Vol 3 Epilogue (1/2)

Epilogue A - All Nights are Ended by Dawn

Underground, Waldstein Castle The Execution Area

The vampire without a body was merely present

It felt as though his body was there, yet not

Even after everyone had returned to their own places, Val’s consciousness andering the caverns

“Val”

That hen he heard a voice calling his name

When he turned his senses towards the source of the voice, he saw a young girl standing there

‘Beautiful’

Even nohen he was free fro had been scrairl was lovely

He could put words to his emotions

‘I knew it That emotion I felt thethings when I washer for the first time’

“Val? Are you there?”

Re his nae before her His poorked in the same way as they had in the past The only difference was that there was no longer a body around which he had to work

“Should we go, Selim? Or would tomorrow be better for you?”

Selim was taken aback by the unexpected question But Val continued:

“Remember? I promised I’d show you around outside”

“Oh”

Selim finally remembered his promise from earlier that day

“Now, I can create illusions anywhere on this island, nothey have to be I can even h they’re still just illusions, though” Val said sheepishly, but his tone soon grew shaky

“I found myself this new form, if you could call it that But to be honest, I don’t kno long it’ll last For sole breeze could scattera water it around” He said, and turned to Seli eyes, “so Selim before that happens, please stay with me Before I disappear, I want to--”

“That’s not going to happen! Val that’s that’s not going to happen I I drank your blood earlier, Val! And look at this!”

Selim stretched out her hands towards Val’s consciousness, revealing the contents of her cupped palms

Ripened black watermelon seeds

When Val’s body was sments of the watermelon And once she realized that Val had abandoned his body, she drank through her roots the water ht, but itcompletely different to Selim

“I’ve absorbed your blood, Val So so if you ever feel like you’re going to disappear, please come back inside me And and I’ll plant these watermelon seeds all over the island I’ll fill this island with you, so Val”

Seliht He looked into her teary eyes

“So Val please Let’s live on together”

“Why, Seli so far for my sake?”

He wanted to know more about her

Although it wasn’t quite the kind of thought that fit the situation at hand, Val felt as though he didn’t care about disappearing as long as he learned more about Selim

And whether she understood this or not, Selim opened her mouth to tell him her story She wanted to hold on to his heart for even a second more

“Please listen to my story Hoas born, and why I decided to look like a human I’ve alanted to tell so one day if this was all real, or a story I made up in my head”

Val nodded solemnly

Now that he thought about it, this was the reason he had tried to get closer to her in the first place But now, even though he no longer felt it necessary, Val wanted to listen to what Selim had to say

Even one word more For even one second more

This was the first powerful desire he felt since he had taken on this new form of existence

“Thank you, Selim”

One look at her sh for Val to realize how he felt about her

And at that uardian spirit of Growerth smiled sheepishly

Selim responded with a smile of her own

And captivated by her radiance, Val finally put words to his emotions

He would convey the fact of his heart--his existence--to Selim

He mumbled to himself,

“Beautiful”

And gave her his answer

“Let’s live on Together”

Epilogue B - All Days are Ended by Dusk

An underground conference hall, somewhere in Paris

“is what I hear It’s ninety-percent over” Laetitia said quietly, holding her cell phone in one hand

“Siget her in the oing to be the lucky recipient”

In her other hand were several pieces of splintered wood, and pinned to the wall before her was Caldimir, still partly skewered with stakes

“First you get my hopes up with a rescue, then you deliver bad news What’s your game, Laetitia?”

“I was feeling et yourself off the wall now”

“Hmph”

Caldihed and came down from the wall

His ars, pinned to the wall, were now free The wounds covering his body were being quickly healed, new skin growing over his injuries

“da powerhouses all gather on that Godforsaken island?!”

“Ever heard of public esteem?”

“I refuse to acknowledge it I refuse!”

Caldiust and clenched his fists But the word ‘ as he turned to Laetitia with a composed expression

“Speaking of which Rudy knows the truth now, doesn’t he? Doesn’t thaton us?” He wondered nervously But Laetitia shook her head

“Correction We could call him an even more subservient pawn at this point”

“H happen to him?”

Laetitia grinned

Taking delight in the ed the Eater’s fate

“Rudy and Theresia--”

<=>

A beach on southern Growerth

As he lay on the sandy beach, Rudy looked up at the sky

The stars were covered by a thick layer of clouds

But froed Theresia

His childhood friend The girl who killed his sister, loved Theo, and brought him here from the cavern

“I’ to me” She said

Rudy ell enough to speak, at the very least But he said nothing He didn’t knohat he should say, and he knew that nothing he said would heal his wounded heart

But thinking that he should at least respond to Theresia, he carefully chose his words

“We’ve been living under a curse”

But he was really talking to himself, not Theresia

The one from whom the words came was another self within his heart

He had been saying this fortime

Theresia took hold of Rudy’s hand and pulled hihts

“We’ve passed the point of no return Now all I have iselse I want to do I don’t even hate you for turning my sister to ashes Because in the end, I’m the one who hated her”

“But you haven’t abandoned your hatred of Theo, have you?”

