Vamp!

Vamp! III - Chapter 4 C

The mountain path.
"Oh. Didn't think I'd run into all of you here."
The first words out of Doctor's mouth were a simple greeting.
But the incongruity in his tone confused the vampires who had been searching for him all evening.
His elderly manner of speech had been replaced by one more suitable to his appearance, and it was as though his entire body was emitting a chill.
"Doctor...? Is that... really you?" Val asked, reacting to Doctor's voice--so different from what he remembered. Why was he wearing a red coat instead of a white lab coat? Who was this armored man? Val had many questions he wanted to ask, but his first question had been the most pressing.
Perhaps, Val thought hopefully, Doctor would quickly revert to his old self with a hearty chuckle and a 'Young man, do I look any different to you?'. Nothing about him indicated that such a thing would happen, but Val could not let go of his wishful thought.
And as though in reply, Val's hopes were cruelly dashed.
"'Doctor', huh. I don't care about nicknames like that anymore. In fact, just listening to that name annoys me."
"What...?"
Val's heart sank.
"Wait! Stop! Stop, Doctor! Something's not right here! Something's not right! What's happened to you?!" The jester asked, also aware that there was something off about Doctor.
The other vampires looked around at one another awkwardly. Selim nervously clung to Val's sleeve.
The man in the armor standing before Doctor was watching without a sound, having yet to understand what was happening. But he remained as guarded as ever, and his hostility towards Doctor was plain even to those around him.
Doctor glanced at the armored man several times as he replied to the vampires' questions with a sigh.
"Heh heh heh... I guess I'll have to introduce myself again. Hello, everyone! My name is Theodosius. Theodosius M. Waldstein! Please, call me Theo."
"Theo... Uh... Waldstein...?"
The more Doctor spoke, the more confused Val became. He gaped silently, but Theo snickered callously.
"That's right. I'm not directly related to Gerhardt. We're very distant relatives. It's been quite a few years now since I started taking advantage of the fact that I share his name."
The usual Doctor was nowhere to be found. Even at his most condescending, Doctor never failed to show some degree of warmth.
"You see, this island is the perfect place for me to hide from people like him. People who are bent on revenge."
"...Revenge? Doctor... D-did you do something to that man?" The jester asked, taking note of the armored man's bloodlust.
The childlike vampire's answer was all too simple.
"Haha! I just butchered his family and friends, that's all."
The armored man said nothing. It was as though he was building up his anger in preparation for a single, concentrated show of rage.
During the man's silence, Doctor smiled innocently and continued:
"That's not all. I happened to kill a lot of people before that, too. I don't remember exactly how many, but... at least four digits' worth, I'd bet."
Val and the others could not hide their disbelief. Doctor was indeed a vampire, but even then his claims were too difficult to swallow. They wanted to believe that, even now, Doctor was in the midst of some sort of outlandish experiment.
Although Val had only met Doctor today, the latter had suggested to him many paths to the future and given him confidence. Val desperately wanted to believe in the boy.
But the words that shattered their hopes came from within their midst.
"So it's true, then. You're... the mass murderer." Said one of the freeloader vampires.
Doctor's eyes narrowed for a moment at the mention of the words. He then said in a tone both lonely and nostalgic:
"It's been a while since I've heard anyone call me that. I wonder if the Organization's still after me."
"You're lying, Doctor! You're lying! You never had any reason to kill people like that!" The jester cried, as though trying to deny Doctor's claim--trying to deny the existence of Theodosius M. Waldstein. But Doctor's reply was simple.
"Do I need a reason? I'm a vampire. Maybe it hasn't gotten through to you yet, but we vampires have the right to do whatever we want with humans. But if you're curious about why I went so far as to kill them..."
Doctor trailed off and paused dramatically, preparing to enjoy the vampires' reaction to his next words:
"...I killed them because it was fun."
The innocence evaporated from his eyes. Doctor turned his gaze to the sky with a look of euphoria.
"It was so exciting. That feeling of superiority I got from toying with their lives. You don't understand, do you? But in the end, I bit off more than I could chew. I was hunted by the Organization, so I came to this island. I fooled Gerhardt into letting me stay, and threw away my name and my past. And I even hid away my true nature." He said, sounding particularly pleased with his final statement, before closing his eyes and continuing with a disappointed expression.
"But now that Rudy's come all this way to find me, I can't stay here anymore. But before I left, I wanted to see my old friend just once more."
Doctor turned to the armored man as he spoke, but the 'old friend' remained silent.
