Forced insomnia

“THE VAMPIRE IS TRYING TO BITE MASTER!”

This absurd loud scream woke me up from some weird dream in which I was running away from a mass of tentacles trying to defile my every orifice, but before I could bash the noisy phone for spouting nonsense in the middle of the night I saw a bright red flash and a stream of hot air hit me in the face. This was enough to get rid of the grogginess and force me to make a serious attempt at grasping the situation.

I wanted to stand up and look around, but something sharply pulled my hair to prevent it.

“There are three of them above!”

Hearing my sister’s voice helped to organize thoughts and understand the situation. Right above the bed were three moth creatures keeping their distance after Violet scared them off with a stream of fire. They were grinning widely with mouths full of needle-like teeth. Two were closer, flying from left to right and looking for a blind angle to attack, one stayed behind and was observing the situation.

It was better to shift into sitting position like Vio did, move closer to her and reduce their chances to blindside us. There was no time for panic or anger, not when Violet was sending me worried quick glances - she waited for my guidance, unsure if using more fire was a good idea.

“Vio, the neck of the back one, ignite together!”

We focused our pyromancy skills on the grey fur wrapped around that thing neck.

“Master! Your left!”

Using the shift of my attention, one of the closer moth creatures tried to fly around and bite my neck. It was fast and nimble, but thanks to Luna’s warning I managed to grab a pillow on time and hit the bug with it. Though it broke my attempt at using pyromancy, the pillow effect was way better than I expected and the flying creature got pushed away like an oversized mosquito - colliding into the wall with a tiny ‘bam’.

They’re weak!

“Got it!”

Violet’s happy shout was caused by the successful ignition. The fire quickly spread to its cloth-like coating and purple butterfly scale hair. The burning creature fell down to the floor screaming something in a barely audible high-pitch voice.

“Slave! Behind you!”

This time neither Vio - watching the effects of her power in amazement - nor me - rushing to it with the pillow to extinguish the flames before they spread - reacted correctly to Luna’s warning. The third moth creature was about to entangle itself into my sister’s hair and pierce her neck with its needle-like teeth when a thin bloody tendril shot out from Luna’s vessel, grabbed it tightly by the torso and pulled back inside the smartphone’s screen.

DOLL’s usually smooth display was covered with many ripples spreading from its center similar to a lake’s surface after throwing a stone into to.

After seeing the demise of two of its allies, the last remaining enemy shook off the daze and decided to run. I tried to hit it with two consecutive fingertip streams of flame and Vio seemed to focus on ignition, but it was flying right below the ceiling, flapping its moth-like wings with all power, and was too fast for our attempts to be effective. I even threw a pillow at it after extinguishing the potential fire - only to miss and watch as the purple creature ran away through a small hole in the bedroom’s window.

I felt my heart beating like crazy, Vio was scanning the room while breathing deeply. We made sure to check every corner just in case there were more of them before we were able to sigh in relief.

It was over. One enemy burned down, one ran away and one… got eaten by Luna.

“... not even a one fucking night of peace...”

“Was this the t-thing you saw in the mall?”

“Yeah.”

Violet’s voice was superficially calm but it cost her a lot of willpower to keep it that way. She moved away from Luna and kept a hand protecting her neck. It was surprising how hard I tried to rein in such impulses like screaming a stream of insults or holing myself up for the rest of the night in the bathroom when there was someone clearly more shaken by this attack. Especially when that someone didn’t allow the emotions to take over as she knew it wasn’t the time for throwing a tantrum.

Or maybe it works both ways and she tries hard to stay calm due to my presence.

A chill from the cold run through my body clad only in the girly lingerie. In a corner of the window, there was a small round hole with perfectly cut out edges as if someone had used a glass cutter. I opened the window for a moment to take a look outside, but there was no trace left of the enemy, not to mention that it was too dark to see if a round piece of glass was lying below in the snow.

“It’s cold.”

Said Violet silently while checking the remains of the burned creature.

“Yeah, I know, sorry.”

I closed the window and stuffed the pillow inside the hole.

“Master, I-”

“Luna, one thing at a time, wait a bit please.”

“Yes, master.”

“How does it look like?”

“Huh? Ah, yeah, right. Nothing’s left, just some ash.”

I asked after moving closer to Violet and gently tried to take off the hand she still kept on the neck. She resisted at first but relaxed after I started to smooth out her curly hair. Her fingers were cold and she was shaking slightly.

Seeing their inhuman composite eyes and mouths that could easily bite off a chunk of our flesh, moreover, being attacked in sleep, in own bedroom, must have been an incredibly shocking and terrifying experience.

Of that, I was sure as I had gone through something similar thanks to my twin.

“Put on the skirt and shirt, I will bring some weapons from the corridor. We’re sleeping in clothes with knives under pillows.”

“Eh? You want to go back to sleep?”

“They’re weak, I almost killed one with a pillow and since the surprise attack failed I don’t think they will try again. And Luna will keep guard.”

So calm down, don’t be scared and act like a man Victor.

Vio nodded and we proceeded with preparations. I learned that my little sister had woken up thanks to the first warning from Luna - right after they flew into the room, but she didn’t know what was happening. The second warning came when one of the creatures was about to bite me and Vio chased it away with the fingertip fire. It was also the moment when I woke up.

We slipped under the quilt after everything was ready. My pillow was stuck in the window, but before I even mentioned it, Vio put hers in the middle and snuggled close to me.

I have the same body as hers and yet how come she smells so much better than me? Is she using some secret shampoo maybe?

“Luna, explain.”

DOLL was kept in my hand, before our eyes. Displayed on the screen was Luna’s room and she had a guest. I was thinking about talking with her while keeping our distance but decided against. We owed her a lot for the warnings and help.

