Chapter 4: Individual Actions

"Mm... ngh...?"

I woke up, holding my throbbing head.

My memory of what happened before and after was hazy, and I couldn't figure out my situation.

However, the chill penetrating my jacket.

The sand on my cheek and the smell of the ground I was inhaling just moments ago.

It was certainly not my soft bed in my own room, but outside.

Rusted machinery stood silent all around me, and an old corrugated iron roof covered the space above. It seemed to be a corner of an abandoned factory district.

This place would be perfect as a hangout for delinquents, but I couldn't recall why I was here.

Suddenly, I looked up.

The setting sun shone through a hole in the corrugated roof, and the moon was faintly rising.

The sunlight was sparse, yet my vision clearly captured every corner of the factory, even 100 meters away.

...Wait, why can I see?

With just the light of the setting sun, why can I see clearly all the way to the corner 100 meters away?

"Ah, uh..."

Suddenly, a throbbing headache attacked me.

And then, memories, like a recorded log, flooded in all at once.

The way back from shopping.

Being led to a park by a black cat.

The moment I heard a man's voice call out from behind me, a pain shot through my neck—

"Ah..."

Reflected in the windowpane,

I saw that my outerwear was gone, and I was only wearing the school uniform shirt that was underneath.

Nothing unusual about my body,

except for the faint tooth marks on my neck, my red eyes, and long canines...

"...Haha, hahahaha."

A dry laugh echoed emptily at the figure reflected in the glass.

The words What the heck and This wasn't supposed to happen whirled through my head.

"No, calm down. This is a dream. Yes, it must be a dream; there's no way I could become a vampire so easily."

In the first place, even if I were bitten by a True Ancestor, to become a vampire after being bitten by a regular vampire, you usually have to go through the stages of a Living Dead and a Ghoul, which takes a long period of time.

The exception is a human with high potential who skips those stages entirely and immediately becomes a vampire—someone like the original Satsuki Yumizuka.

Besides, I am Satsuki Yumizuka, yet not Satsuki. Such a thing for me is...

"Ow!?"

So, just to check, I held my fingertip up to the setting sun, and it got burned.

As pain shot through my finger, the wound immediately regenerated.

Damn it, it really doesn't seem like a dream.

This is not a joke. I wanted a normal life, so why is this happening to me?

I knew this world was like this, so I was certainly curious, but—

"Agh!!"

My chest hurts.

It feels as if my heart is being squeezed directly.

Despite it being autumn, my body is sweating, and the sweat drips onto the ground.

My breathing is ragged, and my heart pounds faster.

When I put my hand to my mouth, my canines feel longer.

Not only that, my throat feels a burning dryness.

The instinct of a monster, not a human—the instinct of a vampire—is demanding the blood my body needs.

Blood.

Stop it.

Give me blood.

Shut up.

Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood—!

Perhaps because this body has just become a vampire, it aches and creaks.

My throat screams for a dryness that water cannot quench, and my head feels like it's going crazy.

"...Is this the Bloodlust?"

A double combo of headache and body pain.

It's worse than a cold, but it's not unbearable.

This is because I know, based on my [Original Knowledge], that true Bloodlust is much worse than this.

That's why I can hold back.

No, I must hold back.

I can endure it when I consider that stepping over the line would result in a catastrophe.

I slowly stand up, brushing the dirt stuck to my face as I stagger toward a shadier spot.

What I need right now is to sleep until I calm down.

Rather, as long as the sun is still out, there is nothing else I can do.

Just in case, I wrap a sheet around my body and glare at the hateful sun.

Fortunately, I still have my 'human' consciousness, so I think I can manage somehow.

Even so, if I don't replenish my blood, I might end up attacking people indiscriminately, so I need to do something.

"Good night. Although, I never thought a newspaper or a construction sheet would feel so warm..."

My eyelids droop, and my vision darkens again.

I pray that Ciel-senpai doesn't attack me while I'm sleeping as my consciousness fades.

“This is a breaking news report. What is believed to be the belongings of Satsuki Yumizuka—”

During lunchtime, the three of us—excluding Satsuki Yumizuka—were eating lunch, but the news on TV froze Shiki Tohno and the other two.

We had certainly noticed she was missing since this morning, but we never imagined it would come to this—

"...Hey, Tohno. You walked home with her yesterday, didn't you? Don't you know anything?"

Arihiko, who has been Tohno Shiki's inseparable friend since elementary school, pressed him anxiously.

However, since they separated on that slope, he had no contact with her yesterday, so he had no answer to give.

"...No, I don't know anything."

"Is that so..."

Saying that, he fell silent in a somber mood.

He's not the type to get involved with others, but he must be worried about Yumizuka.

Speaking of which, there had been a rumor since morning that "a student from this school has gone missing."

Shiki had thought it was just an unrelated rumor, but could it be—Shiki suddenly recalled yesterday.

“See ya, talk to you tomorrow.”

That's how she said goodbye, along with the setting sun.

For Shiki, Yumizuka is a friend he's been close to since middle school.

Although she has now adapted to her role as a schoolgirl, when they first met as classmates, she was even more isolated from her classmates than she is now.

There is a condition called Gender Identity Disorder.

It's a state where the physical body and the mind do not align, and the cause is not well understood.

What is certain is the inconsistency between the mind and the body.

"Yumizuka has Gender Identity Disorder. Everyone should get along with her without making a fuss."

At the beginning of middle school, the teacher said this about the girl who stood next to him with a displeased look.

The teacher's comment at the time was meant to help Yumizuka.

Groups often tend to exclude and reject anything that is different.

