The Conflict

Back to actual time...

"You think I did it?" Sanji asks.

"Who else?" Nami argues.

"And you think I approached you for a prey?"

"For else?"

Sanji sighs. He softens his gaze. "I'm really in love with you, Nami-san. You may not believe it, but I want to protect you from ... WATCH OUT!"

.

SYUTTTTTTT ...

.

Sanji pulls Nami's arm just as a shadow darted fast over them, making it fail to grab Nami who was in a higher position as she stood on the chair before.

"He's coming," Sanji whispers.

The dreadful speed and the pungent cold as it passes-there's no doubt-, Nami recognizes it as... "Any other vampires?"

The mysterious figure stands in the middle of the red carpet track rolled out to the altar. Then he turns. His silver hair hangs long. And the fangs in his mouth are much bigger and longer than Sanji's, making his upper jaw onward as if it resembles the muzzle of a beast. Lion.

"You are... Absalom-sensei?" Nami exclaims in surprised.

The vampire called Absalom chuckles. "I thought you were going to steal the start so I didn't move, and I could see that your aggressiveness was different from the other schoolgirls you approached before," he tells Sanji. "But I should have believed that a weak vampire like you who still insist to refuse to suck fresh blood directly from human's neck will not be able to eat her."

"W-What?" This time Nami's surprise is bigger than before. So, Sanji is honest to me? But I've never heard an explanation from my organization that there's such a vampire type as him, she thought.

"Now, hand me my 7th bride," Absalom continues, extending his hand.

"So you admit that the six previous victims are your deed?" Nami asks.

"The bride?" Sanji keeps protective over her. He steps forward a little while still stretching one of his hands to cover her. "Don't make me laugh with that, shitty lion."

"Whatever I want to call it. Before I sucked their life, I dressed them all in the wedding dress first, their body was so sexy, and you know that virgin's blood is so tasty."

Ouch, Nami thought. This teacher must also be very nasty for removing the student uniform and replacing it with a wedding dress.

"Nami-san is not your bride!" Sanji snaps.

"GARURURURU ..." Absalom laughs in a strange accent. "You won't be able to defeat me, a vampire who never takes care of his blood nutrition like you are so weak compared to me."

"What does it mean?" Nami asks worriedly.

"He's right," Sanji replies. "The greatest vampire nutrients still come from the fresh blood of living humans, not from hospital blood bags or animal blood even if they can be substituted for food. You can make such analogy, what if human only eat carbohydrate without proteins; the nutrients aren't complete."

Nami could see Sanji's sweat passing his cheek for the first time.

"Leave her to me," Absalom continues.

"She's mine," Sanji challenged not being ordered by another vampire.

"I'm not stupid," Absalom said. "If you don't want to make that girl a donor or a prey, the vampire law allows you to hand it to me, I have never bothered you since I'm still law-abiding that you're targeting her first, and you've also let me suck them all this time, right?"

Nami listens intently. She knows quite well about vampire law she learned in the organization. The law roughly says that fellow vampires should not compete for prey. They also should not interfere with other vampire's dining events. If one vampire has targeted a certain human as prey, others are prohibited to seize it. Seeing how Sanji loves the human girls, that he even doesn't want to suck their blood and has been choosing another source of nutrients, Nami thought it must be hard for him to let Absalom's abominations. Each vampire already has its own game target. And Nami realizes that she's targeted by two vampires. Or, at least, Sanji didn't mean to do as badly as Absalom wanted to with her.

"Bite her," Absalom commands. "Prove me that I won't have her."

I'm not an item, Nami exclaims in her thought. What the hell are they doing?

Sanji doesn't budge. He would have done to bite for the first time if Nami were just ordinary civilians. Unfortunately, she's a member of the Vampire Exterminator organization. Actually, just one bite won't make a human turns into a vampire. A human once become a vampire if they're injected with vampire blood in large quantities to replace their sucked blood. Being a donor is like you donate your blood to fellow human and the blood will be produced again in your body. What makes it different is vampire sucking it out without syringe but with their fangs, and the technique is similar to how they kill their prey: biting the human's artery on the neck. Donor means vampires don't suck the person 'til being an empty body. But vampire saliva is kind of toxic. When you're bitten, it goes into the blood circulation like drugs, makes you addicted to asking again at another night and dope up. So, being a donor means you're willing to share half your life with and tied to vampires forever. And it will make it difficult for humans to return. A donor is treated like a livestock or pet, few treat them like a life partner causing the sensation in the sucking process turns to another passion like an intercourse. That means, human only have two choices in vampire's eyes, being a donor or died by being sucked out. And once he bites Nami, the organization won't accept her anymore and will accuse her as part of the vampires even though she is still human.

