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Chapter 11 – The Vampire That Got Away
“Sure, I can talk about her, if that’s what you want.” Ken sipped water from a glass on the table next to him. “I just wanted to hear a good story, that’s all. I won’t announce it to the world. At least not yet.”
Souji nodded and sighed. “What’s there you want to know about me or the story?” he asked, and retreated to the chair, proceeding to plop down tiredly.
“What’s there to tell me, eh?” Ken grinned, knowing he had Souji’s curiosity in the bag. “You can say anything and everything you want. Then again, you can say nothing at all. I would guess you just didn’t want to hear anything I have to say. It’s fine – you’ll just be kicking your balls because you didn’t stick around.”
“My ears are open, OPEN!” Souji insisted. “I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“A bit impatient, aren’t we?” Ken made tut-tut noises and shook his head. “Well, since you already so willingly spilled so much about your lovely Sylvia and my ‘buddy-boy’ Vin, I suppose I should start sharing again. What do you want to know? Any specifics?”
Souji scratched his head. “To tell you the truth, I wanna know how this whole ordeal started. From the beginning, since I wasn’t really there. You skimmed it earlier when my attention was a bit thin.” He smirked. “Besides, I like long stories, you could say.”
Ken nodded. “I’ll give you the part where Kaori’s story is intertwined with mine. It’s near beginning, but let’s not get picky about it.” He paused, rubbing his arm a little. His eyes clouded over slightly as he continued. “I had started the WPA maybe for a few years, I don’t really remember. We needed… test subjects, and we happened to come across Kaori.”
“Your men captured her, didn’t they?” Souji interrupted flatly.
“Okay, so a few of my men somehow ‘got’ to her… I told you, let’s not get picky.” He smiled a little sadly. “But we never did any tests on her, for any of the projects back then. We had other subjects, and I kept her separate from the rest.”
“Why?”
Ken absent-mindedly stopped rubbing his arm. “I don’t know. But I do know that I was more naïve then than I am now, and I wouldn’t hurt women and children. I thought we should keep our priorities in check, and keep others from knowing what we wanted, in case they wanted to interfere. It kept the organization from getting the help it needed, and thus, the WPA almost fell apart.”
“Buuut… obviously from the tone of your voice, things didn’t go as planned…”
“Yeah. Kaori… she was vulnerable. She obviously had some other man she was hoping would come and save her, kicking in doors between his teeth and whatnot. She waited, and I started to wait along with her. Then I started to wonder if he’d ever show up… but he didn’t. And like an idiot, I started to think she was too good for him. I started to fall for her.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Ridiculous, and ironic, now that I think about it. But that line of thinking told me, that maybe I was good enough. I started to see us together, which didn’t bode well from the start. Plain and simple, she was on the rebound, and she thought she was in love with me when I told her how I felt.” He sighed and paused a while before continuing. “And I eventually really fell for her. I was in love… but she didn’t love me. Still stuck on the guy, I think. But we had some time between us when the moments were sweet. They’ll always be moments I keep inside, because to keep them anywhere else would be too painful.” Ken blinked, and his eyes focused on Souji once more. “But we had a kid.”
“Kei,” Souji supplied simply.
“Yeah. Kei.” Ken drank deeply from the small cup by his bed. Souji refilled it for him before asking his next question.
“That’s tough…” he said quietly. “Did you ever find out who she was waiting for?”
Ken smiled bitterly, his eyes clouding again. “Senketsu Sho.”
“Whaaat?” Souji said, surprised. “The leader of the Inner Sanctum?”
“Yeah. He came one day, out of the blue. That was when I found out Kaori was a vampire.” He paused, his hand coming over his eyes. “I felt absolutely betrayed, and technically, it wasn’t that I left her. She left me for him. A few years later, she shows up on my doorstep and gives me Kei, saying she can’t take care of him anymore. She can’t be with me anymore, because she found out what the WPA was working towards. Man, I didn’t even know we had Kei until she showed up. She was pregnant when she left me to be with her precious Sho.” He shook his head. “So I took care of Kei, raised him and all that. She never came back.”
Souji was hesitant. “Do you think it was… real love, or just an infatuation?”
“Of course it was real!” Ken said vehemently, losing his calm for a moment before he heaved a sigh. “Or I like to think it was. It was real for me, but for her, I really have no idea. It seems like I just really wanted to believe that she loved me.” He smiled sadly again, and Souji realized it was his version of crying, even a little. It had been so long ago, he figured Ken wouldn’t be crying or anything anymore. Then again, he couldn’t picture Ken crying at all. More like hitting walls and throwing fits or something like that.