Theresia already knew the anshen she asked the question Rudy answered, and added a question of his own

“No I haven’t But why did you help e on Theo?”

“Because because I love hi to reveal everything, “I want to ht before his eyes All of theht?”

Theresia already knew Rudy’s answer It was because she knew that she had walked at his side along the path of the Eater

Though Rudy did not reply, Theresia continued She would spill the dark emotions that had filled her heart all these years

“I’ Theo until the end So you can spend the next hundred years torturing hi to be all alone That ht?”

“Theresia”

Rudy quietly called her nain his heart, he fanned the flaainst Theo

Not knowing that the emotion’s name was envy

His childhood friend--his final pillar of support Even she had been taken away by Theo Rudy did not realize that he was nurturing envy in his heart

Theresia said nothing, even after Rudy called her name But she eventually smiled at him and held out her hand

“Let’s go back We can start over Our lives, your revenge, and my love”

“Yeah You’re right”

Rudy let himself fall into Theresia’s arms

Now left with no option but to place his trust in the girl who killed his sister,

Rudy burst into tears in her embrace

Without a single sob,

Without a single cry of anguish,

He wept so very silently

Then, he was struck by agony

“?!”

The source of the pain became clear instantly

But Rudy did not realize why this had happened

Theresia’s right hand had been driven deep into his chest

He felt so down his back It must have been the silver tip of her whip

“There sia?”

‘Did you hateto make Theo suffer?’

But her confession earlier did not seem to be a lie As Rudy tried to look ahead, lost in confusion, he spotted a sure behind Theresia

A young girl, standing all alone on the beach She didn’t show an ounce of fear at the sight unfolding before her eyes

Although Rudy had no way of knowing this, the girl was the same one who had visited the viscount, bu cereht

Rudy recognized her

“You”

He had seen her several days earlier

The one vampire he had been unable to kill at the massacre in the mine Theresia had run after her into the shaft to finish her, but,

‘It can’t be’

Ain time with his heartbeat

And the moment he looked at Theresia’s eyes, his fears became a reality

She wore an eated by Sig in Rudy’s direction

“Subjugation!”

The reat deal of blood It covered Theresia’s face in red

His legs were treer The moment Theresia reround

Theresia mechanically withdrew her hand

Rudy was led by gravity, falling face-first into the sand as he felt the sensation of being sucked into the ground

His senses were still perfectly functional The cool touch of the sand, his oar pain in his chest But it was the pain alone that filled his thoughts

“Now do you knohat it feels like to lose?” The little girl finally said as Rudy lay prone on the beach

She sneered at him with hatred clear in her eyes

“You knoas the real ringleader in that hter, but I have a knack for subjugation If it’s just one ate them with a tiny scratch I normally have ht they’d be massacred by someone like you”

Rudy was no longer listening, but the girl didn’t seem to care

“Just when this girl was about to kill ized I didn’t let my chance slip by That’s all”

The girl licked the blood staining Theresia’s hand And with a smile, she licked the blood on Theresia’s face and drank it down

“I’m an old acquaintance of the viscount, you know I needed his pere while I was on this island So Iover infore here On the condition that I didn’t harm any of the islanders, of course”

Rudy had no idea what the girl’s strange actions just nowhis blood, spilled onto Theresia?

But even if he knew the answer to his questions, he was powerless to do a thing

The girl pressed her foot down on his back And with an innocent smile, she spat out words filled with venom

“LetTheresia said just noas true Everything she said in the cavern and the beach! I only activated ation now Just one teensy second before she stabbed you in the gut I was going to do it a little earlier, but you don’t kno lucky it was for me that it was just the two of you left here!”

The girl’s tone suddenly shi+fted Drowning in her own glee, she laughed ernails into Rudy’s wound

“Ahahahahahaha! Why don’tcha cry so and beg for mercy!”

But Rudy’s body had already lost the capacity to feel Not even his reflexes were functioning

The girl looked at his prone form and spat, annoyed

“So you’re already dead, huh? Seriously seriously seriously soooooooooooooo boring and stupid and annoying and dumb!”

But as she went for the kill,

‘It’ made land with a thunderous roar

A strange creature about five th splashed and flailed as it slid in from the sea and halfway up the beach

It looked al quite different about it

This was not the natural for of all was its eyes

Countless eyeballs were clustered together like those of an insect’s, creating a pair of eyeballs about forty centi fish perht have vomited or lost consciousness by this point

The ‘thing’ finally caed a dark figure

The creature covered in black spun their head around and said to themselves:

“I’m so tired I am”

The bandaged figure stepped down onto the beach and looked back at the monstrous fish that had encapsulated them They then uttered:

“Rot”

At that point, the an to foah the entire body was co to see which part would rot first, as it quickly crumbled

The sticky pieces of fleshodor, and soon turned into a mass like a pile of putrid food and decomposed on the beach

