The chain of events that lead to my presence in a small village on the border between Russia and Kazakhstan are too long and stupid to get into, but to summarize it involved several stupid decisions, a failed exorcism, and an incredible amount of luck to have not died in my desperate flight from the claws of the Church's Burial Agency.
I stumbled onto the snow-dusted dirt roads of this unknown village with a dozen cuts and abrasions, two dozen bruises, and a missing hand. I might have lost them. I might not have. It didn't really matter at this point, because at this rate I was going to die. A man raced past me, and I tried to grab him by the sleeve. "Water," I croaked in English, but he tore free and hurried on his way.
Dully, I stumbled forwards. There should be a well. I didn't see a river, so a village like this must have had some sort of well, probably near the town center.
As I drew closer, the static hum of exhaustion in my ears was cut by some noise here and there, but I was too delirious to tell what it was. Finally, coming into the town center, I saw the reality.
Blood, mixed into dirt in a dull mud. Bodies, ragged and torn. Impossible. Impossible. Something like this could not exist on Earth. Eyes unfocused, I stumbled towards what looked like a well. A corpse shambled towards me, mistook me for one of its own, and moved on. Screams. I could hear screams, in the edge of my buzzing consciousness.
I reached the well - but as I began to raise the rope, I came to the understanding that my good hand lacked the strength to pull it up on its own. And so, I collapsed, sitting there as black shapes moved in the moonlight, and accepted that I would die whatever the cause.
At last, as my vision went black, I felt a sharp pain in my neck. Something dark squirmed into me.
…So thirsty.
***
I woke up - that, in itself, was surprising. The feeling of Returning by Death to my usual spot outside the convenience store was nothing like that - if I was there, it would be more like a sudden thrust of awareness.
"...I don't recognize this ceiling."
-Regardless, I woke up. Without much warning, I found myself resting between silken sheets, in a slightly dusty room with a stone ceiling. Shaking my head, I sat up, and glanced around - the room itself was stone, with a few rugs hanging from the walls here and there, in a sort of slapdash style that suggested the hanger had no real understanding of interior decoration. The sheets, too, I noted with a grimace, reeked of the kind of dust that comes only from years of disuse.
(As I rose, I paid no mind to the fact that my severed hand had somehow returned.)
"...Someone changed my clothes," I mumbled, examining the chapan that I'd been changed into - but it looked like they left my pants alone. "Or rather, they started to unfasten the belt and then changed their mind?"
The room was lit by a single shaft of moonlight shining in from the window, which passed all the way through and out the open door - or rather, there was no door in the doorway to begin with. And so, with only confusion in my heart, I made my way into a tight stone hall. I passed a few empty looking rooms, fallen tiles of what must have once been a mosaic crunching beneath my feet.
"If the pattern is right, the forbidden library is right aboooout - here!" With an exaggerated turn, I sprang into one of the empty rooms - and jumped as something moved in the darkness. "Wait, did I get it-"
A corpse, its eyes rolled back in its head, shambled into the light.
"-Nevermind, sir, I was just leaving!" I screamed as I bolted back into the hall.
Zombies!? Zombies again!? I got kidnapped by zombies!?
No, to start with, the circumstances of how I fell unconscious were-
-Abruptly, the hall came to a halt, and I found myself outside.
A stony outcropping, going out for some ten or fifteen meters - and then a steep plunge to white sands kilometers below. Gleaming under the light of a full moon, I could see nothing but sand - cresting up into reddish sandstone mountains. To my sides were similar slopes, and behind I could see it in full - a strange stone castle, built into the mountainside.
"-I didn't call for anyone," a voice like a silver bell said, and finally I noticed her.
Rising from where she had been sitting, her legs dangling off the edge of the sheer drop into the sandy valley below - a beautiful girl wearing a crimson koylek brushed her long brown hair out of her face as it danced in the gentle wind.
-In hindsight, I'll retract those claims about her, of course. Her looks were those of a somewhat attractive girl next door, and her voice was nothing like the beauty of Emilia's. Not to mention, her outfit was clearly sized wrong.
And yet, as I gazed into those blood red eyes - I was unbelievably sure that this girl was the most beautiful in the world.
It took a moment for me to realize it - then I blinked. "Japanese?" She had spoken Japanese just now.
"Eh?" Her eyes widened cutely, and she zipped closer to me. "EHHHH!? Wait, you… you were the new one, right? You can talk already!?" As she babbled, she grabbed me by the face, turning my head this way and that.
"Um, should I not be able to…?"