The jester, meanwhile, seemed to be speaking even in Rudy's place. She emphatically mentioned the vampire who was awaiting Doctor's return.
"Then what about Professor?! Doctor, do you have any idea how worried she is?! Do you?! I don't know what you're planning, but if you're going to run away, you have to at least take her with you! You have to!"
It was a gamble of sorts, referring to Professor.
It was one final gamble for the prize of returning the boy to his old self as Doctor.
But the jester's gamble ended in defeat, rather appropriate for someone of her appearance.
"Oh. That piece of scrap?"
"What...?!"
"Who cares about that thing? I fooled around with it for my immortality research, but even that's starting to get boring now." Doctor said with a chuckle. There was no hesitation in his eyes.
The moment she heard Doctor's callous response, the jester walked up to him and swung back her right hand.
She then flung her palm forwards, directly at the boy's face.
But there was no crisp sound to signal impact.
The moment the jester's hand had reached Doctor, he had transformed only his face into fog. The jester slapped nothing but thin air.
But the jester did not stop. She swung her hand again and again, trying in spite of her failures.
"Stupid Doctor! Stupid, stupid, stupid! Professor's really worried about you, you know?! You know how much she loves you! So why?! Why?! And even if you really didn't like her back... you could have at least told us a white lie!"
'Doctor... He can't really mean it, can he?'
Val didn't know how to react to the sight of the jester's tear-streaked face.
This small part of the world, one he had only recently accepted, was changing rapidly. Though Doctor was unchanged in appearance, it was as though his very soul had been replaced. Val reflected upon this sudden change.
Perhaps he himself was very much like Doctor, changing his appearance and character at will.
'No... That's not it...'
Though Val was distracted by his musings about himself, he decided it was more important to turn his attention to the meaning of Doctor's words. He stepped forward to question him further.
But before Val could say a word, Doctor said lazily, as though answering the jester's questions were a tiring task:
"It's all such a bother."
He would bring everything to an end between himself, the armored man who radiated bloodlust, Val, and the jester.
"Say, Rudy? Feel free to slaughter anyone who lives in my castle."
"...What?" The jester gasped, stopping mid-slap.
So shocking were Doctor's words that the air itself froze.
"You can kill off the Waldsteins and these vampires here. Then we'll finally be even, right? We can be friends again. Just like old times."
Val, the jester, and the freeloader vampires all turned to the armored man, shocked into silence.
In spite of the many gazes thrown his way by his natural prey, the suit of armor was silent. He remained so for some time, before finally addressing the vampires who had come to find Doctor.
"...You know... I wanted to kill all of Theo's friends. All of you."
The vampires were first surprised by the youthful voice that came from the armor. Then they found themselves battling a terrible chill at the content of his claim. No one, after all, would be happy to be on the receiving end of such undeserved hostility.
"But now... to be honest, I don't know. If you vampires decide to turn against Theo, then I'll consider you my allies. But let me warn you. If you decide to protect Theo, I'll slaughter you all as he watches..."
On the surface, it seemed that there was no emotion in his voice. But each and every utterance was dripping with hatred for Theodosius. Even Rudy's near-inaudible mumbling was full of bloodlust.
Val's illusionary body trembled at the sight, shaken by an unknowable fear.
But Doctor seemed to be amused by it all. He shook his head with a childlike laugh.
"Ahahaha! That sounds interesting. Yeah... Go ahead and side with Rudy if you think you can beat me. I was just about to take care of all of you anyway. Val and Selim and the rest... I was just thinking about killing you as part of my experiment."
His cheerful grin instantly took on the sharpness of a fine blade. It felt as though Doctor's gaze would tear Val and Selim to pieces. Under the dim lamps, his eyes glinted like those of a ravenous wolf, burning Val with the sheer force embedded within.
'Is Doctor... Serious?'
So terrifying was Doctor's gaze that Val was forced to avert his eyes. This was not the gaze of the eccentric child he had seen earlier that day--it was clearly the look of a murderer. It was similar to the way Val perceived Watt without his sunglasses, but Doctor's eyes were incomparably colder and more vicious than Watt's had ever been.
Val was struck by fear at the sight, but what bothered him more was the way Selim would react. She must have known Doctor for much longer than himself. This betrayal must have broken her heart more than it did Val's.
Worried, Val quickly turned back to look at Selim.
But he came face-to-face with her usual expression: a melancholy but gentle look.
Had she not understood the situation fully, Val wondered, but his suspicions were quickly proven incorrect.
