Seraph Of The End: Omega - Chapter 4

"Attention! All humans are to report to the attendance area! This is non negotiable! If any of you humans fail to attend, you will be severely punished!"

You paused, looking up from where you sat on a bean bag chair, in the middle of a battle on Pokemon Omega Ruby. A frown appeared on your face, 'The hell do they want now?' you wondered, annoyed.

It wasn't very often that they used the intercom system to broadcast messages across the vampire city of Sanguinem. For the most part, it was just the daily reminder to head to the blood harvesting building for the daily blood draining.

And it was first thing in the morning too. The only reason you were up, was because of your morning training.

Sighing, you quickly saved the game and closed the Nintendo DS. You got ready and left your crappy stone house, locking the door behind you and making your way through the streets alongside a bunch of other human children that were quick to jump at the vampires words.

Not long later, you found yourself in amongst the thong of thousands of other humans, standing before a large wooden stage in the attendance area. 'Odd, that wasn't here last time.' you thought, eyeing the stage.

But, what was more interesting was the fact that there were a bunch of white clad vampires lined up atop the stage. Noble vampires. Only they were allowed to not wear the blue hooded cloaks within the city. And there was a wooden podium on the middle of the stage as well.

Your eyes though, were on a specific vampire atop the stage. A familiar muscular vampire with tanned skin and red and brown hair. Crowley. 'It must be important if that guy is here.' you thought.

"Why hello there you cute little lost lambs~" a sing song voice suddenly washed throughout the area and your head snapped to the side of the stage where a tall and lithe, prettily handsome male vampire had appeared, with creamy white skin and long silver hair tied back into a ponytail. He was carrying a large object in his hands, covered by a large white sheet that hid it from view.

You grimaced. You hadn't even seen him appear. Which meant, he had to be a quite high tier progenitor vampire. You'd spent years around Crowley at this point, met up with him dozens of times and watched him move at absurd speeds. You'd grown accustomed to trying to keep up with that speed, and you'd reached a point where you could just faintly keep track of Crowley when he moved.

"Now, I'm sure all you little cuties are wondering why you're here exactly," the silver haired vampire practically pranced across the stage, "I, Ferid Bathory am here to enlighten you and your squishy little feeble brains."

Everyone was quiet. Not one human dared to speak up. Despite the mans seemingly genial and cheerful demeanour, not one person here, could miss the dangerous aura he exuded.

He placed the sheet clad object on the podium and stood behind it, "It is with a heavy heart, I must tell you all of some of your own. They tried to escape last night, despite all the kindness we've shown them, why, one who I'd taken a special liking to even stole from me to aid in their little plan," Ferid mock wiped a tear from his eye, "As such, I was forced to hunt them down and kill them all."

The silence turned stunned, and there was a bevy of uneasy shifting and withheld gasps. Despite the shocking news, nobody wanted to be the one to interrupt this guy.

You were not afraid. But neither were you going to interrupt. There was just no benefit to it. 'I wonder what idiots tried to escape?' you wondered idly. Your heart went out to them and you praised their guts. But they obviously didn't think things through properly.

"So, I want you to take a good look up here, mkay? I'm here to show you today what happens when you cute little kiddie humans become bad little boys and girls and need to be punished," Ferid laughed pleasantly and then pulled the sheet off of the object ob the podium, "Like cute little Akane here!"

Your mouth hung low and your eyes went wide in shock. There, in a glass jar filled with liquid, was the head of Akane Hyakuya.

Your mouth opened and closed. You tried to form words, but couldn't. Tried to formulate thoughts, but didn't know where to begin. Your eyes were just locked on the decapitated head of the kind girl you'd grown up with. The kind girl who was coming over today for dinner and who gave you butterflies in your stomach and made your cheeks feel warm.

...She was just gone?

You knew Akane and the others were weaker than you. And they could be killed by any vampire as easy as breathing. But...it had never clicked for you what that meant.

Akane was dead. She was gone, forever.

You weren't close to her. But beyond Mahiru, Akane was perhaps the closest thing you had to someone you cared about and someone who cared about you.

Find a reason to live. That was what Mahiru had told you that you needed to find. It was why you planned on escaping this place someday when you were strong enough so that the vampires couldn't. Akane would never be able to do that.

