CHAPTER 3

“My brother is the worst, I swear to God.”

“Huh? Chi-chan, you believed in God?”

“No? I just gotta swear.”

“That’s not very nice of you….”

The middle school division of Yanomori High School was only a stone’s throw away from the high school division, which meant that, unfortunately, Kokonoe Chishio had to spend her weekdays within an arm’s reach of her brother. The one saving grace is that her brother didn’t really do anything embarrassing like coming to pick her up in class. He did, though, wait for her at the school gates, and she could’ve sworn that some really annoying opportunistic girls in class were trying to use all that time to fawn all over him and throw her weird looks.

Oh. She just swore again.

“You’re very cute, Chi-chan,” Kurisu said as she leaned on Chi’s desk. “It’s such a pity your personality’s like this.”

Chi just pouted. “Well I’m sorry I’m like this, okay!”

“It makes me wonder why I’m so attracted to you.”

“Well I—huh?”

Kurisu was still looking pretty pensive and somewhat upset, unaffected at all by Chi’s very visible surprise. She wasn’t even looking at Chi directly. “I think you’re cute. I can’t get you out of my head. I don’t normally feel like this to my friends, you know?”

“W-well….”

“Are you a vampire or something?”

How did she—? “Ha?”

“I mean, in old books, it’s like … vampire ladies, they go after human ladies, too. And then they make the humans can’t stop thinking of them so they can keep sucking their blood. Are you a vampire? Are you trying to drink my blood?”

“I—why would I drink your blood, even?”

“Because I’m close to you, duh? Isn’t it best to grab food that’s just nearby? Like, if we’re hungry after school and we wanna eat and just hang out, don’t you just naturally think of going to Mac’s or Yashinoya?”

“What’s closeness got to do with quality?”

“Are you saying my blood isn’t delicious?”

“Of course n—the heck, I never even drank your blood!” Chi actually nearly stood up. “Wait, no, not that—I’m not even a vampire to begin with, what the hell are you on about?!”

“Aww.” Kurisu pouted. “Would be nice if you were a vampire.”

Chi took a deep breath, then settled normally once more into her seat. “Why?”

To her surprise, Kurisu was blushing. “Because then I wouldn’t feel so confused about my own feelings.”

Chi just sighed. She had no idea how to respond to that. The girl really just basically confessed, didn’t she? Well, yeah, sure, Chi actually was a vampire, and vampires did have a long history with same-sex attraction, but Chi was absolutely sure she didn’t charm Kurisu or something like that. To begin with, vampire hypnotism was a learned skill, and her parents really made sure that they wouldn’t teach that to their children until they’ve both become adults. “You’re a very bold girl, aren’t you?”

“Teehee. My parents said I got that from my ancestors.” Kurisu suddenly stood up, so suddenly that Chi jumped. “Oh!”

“W-what’s up?”

“It’s actually nice that you’re not a vampire, Chi-chan!”

“Because?”

“I wouldn’t want you to burst into flames in the sunlight!” Kurisu had the biggest grin on her face and she patted Chi’s head without a care. “I love having you here, so don’t die too soon!”

“Vampires don’t burst into flames in the sun! Mou!”

It would be a lie if Chi said that she wasn’t annoyed by Kurisu’s constant antics and really quick topic jumps, but on the other hand, Chi couldn’t be any more thankful. Kurisu’s persistence was the reason they were even friends to begin with. Well, there’s also her bright-as-the-sun personality and her occasionally surprising insight, but Kurisu was a precious friend Chi wouldn’t ever trade for the world. Also, that very same persistence always managed to drag Chi out of her spirals.

Chi could be coming to school with endless dark clouds on the horizon and Kurisu would always somehow manage to find a way to clear all that up. Really, Chi never met a stronger girl than her.

Oh, yeah, there was also the matter of her brother being popular even between the girls in the middle school division and Kurisu was the only girl who stuck to Chi for Chi herself rather than to approach Kou, but that’s a separate story entirely.

“Heh. I wonder how much of an uproar it’s gonna be.”

“Mm? Chi-chan, do you want to launch a revolution or something?”

“Hah. I wish.” She shivered for a second—the idea of a nightwalker coup flashed in her head, and it wasn’t a pretty idea. “Nii-chan just got himself a girlfriend yesterday.”