"It's all right." Selim whispered with a lonely smile, so quiet that only Val could hear, "no one in this world is truly evil, Val. We... we just have to believe... and everything will be all right."
'What does she mean, we have to believe? In what Doctor just said? Or is she saying that this Doctor is a fake and that we should believe in the one from before?'
Val grew more and more confused, ultimately unable to choose a side. He was gripped by the weight of the pressure bearing down upon them all.
'I don't care about choosing sides. ...I hate this. Doctor, please... please, it's not too late to say you were just joking. Please...'
But it was as though his wishes were being directly insulted.
"Hraaaaaaahh!"
The helm of the armor was loudly assaulted by a flying drop kick.
"...Wha...? What..."
The first to gasp in confusion was none other than Doctor himself.
The armored man standing before him fell prey to the sudden attack and lost his balance, falling to his knees.
And as though waving away the heavy air that had been clouding over them, the man who had landed the attack--one of the freeloader vampires--cried out impatiently:
"Blah blah blah blah blah. I don't get a word of what you're saying, Doc. We're just gonna side with whoever's giving us our money. Am I right?"
The other freeloaders chimed in in agreement.
"Hell yeah! Doctor, you're the only one who can open the safe."
"And if Doc's really that mass murderer everyone's been talking 'bout, we'd be safer off siding with him."
"We live by the rule of siding with the strong."
"And if we stick with Doctor, the others at the castle're gonna side with us, too."
"The maids, too!"
"Nice and simple. All this stuff about tragic pasts and good and evil just makes my head hurt."
The vampires moved to stand behind Doctor as though they had been in agreement from the very beginning.
"G-guys...?!" Val cried quickly, but the freeloaders did not hesitate.
"Kiddo. Val. Remember who we were working for before?"
"Watt was one hell of a petty villain."
"And Doctor might be a villain, but he looks like a seriously serious guy, totally different from Watt. You get what I'm saying?"
The vampires' line of thinking was obviously flawed, but the man who had landed the drop kick on the suit of armor made a more compelling argument.
"And if nothing else, we can trust the viscount."
"...What?"
"Well, y'know. The viscount let Doctor live under the castle because he trusted him. You think he's gonna turn a blind eye to someone who might hurt the people here, even if he's family? And even if Doc was lying, you think the viscount wouldn't have seen through him?"
Val's indecision was challenged more strongly than ever before. Up until this point, he had been so concerned with Doctor's change of character that he had been completely blind to those around him. His thoughts, which had distrusted Doctor for a moment, returned to neutrality.
But just as Val resolved to address Doctor once more, the vampire who had attacked the armored man bent his body forward without warning. He was immediately launched deep into the woods.
"Gah...?!"
It was like watching a car accident. The man did not even have time to scream.
He was thrown against a tree trunk, several of his bones and perhaps his spine having been broken by the impact. He was unconscious before he slid down to the ground.
The armored man's movements had been exceedingly simple.
All he did to the unfortunate freeloader was give his shoulder a powerful punch.
That was enough to rob the vampire of consciousness.
"If you're going to side with Theo, then just die."
The bloodlust radiating from the man grew more dense as it permeated the air, sending a chill running down the vampires' spines.
"Wh-whoa...?"
"This ain't good. Anyone got a contingency plan for if the armor guy turns out to be stronger than Doctor?"
The hostility he had shown Doctor was now being directed at the rest of the vampires. The armored man was determined to show his thoughts through action alone.
He would begin with those that looked the weakest.
His unfortunate first target was a green-haired boy with middling vampiric presence.
"Wh-what? Uh... wait! Why us?!"
Val and Selim had yet to openly make a decision. So why was the man turning his sights on them? Caught unaware in the flood of bloodlust, Val opened his eyes wide in shock.
"Ah-"
And once he caught sight of the figure approaching from behind the suit of armor, his already-wide eyes turned to dinner plates.
There was an impact.
A sound that easily dwarfed that of the drop kick from earlier echoed across the mountain path.
"Damn it. You have any idea how hard it was to pick up your scent after you jumped into the sea like that?"
The newcomer was a werewolf with a dyed blue mane, his fangs and nails seemingly made of iron.
Unlike vampires, werewolves could not be sensed by Eaters. This particular werewolf had moved with the sound of the wind, sneaking up behind the armored man and kicking him in the head.
The suit of armor was thrown against a tree trunk. At the same time, multiple silhouettes appeared from the shadows of the woods.