B̷͈͍̗͍̣̃u̶̹̪̻̦̐̂r̵͇̻̐͊̈́̇͜n̵͉̼̈́͑ ̶̡̮̮̰̫͋̊t̸̮̦̝̟͆̂͝h̷̯̙̿̊̈̎̕ê̴̳̏͝͝m̴̢̫͎̪̐͂̏̒ ̸͎̹͇̐a̸̬̬̝̤̿͜͝͝l̷̡̩̬̈͋̀̋l̴̡̯̻͚͎̿͛̽!

You clutched your head and grit your teeth as pain exploded in your skull. You were panting, deeper and deeper on each breath. Your back muscles spasmed and it felt like something wanted to rip its way out of your back and it took all of your self control to not just shout out loud and throw yourself at the vampires to tear them limb from limb.

T̵̩̮̞̭̭̾ẖ̴̖̣̽́i̶̫͋̀͆͠s̸̯͖̤̺̪̏̆͘ ̸̻̝̝̊t̴̝̑r̷̟͖̦̽̐̅͘͜͝ă̶̱̈́s̶̨̛͓͠ḣ̴͍̥̙̂́ ̴̜̈́ď̵͙͍͎͒̓ͅͅa̶̼̅̍̾r̷̛̤̤̙̩̔̊͗͐e̵̬̓s̸͕̱͉̩̣͑̎̉̈́͝ ̶̡̡̥͎͓͐ţ̵̺̣̀̍͛̽o̸̢̩͕̫̊̒̕ ̶͈̙̄̒̀š̶̺̮͓̂ͅţ̶͇͊̒̽͝e̵̩̲̼̜͊a̸̡̠͐l̸̫̹̆͒̄ ̸̨̏f̷̧̤̯́́̈́̏̄ȑ̴̤̲̱̙̠̄o̷̥͔͔̪͂͆́̍m̸̡͇͔̻̃̀̍͑͘ͅ ̴̨̲̠̜̿͛̒̽͘m̶͖̠͖̄̇̉̀e̶̩̘̰͍͗̀̓̓̕!̴̼̙͋̂?̸̡̣̯͕̤̑̂͌̍!

You dug your nails deep into your biceps, until your nails pierced your skin and blood poured freely. 'No!' you roared at yourself inwardly. You would not lose control to rage here. You'd never felt a burning anger like this before, but you would not submit to it, not here. It would be foolish. It wouldn't accomplish anything! It would just get you killed!

What could you do against dozens of progenitor vampires? Nothing, yet at least.

The rage lessened bit by bit as you gained control of yourself. No, wait. It didn't. You just focused it.

Your eyes were set on the floating head of Akane, a pleasant burning running through your entire body. 'Ferid Bathory.' you repeated that name to yourself inwardly, over and over, not paying attention at all.

"That's all children, you may go now, just keep in mind the fate of cute little Akane when you think of being naughty, kay?" Ferid laughed and let you all leave.

A voice echoed over the intercom system, telling everyone to head over to the blood harvesting building.

You ignored it and headed straight home to pack your bags. No more waiting for someday. You were leaving now.

_____________

You'd long since prepared for the day that you would leave this place behind. There was a reason beyond just improving your training that you had stocked up no those nutrient drinks.

They qualified as an entire meal. One of them provided enough liquid and calories for an entire days worth of food.

You kicked open the slab you'd laid on your floor to hide what you'd stolen over the years here. Hundreds of of nutrient drinks stared back at you, from within a massive bag. You quickly pulled it up and threw in your gaming consoles as well. The bag itself was as tall as you were when all was said and done.

But you weren't done.

You made your way to the back of the cramped rock house and pushed aside another slab hiding a hole in the wall. And there, sitting on a peg within it, was the second class vampire blade you'd stolen years ago.

You pulled it out and sheathed it over your back, and then grabbed the bag containing everything you were taking with you and hoisted it up over your shoulder.

And with no hesitation, you left the home you'd spent the last four years living within, behind. The burning warmth flowing through you filled you with purpose, washed away any doubts or hesitation.

Your destination? A massive set of pipes that let water flow into the city from up above. A mere ten minute walk away from your home.

They were pipes that went straight up, so no normal human could use them to escape. Which was why the vampires weren't at all bothered about keeping them guarded.

And as expected. When you reached where the pipes were, there wasn't a single vampire in sight.

With a running start, you dashed forward and jumped up into the pipe as high as you could and then lashed out with your hands and feet outstretched pushing against the insides of the pipe to keep yourself aloft.

And then, with gritted teeth you began pushing yourself up bit by bit.

