Slowly, something changed.
The pale activity within the Reaper's Feast Blade became less frequent.
The beach around them had already been stripped of nearby available corpses.
Whatever souls Reina had taken from the dead in this section…
She had taken.
There were no more pale orbs rising around them.
No new fuel.
Jeremiah noticed first.
Then Sylvie.
Sylvie: "Nothing's coming from the bodies anymore."
Jeremiah: "Yeah."
Esmarie looked around.
The corpses nearest them were still.
Completely still.
Erika's smile widened.
Erika: "Running low?"
Reina looked at her.
Reina: "Maybe."
Jeremiah didn't believe for a second that she was going to answer honestly.
But the situation had improved.
Reina was being forced to fight largely with her own swordsmanship now.
That was still dangerous.
Extremely dangerous.
But it was a kind of danger they understood.
Erika rushed her.
Reina met her.
Their blades collided.
Erika pushed harder this time.
Reina held.
Erika changed angle.
Reina followed.
Sylvie entered.
Jeremiah moved behind her.
For the first time, Reina was forced to retreat without immediately using another ability.
Erika saw it.
Her attack sharpened.
Reina blocked high.
Sylvie cut toward her side.
Reina twisted away.
Jeremiah closed the escape route toward the ocean.
Reina backed toward the inland side of the beach.
Esmarie followed from behind.
They were compressing her.
Reina's eyes moved once toward the city.
Jeremiah caught it.
His expression changed.
Jeremiah: "Don't let her get inland."
Erika immediately understood.
She cut off the route.
Reina stepped right.
Sylvie was there.
She went left.
Jeremiah blocked that path.
For several seconds, the four held her near the shoreline.
Reina looked at each of them.
Then smiled.
Jeremiah's stomach dropped.
Reina vanished.
Erika spun.
Jeremiah immediately looked toward the corpses.
Nothing.
No teleport.
Then Reina reappeared only several meters away.
Not Passage.
Veil.
Her outline vanished again.
Jeremiah: "She's moving inland!"
The sand gave her away.
Footprints appeared rapidly.
One after another.
Straight toward the city.
Erika moved before anyone else.
She exploded forward.
Erika: "NOT HAPPENING!"
She chased the invisible trail.
Reina's Veil faded as she reached the upper beach.
Her figure returned.
She looked over her shoulder.
Erika was already gaining.
Reina: "Persistent little thing."
Erika: "You're not getting away!"
Reina turned and slashed while running.
Soul Edge extended from the blade.
Erika ducked beneath it without slowing.
The spectral cut passed over her head.
Reina continued toward the ruined streets.
Jeremiah swore under his breath.
Jeremiah: "She knows there'll be bodies inland."
Sylvie: "Then we can't let her reach them."
Jeremiah: "Exactly."
He ran.
Esmarie followed.
⸻
The battle became a pursuit.
Reina left the shoreline behind and sprinted toward the burning interior of Hanabi Island.
Erika stayed closest.
Much closer than Reina probably expected.
Her feet tore through the sand before finding broken pavement. The moment she reached solid ground, her speed increased.
Reina glanced back again.
Erika was barely ten meters behind.
Reina raised her sword.
Another spectral slash.
Erika jumped.
The Soul Edge passed beneath her.
She landed and immediately continued forward.
Reina: "Do you ever stop?"
Erika: "Not really!"
Reina: "I noticed."
They entered the remains of a coastal shopping street.
Burned stalls lined both sides.
Broken signs hung from damaged buildings.
Smoke filled the road ahead.
And farther inland…
Bodies.
Many more.
Reina saw them.
So did Erika.
Erika's expression hardened.
Erika: "Jeremiah!"
He was farther behind.
Jeremiah: "I SEE THEM!"
Reina accelerated.
Erika pushed harder.
Behind them, Sylvie maintained a steady pace.
Jeremiah and Esmarie followed several meters farther back.
Esmarie was beginning to struggle.
Esmarie: "Why is everyone so fast?!"
Jeremiah: "Less complaining!"
Esmarie: "I'm running and complaining!"
Jeremiah: "Fair enough!"
Ahead, Erika nearly reached Reina.
She lunged.
Reina turned while still moving.
Their swords collided.
Erika used the impact to propel herself closer.
Reina tried pulling away.
Erika attacked again.
Reina blocked.
The chase briefly became a moving sword fight.
Both women continued sprinting while trading strikes.
Erika cut toward the ribs.
Reina parried.
Reina thrust.
Erika shifted left.
Their feet barely slowed.
A wrecked cart blocked the road ahead.
Reina vaulted over it.
Erika followed.
Reina landed first and immediately turned with another slash.
Erika caught it in mid-step.
The impact knocked her sideways.
She hit the wall of a damaged building, pushed off it, and kept running.
Sylvie appeared behind her.
Sylvie: "Erika!"
Erika: "Fine!"
Reina had gained several meters.
They couldn't let her gain more.
The first corpse came into range.
A dead Hunter lying partially beneath a collapsed awning.
A pale orb rose.
Jeremiah saw it from behind.