"Nope, it should take at least a few years, normally… you've got a special constitution, like mine. Maybe it's an extra channel in your brain, or maybe you just have a body that accepts [Outside Factors] or [Curses] easily… But somehow, you were born with a special talent for becoming a Vampire! Congratulations!"
What.
***
"-And that's how I became one, six years ago," Yumizuka Satsuki concluded. "It was a real uphill battle for me, but don't worry - since I've gotten you caught up in this, I'll be sure to take care of you, Subaru! Us being from the same country, and having the same physiology, meeting out here of all places? Maybe… I'm getting ahead of myself… but it's gotta be some kind of fate, right?"
"Wait a minute - you did get me caught up in this! Your minions destroyed an entire town!" And yet… despite the thought that I should feel some kind of indignation- "Just how many lives did you devour up to this point!?" -I felt nothing.
"How many breads have you eaten in your life?" She smirked.
"Thirteen, I prefer Japanese food," I last-minute swerved.
"Heh… hahaha! W-what the heck is that!? I don't remember that line from Jojo at all!" Yumizuka burst out laughing.
"That's because it's from Touhou," I nodded sagely.
"Mmmm… I think I heard about that a few times? Tohno-kun mentioned it, I think…" She muttered.
"...Tohno? Like that one big manor in the rich part of town?" I mumbled, and Yumizuka sat bolt upright.
"Wait, you're from Souya too!?"
"Maybe it is fate!?" I shouted.
"That's so weird…" She said. "Ah… I kind of want to go back and see it again."
"Why not?" I asked. "It's pretty nice this time of year."
"Mmm…" I promised myself I wouldn't eat anyone from my home, at least," She said, then gave a wide eyed smile. "Oh, but I already broke that!"
I felt like I should have some sort of qualms too, but- "Oh well, I'm sure it'll be fine. I'll just reset in a month or so."
"Hmm? What was that, Subaru?" Yumizuka asked.
"Ah, it looks like humanity's gonna get wiped out in a month or so. That's why I was out here in the first place, I was searching for ways to stop that…" I admitted. "It's a whole 'everyone spontaneously combusts' thing too, so I don't even know where to start…"
"Well, that's a pretty crazy twist!" She shouted. "Sacchin stopped the salvation of the world on accident!?"
"No, it'll be fine," I replied. "Since I can-" Somehow, I managed to stop myself.
"Hm? I don't think you're allowed to withhold information or lie to me yet, right?" She asked, and I realized the source of this compulsion.
I couldn't tell her. If I told Yumizuka, she would die. And yet, my mouth- "I can- I- I can- ghk!"
Finally I put a stop to it. I bit through my tongue and relaxed. At least this way, she would be safe. I would choke and die, but Yumizuka will be protected from the witch.
"I can return by death," The words left my lips before I realized my tongue had regenerated.
-The next moment, shadows flooded the mountaintop. Darkness, all-consuming. Stagnant mana that drags time into its flow - is no match for my sire.
"[Depletion Garden]," She said, and what I would later know as a Reality Marble opened upon the mountaintop. "Hm, how scary. But don't worry, Subaru. Sacchin can handle this… whatever it is. One of those Savant things I heard about?"
I opened my eyes - and saw. Black shadows, reaching nothing. Crumbling away under their own inability to exist in this place where Mana was not permitted to exist.
"Hmm… but how do I get rid of it? It really just keeps coming…"
And then- the world shattered.
"Goodbye," Rasped a blur clad in desert camouflage, with the voice of one without drink for weeks. In the air beside the mountain's slope, a faintly glowing cloth, tossed aside, began to flutter towards the ground.
Yumizuka turned, something in her eyes excited - but then, before my eye could track, she was reduced to chunks on the ground by the flash of a blade.
What? What? What the hell was-?
He was in motion again. Black shadows reached for him, but once, twice, a dagger glinted in the moonlight.
I opened my mouth, still totally lost. "Wait-"
"I won't wait."
For a moment, I saw a piercing blue eye-
-And then, I was standing outside a convenience store.
***
Author's note:
Subaru's vampire encounter was Sacchin! Is it forced? Probably. But I wanted it to happen, so... call it fate, I guess.
Subaru was instrumental in her death here - Shiki had been posted up here for weeks waiting for her to be sufficiently distracted so he could quote Todd and speedblitz her.
Apologies to any Kazakh readers if I got any of the sparse details about their country I included wrong. I mean, I do assume there's probably not a secret desert castle in the Aktau mountains (though I also wouldn't be surprised if there was). But the other stuff like the spelling of certain clothing.
Continued in Arc 4.5 - Transplanted Tower of Sins, Pleiades
Okeanos ends here. Continued in Arc 4.5: Pleiades