Mere minutes later, you found yourself pushing up out onto a grassy hill connected to a lake by the pipe.

Your clothing was soaked, but you ignored it in favor of staring up at the bright sun beaming down upon you.

It was the first time you'd felt the sun in four years. And it felt glorious upon your skin. You felt revitalized and full of energy being underneath its warm light once more, and despite all the time you'd spent underground, your eyes didn't need to adjust to its light and nor did they hurt at all staring up into it.

You basked in the warmth and light of the sun for a good few minutes before giving yourself a shake and staring down at the city that the grassy hill overlooked.

"End of the world my ass." you snorted.

Despite the utter lack of humans, for the most part, the city was in pristine condition beyond the growth of vegetation here and there, and the likes of flipped over vehicles and some cracks in the streets.

You were about to head on down when a tingle ran up your spine.

On instinct you whirled around to look up at the top of the hill and your eyes narrowed. A monster stood atop the hill.

A massive behemoth that looked like a cross between cthulhu and a centaur. An armored white head and torso, with long tentacle arms with pincers atop them, a lower body armored in green shell, with four massive pointed legs with the same shell protecting them, and a long stinger clad tail jutting out of its backside.

And in the center of its chest was a wide open mouth with circular rows upon circular rows of massive jagged shark like teeth.

God was it ugly. "This must be a Horseman Of The Apocalypse huh?" you mused. The vampires talked of them often as a way of trying to make you and the other humans grateful for taking you all in.

Monsters that appeared when the apocalypse began and hunted down any surviving humans.

It gave a massive bellowing roar and began charging down the grassy hill towards you, at a pace that could eclipse a speeding car.

It was fast. Far faster than any human. But, it wasn't as fast as even a low level vampire. And, it wasn't much faster than you were either.

'This is the perfect chance to see where I stand.' you decided. It was also the perfect chance to see how strong these things really were, which was important now that you were back on the surface and would most likely have to deal with them from now on.

You set your bag down and reached up over your shoulder and unsheathed the vampire blade, your hand wrapping around the golden colored hilt.

And then you ran up towards it to meet it as fast as you could.

In mere moments you were within its range and it thrust out its long tentacle arms, stretching them towards you, its pincers opening up with the intent to crush you between them.

You threw yourself forward into a slide, going right beneath them and sliding on your legs up the hill and beneath its body.

You slashed its legs as you went by and they buckled underneath it.

You came out form the other side of it as its legs gave out beneath it and stabbed your sword into the ground, wrenching yourself to the side just in time to avoid the stinger of its tail stabbing into your previous position.

You spun with your momentum, pulling the blade free from the ground and swinging. The vampire blade sliced through the tail as thick as you were as easy as a hot knife through butter. It gave an agonized shriek as half of its tail slapped loudly to the ground and blood poured from it in a great river of red.

You wasted no time and jumped onto its back before it could recover and swung your blade once again, cleaving right through its body under the upper torso armor it had and separating it into two.

You jumped off its back as it gave a keening wail, upper half flailing about, before slowly going limp and dying.

"Well that was easy." you snorted, sheathing your blade. With how big and intimidating it looked, you were expecting more.

It told you one thing though. You could do this. You could handle them no problem, so the only threat was the vampires.

______________

One thing you learned very quickly in your time outside of Sanguinem, was that, your initial thoughts on the post apocalyptic world, were quite wrong.

While the city of Tokyo looked like little had changed and was in great condition. That was only for the part of the city that was outside the vampire capital city of Japan.

The further away you got from the entrance to the vampire city, the more and more decrepit and wrecked the buildings and such became. Entire sky scrapers literally cut in half.

And the further away you got, the more Horsemen of The Apocalypse you ran into. Some parts of the city were literally crawling with swarms of them, tens of dozens, even hundreds in some parts. All of them prowling around looking for humans to kill.

Where the hell they came from, you had no idea. It didn't matter how many of them you killed, two more were there to take its place in a never ending swarm.

You'd even taken a few days to follow one at some point, hoping it would lead you to some kind of nest or something to sate your curiosity. But nope, all it did was wander around looking for humans to kill.

Interestingly enough though. You found out that adults had not in fact all died. Only most of them. The human race was reduced to a mere one tenth of its old population, and the very oceans had become toxic to humans. But, they were surviving and you'd even met a few small human settlements hiding away underground from the vampires and horsemen.