Jeremiah: "SHE'S GOT ONE!"
The soul raced toward Reina.
Erika tried to reach her before it did.
Too late.
The orb entered the sword.
The blade brightened.
Reina smiled.
Erika: "Damn it."
Then another soul rose farther down the street.
And another.
The ruined city ahead was filled with them.
Jeremiah understood immediately what was happening.
Everything they'd accomplished on the beach was about to be undone.
Jeremiah: "MOVE!"
Sylvie accelerated.
Esmarie forced more strength into tired legs.
Erika stayed locked onto Reina.
The vampire rushed deeper inland while souls began awakening ahead of her one by one.
They had starved the Reaper's Feast Blade.
Now Reina was running straight toward a banquet.
***
Noah had separated himself from the others the moment the battle began.
Not because he wanted to fight alone.
Because he had made a mistake.
A stupid one.
He should have seen this coming.
Hanabi Island was hosting one of the largest gatherings of Hunters and civilians in Shioto. The Golden Festival had drawn crowds from across multiple districts, and with so many important people concentrated in one place, the island had been an obvious target.
Noah should have accounted for it.
He should have left a crow behind.
Just one.
One set of eyes circling the island from above, watching the shorelines, the forests, the roads, anything that moved where it shouldn't.
Instead, he'd allowed himself to relax.
That irritated him more than he cared to admit.
Noah moved through the burning streets with his sword low at his side, green eyes scanning every intersection.
The attack had already spread too far.
Smoke darkened the sky. Fire climbed along rooftops. People screamed in the distance while Hunters rushed in every direction trying to stabilize a battle that had stopped being controllable almost immediately.
Noah had already done what he could for the civilians nearest him.
At the beginning of the invasion, he'd found a group trapped between two burning streets while vampires closed in from opposite sides. He cut through the attackers, gathered the survivors, and personally led them toward one of the evacuation centers farther inland.
He didn't leave until every one of them was through the doors.
Then he turned around.
And went hunting.
There was only one reason he had separated himself from everyone else.
He needed his power back.
Since reincarnating into this world as a half-vampire, Noah had survived on the bare minimum amount of blood necessary to sustain himself. Enough to keep his body stable. Enough to maintain the abilities he still possessed.
Never enough to restore what he once had.
He had accepted that restraint willingly.
Until tonight.
The vampires had declared war openly.
Thousands of civilians were trapped on the island.
Hunters were dying.
There was no reason left to preserve a handicap that could cost other people their lives.
If the enemy was going to flood Hanabi Island with vampires…
Then they had brought Noah exactly what he needed.
Blood.
He followed the smell first.
Fresh.
Heavy.
Too much.
It led him away from the main streets and toward a narrow service road behind several festival buildings.
Noah slowed.
Voices came from ahead.
Laughter.
Wet tearing sounds.
His expression hardened.
He stepped around the corner.
Eight vampires occupied the road.
None noticed him immediately.
They were gathered around several bodies.
Civilians.
Some of the vampires knelt beside them, feeding without urgency. Others stood nearby talking as though they hadn't just murdered people.
One laughed with blood running down his chin.
Noah's grip tightened around his sword.
He said nothing.
There was nothing worth saying.
The closest vampire finally looked up.
His eyes widened.
Vampire: "Hunter—"
Noah disappeared.
The first head left its shoulders before the warning finished.
Blood sprayed across the wall.
The second vampire stood.
Noah's blade entered beneath his ribs and tore upward.
He pulled it free and turned.
A third lunged.
Noah stepped aside and severed the arm holding the weapon.
His return slash opened the vampire's throat.
The others scattered.
Too late.
Noah moved through them with an efficiency that made the entire encounter feel less like combat and more like execution.
One tried climbing onto a roof.
Noah threw his sword.
The blade pierced through the vampire's back and pinned him against the wall.
Another charged from behind.
Noah caught the wrist, twisted it until bone snapped, then drove the vampire face-first into the pavement.
He retrieved his sword.
One slash.
Another body fell.
Three remained.
The first tried running.
Noah appeared in front of him.
A horizontal cut ended that.
The other two attacked together.
Noah ducked beneath one blade, stepped between them, and turned through a wide slash.
Both vampires stopped.
Then collapsed in opposite directions.
Silence returned.
Eight vampires.
Less than a minute.
Noah stood among them.
Blood ran slowly from the edge of his sword.
His eyes moved toward the civilians.
His expression changed.
Too late.
Again.
He walked toward them and knelt beside the nearest body.
A young man.
No pulse.
Another nearby.
Nothing.
Noah closed his eyes briefly.
He hated this part.
Not the blood.
The fact that there was nothing left to save.
He looked toward the vampires he'd killed.
Then back at the civilians.
All of it could still serve a purpose.
Noah sheathed his sword.
He grabbed the nearest dead vampire by the collar and pulled the body closer.
His fangs emerged.
Then he drank.
The reaction was immediate.
Vampire blood flooded his system.
Warmth spread through his body.
Something dormant stirred.
Power he'd been suppressing for far too long began waking up.