“I guess the difference between true love and infatuation… is that true love hurts more afterwards. And it hurt… really badly, especially after she dropped off Kei. I thought she was coming to see me, to try to mend bridges with what she didn’t say.”
“…So then the moral of the story is to unceremoniously give up your sexuality and become a bisexual, is that it?” Souji said after a bit of silence, prodding Ken with a grin.
“If that’s a joke, I don’t quite see what’s so funny,” Ken replied with a straight face. Then he smiled all the same. “Nice attempt. I give it a 10 for effort.”
“You shouldn’t encourage me.” Souji laughed. “But I take it you still feel like shit, even after my poor attempt with all its wonderful effort.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” He turned somber. “I guess I’m not really over her.”
“Well go find someone new to drool over. You’re not doing yourself any good feeling sorry for yourself.” Souji stood up, putting his hands on his hips.
“Yeah…”
Souji looked at him for a while, and then shook his head. “Well, you know me; I’ve got things to do, people to kill. And you seem like you need some nice alone time, or time to rest. I’ll leave ya to it then, Mister Ken.” He waved and started out the door.
“Hey, Souji,” Ken called. Souji popped his head back inside the room. “Thanks.”
“Hey, no problem. Just remember our little deal, huh?” Souji winked, leaving Ken shaking head and chuckling.
“Dracmanus.”
“Whore.”
They glared at each other as if electricity danced between their eyes. “What are you doing here?” Eiji said, clearly irritated. It was too early in the morning to feel this mad.
“I was about to ask you the same,” Tomoe replied, her voice edged with cutting malice.
“I live here now, remember?” Eiji smirked. “It’s you who’s not supposed to be here.”
“I was here to wait for Ken-san. He was supposed to show me the beginnings of my work…” she glanced at her watch, “…4 hours ago.”
“Well, I’m here to wait for him too. Gotta start the training, you know.” Eiji smiled, though nothing about it was happy. It was showing off, because he understood that while she had to work, he could have a little fun kicking and hitting things.
Tomoe could only glare. She didn’t have to like anything about her job, and she really didn’t. It was as if she felt nothing for her work. But she wasn’t about to admit that to this pompous Dracmanus.
Why did she care what he thought?
“I do not harbor any feelings about my work. I am a professional. Therefore you have no need to ‘show-off’, as you were doing.” It was Tomoe’s turn to smirk.
“Oh really,” Eiji said dryly. He was disappointed that he hadn’t budged her. Maybe he could shove her away from that cold and formal exterior and see what was beneath. If there was anything.
Tomoe continued to glare, unaware that the guards were watching their every move. They were there, after all, to guard the Mansion, and Tomoe and Eiji were essentially in the lobby. Instead of acknowledging them, Tomoe’s thoughts ran furiously. There was something about this Dracmanus that had changed – he was no longer that angry about his sister’s death. Before, when they had first met, all she could perceive of him were his cold eyes. Now, it was hers that were probably cold. She had lost her entire family during the feuds, and though they never acknowledged her after the day she left them, she still valued them as kinsmen. This Dracmanus – this pompous and annoying young man (though they were probably the same age) – was the cause of it. Whether she could forgive him, she would have to see in the future.
Eiji met her glare equally. There couldn’t be anything behind that cold exterior. She was a rock, nothing more. That he could have thought there was something, was simply stupid of him. There wasn’t any room inside the stone heart aside from the hatred. Hatred of him? Well, that glare definitely pointed that way. But why? For those precious people who died in the feuds? Their lives didn’t matter, since he was alone to begin with. And so, as far as he could tell, was she.
But how stupid again, to be thinking that there was some link between them!
“Excuse me, Hibou-san?” a guard said as he walked up to them. He looked almost ready to turn tail and run… probably because he was also inexperienced at this guarding sort of thing. Tomoe turned her eyes to him, but didn’t turn down the glare. The guard cowered slightly, but held out a piece of paper in his hand. “I’m sorry for not giving this to you sooner, but we just noticed it. It’s a note from Keisuke-sama for you.” He held out another piece of paper in his other hand, pointing towards Eiji. “And there’s also one for you, Kamui-san.”
Tomoe blinked, her anger replaced by her puzzlement. “Oh. Thank you.” They both took their papers and opened them.
Eiji blinked in surprise at his, and started to read it out loud. “Eiji, I know it’s only been a few hours since I saw you, but recent developments have made it so that I’m at the hospital. You’re still supposed to begin training today, but since I can’t be there, Tomoe will go with you. Be nice. Signed, Ken.” He looked up from the letter, his gaze focusing on nothing at all. “Well, shit.”