Three young werewolves, standing in a formation around the suit of armor.
And a girl Val and the others knew very well.
She was wearing her usual black dress, but for some reason, it was torn and ragged. She had clearly gone through something terrible earlier that day.
For a moment, Val's mind did not register the fact that he knew this girl. So different was the air around her that he was more surprised by this transformation than he had been by Doctor's sudden change in character.
Her face, her eyes, and the length of her hair were all unchanged.
But the voice that came from her lips was unfamiliar and icy.
"...I care not if you choose to take your own life or flee this island."
Slowly, she stepped forward. Val flinched at her every step, heavy like the sound of a gavel pounding for a death penalty.
As the watermelon vampire trembled without knowing why, the girl in black continued plainly--Ferret von Waldstein bared her silent bloodlust against the armored man.
"But either way, disappear from my sight at once!"
A command to depart.
In some ways, it was more powerful an utterance than a threat to kill. It was as though Ferret were an exorcist bent on erasing a demon from her presence.
Showered with words that could be taken as either a show of great pity or hatred, the armored man got to his feet without a hint of worry about the werewolves around him. He turned to Ferret.
"Perfect timing." He said.
Rudy then turned to Doctor and continued mechanically:
"...I don't care whether she's a friend of yours or not. I'm going to kill her."
"Hah! Why would you do that? I'm the one you want to kill. You know, that girl has nothing to do with me. I won't shed a tear if you kill her."
"I know. But I'll kill her anyway."
Their respective responses did not match one another. But the armored man had already long abandoned any intention for meaningful conversation, using words only to declare his goals. Doctor's smile faltered for a moment, but the young man in the suit of armor did not notice; he instead repeated himself over and over again. Not towards Ferret, but to someone else deep within.
"You and that girl. You're exactly the same. You get close to humans and fool them with words of kindness, only to betray them in the end. She's going to do what you did to me. She'll murder humans left and right without a care for their lives."
"What are you-"
"If!"
Cutting the flow of their meaningless conversation was Ferret's powerful declaration.
The vampires around them gulped as she displayed her power through words alone.
"If I should deceive humans, and if I should take the lives of tens of thousands..."
The force contained in her every word filled the air. Ferret's strength of will was almost palpable.
"Even if I should one day betray Mihail, and even if I should one day drink his blood and make him one of us..."
"Ferret...?" The jester gasped, startled by Ferret's unusual attitude. But her voice did not reach Ferret's ears. Ferret's words grew ever more forceful.
"No matter what Doctor might have done to you in the past, and even if he should be hounded by thousands of people bent on avenging themselves..."
Though Ferret had not been on the scene since the beginning, she must have reasoned out the story behind Doctor and the armored man through snippets of conversation she heard and the man's assault upon herself and Mihail. Both Doctor and Rudy froze.
"And no matter what it may be that drives you to find self-satisfaction..."
The young man in the armor could feel cold sweat running down his back.
Unfolding before him was a scene he could not accept. The girl he had so easily defeated earlier that day was now cornering him. The fact ate away at his mind, little by little.
The girl finally stopped in place. And there, she uttered emphatically:
"Nothing will excuse what you have done to Mihail. I... will never forget."
She did not say that she could not forgive him.
But before the other vampires could even turn this matter over in their heads, they had been distracted by something else Ferret had said.
All she did was mention Mihail's name. The boy himself was nowhere in sight.
The facts came together like puzzle pieces. A profound sense of loss swelled up amongst the vampires.
"F-Ferret... Did this guy... do something to Mihail...?"
Val was the first to speak. His illusionary eyes displayed shock more clearly than any real pair of eyes could, and he had recreated even the sensation of cold sweat on his back.
The jester was next, questioning Ferret to try and bring some semblance of calm back to her rattled thoughts.
"Ferret? Wh-where's Mihail...? You were always together, so I thought you'd be at the festival with him... What happened, Ferret? What happened? Ferret?! Where's Mihail?!"
To the jester, Mihail was a friend. And to Val, he was the one who had helped him find freedom on this island. Mihail had always treated Val in the same way, no matter his appearance or character.
If the island were full of people like Mihail, Val never would have found the need to go see Doctor. He would have been able to enjoy life, full of self-esteem.
Mihail was his friend, and when Val was in the form of a woman--
As Val and the jester stood there in shock, Ferret remained silent.
But the blue-haired werewolf spitefully explained the conclusion of what had happened to Mihail.