Noah released the corpse and moved to the next.
Then another.
He drank deeply enough to replenish himself without wasting time.
Each one strengthened him.
His senses sharpened.
His muscles felt lighter.
The world around him became clearer.
The distant battle no longer sounded distant.
He could distinguish individual explosions.
Footsteps.
Heartbeats.
Blades striking stone.
Then his eyes returned to the civilians.
Their blood remained.
Noah hesitated.
Only for a moment.
He didn't like it.
But refusing it would not bring them back.
And if using what remained of them helped save the living…
Then pride had no place here.
Noah knelt beside one of the bodies.
Noah: "May your souls rest in peace."
Then he drank.
He moved from one corpse to the next, taking only what he could use.
Not greedily.
Not carelessly.
Almost solemnly.
With every mouthful, more strength returned.
Power surged through his veins in waves.
His body remembered what it had once been capable of.
Noah stood.
For the first time since his reincarnation…
He felt close to whole.
Not there yet.
But closer.
Much closer.
Then—
BOOOOM!
Green lightning struck the road directly in front of him.
Noah raised one arm against the sudden flash.
The impact blasted debris outward and left a scorched crater several meters across.
Electricity crawled through the air.
A figure stood inside it.
A vampire.
Green lightning rolled across his shoulders and arms, snapping between his fingers as he slowly straightened.
His eyes immediately went toward the bodies.
The dead vampires.
The blood.
Then Noah.
A grin spread across his face.
?: "A vampire feasting on his own?"
The lightning around him intensified.
?: "You bastard, who are you?!"
He sounded furious.
But the grin never disappeared.
If anything, he looked excited.
Like he'd finally found something interesting.
Noah wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
Then drew his sword.
His expression remained calm.
Noah: "Care to find out?"
Noah stood beside the dead, sword lowered at his side, blood still warm on his tongue.
The vampire across from him looked almost delighted.
Green electricity crawled over his arms, shoulders, and neck like living veins of light. It hissed whenever it touched the ground, leaving dark marks in the stone.
?: "You don't smell human."
Noah: "Observant."
?: "But you don't smell like us either."
Noah raised his sword slightly.
Noah: "Then come closer."
The vampire grinned.
?: "Gladly."
He vanished.
Noah's eyes widened.
Green light flashed across the street.
The vampire appeared directly in front of him with one fist already drawn back.
Noah moved his sword—
Too slow.
The punch passed through his chest.
Or rather, through where his chest had been.
Noah's body exploded into black feathers.
The vampire's fist tore through the flock.
His grin sharpened.
?: "Oh?"
The feathers scattered behind him.
Noah reformed several meters away.
His coat settled around him.
Noah: "Fast."
?: "That's all?"
Noah: "For now."
The vampire disappeared again.
This time Noah saw the green streak.
Barely.
It cut across the road, rebounded from the side of a building, and changed direction mid-charge.
Noah turned.
The vampire appeared at his flank.
A blade of solid green electricity formed in his hand.
He swung.
Noah dissolved again.
Black feathers burst outward.
The lightning blade passed through them.
Noah reformed on top of a damaged festival stall.
The vampire looked up.
?: "You just going to keep doing that?"
Noah: "As long as you keep missing."
The vampire laughed.
Then thrust one hand forward.
A condensed sphere of green lightning formed in his palm.
Noah's expression changed.
The projectile fired.
He jumped.
The bolt struck the stall beneath him.
BOOM!
Green electricity exploded outward.
Wood shattered.
The entire structure collapsed.
Noah spread black wings from his back and caught the air before he hit the ground.
The vampire looked up.
?: "There we go."
Noah landed lightly on the roof of a nearby building.
The vampire fired again.
Noah moved.
Another bolt.
Another.
Each one exploded on impact.
The rooftop disappeared beneath bursts of green light.
Tiles and broken timber filled the air.
Noah leapt between them.
His wings folded close.
Then opened again.
He rode the blast wave upward.
The vampire tracked him from below.
?: "You're slippery!"
Noah: "You're loud."
The vampire fired upward.
Noah twisted.
The bolt missed him by inches.
He felt the heat.
Not normal heat.
Something worse.
The electricity carried a sickening pressure with it.
Noah's eyes narrowed.
He had felt power like this before.
Not this exact ability.
But the intent behind it.
Something designed to kill quickly.
The vampire launched himself upward in a burst of green lightning.
Noah barely turned in time.
The solidified electric blade came toward his neck.
Noah blocked with his sword.
The moment the two weapons touched, green electricity crawled across the steel.
Noah released the weapon instantly and kicked away.
His fingers tingled.
Then burned.
He landed on another rooftop and looked at his hand.
The skin along his fingers had darkened.
Only from indirect contact.
Noah's expression sharpened.
That answered one question.
He absolutely did not want the lightning touching him directly.
The vampire landed opposite him.
?: "Finally noticed?"
Noah said nothing.
?: "Humans usually figure it out faster."
He smiled wider.
?: "Mostly because they die."
Noah's eyes hardened.
The vampire rolled one shoulder.
?: "One touch is enough for most of them."
