After spending some time in the infirmary, Satoru and Verne's wounds were taken care of. Still, Verne couldn't help himself from saying: "It's starting to become a habit that someone ends up in here."

"If you don't like it, you can leave if you want to." Sakura replied on that, indignant.

Verne sighed: "Fine, I won't say anything anymore."

"So Schreck merely wanted to bring Vlad back, just to turn him into an actual dragon." Masumi said, "That sounds a little too simple."

"That it is." Verne confirmed, "It's a little worse than I feared."

"How so?" Natsuki asked.

"We now know why Vlad was needed in Schreck's grand scheme." Verne told her.

"Vlad would severely punish people if they did anything he deemed wrong, right?" Satoru asked.

"According to all the stories about him, yes." Verne answered, "And with him being close friends with the pope at the time, I have an idea about whom he'd call wrong."

"And now that he too is a vampire of some kind..." Satoru realized, "... he now has a different religion to fight for."

"Remind me, why was he called 'the impaler' ?" Souta asked them.

"Trust me, he's done worse to others than he's done to us." Verne replied, "How's that for an answer?"

"So if people refuse to become vampires..." Eiji thought out loud, "... he'd impale them?"

"The only problem is..." Verne added, "... being a vampire would mean immortality as well. That's an offer nobody would be able to resist. What they'll of course fail to mention is that their immortality comes with a price."

"Yes, remind me how that works again?" Sakura sounded skeptic.

"I'm not sure, nobody is." Verne answered, "But I've met people who have seen many that have turned. Those who were, acted very much unlike themselves. They could do things they couldn't do before, without anyone ever telling them how to do them, they would say things that the ones who turned them would say,... it's like the vampire turning them somehow has some mental grip on them."

"They tell them what they must say and think?" Satoru asked.

"Must be." Verne answered.

"In other words, we'd have to choose between living forever as a slave, or temporarily but free." Masumi stated.

"Of all things, it's a Precious that's doing all this to people." Satoru said.

This statement made four members of the group to look a little spooked, so Satoru asked them: "What's the matter?"

"You just called Vlad a Precious." Souta said.

"Well isn't it?" Satoru asked.

"Given it's sentimental value to archaeologists, yes it is." Verne answered.

"You seem to understand me quite well." Satoru laughed.

"You're missing the point." Masumi said, "Didn't you tell us that before? What made Vlad's corpse Precious?"

"Did I?" Verne didn't seem to remember.

This didn't seem to impress Satoru much: "Well then, if you seem to look that much like me, I still wonder why you didn't want to be the new Red."

Verne sighed. But before he could say anything, Mr. Voice spoke trough their radios: "Everyone, we've got a problem!"

"We're on our way." Satoru answered.

"Are you crazy?!" Sakura tried to stop him, "You can't do anything with those injuries."

"I'm fine." Satoru reasoned, "I survived DaiVoyager's crash, I can take this little pain."

"But I can't!" Sakura shouted at him, after which there was this something in her eyes that Satoru noticed.

"The look in a girl's eyes." Verne laughed, "So the Immortal Fang does have a soft spot after all."

"Alright, I'll stay here." Satoru said, "Wouldn't want to be responsible for Verne's loneliness."

Verne burried his face in his hands, but not without feeling any pain in his arm, causing him to shout something in his own language.

"I don't know what you just said..." Souta said, "... but that sounded funny."

"Let's go already." Eiji told everyone.