"Internal bleeding. Compound fractures to his right arm. Contusions all over his body, and fractures to his spine. The laceration on his shoulder where he was shot with the stake was so bad that he was going into shock from blood loss by the time we carried him to the hospital."
The mechanical recitation of the list of Mihail's wounds reached Val's ears. His thoughts came to a standstill. Though the werewolf's tone could not have been more emotionless, he was clearly glaring daggers at the suit of armor before him.
'Please. Let all this just be a lie.'
Unable to accept the reality presented to them, Val and the others turned to Ferret with one last glimmer of hope in their eyes.
But Ferret did not say a word, merely hanging her head ever-so-slightly.
And as though driving the final nail into the coffin, an emotionless voice echoed from inside the suit of armor.
"Oh. So I didn't end up killing him after all."
It was as though a switch had been flipped in both Val and the jester.
The armored man's words, though rather short an utterance, was enough to tell them everything that mattered: He had done something to Mihail that should not have been done. Something they could not allow to pass unpunished.
Doctor's past sins did not matter to them. No matter what atrocities he had committed--even if he were still an unrepentant monster--and even if the armored man did indeed have the right to take revenge on Doctor--
He was an enemy.
The armored man was an enemy.
The moment the realization hit her, the jester's form faded from sight. She had turned to fog and dissipated so quickly that it was almost as though she had teleported out of view.
The armored man flinched at her sudden movement. He quickly remembered what Doctor had said earlier--"...just wait 'til you see the jester work her magic".
And if her disappearance now was actually her turning to fog--
Understanding what this meant, the man in the armor quickly leapt backwards. He could not otherwise pick out the jester's presence while surrounded by so many vampires.
Glaring at the armored man, who had put some distance between himself and the vampires and taken a fighting stance, Val apologized to Selim.
"I'm sorry, Selim."
"Pardon...?"
"I'm... Going to have to move away from you for a bit."
He had barely finished his sentence by the time he untangled his arm from Selim and leapt towards the armored man.
He changed form from that of a young boy to an image that personified the state of his emotions.
For a single moment, the young man in the armor wondered if he was hallucinating.
Lunging towards him was the disembodied maw of a great carnivorous dinosaur, the likes of which he had seen only in movies.
The gaping jaws opened fully, and from within emerged hundreds of tentacles. Smaller dinosaurs emerged from each tip, opening their jaws and exposing their glinting fangs.
A monster made of fangs and tentacles was rushing directly towards him.
Distracted by the sight unfolding before his eyes, the Eater did not realize that this presence belonged to the green-haired boy he had targeted not too long ago. He raised his right arm, sword and all, without even thinking. But Val's illusion regenerated itself even after being cut down. His teeth reached out to tear the armor's hand.
The armored man's reflexes were quick enough to help him evade the attack and leap forward diagonally to avoid the monster's charge.
But it was as though the girl in black had been waiting for this moment.
She was standing before him, blocking his way.
"Just as you said, I am indeed a mere girl who has no experience in battle."
In her right hand was a white stake--likely one he had used earlier that day against her.
The young man in the armor quickly made sure that he still had more stakes in reserve, and sent them into his helm to prepare to fire.
It would be a simple task indeed to shoot her down.
But once more, he found himself interrupted.
The jester's presence, thinned to its utmost limit by her fog state, rapidly grew dense right before his eyes. A shroud of colorful fog covered his line of sight and blocked his path.
"But you had no idea that Mihail possesses a power greater than yours. The many creatures on this island who call him a friend!"
By the time the fog dissipated once more, Ferret's right arm was driving the stake into the man's helm. The stake he was about to fire was pushed back into the barrel, destroying the mechanism from the inside.
"Now, reveal your face. And then... disappear from my sight for all eternity!"
She angrily thrust the stake into the helm once more.
The helm began to creak, before helplessly rolling off the great body underneath.
But compared to the value of what was about to shatter,
That tiny act of destruction was trivial indeed.
<=>
Six hundred meters over Neuberg.
The flock of bats flying through the air--Relic von Waldstein--caught sight of a strange phenomenon.
Though the rest of the island was eerily deserted, the courtyard of Waldstein Castle was filled with a mass of attendees easily double that of last year's number.
That alone, however, would not have troubled him.
But once the phenomenon became visible even from the skies, Relic cautiously descended in order to get to the truth behind the occurrence.
The throng of people he saw from overhead began to squirm as though they collectively made up the body of a single organism. They began to move in one direction, as though led by one objective.
The bats descended towards the gathering point without a sound.
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