Green electricity crawled between his fingers.
?: "Sometimes less."
Noah: "How many?"
The vampire tilted his head.
?: "How many what?"
Noah: "Humans."
The grin remained.
?: "I stopped counting."
Noah stared at him.
For just a second, the noise of the battle around them seemed distant.
The vampire laughed.
?: "Alter World had plenty."
Noah's grip tightened.
The sword lying below dissolved into black feathers.
Those feathers shot upward.
They condensed back into the weapon inside his hand.
The vampire's eyebrows rose.
Noah: "Then I suppose I don't have to feel bad about this."
?: "About what?"
Noah vanished into a burst of feathers.
The vampire turned.
Too late.
Noah appeared from the shadow beneath a broken rooftop structure.
His blade cut across the vampire's back.
Blood sprayed.
The vampire stumbled forward.
Then laughed.
?: "THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!"
Green lightning erupted around him.
Noah immediately teleported away.
The entire rooftop was swallowed by electricity.
⸻
Noah appeared on the street below.
The vampire dropped after him.
He landed hard enough to crater the road.
Noah was already watching.
Not just through his own eyes.
A crow landed on a broken lamp post.
Another perched on a collapsed balcony.
Three circled overhead.
Then five.
Then more.
The vampire looked around.
?: "Birds?"
Noah said nothing.
His vision shifted.
For an instant, the battlefield fractured into multiple perspectives.
His own.
The lamp post.
The balcony.
The air above.
A rooftop to the left.
A telephone wire farther down the street.
The vampire moved.
From Noah's perspective, he vanished.
From the crow above, he became a green streak traveling toward Noah's back.
Noah ducked.
The vampire's fist passed over him.
Noah cut upward.
The vampire twisted away.
Another crow saw the movement.
Noah turned before the vampire could reposition.
Their blades collided.
The vampire's eyes widened.
He disengaged.
Then accelerated again.
Noah followed him through the crows.
Left.
Right.
Above.
Behind.
Green lightning tore through the street.
But Noah stopped reacting after the attack began.
He moved before it reached him.
A bolt formed in the vampire's right palm.
Noah saw the shoulder rotate through the eyes of a crow behind him.
He shifted.
The projectile missed.
A green spear formed in the vampire's hand.
Noah watched his grip tighten.
His rear foot turned.
His hips lowered.
Noah stepped left before the throw.
The spear passed beside his face.
The vampire landed several meters away.
His grin faded slightly.
?: "You seeing the future?"
Noah: "No."
A crow flew past overhead.
Noah's eyes followed it for half a second.
Noah: "You're repetitive."
The vampire stared.
Then laughed.
?: "You bastard."
He accelerated again.
Noah watched.
The first step always came from the right leg.
A slight dip in the shoulder before lateral movement.
The lightning around his left hand intensified before ranged attacks.
His eyes flicked toward his destination a fraction of a second before changing direction.
Noah remembered everything.
Every angle.
Every attack.
Every mistake.
Perfectly.
The vampire came from behind.
Noah turned without looking.
Their weapons collided.
Noah redirected the electric blade and slashed toward the stomach.
The vampire retreated.
Noah followed.
A storm of black feathers appeared around him.
He flicked two fingers.
The feathers fired.
The vampire accelerated sideways.
Most missed.
Three struck.
They cut across his cheek, shoulder, and thigh.
He stopped.
Touched the blood on his cheek.
Then smiled again.
?: "You really are fun."
Noah: "You say that too much."
?: "Because you keep making it true."
Green lightning suddenly condensed around both of his arms.
Different.
Darker.
Thicker.
Noah felt the shift immediately.
The crows above became restless.
Noah's eyes narrowed.
The vampire disappeared.
Every crow tracked him.
Noah moved.
The vampire changed direction.
Noah moved again.
Then the vampire stopped chasing Noah.
He thrust both hands toward the sky.
Green lightning exploded outward.
Not toward Noah.
Toward the crows.
The first bird vanished inside the flash.
Then another.
Then three more.
Noah's vision blinked out one perspective at a time.
The vampire grinned.
?: "Found your trick."
Noah sent the remaining crows higher.
Too late.
A concentrated green bolt tore upward and exploded among them.
Black silhouettes scattered.
Noah lost most of his vision network at once.
The vampire was already moving.
Noah saw the first flash.
Then nothing.
A fist slammed into his stomach.
Noah's body folded.
Green electricity touched him.
For the first time.
Pain exploded through his entire body.
Not a shock.
Something invasive.
The lightning seemed to burrow into his muscles and nerves.
Noah flew backward.
He struck the side of a building hard enough to crack the wall.
His sword fell.
He dropped to one knee.
Green electricity crawled across his chest.
Noah gritted his teeth.
His regeneration tried to respond.
Slower than it should have.
The vampire walked toward him.
?: "There."
The lightning around his hand had changed.
The green had deepened toward something almost black at the edges.
?: "That one feels different, doesn't it?"
Noah tried dissolving.
His shoulder broke into feathers—
Then stopped.
His body snapped back together.