Tomoe glared at her own paper, and read it out loud for Eiji’s benefit. “Tomoe, I’m in the hospital right now, and I don’t know when I’ll be back to show you the Castle. Here’s to hoping it’ll be in the next couple of days. Too bad that thing isn’t working yet, huh? Oh well. In the meantime, I’m entrusting Eiji’s training to you. I’ll let you train him as hard as you want, in whatever style you want.” At this, Tomoe grinned to herself, while Eiji blanched. “I’ll see what you’re up to in a couple of days. See you then. Signed, Ken.”
It wasn’t Tomoe’s style to laugh out loud, or at least it hadn’t been for the past few decades. She grinned instead, watching Eiji’s face as he tried to control himself. He was still pale, and Tomoe fantasized about the “training” she would put him through. She glanced through the paper again, and frowned when she noticed the last note.
“PS,” she read out loud. “I know it’s tempting to torture the poor kid, but be nice. Make him do work that’ll benefit him, ‘kay? Have fun.”
Tomoe made a frustrated, wordless noise, while Eiji let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.
“It is so I know the limit of your stamina!” Tomoe yelled from the banks. “So you will continue to sit under the waterfall until I give you leave.”
Eiji thought a few choice swear words in his head, and continued to concentrate on not getting crushed by the pounding water. They had arrived at the dojo just an hour earlier, and immediately Tomoe had made him take off his clothes (down to his underwear) and sit under the waterfall. “To know the limit of his stamina”, she said... If he didn’t know any better, he would have bet his money that she just wanted to see him almost naked. He cracked an eye open to look at Tomoe. The analytical stare she was giving him told him she really was testing him, and a disappointed feeling dropped to his stomach before he could control it. He hardened himself to that thought, and closed his eyes again.
“That is enough!” Tomoe yelled to him.
Eiji immediately opened his eyes and leaped to the bank, a little too quickly for Tomoe’s taste. “Stand here, Dracmanus. And close your eyes again.” Eiji glared at her before obeying.
Tomoe stood in front of him and closed her eyes, then held her palms up in front of his chest. She shook her head. “This is not what I am looking for. You must let go of your spell.”
“Are you crazy?” Eiji snapped. “What if someone sees?”
“Were you not paying attention to the path we took to arrive at this dojo?” Tomoe said, her voice clipped and practical. “This place is so isolated, that the only things that would see your wings and tail are the birds and the bees.” She pointed to a group of birds in a nearby tree, their heads tilted at Eiji as if they were watching him. “Now release the spell or we cannot go on with your training.”
Eiji muttered the counter-spell, showing off his wings and tail. Sighing, he stretched out his wings to their fullest extent, and did the same with his tail. Tomoe waited patiently until he closed his eyes and reverted back to his previous position. She held up her palms in front of his chest as she did before, and then turned them in circular motions. Eiji shifted his feet. “Hey, that tickles.”
“Stop fidgeting.”
“But you’re starting to make me laugh.” He bit his lip and tried to stay as stoic as possible.
“Just… do not… move…” Tomoe replied absent-mindedly. Her brow furrowed in concentration as her hands sifted through Eiji’s aura. He had plenty of stamina. In fact, if she had left him at the waterfall for a week, he would have lasted that and another week, without food or water. His aura was strong, and if she really let down her psychic shields, she was betting she would have felt it throb and pulse under her palms. Unfortunately however, his aura leaked where it could – he didn’t have enough control of his power, which meant his skill was probably not as good too.
With her eyes still closed, she asked, “What were you practicing in your time of isolation?”
Eiji was still struggling not to laugh, or crumple down and laugh. “I just did exercises, ran a few miles everyday, that sort of thing. Why are you asking?”
Tomoe frowned harder, and took her hands down. She put them at her hips and eyed nothing in particular in the brush past Eiji’s head. “Hm.”
“What’s the ‘hm’, hm?” Eiji asked, rubbing his chest where she had felt his aura. “And what exactly were you feeling my aura for?” He was more curious than mad – he really had no reason to be mad. But withholding information about his own aura was playing on his nerves.
“It means that I am thinking, Dracmanus.”
“Hey,” Eiji said sternly, forcing Tomoe to look at him with a bit of annoyance. “I have a name. Use it, will you?”
Tomoe blinked, and tried for being petty. “Why should I?”