They were very grateful and happy to fill you in after you ended up saving a bunch of them form horsemen attacks.

You learned, that were was a human military that was fighting back against those trying to wipe out the human population. The Japanese Imperial Demon Army.

Led, by the Hiragi family. The same family name as Mahiru.

And upon learning that, things began to slot into place for you and begin to make a lot more sense.

The new human capital was the city of Shibuya. Once a massive district in Tokyo, now walled over by walls several stories high and declared as a new city entirely.

Seven months came and went.

And, it wasn't as smooth sailing as you'd liked to have admit.

For the first time ever, you began to experience nightmares. Nightmares, of seeing Akane alive and well, begging for your help before her head was torn right off of her shoulders in front of you, with you being unable to do anything to help.

It was quite the experience and you found yourself jerking awake at odd times, sweat pouring from your body and heart rate accelerated, and there would be an oddly heavy weight on your heart and a lump in your throat.

You really didn't like it. Despite how novel an experience it was.

On top of that, for the first month you spent outside Sanguinem, you had no access to electricity. You went an entire month without playing your games. Made even worse by the fact you visited a bunch of abandoned game shops and had free pick of whatever games you wanted.

It was a truly, truly horrible experience. All you could do to pass the time was train, sleep and explore.

It wasn't until you saved a small settlement of humans and they gave you a small solar generator as thanks that you finally got to play your games again.

But, as the months wore on, you got more and more tired of setting up and taking down camp. Having to set up your consoles every time you wanted to play them was a pain in the ass and made you miss the orphanage more and more and even your place in Sanguinem was preferable to it.

And that was why in the end, you decided the best thing for you to do was head to Shibuya, the home of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army. No doubt they would covet your strength, as all the human settlements had done before.

But for comfortable living conditions and the relaxing ability to keep all your consoles set up and not have to take them down every time you had to take down your camp and move on, it may be worth it.

"Hmm, what's this?" you looked over the top of the building you landed on in interest.

One of the safer avenues for travelling around was hopping over roofs. It kept you out of the way of the Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, and the less noise you made at ground level, the less likely it was for vampires to find you.

You really didn't want to bother with killing even low level vampires. It was in fact possible, all you had to do was drain their blood entirely with your sword, or cut out their heart.

But, in the process, they would let out a massive death wail that only vampires could hear and it could be heard for miles around. Confronting them and killing them was a last resort, because it would bring any other vampires in the area running.

Interestingly though, as you looked over the roof of the building you bore witness to an odd sight. Dozens of white vampire clothing lay strewn about the street, alongside a bunch of second class vampire weapons, but no vampires in sight.

Not only that, there were corpses of a bunch of humans strewn around them. They were each clad in an odd black and green uniform, some wearing capes, some wearing odd bucket hats.

'Are these the Japanese Imperial Demon Army?' you wondered. You were getting quite close to Shibuya now, so it would make sense to see them about here.

Even dead ones since the vampires wouldn't allow a human territory to go untested.

What really caught your interest though, was the weapons the corpses of the humans had in their hands or around them. There were a variety of them from a sword, to a mace, one even had a bow. They all looked like standard weapons, except they were pitch black with neon green edges and blades and such.

And even up here, you could feel a kind of pressure coming from them. One of them specifically, a huge two metre double bladed battle axe held in the hands of a large and muscular dead human gave off a much much stronger feeling than the rest. It felt almost like it was calling out to you.

Your interest was definitely peaked.

You drew your sword and hopped off of the side of the building, stabbing your supernaturally enhanced blade into the side of the building and using it to slow your descent as you went down.

You pulled your blade free as you reached the bottom and sheathed it over your back again. Then, you made your way over to the corpse holding the huge axe and kicked him over to get a better look at it.

It really was quite the weapon. About two metres long with a sturdy gleaming ebony black metal handle, the two axe heads on the top taking an almost crescent moon shape, one going upwards, one downwards, the blades a gleaming neon green.

There was no getting around it. It was obvious.

This weapon, and the other ones wielded by the humans, were obviously of magical design. 'Which means humans have access to magic of some form as well.' you mused.

That was interesting, very interesting. Perhaps it was possible for you to learn magic yourself when you reached Shibuya?

Either way, all these amazing weapons, of human and vampire make alike were free for the taking. All yours to do with as you pleased.

You reached down and grasped the handle of the large black and green axe. And as you did, darkness overtook your consciousness.