Noah's eyes widened slightly.
The vampire saw it.
?: "There it is."
Noah tried calling his sword back.
Nothing.
The feathers around the weapon trembled but failed to respond.
The vampire crouched slightly.
?: "Corrupt Lightning."
Noah stood.
?: "Drains the energy right out of you."
He grinned.
?: "And messes with abilities."
Noah's shadow wings flickered once behind him.
Then disappeared.
The vampire laughed.
?: "What happened to all those tricks?"
Noah wiped blood from his mouth.
Noah: "Temporary."
?: "Confident."
Noah: "Accurate."
The vampire vanished.
No crows.
No shadow jump.
No feather escape.
No wings.
Noah watched with only his own eyes.
Green.
Left.
He moved.
The fist missed his head.
The vampire's eyes widened.
Noah ducked and drove his elbow into his ribs.
The vampire slid back.
?: "Lucky."
Noah said nothing.
The vampire accelerated again.
Right foot first.
Shoulder dipped.
His eyes flicked left.
Noah stepped right.
The green blade missed.
Noah struck the wrist.
The vampire recoiled.
His expression changed.
He attacked again.
Noah moved before him.
Another miss.
The vampire stopped.
?: "What?"
Noah picked up his sword manually.
The vampire stared at him.
?: "I shut your powers off."
Noah raised the blade.
Noah: "You didn't shut my brain off."
The grin returned.
But this time there was something behind it.
Annoyance.
Noah could work with that.
The vampire charged.
Noah watched the stance.
Remembered the previous twenty-seven approaches.
Compared the angle.
Discarded the impossible routes.
Predicted the remaining one.
He turned.
Steel struck solidified lightning.
Noah slipped inside the vampire's reach and cut across his chest.
The vampire jumped back.
Blood ran down his torso.
His eyes widened.
Noah remained perfectly still.
No powers.
No crows.
No teleportation.
Just observation.
The vampire touched the wound.
Then slowly looked up.
Green lightning began pouring from his body in greater amounts.
Noah felt the pressure increase.
The road beneath the vampire's feet cracked.
Electricity surged into the surrounding buildings.
Windows shattered.
Noah watched silently.
The vampire rolled his neck.
?: "Okay."
The lightning intensified again.
?: "Let's see your brain keep up with this."
Green light swallowed him.
His muscles tightened.
His heartbeat accelerated.
The aura around him became violent enough that the air itself seemed to vibrate.
Noah's eyes narrowed.
The vampire disappeared.
Noah knew exactly where he was going.
That was the problem.
He knew.
And still couldn't move fast enough.
A green fist struck Noah across the face.
He flew through the wall behind him.
Before his body touched the floor inside—
The vampire was already there.
Another hit.
Noah crashed through the opposite wall.
Then another.
And another.
Green flashes tore through the building in rapid succession as Noah was driven from room to room.
The vampire grabbed him by the throat and hurled him back onto the street.
Noah struck the pavement and rolled.
His sword skidded away.
The vampire emerged through the hole in the building.
Green lightning covered almost his entire body now.
?: "Overcharge."
Noah pushed himself onto one knee.
Blood ran from his forehead.
His disrupted powers were beginning to return.
Slowly.
Black feathers trembled around his fingertips.
The vampire noticed.
?: "Good."
He grinned.
?: "Get them back."
Noah looked up.
?: "I want everything you've got."
Noah's eyes remained calm.
Then a single black feather rose from the pavement beside his hand.
Noah: "Careful what you ask for."
The fight stopped belonging to a single street.
It stopped belonging to a single district.
Within seconds, it belonged to everything for several miles around them.
Green lightning ripped across Hanabi Island in violent streaks while clouds of black feathers chased after it. Rooftops shattered beneath their feet. Walls split apart from near misses. Broken festival streets flashed green, vanished beneath smoke, then erupted again as the two combatants crossed them faster than most people could properly follow.
Noah's abilities had returned enough for him to move freely again.
Not completely.
The corrupt lightning still lingered in his body like poison, interfering with the smooth connection between thought and power, but every second weakened its hold.
One moment Noah was sprinting across a rooftop.
The next, his body scattered into hundreds of black feathers.
They swept over the edge of the building in a twisting current, dove through the narrow shadow between two structures, then condensed again fifty meters away.
The green streak was already waiting for him.
Noah barely finished reforming before a lightning blade tore through his previous position.
He leaned back.
The weapon passed inches above his throat.
His sword came up beneath it.
Steel struck solid electricity.
A burst of emerald sparks exploded between them.
Noah pivoted around the vampire's shoulder and slashed toward his ribs.
The vampire accelerated.
The edge missed by centimeters.
Then he was gone.
Noah immediately dissolved again.
A green projectile struck the building behind him.
The entire upper floor exploded.
Fragments of wood, tile, glass, and burning decoration spread through the air.
Noah reformed among the debris with black wings already spread behind him.
One beat.
Then he shot forward.
Wind boomed through the street.
They crossed hundreds of meters before the wreckage from the previous explosion finished hitting the ground.