“Master remembers when I told about me being able to detect the active use of mana?”

Started her explanation the masked girl. She looked troubled and sad, standing in front of the captured enemy who was tightly tied with numerous tendon ropes to one of the meaty walls.

"Yeah, I remember that.”

“Master’s mana got better and my skills have also increased. The detection radius grew bigger. But you probably want to know about the other thing…”

Her voice became feeble and worried, each of the blue pupils on the black background in her eyes was scanning a different part of the room. Luna tried to scratch her cheek, but with the mask in the way she only produced a small tapping sound.

“Vio, what do you think?”

“... she helped us... but I don’t want to sleep in the same bed as something that can grow tentacles.”

“Uuuuu…”

This one seemed to hit Luna really hard compared to the playful over-exaggerated reactions she had shown earlier. The semi-transparent girl wilted in eyes, even the continuous 'beating life’ of her room slowed down.

“Luna, just explain. I also agree that you’ve helped us a lot with those warnings. And Vio, if not for that tentacle, you would be missing a big piece of your neck right now.”

And it's my fault for not being able to prevent that… fuck. Luna really saved the day.

Vio clicked her tongue and said with a pout:

“As if I didn’t know that. That’s the only reason why I don’t want you to throw her out right now.”

“Master…”

She started tenderly, but stopped, cleared her throat with a *click* *click* *click* sound and continued in more neutral tone:

“... that was my domain manifestation. I wanted to keep it hidden a bit more, if master grew even stronger then I would be able to come out myself and give master a surprise hug. For now, all I can do is to let out a… ugh… a tentacle… for a short time.”

“Come out yourself? Hey, guro-ni-chan, it was fun and all because I was sure that’s this phone is like a game or something, but if she can really do that then that’s fucking scary, look at that moth, it’s being ripped by tentacles piece by piece.”

You took words out of my mouth Vio… but still, what to do…

“If master doesn’t want me to… then I will never leave my domain… I know that I’m not pleasant to look at…”

“Vio, let’s say that another situation like today will happen, but at that time Luna will hesitate to help us because she won’t want to be seen as creepy or dangerous-”

“I know that, fuck! Do whatever you want, I don’t care anymore!”

Despite thorny words and stormy attitude, Vio hid under the quilt and clung tightly to my chest, I could hear her silent murmur ‘it feels so fucking strange to immerse myself in my own breasts’. I decided to take it as her approval of Luna, thought my little sister would need some time to get rid of her aversion to tentacles. Well… lowering her sanity points could resolve this problem immediately, but I wasn’t too keen on sacrificing her to any of the Great Old Ones.

Unless it’s Nyaruko-chan, then we can think of a win-win solution.

“Master...?”

“Don’t worry Luna, compared to my little sister I’m willing to embrace all kinds of monster girls since the time I’ve fallen in love with Saya No Uta. Remember? I gave you one trust token and you still have it.”

That wasn’t exactly the truth as I kept Luna’s vessel as far away from my face as my arm reach allowed me to.

On the other hand, she never did anything to make me doubt her. Moreover, my weakness for this handmade monster girl tipped the scales in her favor.

Topmost pair of Luna’s eyes, which normally was the most active one, focused on me in a fervent gaze, her thin skin became tinged with an even brighter shade of red than usual and I could see blood speeding through the main arteries of her neck. She bashfully tried to look busy with unraveling the white sticky braid.

“Place the tentacle insect on your side of the bed and let’s go back to sleep already.”

Violet’s under-quilt voice signaled an end to this show emotions and Luna turned off the display.

“Master… thank you... please remember that I would never hurt you. My loyalty to you… is bigger than master’s love for the justice type.”

“That’s a freaking huge amount of loyalty, but…"

I recalled one important detail that nearly got forgotten in today’s night raid. Now I knew the cause of it.

“... don’t try to pat me with a tentacle when I sleep. I had a really messed up dream thanks to it. Scream loudly if you detect anything again.”

“Ksksksks~ ay ay master, in the meantime I will torture this one and see if I can get any info out from it. I wonder how it tastes like...”

“That would be great, I’m counting on you.”

“Wait… what the two of you just said? She p-patted you with a t-tentacle… w-when we were s-sleeping? Get rid of that shit right now! No way I will risk sleeping close to it!”

It took over an hour to calm Vio down and convince her that Luna’s harmless, at least to us, but she still took away both the pillow and quilt and rolled over to the far side of the bed - wrapped tightly in it. I was forced to put on the rest of the clothes and sleep in Vio’s parka. Luna was placed on the floor near my side of the bed.

At least she didn’t chase us out from the room.

With the main issues out of focus, I could now begin processing the secondary ones.

If the size proportions between Luna and that bug were kept...

A new contestant had entered the girl’s height to hug ratio ranking I secretly created and she instantly won the honorary title of the smallest of the shorties.

Drowning in my chest category: Luna → Violet → Aura

Can rest my chin on the top of her head while hugging category: The killer girl → Xeli → Rora

Equality hug (almost) category: Laura → Silvie → Viktoria

Half of the contestants were inputted only as fillers, the idea of getting into a huggable distance of the killer girl or hugging Viktoria was absurd. It was also hard to imagine hugging Laura or Silvie and even harder to do that with the smoke girl and...

… Xeli's hair looks a bit too fiery for me, but maybe it’s surprisingly not hot at all? Although being Votr's daughter places her in the 'fucking hard to hug and stay alive' tier, at least when she's not being thrown at me naked.

When I was on the verge of falling asleep, another nearly forgotten detail floated to the surface of my mind.

Why has she called those moths ‘vampires’?

However, I simply labeled it as a temporary name she had used due to a lack of a better one.