_____________

"Taiyou-kun, you need to wake up." a soft, familiar voice roused you from sleep, alongside a soft gentle caress on your cheek.

With a yawn, you sat up in your bed and rubbed lightly at your eyes to get the sleep out of them. "I was only resting my eyes a bit." you replied and let out a yawn.

Akane kneeling beside your bed, went from gently cupping your cheek to prodding your cheek lightly with her index finger, "You don't need to try and be tough and all in control all the time you know?" she giggled, "So you fell asleep a bit, nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I'm not embarrassed." you denied the accusation. You really had only dozed off for a bit. The experiments and training today had been quite draining, nothing to you of course, you just needed a tiny little forty winks to catch recover.

"You know, you always deny being anything like Yu-chan and get all worked up and pouty about it, but that pride of yours is a lot like his," Akane giggled, standing up from her kneeling position and making her way over to middle of your bedroom, where there was a slightly steaming plate of curry waiting, "Now c'mon, I know how much you like curry so I made sure to help out in the kitchen today and make some especially for you."

As she looked over her shoulder and beamed softly at, you, the setting sunlight cast an orange glow around her that lit up her pretty, gentle features and you found your mouth hanging low and swallowing heavily.

Ah, so maybe she was a bit right. You'd definitely slept longer than you'd meant to. You must have been more exhausted than you thought.

"Now, c'mon Taiyou-kun, don't just sit there looking silly, come eat," she gestured to the table, "If you're not quick, Mahiru-neechan will get here before your done and drag you off to play on an empty stomach."

You found your lips involuntarily closing and a smile spreading across your lips, "Alright, thanks for the food." you replied and stood up, happily making your way over to her and the table.

As you sat down to the curry and began eating it. You couldn't help but let loose a hum of appreciation. It tasted so good. You couldn't remember the last time you had eaten anything that tasted good like this.

For months now, you'd just been drinking those crappy-

"Enjoying it Taiyou-kun?" Akane asked eagerly, leaning over the table to stare into your own with shining eyes.

You put that thought out of mind, "Yeah, it's amazing," you nodded, "Thanks for making it for me, you're the best."

Akane giggled, her cheeks flushing, "Aw, that's so nice." she said, cupping her cheeks and looking to the side.

Was it? You just appreciated her making it for you. It wasn't like anyone specifically went out of their way to make you food out of care for you. The orphanage matron just did whatever to appease you, she didn't really care for you or anyone at the orphanage really. If you wanted anything like this, you had to make it yourself.

There was something really different about a meal lovingly prepared for you. 'I can somewhat understand Mika's fascination with playing family if they do things like this for each other.' you mused internally.

"Still, since I've done something like this for you.." Akane began.

You looked up from your curry to look her in the eye curiously.

"Do you think you can do me a teeny weeny little favor?" she asked, pretty brown eyes sparkling at you.

Your heart skipped a beat, "Sure, whatever you want Akane." you smiled back at her.

"Perfect," she smiled widely and then stood up, leaning entirely over the table and bending down a bit to cup your cheeks gently with both hands, "Then, can I ask you a question?" she whispered, face approaching your own until you were mere inches apart and you could feel the warmth of her breath on your lips.

Your body tingled and you felt your blood speed up in your veins, butterflies flickering in your belly, "Sure..whatever you want." you whispered back no instinct, repeating yourself.

"Then.." she began in a light whisper, her pretty face completely level with your own and so close you could count her eyelashes. "Why did you let me die?" her voice became hard and monotone, and at the same time the lights flickered, the room going dark for all of a split moment before coming back, and revealing Akane.

Your heart leapt into your throat and horror filled you at the sight of blood spewing from her eyes, nose, mouth and ears.

No. This was wrong!

Just as suddenly did the horror spread through you, so did a calming heat. You mechanically reached up and grasped the gentle hands of the girl cupping your cheeks and didn't look away from her bleeding eyes.

You crushed the bones of her hands between your own, drawing a cry of agony from the girl. "What the hell are you?" you snarled. Anger, a feeling you were so unused to threatened to rage out of control, but you held it back, "You're not Akane. Akane was far too kind to pull something like this. And her death was in no way my fault. She didn't even let me know she was going to try and escape, I have no blame what so ever in her death."

The agonized expression on her face changed to a smirk, "I see, despite your age, you're much more mentally capable than that other oaf," she mused, before huffing, "And what annoyingly good control of your emotions, there's no wiggle room at all with you."

