Kiss of the Vampire
"The Girl With The Sharp Sword Part 2"
Mission 15: The Weight of a Forgotten World
The air in the sub-level didn't just vibrate; it curdled. Cassian—wearing the raw, bleeding face of Kael—didn't fight like a vampire; he fought like a glitch in reality. He lunged, and the space between them simply vanished.
The battle turned brutal in an instant.
"MOVE!" Ben roared, shoving Elisia aside as the Genesis Blade whistled through the air, carving a jagged trench into the obsidian floor.
Cassian spun, his movements a blur of violet-black energy. He backhanded Kliev with enough force to send the big man through a stone pillar, then pivoted to catch Cymac's incoming spell in his bare hand, crushing the blue flames like dry leaves. He was a whirlwind of precision and malice, the Genesis Sword humming a low, predatory tune.
Elisia surged forward, her silver blade a streak of light. She traded three lightning-fast blows with Cassian, the clash of steel ringing like a funeral bell. She was faster than she'd ever been, fueled by a desperate, instinctual rage. Cassian laughed, a hollow, echoing sound.
"You fight for a world that doesn't even know you're dying, Elisia!"
He lunged for a killing thrust. Elisia didn't retreat. She dropped into a low sweep, forcing him to hop, and as he was mid-air, she slammed the hilt of her knife into his wounded wrist with a sickening crack.
The Genesis Sword slipped.
It spun through the air, glowing with a faint, dying light. Cassian snarled, reaching for it, but Ben was already diving. His fingers closed around the hilt before it hit the ground.
"Got it!" Ben yelled, scrambling back to deny Cassian his weapon.
The moment Ben's hand gripped the leather-wrapped hilt, the world stopped.
Ben didn't see the crypt. He didn't see Cassian. His eyes rolled back, his body jerking as if struck by high-voltage lightning.
A flood of memories, raw and violent, crashed into his mind. He wasn't a Bureau Captain in Manila; he was a titan in a suit of heavy Hulkbuster plates. He felt the heat of a hundred battles, the smell of ozone and blood, and the weight of a metallic sigh as his helmet flipped up. He saw a man with a prosthetic arm reaching out to clap his gauntlet. He saw a violet sky thinning like smoke.
He saw the man who had stayed behind.
"Deyviel..." Ben choked out, the name tearing from his throat like a sob. The sheer weight of a forgotten lifetime—of brotherhood, of the Void, of the "Small, weary grin"—hit him with the force of a mountain. He fell to his knees, the sword vibrating in his hand, his mind fracturing under the pressure of a history that shouldn't exist.
"Ben! Ben, look at me!" Elisia screamed, terrified.
She ran to him, skidding on the stone, and slammed her hand onto his shoulder to steady him.
The contact acted like a bridge.
The "truckload" of erased memories didn't just flow—it detonated inside her. Elisia's knees buckled. Her vision exploded into violet.
She saw the "sin zombies" flushing with color. She saw the Great Sage looking on with tired eyes. She felt the crushing grief of watching a man dissolve into fireflies, his last coins bet on a future he would never see. She saw the golden script unfurling in the air—blueprints of tanks and jeeps—and the shimmering tickets to Earth.
Home.
They were hurling through a psychic abyss, the pain of the "Reset" tearing through their modern identities. The screams of their past selves echoed in the quiet Makati basement.
Cassian watched them, clutching his shattered wrist, his stolen face contorting in shock. He saw the way the Genesis Sword flared white, sensing its masters. He saw the two hunters—the "Hero" and the "Girl"—collapsing under the weight of the Truth.
He knew he had lost his leverage. He knew the "Kiss of Memory" was shattered forever.
"Enjoy the ghosts," Cassian spat, blood dripping from his chin.
He didn't wait. He turned and blurred toward the secret corridor, his form melting into the shadows of the deeper tunnels. He was running—not from the Bureau, but from the two people who had just remembered exactly who he had robbed.
Elisia and Ben remained on the floor, gasping, their tears hitting the dusty stone as the violet haze of the Old World slowly settled into their new reality.
They were back. And they remembered everything.
The silence in the sub-level turned heavy, the red emergency lights pulsing like a slow, bleeding heartbeat. Ben knelt on the cold stone, his fingers locked around the hilt of the Genesis Sword—the Yamato.
This blade was an anomaly. Forged over 11,000 years ago for the Dragon King, it was a weapon that existed outside the linear flow of history. It had tasted the blood of gods and witnessed the turning of eons. It had traveled through time so often it had developed a total resistance to reality shifts—even the Great Sage's existence erasure could not touch the memories etched into its steel. It was a weapon of Genesis tier, a bridge between what was and what is.
It had passed from the Dragon King to Kael during the Second Great War, then down through history to Maya, and finally to Deyviel. But when Deyviel sacrificed himself and was erased from existence, the timeline had fractured. The sword, seeking a master in a world that had forgotten its last one, had snapped back through the temporal currents, landing in the hands of the Vaelorias, who had used it to anchor Cassian's soul into Kael's preserved, 10,000-year-old body.
Because the body was Kael's, and the sword was the Yamato, the physical resemblance to the erased Deyviel was hauntingly identical.
Ben's head throbbed as the floodgates opened. He wasn't just a detective. He was a survivor of a war that had been wiped from the books. He saw the violet sky of the Void, felt the heat of the final collapse, and saw the face of the kid who had stood at the center of the light, smiling as he became fireflies.