But you've taken the consequences, haven't you, Sanji? You already know that the person you love will never be with you, right?

Shit, I can't do that, he thinks to end the struggle. Although biting her could save Nami from Absalom's desire, making her labeled a traitor is not a good idea, either. He has decided that after all these misconceptions are over between him and her, he would free her even though he's well aware that once a vampire fell in love, his heart would only be loyal to one person forever.

"Come on, bite her!" Absalom repeats. "If you don't..."

"If I don't?" Sanji asks for spinning out time as he motions to Nami to run.

"We can fight him together, Sanji-kun," Nami whispers.

"No need," Sanji interrupts her sentence.

.

.

WUSSSSHHHHHHH ...

"GO!" Sanji shouts to Nami at the same time as sounds cutting the wind.

.

.

Absalom has moved forward quickly as Sanji also blocks him a few steps forward away from Nami. They bumped into each other and Sanji kicks him until they hit few chairs. Then there was the wreckage, the chairs were thrown to and fro due to the brunt of Absalom whenever he wants to rip the flesh of his opponent or they're broken from Sanji's kick whenever he wants to crush his enemy's bones. Meanwhile, Nami's eyes try to capture the wreckage. Their movement is too fast, I can not attack that pervert, she thought. Vampire and vampire, if she did a wrong move, the sensor technology in her blade's eyes could cut Sanji instead of Absalom when it's shot.

"NAMI-SAN, RUN!" Sanji orders once again, seeing she's still in here.

Hearing that, Absalom changes his target. He breaks free from Sanji by jumping over the blond's head. Sanji, with a flexing turned, tried not to lose quickly to reach Absalom before the lion face ever touched Nami. And...

.

.

SPLASH!

Nami's eyes widened.

Again, the thick red liquid was spilled. This time, it seems literal because the floors are inundated to form a fairly large sphere.

"San ... Sanji-kun," she moans.

.

.

Absalom faces Sanji as his reaction was a little late and he already found out that his unboned epigastrium was pierced by Absalom's fist. Seconds ago, Absalom used a trick and Sanji didn't anticipate it. He concentrated all the power on the fist given by the momentum of repulsion while turning into Sanji plus Sanji was being driven by his own force as he was on his own straightway. Everything happened in fast-paced.

"BUAGH!" he cried out blood. He then collapses after Absalom withdrew his hand, bringing out something from it.

.

His stomach is scattered.

.

"SANJI-KUN!" Nami shouts, frightened in shock.

"There's no time to worry about anyone else," Absalom said, now moving behind Nami. She didn't even have time to be surprised as Absalom holds her in a locked motion.

"DAMN IT!" Nami rages.

She also tries to provide resistance but in vain. In fact, her dagger was thrown away by Absalom. Why so, she thought. Where was the confidence she feels that she could kill Sanji-a vampire? Is it because of shock because she targeted a wrong culprit? Was it because she herself saw that even another vampire could be beaten down so easily by a stronger vampire that she isn't prepared to accept it so soon?

"You will be my bride, my dear," Absalom began to lick Nami's neck.

"LIKE I WANT IT!" She exclaims disgustedly.

"Listen, you bastard!" Sanji snarls despite falling. "If you spilled out Nami-san's blood just a single drop, I would turn into a demon."

"Garurururururu ...! Demon or diable, that's just a myth among our race, especially weak vampires like you cannot possibly evolve until that stage."

"You shitty teacher, you don't read much, like I would ever share the secrets to you," Sanji replies sarcastically.

"Hmph, I don't have time to listen to the nonsense dying kid," Absalom continues. He also smothers Nami's mouth in order not to answer unnecessarily to Sanji. He turns and intends to disappear slowly. "Farewell."

"SANJI-KUN!" Nami cried out as she's carried away.

"Don-" Sanji doesn't finish the sentence. The pain he felt as a vampire was not much hurting like human beings but he begins to lose consciousness because his blood was drained out. Unallowed... unallowed, he thought.

Don't let Nami-san be brought ...

Don't let Nami-san belong to another vampire ...

Don't let Nami-san be slaughtered ...

Nami-san is my love. My bride later. Mine...

"AARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!" Sanji shouts in his helplessness.

Absalom hasn't stepped out of the chapel yet when he sees a shadow in front of him formed by a candle enlarged behind. He has a glimpse of the shape of the shadow that it was like a wing-spreading wide. In order to get rid of all the troubling thoughts, he immediately breaks through the door and jumps out of the school fence, carrying Nami.

...leaving Sanji in all of his painfulness.