As the figure in black watched their vehicle cruirl

“Did you see so just now? Did you see? You’re better off not re You’re better off”

The ure’s eye, she began tre like a leaf

An eain feel thanks to her newfound powers--the eust of wind

‘This is bad’

Through the Eater, she had just taken hold of Relic von Waldstein’s absolute power And yet--no, because she had beco froure

‘This vampire is trouble I can feel it’

Even if the girl were to fight froed vaht utilize a kind of fighting style far removed from that of Relic’s

“Let us go, Theresia” The girl said elegantly, her cal from the newcoive the mayor a run for his money

“Yes”

The subjugated Eater nodded with eirl’s ar into the distance in one bound with her enhanced strength

She left without so oodbye--at the childhood friend she had mutilated

Meanwhile, Rudy’s heart had already stopped beating

The blood supply was cut off from his brain All he had to do noait in silence for his consciousness to fade

Now certain of his own death, the boy found hi sense of calm

‘Ah I I’ to disappear’

Curiously enough, his consciousness smiled at his newfound peace He was elated that his hatred of Theo, his resenter at hi to fade

‘Yeah I think this is what I’ve wanted all this time

‘The one I wanted to kill most was myself

‘So this is enough’

But for so had ceased to function, he heard a voice as though he was hallucinating

“Huh? What’s this? What’s this? Aren’t you Rudy the Nidhogg? Aren’t you? Then that girl just noas Theresia? She was? I lost her? This is no good No good at all”

Knowing that the collapsed Eater was part of the Organization, Garde pulled up his body

“But why are you dying now? Why are you?”

Even more blood drained from Rudy’s brain as his head was pulled upwards His vision went dark

“I have to save you now I have to!”

No longer able to feel the sense of touch, Rudy had no idea as happening to hi had flowed into his body from his neck, but at this point, he was unable to even sense temperature

But there was one thing he sensed for certain He heard Garde’s one-word command

“Heal”

The istered in his mind, his every cell obeyed

And Rudy opened his eyes

Not knohat had happened, he realized that the wounds that had covered his body were gone Even the pain had disappeared

“For now, you’reto take orders from me You are”

Rudy looked up at the owner of the voice He recognized this vaanization Caldimir had warned him to stay away from this particular officer

“I don’t knohat happened here I don’t But did you really think you’d be happy once you died? Did you think you could die?”

The bandaged figure questioned Rudy as though having read his mind

“No, no, no You are our dog You are Dogs don’t kill themselves Nope Understand? Super-clear? You’re a sin, you know You Eaters are a sin to us vampires If you ate a hundred vampires, you have to save a hundred vampires If you ate a thousand vampires, you have to do all their work for us Redemption Let’s call it redemption”

‘No Please, no! How how h this? No Kill me Please, kill me!’

As the hound atteleefully They cast a single spell to

“Don’t run away”

The moment the command reached Rudy’s body and soul, he remembered the viscount’s final words to hi for all the world like a death sentence

[After all, you are already trapped in the cycle of vengeance and repentance for all eternity]

Theof his words, the one-ed vauished sobs

But Garde gave no ear to the Eater’s cries, happily speaking froes

“All right All right I’ to have you tell me What happened on the island? How e to solve? Tell ! With lots of details!”

Garde’s demands reached Rudy’s ears in theinsubordination of any kind

“Speak”

But Garde Ritzberg had made a careless mistake

Mole bat had latched onto Rudy and sucked his blood

The girl had noticed the bat, and was about to destroy it immediately

But spared by Garde’s sudden intrusion, the bat that had feasted on Rudy’s blood soared into the skies unharmed

It returned to the body for which it beat--the place it truly belonged

<=>

Neuberg City Hall The mayor’s office

“How long you planning to crash here, asshole?”

“Who knows? Probably ‘til I get word fro at Watt as he answered

“Tch”

Watt looked disgusted, but he seee of pace He stepped over to theand opened it

A cool breeze blew into the office Bridgestone finally turned to Watt

“Hey If you’re gonna fly off in a flock, I’ll shoot you down before you get off the ground And if you’re just gonna juround Sorry, but I’ht of so in from the outside

The creature was a perfectly ordinary bat With the exception of its eerie human eyes

“Melhilm?”

The familiar bat disappeared into Watt’s silhouette as he stood facing the , before being sucked into his chest

“?”

‘What was that?’ Bridgestone was about to ask, but at that ripped by a chill

It was as though so

“So”

Slowly, Watt turned around and repeated himself

“How long you planning to crash here, asshole?”

Several seconds later

One of the office s shattered, and a

The blond-haired, blue-eyed round, already unconscious before the impact

Watt had defeated an officer of the Organization in a h to kill the er had any room for defeat No amount of overconfidence or disdain for others would be a weakness now

But even as he savored his newfound powers, Watt did not lose hih

“Heh Heh heh”

Relishi+ng in the sensation of crawling up frohed

“Ahaha Hahahahahahah! Ahahahahahaha!”