficulty controlling my fangs was when I was a child and hadn't learned how to do it. Gaining control over fangs for a vampire was much like gaining control over claws for kittens. It's hard to retract them when the kittens are young, but they get more experienced with controlling them as they age. It was the same for vampires and their fangs.
It would've been great if I was able to drink Afreet blood, but if I did I risked more than tripling my chances of falling victim to the Al Bhed Insanity. Just as I started thinking about blood in general, even if it was Afreet blood at the time, I "showed some fang" as Vergil liked to call it.
"Fuck...!" I cursed.
Suddenly, the face of my first and last victim flashed in my head and the scene played over in my mind:
There was a girl, not much younger than me, running. Running from an Afreet. I had spotted her from the terrace of the hotel that Vergil and I were staying at for the time being. The girl tripped and landed face first on the pavement below the hotel. The Afreet took this as its time to strike and propelled itself at her. Immediately, I jumped down to save her. Surprisingly, Vergil hadn't woken up when I did so. I landed in front of the girl and slammed the Afreet's head into the brick wall of the building next to me with a roundhouse kick. I looked back at the girl and was about to go up to her and help her, but I heard a distorted laugh. I turned back around to see the Afreet slowly rising.
The Afreet stood up tall. It's torso resembled that of a humanoid, but it had eight limbs; Six rear legs that looked like spider legs with knives covering its feet and two arms with similar structure to the legs, but shorter and pointed at a different angle. It had a large head with a mouth full of sharp teeth that stretched from ear to ear, like a zipper to its head. It seemed to be permanently plastered with a creepy looking smile. It's red eyes gazed at me and it cocked its head as it continued to laugh. It rocketed towards me. I rolled out of the way to dodge it and then began dodging the swipes that it took at me easily. I could've easily used Ikki to kill this one, but for some reason, I felt like playing with it. My adrenaline started to rush as it roared at me and began swiping faster. I laughed loudly and then jumped up with an uppercut right to the Afreet's jaw. It got knocked off its feet and fell onto its back.
"Not so tough now, are you...?" I asked.
I crawled onto it and broke off one of its arms from its elbow. Blood gushed all over me, getting on my face. I licked my lips and at that very moment I felt as if all my senses had enhanced. I gripped the sword like forearm of the Afreet as it writhed in pain. Then I smiled and stabbed the arm into its head, right in between its eyes. I tore the arm out of the side of its head and there was a fountain of blood before the Afreet disappeared, only leaving its soul. I walked over to the girl she cowered away a little bit. One of her hands was clamped tightly around her neck. I licked my lips as I saw blood oozing from in between her fingers. I shook my head and smiled gently and extended my hand to her.
"Are you okay?" I asked.
She looked up at me and smiled, feeling a little more comforted. "I-I'm okay now thanks to you."
She took my hand with her free one and I pulled her up.
"What happened to your neck?" I asked.
She removed her hand from her neck. It wasn't a severe gash, but it was no paper cut either. Luckily for her, it hadn't hit any arteries... Or so she had thought.
"I was so scared... I'm so glad you came to help me. How can I ever pay you back?" the girl asked.
I couldn't stop staring at her neck. She had placed her hand back on it, but the blood was still slowly trickling down from in between her fingers.
"You're hurt. Let me help you." I said. I removed her hand from her neck and eyed it greedily... I had just consumed a blood tablet about two hours prior, but right now this girl's blood was driving me insane. She saw how I was just staring and tried to pull her hand, which I was still holding, away from me.
I couldn't take it... I had to have it...
I swung her around and she tumbled on the floor, letting out a yell. I walked over to her and grabbed her by the hair, slamming her head into the floor. She yelled again and ceased her struggle at this point.
I picked her up and held her in my lap. I raised her head up to mine and licked her ear.
"You scared now...?" I whispered.
"L-Let me go... P-Please..." the girl whimpered.
I gripped the hair at the base of her neck firmly with my left hand and brought her neck to my mouth. I her wound and exhaled slowly on it. She began to struggle, so I sank my fangs into her neck, right into her wound.
She yelled, but stopped struggling again. Her blood flowed down my throat, causing a warming and tingling sensation where ever it went. It tasted sweet, yet had a kick to it. My heart began to race and I felt a tingling sensation that pulsed throughout my body with every heartbeat. I could feel her fear and it made me excited. She began to gasp for air, but I just held onto her tighter. Her heart rate as I continued to drink, but that only motivated me to drink more of her blood. I wanted to drain her blood until the very last drop. All that was in me was the urge to drink. Nothing else mattered...
I hadn't noticed that I'd been biting my lip as I thought about the memory until warm liquid rushed into my mouth. The feeling of my own hot blood in my mouth was orgasmic. I licked at my lip greedily. The taste and feeling were enjoyable, but it wouldn't truly satisfy me. As i became entranced with the thought of my own blood, I bit harder into my own lip. The sudden pain shocked me out of my hunger and my fangs retracted. Now all that was in my mind was shame... What was I to become? What if Stein was right and I was slowly going insane? I tugged at the roots of my hair.