The vampire ran along the side of a building with green electricity screaming beneath his feet.
Noah flew beside him.
The vampire created two solidified lightning spears and hurled them without breaking stride.
Noah banked sharply.
The first spear passed beneath him.
The second detonated beside his wing.
Half of the shadow feathers composing it scattered.
Noah dropped.
He twisted through the air, dissolved before hitting the ground, and became a flock of crows.
The flock split around the vampire.
Dozens of black shapes filled his vision.
He slashed through one.
Nothing.
Another dove at his face.
Nothing.
Illusions.
The real Noah formed from a different cluster of feathers behind him.
His sword struck the vampire's back.
The cut opened from shoulder to waist.
The vampire was hurled from the building.
He crashed through a festival tower below.
Noah followed.
Green lightning exploded from the wreckage before he arrived.
The blast caught him in the chest.
His body immediately scattered into feathers, but several burned away before he could completely dissolve.
He reformed farther down the street with smoke rising from his clothes.
The vampire emerged from the rubble laughing.
Noah memorized everything.
The voltage increased when he became excited.
His movement became more erratic under Overcharge, but the underlying habits remained.
Right leg.
Shoulder.
Eyes.
Hip rotation.
A slight flex in the fingers before projectiles.
He wasn't becoming unpredictable.
He was becoming faster.
There was a difference.
Noah could understand speed.
Understanding it didn't necessarily mean surviving it.
A green streak crossed his vision.
Noah turned.
Too late.
The vampire kicked him through a storefront.
Noah crashed through shelving and hit the rear wall.
The vampire entered immediately.
Noah vanished through the shadow beneath a collapsed counter.
He reappeared outside.
The vampire followed.
Noah sent a wave of black feathers backward.
Hundreds hardened in midair.
They became knives.
The street filled with them.
The vampire raised one arm.
Green electricity detonated around his body and vaporized the first wave.
The second reached him.
Several feathers embedded in his shoulders.
One pierced his thigh.
Another cut his cheek.
He tore through the storm anyway.
Noah folded his wings.
Dropped beneath him.
Then opened them violently.
The resulting gust threw the vampire upward.
Noah appeared above him.
His heel slammed into the vampire's chest.
They fell together.
The pavement exploded beneath the impact.
Noah landed beside the crater.
The vampire was already climbing out.
Neither stayed down for long anymore.
They couldn't afford to.
The next exchange carried them away from the burning shopping district and across a residential section.
A green bolt demolished a rooftop.
Noah teleported from its shadow before the explosion consumed it.
He emerged from an alley two blocks away and immediately saw three vampires chasing a pair of civilians.
His eyes changed.
He vanished.
The first vampire never saw him.
A black streak crossed the road.
Its head fell.
Noah appeared beside the second and cut cleanly through the torso.
The third turned.
Black feathers pierced its chest from six different directions.
It collapsed.
The civilians stared.
Noah didn't stop long enough to explain.
The green lightning vampire was already approaching.
Noah grabbed one of the dead vampires.
Fangs sank into its neck.
He drank quickly.
Power entered his body like fire.
He released the corpse before the green streak reached him.
The next attack destroyed the entire section of road.
Noah emerged from the smoke forty meters away.
His wings had become darker.
Larger.
More complete.
The blood was working.
Every vampire he killed became another step toward the strength he'd deliberately denied himself since arriving in this world.
That realization should have disturbed him more than it did.
Instead, it brought clarity.
This was war.
The enemy had already made the decision for him.
If their blood could help him prevent another civilian from becoming one of the bodies lying across Hanabi Island, he would use it.
The vampire pursued him through the next district.
Noah led him intentionally.
Every time he sensed vampires nearby, he changed direction.
Not enough for his opponent to immediately understand.
Just enough.
They tore through a park.
Noah landed on the branch of a tree no wider than two fingers.
Perfect balance.
Green projectiles came from below.
He stepped between branches with barely any visible effort.
Each explosion uprooted another tree.
Noah descended.
Four vampires were fighting two Hunters nearby.
He crossed the clearing.
One vampire fell.
Then another.
The remaining two barely noticed him before razor feathers opened their throats.
Noah landed among them.
The Hunters stared.
He ignored them.
Another surge of green lightning approached.
Noah grabbed the closest vampire corpse and drank.
Only seconds.
Enough.
The green streak entered the clearing.
Noah threw the corpse away and disappeared into feathers.
The lightning strike destroyed the ground where he'd been kneeling.
The two Hunters fled.
Good.
Noah wanted them gone.
This fight had become too large for anyone else to survive near it.
The vampire followed him across the park.
Noah moved through the trees as shadows.
Behind one.
Inside another.
Across the darkness beneath a stone bridge.
Every teleport left black feathers spinning in the air.
Green lightning chased each one.
The park became a sequence of emerald explosions and dark flashes.
Then both fighters broke through the tree line and reached a broad avenue.
Noah landed first.
The vampire appeared one heartbeat later.
They collided.
The shockwave shattered nearby windows.
Noah's sword met a solidified green axe.
The vampire changed the weapon's shape mid-swing.