Eiji scowled. “Well since we’re going to be working together, we might as well start acting nice. You may not like me, and I sure as hell don’t like you, but we both benefit in some way from this. Me, from your so-called expertise…” Tomoe glared at him for that, “… and you, you get money from Ken. This is just how it is, right? Let’s make the most of it.” He offered up a light smile.
Was this Dracmanus actually trying to be friends? No, that would have been beyond his capabilities. She replied suspiciously, “All right… Kamui-san.”
“Please, don’t be so formal! Kamui-san was my father. Just call me Eiji.”
“Eiji-kun.”
“There you go!”
Silence from Tomoe.
“Sooo…” Eiji said, feeling annoyed that she wasn’t appreciating his attempts at making friends. “What were you thinking about?”
“Your aura,” Tomoe said simply. “It is… a bit unstable.” She frowned, looking at Eiji’s chest, and yet not looking at it. “It seems to be leaking out wherever it can, which signifies that though you did your exercises, they did not help your control of your power. Your skill would also help in control, but it does not seem to be… helping.” She raised her hands and let them fall, looking Eiji in the eye. “In short, though your stamina may be abundant and unyielding, your lack of skill and control do not make your power output efficient enough. You are putting out too much energy each time you fight.” She tilted her head to the side. “This is like déjà vu. I seem to remember seeing this same situation in a TV show I once watched…”
“It sounds like Naruto,” Eiji said, depressed. “Unbelievable… I’m at the same level as a fictional character from an anime.”
“It nonetheless gives us a starting point to work from.” She turned to go back inside the dojo. “I need to estimate your skills in combat. We shall start first with no weapons, and work our way up.”
Eiji nodded, forgetting his earlier anger. “Sounds like a plan.”
“Holy mother—“
“Watch your language!”
“That fucking HURT!”
“I told you to watch your mouth, Dracmanus!”
Tomoe fixed her irritated attentions on the crumpled Eiji in front of her. This was only the sixth combat set, and Eiji had broken down on the floor in pain for the fiftieth time. The first set, hand-to-hand combat, had gone well – he had shown that he was proficient in that kind of combat. He was excellent at swords, and even used the one she had seen at the yuujo house all those years ago. The sword from the dojo had been sliced in half after just one minute.
Their fight using knives was another matter. He didn’t know what he was doing at all. Cuts erupted from every body part Eiji owned. Tomoe had finally cried out in exasperation and moved on to the staff – which he had no penchant for, either. Every slight move Tomoe made had connected with some part of his body, resulting in small bruises all over his arms and legs. They had taken a break after that, and Eiji had healed quickly.
After the staffs, they had started using clubs. They were doing well until Eiji left a part of himself unguarded, earning a large slice at his side. They took another break, during which Eiji announced that he had never seen a club before that day, and that he had only been guessing the moves that were required to handle it well.
Tomoe had held her head in her hands and decided to move on, yet again.
Eiji could tell she was unhappy that he didn’t know a lot about weapons, but he honestly never had had to use any weapons other than his sword and his fists. He couldn’t understand why he had to know the handling of so many kinds either. So all he did was take it, and double over in pain every time it got too much. So much for his abundant stamina.
“This is wonderful,” Tomoe snarled. “This combat set was easy, or so I thought. Here I find you on the floor. Again. And from what? Kodachis.” She gripped her short swords painfully in both her hands to keep from striking out in anger. “I thought you would at least have some proficiency in various weapons, or others like them. I thought perhaps the basic weapons would not intimidate you.” Eiji rolled his head to the side to look up at her. “How wrong I was.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not as easy as it looks!” Eiji insisted. “Besides, you’ve had training in all of those weapons.”
“Perhaps, but half of the handling of these weapons is instinctive.”
“If it really were half, you wouldn’t have had to train for them!”
“Enough!” Tomoe cried in exasperation. “Get up.”
“Why, so you can whack me some more? You’re already getting every part of my body because I’m practically naked.”
“Being without clothes has nothing to do with the fact that you took as many hits as you did. You are simply not good enough with these weapons. Now, get up.”
Eiji stood, though he grumbled as he did. This was ridiculous. Every part of him had been hit at least once, maybe twice, while he couldn’t land a single blow on Tomoe. Even with the sword, his specialty, he couldn’t cut any fabric on her, and her clothes weren’t tight at all. They were slightly billowy, though they were enough to show off her figure, Eiji noticed. Her jeans were very nice to her—
“Why are you looking at me that way?” Tomoe said suspiciously.
“What way?” Eiji retorted, masking whatever expression was on his face at the moment. Okay, so he had been looking at her ass. What could he say? It was a very nice ass.
“What was the last thing that I hit?” Tomoe said, putting the kodachis away.