"No! I'm not like them!" I yelled. I got up and ran.
I let out a sigh of relief as I finished chugging the artificial blood out of the water bottle I had bought. I put it down gently on the table after screwing the cap back on the empty bottle.
"Well... At least I have this to distract me..." I said as I gazed at the dust pile our apartment had become.
"Overabundance of dust particles detected. I wouldn't help you even if I had hands." Ikki stated.
I grunted. "You're so lucky you're waterproof, you know..."
I got up and tossed the bottle towards the garbage can. It bounced off the side of the can and landed on the kitchen floor.
"You suck..." Ikki said.
"Oh, shut it! Will you?!" I yelled.
I got up and picked up the water bottle, dropping it into the trash can. A couple seconds later, Vergil walked through the door.
"How wa-"
Vergil interrupted me before I could finish talking "You know my lip swelled up for about five minutes cos' of you..."
I laughed nervously.
"About that... Uh... Um... You should wait until I finish cleaning! We'll talk later!" I said as I pushed Vergil out of the door against his own will.
I slammed the door shut behind him and locked it before pressing my back against it and sinking to the floor. I sighed deeply and touched my lip. Mine had swollen up for about an hour... Since Vergil was a Devil, he could've gotten stabbed sixty times in sixty seconds and by the next sixty seconds, all sixty wounds would be gone. The only way to kill him was to take off his head. I would've been the same if I drank human blood. Since I didn't I healed much faster than the average human, but not nearly as fast as Vergil. If you stabbed me once, it would take about four hours to close up and at least a day to fully heal...
I shook my head a couple times.
"Okay... Time to clean up!" I yelled as I bolted up with my fist in the air.
"Ikki, if you would be so kind to grant me with some music please." I said.
"No." He answered.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'NO'?! YOU CAN'T TELL ME NO! I'M YOUR CREATOR!" I yelled as I pounded on him with both of my fists.
"You need to stop illegally downloading music into me." Ikki retorted.
"Haha, very funny... NOW GIMME SOME DAMN HOUSE MUSIC!" I yelled.
Ikki made a sound that was equivalent to a fart for computers before he started to glow (authors note: same kind of glow as overload has in Teen Titans) in his belt buckle form. He swirled around my body, much like a snake would when about to constrict its prey, up to my head. His glow flashed once more as he became a pair of big headphones. I just had to think of the song I wanted that I had previously uploaded into Ikki's servers and it would play. It took me about four hours to clean the entire house spotless. Unfortunately, we failed to completely clean out the fridge before we left... So some of the old food had mutated so much that it probably would've tried to attack me if I touched it with my bare hands. Besides that, everything else was moderately clean as we had left it, only there was either some cob webs or a thin layer of dust covering it.
I opened the door when I was done to call for Vergil, but he wasn't there. I guess I shouldn't have expected him to wait 4 hours for me... I sighed and went into the closet next to out bathroom and grabbed a towel out of it before going into the bathroom. I closed the door behind me and took my gloves off first, tossing them on the floor. Then I touched Ikki. He swirled around my fingers as I flipped my hand over so my palm was facing up. As he pooled himself in my palm, he turned into a little 3x3 inch cube with a glow.
"I'm glad I don't have eyes or a stomach." Ikki said.
"And why is that?" I asked.
"Cos' then I'd have to keep myself from puking while seeing you undress." Ikki responded.
"I hate you sometimes... A lot of the time..." I said, restraining my anger. I placed him on the windowsill like I always did before I showered. Then I stripped off all my clothes and went in after turning the shower on. I started humming a song to myself as I washed my body... I was a lot filthier than I thought after the days of traveling and cleaning up the house. It was pretty gross. After washing my body and hair, I reached for my razor and began to shave. A little "ow!" interrupted my humming as I cut my leg while running the razor along it. I stared at the blood as it ran down my leg and found myself licking my lips as my fangs appeared. My tongue traced my left fang eagerly. The sharpness of my fang almost cut my own tongue. I scooped up some of my blood as I slid my fingers along it. I eagerly attacked the blood on my fingers as if it were the throat of a human, biting them in the process.
I snapped out of my blood lusted trance as I heard Vergil screaming and pounding on the locked bathroom door.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO YOUR FUCKING FINGERS, SAI?!" he yelled as he pounded the door.
I shook my head and looked down at the pointer, middle, and ring fingers of my right hand. They had scratches and bite marks all over them. There were about two deep ones where I'd bit down quite hard. I gripped my hand into a fist and sank to the floor as I leaned against the wall of the shower.
"FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!" I cursed as I pounded against the wall with my left fist. I couldn't hold it in anymore.
As I sat there in the shower, I cried like a fucking baby. I was ashamed of what I had just done and scared of what I would become...