The axe narrowed into a spear.
Noah tilted his head.
The point scraped his cheek.
He trapped the shaft beneath his blade.
The vampire released it.
The spear exploded.
Noah became feathers.
The explosion swallowed them.
Several dozen feathers burned.
He reformed behind the vampire missing part of his left shoulder.
Then his body shed the damaged feathers.
Fresh flesh and fabric formed beneath them as new feathers replaced what had been destroyed.
The vampire turned.
Noah was already attacking.
Sword.
Kick.
Wing.
Feathers.
Shadow.
Steel.
Lightning.
The sequence blurred together.
They crossed the avenue.
Entered another street.
Broke through a building.
Exited through the opposite wall.
Jumped across a canal.
Ran along opposite sides of the water.
Noah fired hardened feathers from one bank.
Green projectiles crossed from the other.
The attacks met above the canal.
Multiple explosions threw water several stories into the air.
Noah entered the spray.
The vampire lost sight of him.
A crow flew through the falling water.
Then another.
Then dozens.
The entire airspace darkened.
The flock passed around the vampire.
He struck at them.
Some were real.
Others disappeared.
His lightning tore through black bodies and illusions alike.
Noah appeared from beneath the bridge.
His sword pierced upward through the vampire's side.
The vampire roared.
Green electricity exploded downward.
Noah released the blade and fell into shadow.
He appeared on the bridge above.
His sword dissolved into feathers from inside the vampire's body and reconstructed itself in Noah's hand.
The vampire landed on one knee.
Blood poured from the wound.
Then Overcharge surged again.
The bleeding slowed.
His muscles tightened.
His aura thickened.
Noah watched.
Durability too.
Not regeneration exactly.
More like his body was being forcefully held together by the electricity.
Useful information.
The vampire leapt.
Noah met him over the canal.
The collision sent both flying in opposite directions.
Noah crashed through a billboard.
The vampire struck a building.
Neither stopped.
They crossed another half mile in seconds.
Everywhere Noah went, crows began appearing.
Some followed naturally.
Others answered his call.
They perched across rooftops and wires.
Circled over intersections.
Watched from trees.
Noah's awareness spread across the battlefield.
Aerial routes.
Side streets.
Hidden alleys.
Vampire clusters.
Civilians.
Hunters.
Fires.
Structural collapses.
For a growing section of Hanabi Island, very little escaped him.
He found six vampires below.
Changed direction.
The green vampire noticed.
He chased.
Noah dropped into the street.
His wings vanished.
The six vampires looked up just as he landed among them.
One managed to raise a sword.
Noah severed the arm.
A second lunged.
Noah stepped through him and cut his neck.
Three black feathers entered the third vampire's skull.
The fourth exploded into a cloud of blood when Noah struck him with a wing-assisted kick.
The fifth tried escaping.
A feather decoy appeared ahead of him.
He attacked it instinctively.
The decoy burst.
The real Noah appeared behind him.
One slash.
The sixth never moved.
He had recognized what Noah was.
Half-vampire.
Something about that frightened him more than the sword.
Noah didn't give him time to speak.
He killed him.
Then drank.
One body.
Then another.
Quickly.
Efficiently.
The green vampire landed nearby.
For the first time, he didn't attack immediately.
He watched Noah drinking.
Noah felt his gaze but continued.
More strength.
More memories of strength his body hadn't possessed since being reborn.
The green vampire fired.
Noah vanished before the blast hit.
They were moving again.
Miles of battlefield passed beneath them.
The coast appeared in the distance.
Then disappeared behind buildings.
They crossed forest.
Street.
Residential blocks.
An abandoned festival square.
A damaged rail line.
Every environment became another weapon.
Noah used shadows cast by fires to teleport.
The vampire destroyed those shadows by blowing apart their surroundings.
Noah filled narrow streets with feather storms.
The vampire burned paths through them.
Green lightning formed enormous blades.
Noah hardened his wings into shields.
The impacts sent him through buildings.
He returned through their shadows.
Whenever his body began slowing, he found more vampires.
Whenever he found vampires hurting civilians or Hunters, he killed them.
Whenever he could spare seconds, he drank.
The pattern became horrifyingly efficient.
Fight.
Move.
Kill.
Feed.
Recover.
Fight again.
The vampire gradually realized what Noah was doing.
Each time he caught him again, Noah seemed slightly faster.
His wings grew denser.
His teleportation became smoother.
His feather storms became larger.
His wounds disappeared more quickly.
The bare minimum was leaving his body.
The restraints he had placed on himself were being peeled away one corpse at a time.
Noah still wasn't at his old strength.
But the gap was closing.
A green fist came toward him.
Noah caught the wrist.
For the first time since Overcharge began, he stopped the attack completely.
The vampire's eyes widened.
Noah twisted.
The vampire was thrown through three parked vehicles.
Green lightning erupted from the wreckage.
He came back faster.
Noah scattered.
The strike passed through feathers.
Noah reformed above him.
His wings opened.
A hurricane of black feathers descended.
The vampire created an enormous dome of electricity.