However, as people grow in intellect and spirit, they learn to suppress such acts, recognizing them as 'bad things.'

But it's too much to expect that from children who were wearing backpacks just until recently.

She was alienated by both boys and girls and isolated in the class.

The reason he formed a friendship—transcending gender—with her.

Perhaps it was because ever since he was driven out of the Tohno house, his own existence had been unstable—even after being reassured by his teacher—and he felt somewhat detached, which made him sympathetic.

Certainly, the Arima family took him in as one of their own.

But somewhere, he felt like an outsider, and he was constantly bothered by the fact that he had been abandoned by the Tohno family.

Therefore, it wasn't a case of misery loves company.

Nor was it a case of simply comforting each other's wounds.

He just wanted to be the one person standing by her side.

"Tohno-kun, are you concerned about Yumizuka-san?"

"Yes, she's my friend."

He answered Ciel-senpai's question casually.

"...Wasn't she your girlfriend or something?"

"Pffft!!!"

At the abrupt question, Shiki spat out his cold water, which sprayed his red-headed best friend across the table, but it was a very minor detail.

"Senpai, honestly, that's impossible. Especially with that Yumizuka. She might be interested in gossip about romance, but she absolutely hates being in a relationship herself."

After all, they were the three who used to be idiots together, proclaiming that Valentine's Day was a conspiracy by confectionary companies that should be abolished, Shiki muttered internally.

"Well, if Tohno-kun says so. Then we'll go with that."

"No, 'go with that'—you've got it wrong, Senpai!"

The bespectacled Senpai looked at Shiki with a smile that would have an onomatopoeia for smirking attached to it.

She wore the same kind of expression as the older sister at the hospital he frequents, watching over a cute junior warmly.

At this point, his experience told him that any further explanation would be futile.

In fact, the more he tried to explain, the more he would be watched over with a gentle, patronizing gaze and teased.

In that regard, that vampire was simple, Shiki thought.

"Hey, Miss."

"Yes?"

Unlike the city center, which was flooded with neon lights, the residential area had no light other than the streetlights, and the lack of people on the street contributed to a quiet atmosphere.

However, to break that atmosphere, I called out to the woman as subtly as possible, as if I had just happened to be right behind her.

She was surprised for a moment, but realizing I was the same gender, she didn't show any wariness towards me at all, which made her defenseless.

So, I apologize.

Please become a criminal for my survival.

"Listen to what I say."

"Huh, ah,"

I put my wish—no, my demand—to the prey into my words.

There is no immediate possibility of me attacking people indiscriminately out of a thirst for blood.

However, it remains an undeniable fact that a vampire needs blood.

Eventually, the limit will be reached, and I will either commit mass murder indiscriminately, or I will carelessly move around and be killed by Ciel-senpai. That future will surely come.

That's why, from the evening, I used the vampire's extraordinary vision to monitor the hospital from afar.

Because it was in the city, I didn't immediately place a suggestion on someone who seemed to be a hospital employee.

Instead, I followed them to the residential area,

faced them as if it were a complete coincidence, and used the vampire ability of Suggestion to make the hospital worker steal a blood transfusion pack.

With this, I don't have to expose myself,

and I won't have to commit mass murder, so it's a win-win situation.

However, even though the person held their head and collapsed, I am starting to hate myself for not feeling any guilt and for only recognizing her as 'prey.'

After about ten seconds, the victim stood up sharply.

"................................"

The hypnotized woman waited silently for my command.

Her eyes were vacant, and her expression lacked any vitality.

"Could you bring me a blood transfusion pack from the hospital?"

"Yes, I understand."

The suggestion was successful. With an unsteady gait, she began to walk toward the hospital.

It seems like I'll be able to manage this way.

"Here it is."

I waited for one hour.

I had been sharing her vision just in case, and as expected, she was almost discovered by a night-shift colleague while taking out the blood pack.

So, I switched to remote control and, through much difficulty, she safely brought the blood transfusion pack.

A cooler box containing three liters of blood packs.

To me now, it is more valuable than the same weight in pure gold.

"Thank you. When you get home, you can return to normal, and please forget about today."

"I understand."

The controlled woman obeyed the command, changed her direction, and walked briskly away.

She was definitely heading toward the station on her way back.

Now, the problem is...

"It was easy to make her get it, but is it actually okay for me to drink it...?"

It's an afterthought, but the question is, 'Won't drinking blood actually cause me to lose control?'

The cowardly Transmigrated Heroine does not have the willpower to 'overcome it with miraculous mental strength,' and shamefully, I'm scared.

Moreover, a miracle is a miracle precisely because it rarely happens, and I don't want to easily believe that I have such luck.

I can proudly say that I have an E-rank Luck, so I really shouldn't...

"Ghh!!!"

DOKURI, something inside my body roars.

And a black impulse of destruction and slaughter surges from within my body.

"H-h, AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH."

My entire body aches. The inverted, not-me something is about to surface.

I understand that blood is necessary for survival, but my human resistance has been rejecting it.

But now, driven by the urge to just have blood, I unconsciously reach for the blood pack.

I twist off the cap of the bag filled with the red liquid, and as if invited, I bite into it and slowly suck it up.

The red liquid, which is more viscous than water, is like mud.

But that doesn't mean it tastes bad.

In fact, it gives me strength.

Looking up, the moon, though not full, is clearly visible through the smog-filled city.

It's ironic that when I was human, I couldn't see it well and didn't understand, but

Tonight, the moon is so—

"The moon is beautiful tonight—."

The moon seen from the back alley shone more beautifully than I had ever seen it in my current life and my past life combined.