Ben's demeanor shifted. The easy, approachable Bureau Captain vanished, replaced by the hard, biting edge of a veteran who had seen worlds end. He clicked his tongue, a sharp, cynical sound that echoed in the crypt.
"Bastard," Ben murmured, his voice low and gravelly, thick with a grief he finally understood. "Why did you purposely erase yourself just to save us? Stupid kid..."
He clutched his head, his knuckles white as he fought to reconcile two lifetimes. Elisia scrambled toward him, her face pale with terror.
"Ben! What's happening? Talk to me!"
She reached out, her hand slamming onto his shoulder to steady him. The moment she made contact, the Yamato acted as a conductor. The "truckload" of erased history didn't just flow into her; it struck her like a physical blow.
Elisia gasped, her eyes flying wide. The Makati basement disappeared. She saw it all—the final bet, the way Deyviel had looked at them with that weary, selfless grin, and the agonizing moment the world reset and his name vanished from her heart. She remembered the pain of the "Ache" now; it was the scar where his existence used to be.
They sat there on the floor, two ghosts in a new world, gasping as the weight of 11,000 years of the Dragon King's legacy and one boy's sacrifice settled into their bones.
Cassian saw the change. He saw the way their eyes turned from the confused gaze of hunters to the cold, lethal stare of legends. He looked at the Yamato—the sword that had never truly belonged to him—and he felt a primal fear.
"Enjoy the nightmare," Cassian spat, blood leaking from his stolen lips.
He didn't stay to fight. He blurred into the shadows, his form melting into the sewer grates. He was running to the only place he felt safe—the Vaeloria Estate in Intramuros, back to the father who had promised him he could be a god in this stolen flesh.
The confrontation in the grand foyer was a stalemate of pressure, not steel. Cassian stood on the mahogany landing, his stolen chest heaving, his eyes darting toward the exits. He could feel it—the air around Ben wasn't just cold anymore; it was wrong. It was the kind of gravity that collapsed stars.
Ben didn't move. He stood at the base of the stairs, the Yamato held loosely in one hand. But the presence he projected was absolute. He wasn't the Captain of a Bureau team anymore. He was the Strongest Hunter, the man who had once stood as the ceiling of human potential. To look at him was to feel your own insignificance.
"You're shaking, kid," Ben said, his voice flat, echoing with a power that made the chandeliers overhead chime like funeral bells.
Cassian snarled, but it was the sound of a cornered animal. "I have the body of a god! I have the blood of the High-Bloods! You're just a ghost of a dead world!"
"A ghost?" Ben clicked his tongue, a sharp, terrifying sound. "Maybe. But I'm the ghost that's going to haunt you into the next life."
He took a step forward, and the floorboards didn't just creak—they turned to dust.
But then, a heavy thud sounded behind him. Elisia had collapsed to one knee, her face a mask of agony. The combination of the deep claw wounds and the sheer, brutal weight of the 10,000-year memory dump was too much. Her spirit was fighting to integrate the "Erased Timeline" while her body was failing from blood loss.
Ben's focus shifted instantly. The terrifying aura didn't disappear, but it drew inward, centering around Elisia to shield her from the house's lingering darkness.
Cassian saw the opening. He didn't hesitate. "Next time, I won't just take your friend's face," he hissed. "I'll take your soul."
In a blur of desperate speed, Cassian vaulted through a stained-glass window, his silhouette disappearing into the rainy Manila night. He was fleeing, not toward a fight, but toward the deepest shadows of Intramuros, terrified of the monster that had just woken up in the detective's skin. Few hours later.
The Sanctuary: Safehouse Delta
Ben didn't chase. He didn't need to. In his current state, he could feel Cassian's heartbeat two districts away; there was nowhere on this planet the boy could hide.
He knelt beside Elisia, his movements fluid and precise. He didn't use modern first aid. He placed a hand over her wounds, and a faint, golden glow of Prime Ki flickered between his fingers.
"Ben..." she whispered, her eyes unfocused. "The kid... he's gone. We let him go."
"He's not gone, Lis. He's just on a leash," Ben said, his voice dropping back into a calm, steady tone. "Rest. The World's Strongest is back. I've got the watch."
He picked her up effortlessly and walked out of the estate. Space seemed to bend around them—three steps and they were blocks away. Another two, and they were at a "Black Site" safehouse tucked away in the foothills of Antipolo.
Hours later, Elisia lay on a medical cot, her breathing finally steady. The wounds were sealed, though the scars would remain. Ben sat on the edge of the balcony, the Yamato resting across his knees.
The city of Manila twinkled below, oblivious to the fact that its "Gojo"—the man who had held the balance of the old world—was once again walking its streets.
Ben looked at the blade. The memories of the Second Great War, of Kael, and finally of the "Stupid Kid" who had deleted himself, swirled in his mind.
"You did it again, didn't you, Deyviel?" Ben murmured to the wind. "You sacrificed everything and left us with the bill. Typical."
He gripped the hilt, and for a split second, a shockwave of pure energy rippled out from the balcony, silencing the insects for miles. He wasn't just a hunter anymore. He was a calamity waiting to happen.
"Enjoy your head start, Cassian," Ben whispered, his eyes turning cold and infinite. "Because when I come for that body, I'm not bringing a badge. I'm bringing the end of the world."
To be continued.