Black and green swallowed the entire intersection.
Buildings shook.
Streetlights broke.
The road collapsed inward.
When the smoke cleared, both were still standing.
Blood ran from Noah's mouth.
Several green arcs crawled across his coat.
The vampire had dozens of thin cuts over his face and arms.
They stared at one another from opposite ends of the crater.
For the first time since the fight began, several seconds passed without either attacking.
The vampire's grin had changed.
It was still excited.
But the mockery was gone.
Noah recognized that look.
Respect earned through violence.
The vampire lowered the electric weapon in his hand.
Green lightning continued crawling across his body.
He finally spoke.
Jihei: "Jihei."
Noah tilted his head slightly.
Jihei tapped his chest with one hand.
Jihei: "My name."
Noah looked at him for another moment.
Black feathers drifted slowly around his shoulders.
Then he raised his sword.
Noah: "Noah."
The name sat strangely in his mouth for only an instant.
Then his expression softened just slightly.
Noah: "I've been blessed with the name Noah."
Green lightning surged.
Black wings spread.
And both disappeared from the crater at the same time.
Noah's advantage kept growing.
Not because Jihei was slowing down.
Because the battlefield had stopped belonging to Jihei alone.
Crows spread across rooftops, utility poles, tree branches, broken signs, and the skeletal remains of festival structures. Some circled high enough that the flames below looked like scattered candles. Others remained low, hidden beneath awnings or perched inside shattered windows.
Through them, Noah watched everything.
Jihei's approach.
His exits.
The way his shoulders turned before changing direction.
The split-second buildup of green light in his palms before a projectile.
The angle of his hips before he launched himself forward.
One perspective became ten.
Ten became twenty.
Jihei moved like lightning.
Noah watched like a storm.
A green streak tore across a rooftop.
Noah vanished before it arrived.
Jihei's solidified blade cut through a black-feather silhouette and split the chimney behind it.
Nothing.
The image burst apart.
A decoy.
Jihei turned.
Another Noah stood on the opposite roof.
He lunged.
That one vanished too.
More feathers.
Jihei's grin twitched.
Noah appeared from the shadow beneath him.
His sword came up.
Jihei twisted away.
Too late.
The blade cut across his ribs.
He accelerated immediately and escaped before Noah could deepen the wound.
Blood sprayed over the roof tiles.
Jihei landed on the next building.
Noah watched him through three crows at once.
Jihei looked down at the cut.
For the first time, he did not laugh.
Only for a second.
Then the smile returned.
Jihei: "Getting clever."
Noah reappeared at the far end of the roof.
Noah: "You're giving me plenty to work with."
Green lightning erupted beneath Jihei's feet.
He shot forward.
Noah dispersed.
The flock split in five directions.
Jihei attacked the largest cluster.
Wrong.
Noah reformed behind him.
Jihei spun.
Too late again.
Noah's sword cut across his back.
Jihei retaliated with an elbow wrapped in toxic lightning.
Noah vanished into feathers before it landed.
Jihei snarled.
The fight continued across the rooftops.
But something had changed.
Jihei had stopped trying to simply catch him.
He had started watching too.
⸻
The next green projectile missed Noah by nearly twenty meters.
That was what made him suspicious.
Jihei did not miss by that much.
The bolt struck a rooftop where three crows were perched.
The explosion swallowed them.
Noah lost three perspectives at once.
His eyes narrowed.
Another bolt fired.
Not at him.
At a utility pole.
Two more crows vanished in green light.
A third attack destroyed the remains of a clock tower where several birds had gathered.
Noah understood.
Jihei was attacking his vision.
The vampire landed in the middle of a wide street and looked around.
Green lightning crawled over both hands.
Jihei: "You're annoying when you can see everything."
Noah said nothing.
Jihei fired.
A crow vanished.
Then another.
Noah moved them.
The flock scattered across the district.
Jihei kept firing.
Not randomly.
He was learning where Noah preferred to place them.
High corners.
Long sightlines.
Stable perches.
Places that offered overlapping views.
Jihei destroyed all of them.
Noah shifted his network again.
Birds moved behind walls.
Under balconies.
Inside damaged structures.
Jihei responded by destroying the structures.
Green lightning tore through support beams.
Entire facades collapsed.
Shadows changed.
That mattered too.
Noah teleported toward the darkness beneath a broken walkway.
The walkway exploded before he arrived.
The shadow disappeared under fire and debris.
Noah aborted the jump and reformed in open air.
Jihei was already there.
The lightning blade came down.
Noah blocked.
Electricity crawled over the steel.
He broke contact instantly.
Jihei followed with a kick.
Noah dissolved.
The feathers scattered backward.
A green bolt exploded through them.
Several burned.
Noah reformed farther away.
Jihei smiled.
Jihei: "Found another one."
Noah understood.
He wasn't only targeting the crows.
He was erasing useful shadows too.
Every destroyed rooftop.
Every shattered overhang.
Every burning building.
All of it reduced Noah's movement options.
Jihei had finally stopped treating the battlefield like empty space.
Now he was shaping it.