The Black Rose

Chapter 17

Yuki and Jurina arrived in Nagoya, where they had seen the busy streets. They walked to the front of the hunter's base, signified by the symbol shared by their own base in Tokyo. They walked inside, greeted by a young woman with long hair.

"You must be the hunters Takamina-san sent. My name's Furukawa Airi."

They saluted to Airi before the woman guided them to the training room.

"Churi!" Airi called out. "They're here!"

The two saw a girl with red hair, smiling at Airi, before looking at them.

"So, these two will be my partners for the day?"

"Partners?"

"Yeah. Churi's our top Elite, but this case here is quite a handful."

"We weren't sure if we could get you involved in this particular case, but we felt that we must."

"Take a look at this." Airi took out her phone and showed them a picture of what looked like a victim in a vampire murder case. Only, the bite marks seemed very small.

"A few days ago, we got a report from someone saying they got attacked by some kind of dark shadow. When we went there to confirm if the information was true, we were surprised to find many dead bodies in the area just like this one."

"Eh?! How many?"

"Almost 20, all of them drained of their blood. The bite was similar to the vampire bite, but it was small, more like a snake bite."

Yuki's eyes widened, "Snake bite..?!"

"Yep, so we decided to send our strongest team to investigate about that creature, but sadly none of them were able to kill those things." Airin explained.

"Why?" Jurina asked.

Churi sighed, ruffling her hair. "Because it was a shadow, a dark shadow.."

"What? A shadow? Are you kidding me?! How can a shadow kill people?" Jurina asked.

"Was it a demon shadow?"

"We aren't sure what it is. But we've been trying to catch it since..."

"I almost got it last time," Akane said. "But that thing surrounded me with it's shadow and for moment i felt as my body got squeezed by a many snakes.."

Yuki walked toward the white board where all the information about the shadow demon was written. She picked up one of the pictures where they captured a shadow. There was a snake coming out of the shadow as it was attacking.

"It's a Dark witch's minion..!" Yuki whispered, catching everyone's attention.

"A Dark witch?" Akane repeated.

Yuki nodded. "A hybrid of a witch and a human. They have powerful magic, and can summon familiars from the Shadowrealm. But they are unable to control their human form because it's unstable. They need human energy to maintain it."

"Wait, so you think this is the work of a witch and a Shadow being, not a vampire?" Airin asked.

"Perhaps." Yuki replied as she put the picture back in its place.

"Well, whatever it is, we need to find it and kill it now. Before it kills anyone else." Jurina said.

"But how are we gonna kill that creature? Us humans are too weak against it. The only thing that could possibly face it would have to be inhuman..."

Jurina looked at Yuki, who just stood silently.

"Um, Airi-san, Churi-san, can you give us a minute?" she then asked.

"Eh? Uh, sure?"

Jurina grabbed the vampire's wrist, pulling her to the other side of the room to talk.

"Yuki, you should tell them you're a vampire!" Jurina whispered.

"What?! Jurina, are you crazy? They'd kill me!"

"Not in this situation. They just said, the only thing that can beat a Shadow being would have to be inhuman. Plus, you can always just erase their memory when it's all said and done."