I walked closer to the church with Yuna and Akira following close behind but her steps just stopped at a certain point. We were just a few meters from the church. I looked at her and her unwavering face was wavered, she had an expression of fear in her eyes so much so that she could not help but gulp.
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"He knows we are here," she told me and I nodded. I was expecting that so won’t say it would be too surprising. He did send Yuna to bring me to him after all.
"Nii-chan, bring out your weapon," Yuna said and I did as she instructed. "I don’t know what Father’s next move would be so it is better you have something to defend you in the instant."
I nodded and taking one more look at that church which gave off an ominous aura, we stepped forward and continued our journey. The entire town looked like a ghost town and the dark church was giving us the perfect setup for a horror movie. I know how it will all go; we will open the doors and lots of bats will come out flying then ignoring that major red flag we would be still continuing our journey deeper inside the big building after which we would find a trap door that treads to a basement right when one of the girls from the group just mysteriously disappear and th-
"Welcome everyone, to my humble abode," we heard a voice coming from the inside as the doors opened in front of us by two critters. They both snarled at me loudly stepping closer to me ready to pounce. "Step back children, this is not how we treat our important guests."
At the command of the voice, the two critters immediately backed off and stood by either side of the gate letting us enter. Akira, which was now standing beside me relaxed her stance as she was ready to shield me from the critters. She nodded and I gave a nod back to her holding my katana tighter than before.
Yuna looked back at the both of us and we could see the worried and scared expression in her eyes. We knew who the owner of that voice was and could already feel his loud and dominant aura which was suffocating the room. As far as eyes stretched, there was pitch black in most parts of the room with a few exceptions of the window that let the moonlight fall in but not enough to reveal the man’s figure.
We continued to walk further into the church and my eyes met the bright ruby eyes of a familiar figure.
"You have arrived right on time, as expected of you Yuna, not a second late," he said praising the girl standing before me. "Now, can go and fetch some chairs for our guests to sit down. We wouldn’t want them to be just standing around. That would be quite rude for someone like me who believes he is a good host."
"Skip the pleasantries, Dominic, we both know why I am here," I said glaring at the noble who emerged from the darkness. His tall figure looking was a lot larger than usual and even though he had a calm and collected look on his face, my adrenaline was still shooting triggering my fight-or-flight instincts.
Dominic’s demeanor was not shaken even the slightest by my remark and he had a calm smile on his face. "Your little lover, yes. You being the hero have come here to get her out of my grip, how courageous of you Kazuki-kun. I would honestly want to praise you for this act of bravery. Many other nobles do not even have the guts to speak up against me or look me dead in the eyes, let alone challenge me and here you are doing all three of those at the same time. You have my respect."
He raised his hands and started clapping a couple of times before he stopped. "Along with that, you also have my condolence for being an utter fool. You know you cannot leave a single scratch on my body, let alone beat me so coming here was just useless," he said while sighing. "I was honestly hoping you would surprise me with something amazing but the only surprise you gave me was your stupidity. Guess this is the end for you, Shiba Kazuki."
As he stopped speaking, the ominous aura kept getting denser and denser while we stood there holding our grounds somehow. The air had gotten so dense that I wanted to run out of that place to the outside where I would feel a lot safer but the main exit was shut and making a run for the window isn’t something that would help me right now.
"Akira, are you ready?" I asked the noble beside me and she nodded.
"I am," she said.
"Well then, I think I’ll at least have some fun while I’m at it," Dominic said and disappeared right in front of our eyes. Akira had her back against mine and we looked around in search of the man and just then in an instant, I saw a faint silhouette of someone. Without thinking, my body responded with me holding the blade up only to find it connected with a very strong and powerful force pushing me back.
I somehow held my ground and Akira jumped high up and charged towards the ground at great speed making the figure dodge it and get away from me.
"Interesting, I attacked at the speed I thought you would not be able to intercept. Dodging it by some millimeters was what I expected but no, you, Kazuki-kun were able to parry it quite perfectly. My, it seems like you have gotten quicker than before. How fascinating, for a mere human to do something like that," he said in an admirable tone.
"Father, why do you have to go after Nii-chan, can you please not stop your pursuit for him?" Yuna spoke out loud standing between me and Dominic with her arms spread wide. Her voice, though shaky was very firm. "I…I don’t want you to kill him, he did nothing to deserve that fate, can you both not have another solution to this which is not going after each other’s lives?"
I could hear the pain and fear in the voice of Yuna as she stood up for me in front of the person who "saved her". Dominic stood there and pondered upon her words for a bit and then looked back at her. "If that is what you want, then what solution do you have for this situation? Give me a good answer and I might consider not going after Shiba Kazuki’s life."
"I…" Yuna was left speechless and she just stood there for a good minute trying to come up with the answer to the question. After some more time, she let down her hands and took a deep breath. "Take my life instead."
What.
"You said I had something special right? You told me there was something really special in my blood and I am Nii-chan’s sister. You are after his life because of his blood and both he and I share the same blood so take my blood instead," she said.
"Are you out of your mind Yuna?!" I shouted at her and stepped right next to her. "Do you know have any idea what you are saying?!"
"But that is the only solution I can think of. Please, I do not want to see the people I care about fighting each other to death and…"
"No, I cannot let you do that. You are my little sister, I cannot let you sacrifice yourself just like that," I scolded her.
"He is right, moreover if you were to offer your blood, that would not really be of any use to my main motive, Shiba Kazuki’s blood is very rare and he is the only one in this world who has the blood of the first in him. You on the other hand do have something special about you but that has nothing to do with him or the first. Your blood is special because of your parents," Dominic said walking towards us and I moved Yuna behind me holding up my Katana. "Shiba Kazuto was quite the talented individual himself being the strongest vampire hunter in his prime during his time and it takes more than just hard work to reach his level. He was gifted, to a level that is beyond the comprehension of most humans, and that makes his blood very special."
"So you mean…"
"But it is nothing in comparison to what I am after, Shiba Kazuki has the genes of his father and the blood of the First. That is quite the perfect match that we got and it was a mere coincidence that this happened. Thanks to that, he could withstand the blood of the first and not go berserk," he continued to explain getting closer and closer. "Every night of the Super Blood moon, the blood of the First decides to choose a few individuals born on that very day, if the body cannot handle the blood, the baby normally tends to die in the womb along with the mother or if they are born and start living a life, it is not long before the blood takes over the individual’s mind and body turning them into a monster which needs to be taken care of by us personally or the hunters."
All this information was yet again a lot to take at the moment given the fact that all the hair in my body was standing straight in fear as the man kept getting closer and closer to us. I could not even process what was being told to me at that instant.
"And so, your solution to the problem is not something we can go by because it would not help my cause but I really appreciate your will to help Yuna," he said stopping only a few meters ahead of me. "Now that it couldn’t help the situation, shall we continue where we left off?"
Dominic stretched out his arm and out of thin air appeared, a shiny-looking long sword that was glistening under the moonlight.
"It can’t be…" Akira muttered and pulled the both of us back and stood right before us. I could see the scared expression on her face as she was sweating in fear. "Kazuki-sama run away! He…he has the as holy weapon Trinity…the sword of divine judgment…"
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