Kurisu made an o with her mouth. “Ooh. That boy? The one you just said is ‘the worst’?”

“The one and only.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“I thought you’re not into gossip?”

Kurisu snapped her fingers and gave Chi the coolest expression she could. “And that’s where you’re wrong, Kiddo.”

Even Chi had no idea how to react to that. “Uh … yeah, I know who she was.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. It’s Yamato Himiko.”

“The high school stuco president?”

“Yup.”

“Huh. Your brother’s got moves.”

“That’s gross, please don’t say that again.”

“Huh. You’ve got moves.”

“Kurisu.”

“Hehe, you’re so fun to tease.” Kurisu poked Chi’s soft cheek, and Chi only let out a small groan in response. “For real, though, she’s a beaut and pretty famous, too. I’d say more people would think they make a nice couple rather than making an uproar out of that or something.”

“I know at least three girls who’d disagree and I’m losing count on the guys who’d kill my brother out of jealousy.”

“Oh … yeah, I suppose she’s pretty liked by boys, too. Not sure they can do much more than curse their luck, though. This is your brother we’re talking about.”

“That’s its own share of problems, please no….”

“Look, you’ve got a cool dude for a brother, he’s dating a belle, and you’re plenty cute yourself. Apart from your sibling rivalry and the creeps going after you all, I’m not really sure what the problem here seems to be.”

Because my brother is the highest-up of the nightwalkers and he just told me that he’s dating someone who trained specifically to kill his kind wasn’t exactly an answer Chi could say out loud, so she just puffed her cheeks, which only led to more poking by a very intrigued Kurisu.

“You even went to call your brother ‘the worst’ first thing in the morning, too, what did he do this time?”

He’s dating someone who spent her life killing more like him! was also not an answer Chi could say out loud, so now she just held her breath and made her puffy cheeks bright red.

There were other issues with exorcists, too. While Kou mentioned to Chi last night that the shikigami were made with white magic, there was actually little in the way of what made it different from dark magic apart from the toll the spells require out of their casters. Most exorcists were fluent in white magic, but thanks to this, an eenie-meenie tiny minority was also fluent in dark magic. Exorcists and witches, like all psychics and other spellcasters, were the same in exactly one regard: their essence contained more of the spiritual than the physical, contrary to the massive majority of humans.

In other words, spellcasters could interact normally with the nightwalker end of things. Most humans couldn’t even perceive them, but spellcasters could go mano a mano against the creatures if they so wanted.

And exorcists, specifically, used this ability to kill nightwalkers. They even specialized a focusing technique that they could switch into when they wanted to seriously injure a nightwalker. Different religions had different names for this focus state, but the common theme is that they usually used religious items to tune in—crosses, rosaries, prayer beads, ritual staves, you name it. They hold it, then poof, focus state.

That was actually the reason behind the myth of vampires being weak against religious symbols. The problem was never the symbols—it was the wielders.

There was rarely ever any need in the modern day for exorcists. It’s a taxing job, after all, and for the most part, the rituals required to get an exorcist going could take a bit of time. Some really good exorcists still decided to go out wearing robes and stuff that would make them look more serious because some people wouldn’t take them seriously otherwise, but the result was all the same: it made it difficult for them to move and get prepped.

Yamato Himiko, however, was a different breed—Chi could never take her eyes off the cross-shaped choker she was wearing. She could’ve gone with a typical necklace, or maybe hide a rosary as one, but a choker of all things? She wouldn’t ever let it go, which meant that it wasn’t a mere fashion statement, it was a tool. And she only needed the cross, not the rest of the sacramental objects, which meant she was either a fool or she was good enough to not have to rely on sacred items.

Chi knew Himiko wasn’t Christian.

In other words, she’s good.

Then, the final issue: Himiko’s renowned golden eyes.

Against her will, in the interest of her survival, Chi had been rather well-versed in at least surface-level religious symbols. Then, just in case some rogue spellcaster decided to want to kill her, Chi also read up on curses. Religion and mysticism had lots in common, and one of them was the symbolism of the eyes.

