𝕯𝖎𝖆𝖇𝖔𝖑𝖎𝖐 𝕷𝖔𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖘: 𝕯𝖆𝖗𝖐 𝕱𝖆𝖙𝖊

Chapter 36

Yui was thrown in the centre of the circle, her knees scraping along the hard concrete, her blood flavouring the air with sweet, ripened aroma. The sigil didn't budge, for some weird reason. It was too much for Kou, and he just wanted to be killed already. Watching the girl suffer at the hands of Reiji was something he never wanted to witness. She represented his freedom, the very reason why he was pulled out of that whorehouse. He couldn't let that bastard take her away from him.

The iron collar suffocated him as he reached out to help her writhing frame. Beside him, Subaru cried out, a trail of congealed blood flowing down from the corner of his mouth to the hollow of his neck. He clasped his own iron collar, tugging on the iron chains ruthlessly, leaving deep gashes of fingernails on his pale skin.

"Subaru kun," Kou shouted at him angrily. "Stop doing that!"

"You don't tell me what to do dimwit!" Subaru shouted back, glaring at the blonde vampire. "They're going to kill her, all because of you and your miscalculations!"

Kou felt a pang of guilt, but didn't have time to defend himself as the limp body of Ayato was dropped beside them, chained to the wall like the rest. He didn't want to put Eve into such an imminent danger. He wished he could have saved his truth seeking eye for later, but he didn't have any way of knowing what Reiji planned ahead of him.

Shu pushed his boot into Kou's shoulder, earning a pained scream from him.

"That's it, Nii san," Reiji appeared, his hands holding a silver dagger. His grey shirt had questionable red stains on it, and Kou strained against his restraints. "Reiji."

"Mr Idol," Reiji must have been trying to agitate him, as was his nature. "Do you wish to join your Eve into death as well? Do you want me to end your misery?"

Kou seethed with anger. "Fuck you."

Reiji smiled, and kneed the boy in his chest. The air resounded with the sound of something snapping in half. Kou coughed up blood, staining his white shirt.

This wasn't how it was supposed to end. He tried his luck with the truth seeking eye, but it evaded him. It was like everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. Yui's broken body twitched, her golden locks falling over her forehead, framing her face. Kou noticed, in the dull light of the moon, that she had fang marks just above her heart, and a conspicuous stain marred the neckline of her dress. His heart cried out in pity. "Take me instead!"

"Oi!" Subaru protested. "What the fuck do you think you are doing?"

Kou hung his head, his ego giving way to his desperation. She'd been the one to care for Ruki when he had been bruised and battered with the fight with the familiars. She'd forgiven his brothers for whatever hurt they caused her. She'd given them second chances despite them being half-bloods. The least Kou could do was offer his measly life in return for hers.

"I'm willing to die in place of her," Kou stared at Reiji, his mismatched eyes echoing defiance at him.

"Kou!" Subaru said, yanking hard on the iron chains. "You do not get to sacrifice your damn life for anything."

Ayato stirred in his unconscious state, and now Kou noticed that He had been handicapped in a similar way, a point of his broken rib jutting out through his fresh pink flesh. Kou gulped down the bile that came up his throat. "It's a simple sacrifice, right? I can volunteer-"

Reiji bent down and smashed his face mercilessly, leaving his nose bent and bleeding. Kou couldn't feel a thing at first, but then he felt the burning sensation of the poison on Reiji's knuckles, as a piercing scream tore away tortuously from Kou's lungs. It felt like he had been set on fire and left in an oil field. The poison seeped through the pores of his skin to enter his bloodstream, making him writhe in agony, as Shu tapped his foot. "Tch," he said, looking at Kou's convulsing form. "How can we sacrifice you when you are undergoing such distress now?"

Kou's cheek scraped the ground beneath him and he winced. If anything happened to his Eve... There would be no reason for his brothers to exist. Although it sounded pathetic and degrading to his species, he knew his being meant nothing without the Eve safe and sound. The Eden project had been a failure. And with that, they'd been just reduced to worthless turn-ups that needed to be disposed away.

Yui didn't deserve this.

His chest felt tight, and he knew something was wrong. Probably pneumothorax because of the rib fracture. He didn't need his lungs for breathing, but even for his immortal state, air in the thoracic cavity was life threatening. He gasped for air, knowing that he'd either pass out from the complication, or fucking die on the spot. His vision started to blur around the edges. His mouth tried to form words, but failed to do so. His eyes drooped, heavy with the exhaustion of the continuous torture. Would he die tonight? He didn't know, but he was sure that Reiji would.

***

Yui felt her chest heave with pain as her bite stung so excruciatingly that it made her see stars. Or perhaps, there were stars in her vision, and she was on the roof of the mansion, ready to be sacrificed. Her hands had been tied at her back. The rough concrete dug into her skin, leaving angry red inflammation all over. Her vision was blocked by Shu's long legs, but she could grossly make out the silhouettes of Kou, Subaru and Ayato, all with iron collars around their necks, chained to the wall in front of her. She started to struggle with her bonds fervently, as Reiji finally noticed her. His pink eyes shined in the dark with a malice she had never seen in her life. Maybe he was closer to his ambition that all of them initially thought.

Reiji blinked once at her, a welcoming but spiteful smile on his lips. "Miss Komori."

She screamed at him. Her will exploded inside her, her vision going blank for a few seconds as he stalked close, a spring in his step. Kanato stepped forward beside her, his hand splaying over the ground beside her body, pressing his palm lightly over the concrete. Her body jerked forward, as a shockwave ripped through the ground, into her body. Her pained scream pierced through the night, as she heard fluttering of feathers and wings, creatures of the night swoop past her. Reiji's frame bent over her, and a startling pink glow emanated from the ground below her. Right below her waist, above her hands, she felt something wet and slick leak through the ground.

This is a dream. This is another dream. I'm stuck in a never ending nightmare. She grasped the little bit of sanity left inside her, feeling the wet slickness move in a centrifugal fashion, spreading through her waist towards her extremities. Her hands felt like they would rip apart as she frantically tried to get free of her bounds. The liquid seeped into her dress, turning it from a pure white to a rusty red, dripping crimson at the edge.

Reiji stepped into the sigil on top of which her body had been thrown. The circle was now filled up to ten centimetres of congealed blood like substance. His black shoes submerged into the liquid as he stood right before her, his hand now pointing a sharp silver blade in his hand towards her chest. He kneeled beside her, her hair now slick with the substance, as she cried out, pleading to him. "I'm sorry, Reiji san. Let me go, for god's sake."

Reiji smiled once, the shadow of his maleficence looming over her small body, as he whispered, "But I'm doing it for your god's sake, Komori san."

With that, he slowly and tortuously slid the length of the blade into the bluish bruised skin over her heart.

The knife split her skin like a hot knife through butter, making her take a shaky breath as she felt it part through her skin, muscles and fascia. It finally was buried to the hilt, piercing through her heart, as she bit down her screams, afraid to make her death even more insufferable. This wasn't supposed to happen, though. She had the fruit of life. She could become Eve. She wanted to live, and how bright her desire to live was, it blinded her vision, as Reiji muttered a silent curse upon her.

Life, death. What matters more?

Her hands went limp, as she held on to her breath. What does it mean, anyway? Death. Life. The In Between. Hell. Heaven. Was it the same that she experienced, or was life richer in meaning?

All she could hear were the empty words in her head, as Reiji pulled out the blade from her body, Subaru's heart wrenching cries and angry howls of pain now splitting her head in two.

Memento mori.

Remember. Death.