As she said that, the sound of cracking glass resounded out around you and she shattered, disappearing from your grasp, alongside the room around you.

And a moment later, you found yourself standing within a white void, and ten feet in front of you was a massive wolf. But not like any wolf you had ever seen, its fur was thick and rigid and gleaming, looking like a polished silver gem, and it wore thick silver plated armor around its legs and tail, with neon crimson red trim.

It stared right into your eyes with its own slitted crimson red ones.

"So this is your true form huh?" you crossed your arms and stared right back, "I assume you're that axe I picked up."

A chuckle left the wolfs throat, "My name boy, is Marchosias, the demon wolf!" it- he declared in a deep, rumbling masculine voice, "I am the demon sealed within the axe, as you can see." the demon wolf stepped lightly to the side and there you could see that same axe, buried into the ground behind it.

"And what exactly is a demon?" you asked calmly, not at all afraid, "Do you come from hell or something?"

A chuckle left Marchosias, "Nothing of the sort boy, no, Taiyou," he said, and surprised you ever so slightly by lying down, head resting on his front paws as he regarded you curiously, "We demons are merely vampires that were killed after losing our hearts or starving. We were then sealed within these blades to be used to hunt and kill vampires by the humans."

What a disappointed origin for demons. So they were just vampire scrubs? Talk about a let down. "You are being surprisingly forthcoming with the information here." you pointed out.

The wolf shrugged his shoulders, "I like to think of it as being intelligent," he replied, "You see, we demons feast on the emotions of those we possess and take over their bodies. And the same can be said for we demons trapped in these swords, a price for you to use our powers. But as it is right now, it is impossible for me to take your body. And you will be heading to the human settlement and will find out anyway. I'm the type that likes to play it smart, I could have taken over my old host at any point, I let him wield me to get me out of that city though just so when I took him over and gained his body I would not be completely surrounded by humans that would gang up and slay me once again. Unfortunately, the trash went and got killed by trashy low level vampires before I could. How pitiful."

Hmm. It was pretty sound logic. And revealed quite a bit to you. The more control you had over your emotions, the less the demon could get out of you. And it obviously provided quite the boost for humans considering how many dead vampires you saw laying around the street, or what was left of them anyway.

"I assume you want something then if you're wanting to get on my good side." you replied, raising an eyebrow at him.

Marchosias grinned, showing off rows of fanged teeth, "Indeed Taiyou," he nodded his massive head, "I am the great demon wolf Marchosias, of the black demon series of cursed gear weaponry. The best of the best weapons you could get your hands on and the power I can grant you is beyond what most humans can ever dream of. How would you like to be my wielder?"

_____________

When you were roused back to consciousness, you found yourself laying on the ground next to the corpse of the burly ex wielder of your new weapon.

"Hmm." you hummed, staring up at the sun. You felt stronger. Far, far stronger than you had before.

And you'd learned a lot from speaking to the wolf now within your soul. Of the Hiragi, the Imperial Demon Army, how they operated.

It was amusing how the demon, a former vampire knew more about how the humans operated than how the vampires did. As it turned out, because vampires lost their emotions upon turning, when they became demons, they still lacked those emotions, but upon devouring the emotions of others, they got stronger and regained emotions.

And the powers granted to you were something else. On top of gaining a seven times boost to your physical abilities, you also gained the ability to reflect physical attacks and magic attacks back at any attacker so long as you could get your axe in the way of the attack.

Your eyes flickered form the sun down to your right wrist. The double bladed axe was gone, and in its place, was a black bracelet with two wolf heads clasped around your wrist.

And with a thought, you could change that bracelet back into the double headed axe at any time.

How very convenient.

There were risks of course, to this deal. But, what you got out of the deal, the benefits, far outweighed them as far as you were concerned.

And this little deal would make it so much easier to accomplish your goals.

You hadn't yet found a true reason for living. But, beyond wanting to live your life in comfort and enjoy your games. You also wanted to claim the head of Ferid Bathory for what he did to Akane, and your meeting with Marchosias only enhanced that desire.

With that thought in mind, you pushed yourself to your feet and picked up your bag. You grabbed the vampire blades laying around the street, all seven of them and tossed them in the bag as well. It was tempting to grab the other cursed gears as Marchosias called them, but he cautioned you against it, and so you left them behind and continued on your journey to Shibuya.

And from there, your new life in the remaining true human society began.

____________

This sadly is where this one died a pitiful death.