Japanese belief, for example, saw the eye as the sign of something divine: the goddess Amaterasu-no-Mikoto, the sun herself, was born out of Izanagi’s left eye. The Egyptians were the same: the moon was seen as the left eye of Ra, the Eye of Horus, while the right eye was the sun. The Greeks believed the gray-eyed Athena was a symbol of wisdom. The Norse believed the eyes were but providers of lies and illusions, which was why their chief god Odin sacrificed an eye in order to gain knowledge of the world.

Roman philosophers and various Arabic religions agreed that blue eyes were evil. There were even specific apotropaics, or protections, against the evil eye in those regions.

And, like blue eyes—seen to be the symbol of passive evil, born out of jealousy and envy—golden eyes had their own significance.

Gold was often associated with the sun. This was true in alchemy, which symbol for aurum or gold was the same symbol as the sun. This was true in Egypt, where the golden eye was the very sun itself. Most importantly, this was true in Christianity: Christian iconography consistently showed holy things as golden. Gold was holy, and gold was the highest power: gold was the sun, gold was fire, gold was flame.

Above all else, ‘eyes like the flame of fire’ was one of the descriptions given of God Himself, who was Most Holy.

It wouldn’t have bothered Chi so much if not for the fact that Himiko made it pretty clear that she was using Christian exorcism as her basis. Golden eyes don’t just come out of nowhere—her golden eyes, compounded with how good she seemed to be, definitely hinted to something else lurking beneath the surface. Chi wasn’t sure what. She did not like that.

This was all just the problem with her brother’s new girlfriend. Chi hadn’t even gone into the fact that there’s probably someone strong enough to mess with the one thing keeping the nightwalker/human balance in Japan within manageable levels, someone who could force two entire oni into a bloodlink. Although bloodlinking was in no way exclusive to vampires, it’s most easily done by vampires thanks to how their spiritual essence had just about everything to do with blood. It was also half of the ritual that now got called baptism of blood thanks to choice words by a certain doctor called Abraham Van Helsing—a ritual that allowed vampires to influence the thoughts of another, entrancing them into total obedience, and then turning them into vampires.

Count Dracula tried to do that in England by bloodlinking with humans, but spectacularly failed thanks to the very same Abraham Van Helsing. His direct descendant, Dracula III, though, happened to have much better luck in Japan by bloodlinking with nightwalkers.

Bloodlinking by itself wasn’t nearly enough to do what the baptism did. It wouldn’t implant the curse of vampirism upon the linked target, like the baptism would. It would still, however, leave some extent of vampiric traits. Dracula’s two victims in England, Lucy Westenra and Mina Harker, both showed signs of vampirism—reddened eyes, increased aggression, elongated fangs—but only Lucy finished the entire baptism ritual, turning her into a vampire after she died. Mina had the luck of only being bloodlinked, and the link was gone the moment Dracula was vanquished.

Chi had to keep her annoyance in check because she knew that her brother was right. She had never heard of bloodlinking being used on nightwalkers before. Count Dracula had used it on humans, on rats, and on wolves, but never on spiritual entities. All that, on top of the Authority, should’ve made bloodlinked oni an impossibility.

Yet, what she saw from the Enforcers, as brief as it was, certainly showed two oni with signs of bloodlinking. Reddened eyes, increased aggression, elongated fangs. Okay, it’s hard to judge the last one because oni fangs were big enough as they were, but there was no mistaking the first two.

Something unnatural was happening, and her brother chose this time of all times to go date a damn exorcist.

“Kokonoe-san,” a voice called from the class doors—it was a boy with unkempt, messy hair. Chi barely moved a muscle as a response.

“‘Sup, Fukushi?”

“We’re on class duty today,” he said. “Can you grab the students’ presence list? I’ll grab our homework notes, I think Sensei said yesterday that we can return them this morning.”

Chi had entirely forgotten the reason she wanted to get to class early, and answered with a groan. Kurisu groaned the same. “Aww. And there goes our alone time.”

Chi sighed, stood up from her desk, then softly patted Kurisu’s head. “I’ll be right back, Kurisu. We can have any number of alone times you want.”

Kurisu perked up. “F’real?!”

“‘Course not, I’ve got work again tonight. Let’s have lunch together, though.”

Technically, it wasn’t work—she was just training her brother to be a proper vampire. That said, once again, that’s just something she couldn’t ever say out loud to even her closest friends, could she?

*