“It was my leg.” Remembering that he had been injured made him reach down and rub the spot. It had already healed so that the blood was gone, but it was still sore.
Tomoe sighed. “We shall take yet another break.”
“Thank God.” Eiji walked stiffly towards the only bench in the dojo and leaned back, his head resting on its back. Tomoe sat beside him, her back straight and formal as she sipped from a bottle of water.
“Hey, can you hand me one of those?” Eiji asked, eyeing the bottle.
“Yes.” Tomoe stood and walked across the dojo to the fully-stocked refrigerator, taking out a bottle and tossing it to Eiji. When they had arrived, they were ready to think of the dojo as something almost primitive, since no one kept it. It was a public dojo full of weapons that anyone could steal, but none of the weapons were missing from their place on the wall and on the stands. The floor was clean and the mats were washed. The building itself was in the Japanese style as far as dojos went – clean lines and hardly any decorations. There was a bath in room adjacent to the main one, again in the Japanese style, and fully furnished with every necessity. It was like someone could live at the dojo, rather than train for a while and then leave.
Tomoe went back to the bench and sat next to Eiji, who had gulped down half of the bottle already. His wings were extended to his sides behind him, and his tail curled under the bench. Tomoe couldn’t help but stare at his tail. It was scaly, where his wings were more leathery, so it seemed a bit out of place on his body. She glanced at his face, noting with satisfaction that his eyes were closed. She smiled a little and allowed herself to be entertained by his nicely tight, six-pack abs. She had made him undress earlier so that his clothes wouldn’t get in the way of his full range of mobility, but she had to admit that she wanted to see his body too. It was like she couldn’t help but be mesmerized by every line and crevice his chiseled body held. Maybe those exercises were good for something after all.
“I am sorry, did you say something?” Tomoe snapped back to attention and faced forward, sitting up a little more. It was incredible, but it seemed that Eiji had been talking for a few moments, and she had definitely not been paying attention.
Eiji frowned and opened his eyes a little to look at Tomoe. “I said, it seems like it’s been forever. What time is it?”
She glanced at her watch. “Almost 6.”
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath. “No wonder I feel like some train ran over me… multiple times. So how have I been doing?”
Tomoe sipped her water. “Not as well as I would have hoped.”
“Yeah, I gathered that. Details? Like, what are we going to be doing tomorrow, since our day is supposed to end at 6?”
“Oh. Yes.” She coughed. “Well, we must work on your proficiency with various weaponry, since you have already proven skilled in hand-to-hand combat, as well as with swords. The other weapons will help you to hone your power through whatever weapon you might happen to hold. It will give your power less shape and form, so that it will be molded more easily each time you call it. Your power… usually takes on the shape of a sword, I think. Or rather, I noticed that it did. That would be because you only really use your sword.”
“Yeah. Go on. What else?”
“Nothing, truly. We will first work with kodachis, since they are akin to swords. You may be able to hit something next time.”
“Yeah, you know what, I don’t get that. How come I couldn’t hit you at all? I’m always the one with the cuts and bruises, and you get away unscathed.”
Tomoe shrugged. “I am more skilled than you.”
“Again with your modesty. You just blow me away.”
“I was merely stating a fact.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got that. Whatever.” He was pouting, and he knew it. He couldn’t help it – this vampire, girl, whatever, bested him at everything, even the thing he was best at. What was she? Where was she trained? And why the hell couldn’t he train there too, instead of this place?
“Hey, where did you train?”
Irritated, Tomoe replied, “Firstly, I am not ‘hey’. I have a name. Use it.”
“Alright, fine. Tomoe, where did you train?”
“I trained in Japan, in the fields near my hometown.”
“What’s the dojo’s name? I’ll just ask Ken if I can train there. Maybe one of these days I can finally hit you.” The very thought of it excited him.
She blinked. “Dojo? I did not train at a dojo; I trained on my own.”
“What?” Eiji said incredulously, sitting up. “You trained with all of these weapons, on your own, and you’re proficient with all of them?” This girl was crazy.
“Yes. Is that so hard to believe? I am sure I am not the only one to learn this way.”
“Sure. Yeah.” Eiji shook his head. “Anyway, let’s get going. I’m hungry.” He stood up and entered the baths, but when he realized she wasn’t following, he looked back to Tomoe. “Hey- I mean, Tomoe. Aren’t you coming?”
“What? Yes, of course.” Well it was back to that, then. She hadn’t been in a public bath in ages, let alone a co-ed bath. She mentally shrugged. This was faster, and she was hungry, too.
