The Fallen Vampire-Chapter 252 - Chapitre : A Fair Question

The air turned stale rather quickly.

Taira and Aveena led Shakti down the flight of stairs while breathing in shallow breaths.

The steps didn't actually go on for very long.

Rather, they led to a large hole in the floor that was similar to a well.

Taira pulled Aveena into his arms and jumped in. Shakti made sure she had a solid grip on Yukiko and jumped in after them.

Unlike with the staircase, this time the descent was indeed long.

Aveena wagered that they must have fallen at least two hundred meters below the ground. And it was still another fifty before they reached the bottom.

The cavern was completely dark. Not even a single ray of light could manage to penetrate this place.

If everyone here didn't have exemplary night-vision, then they could have stumbled around down here for months at a time. If not years.

"Spooky…" Yukiko whispered. Though the child seemed more intrigued than afraid.

"I have you, princess. There's no reason to be afraid." Shakti said firmly.

She took one step forward and Taira heard a metal clanking noise come from a nearby wall.

There was a sound like a cannon exploding and a large spiked ball shot out of the far side cavern wall.

Shakti started to knock the ball aside- raising her fists in a striking posture.

However, before she could do so, Taira held out his hand and stopped the giant ball of metal before it could even touch her.

"Admirable reflexes. But I'm afraid that's a method I can't recommend."

To show her what he meant, he brought the wrecking ball a bit closer to them and showed her the slightly dried, but still dangerous lubricant that seemed to be covering it.

"I'd rather not see you get poisoned again, so please be careful. Brute force doesn't work on anything in here."

Shakti nodded thoughtfully- warmth spreading to her cheeks from embarrassment.

"I will be more careful." She lowered her head. "How is it that you know of this place...?" She finally managed to ask.

"I spent a year here when I turned fourteen. It was a part of my instruction." Taira confessed.

Shakti looked around the cavern.

It looked like a hard place to live for anyone, but leaving a fourteen-year-old down here was next to unthinkable.

Shakti spread her senses as far as she could, but she sensed no life down here. Only a scurrying roach or two.

"How did you eat..?"

Taira resumed walking around while avoiding certain spots on the floor. Aveena and Shakti took special care to only step wherever he did.

"I had two older brothers here with me. If I couldn't manage to get the drop on them to feed, then I just didn't eat." He answered.

"You all hunted each other??" Shakti's usual robotic voice displayed clear shock.

"No." Taira shook his head. "They hunted me."

With the return of his memories, Taira knew this place and the story behind it like the back of his hand.

He was an adept warrior as a child. His father was more than satisfied with his rate of growth because it so closely matched his own.

His mother, however, was not. She found that Taira was still having far too much difficulty in separating the assassin from the warrior.

So, she decided to have this underground space built and asked his elder brothers to participate in an exercise with no specified ending date.

Dhalia knew that the duo hated her son. That was why she chose them.

One fourteen-year-old vampire against two beast realm cultivators. Taira didn't eat for a full six months.

Hiding was so difficult because his brothers were expert trackers and hunters.

This cavern went on for literal tens of miles, yet for the first six or seven months, you'd think it was a studio apartment.

Every time that Taira turned around, his brothers were right on top of him.

His experience with physical trauma and heightened pain tolerance was seen as a challenge by the brothers.

They subjected him to such inventive methods of torture that it wasn't far from what you could label ingenious. As morbid as it may have sounded.

Taira not only had to stealthily hide from his brothers, but he also had to avoid the traps placed around the space as well.

When adrenaline could no longer keep him fully awake and he inevitably crashed, he would often wake up to the feeling of someone's claws embedded in his face.

"When I was finally allowed to come out, I was practically feral." Taira continued. "I believe that any longer and I might have..."

Eventually, the fox-demon's words trailed off when he noticed that the cavern was a lot quieter than normal.

When he looked back, Aveena and Shakti were staring at him like he was in need of a psych eval. Yukiko's mouth was agape in horror.

"..."

"..."

"...WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"

Yukiko threw her head back and bawled as loud as her little lungs would allow.

In the span of a few short seconds, she had shed enough tears to almost completely soak Shakti's hair.

Aveena swooped in instantly. "There, there, my baby. It's alright..."

As she liberated her daughter from Shakti's back, Aveena briefly walked away while trying to console the small child. Leaving Taira and Shakti alone for the moment.

"I... forget that she is a normal child." Taira scratched the back of his head.

Shakti was learning firsthand that Taira was a lot more socially awkward than he seemed. But given the way that he had grown up, that was hardly something unbelievable.

There was also a significantly large chance that maybe he just wasn't used to having a child yet.

Taira had shared his past as if it were normal conversation, but to Yukiko, he might as well have been telling her a scary story before bed.

"...You are... a very impressive individual. To have survived all of that, I mean."

Taira blinked for a moment before breaking out into a small smile. "I think most people would have told me something along the lines of 'I'm sorry that happened to you.'"

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Shakti nodded slowly. "They probably would have... but I don't think that would be something you'd want to hear."

"You presume to know what I want to hear?" Taira's smirk widened by a hair as he stepped forward.

Somehow, Shakti remained unfazed by the look on his face."Yes... You are a survivor. You won't want to hear any apologies because you'll feel you don't need them. You see everything that has happened to you as just a part of life."

"Do you think that's wrong of me..?"

"Making that sort of distinction isn't for me to do, especially if I am the same way." Shakti shrugged.

Taira had already had a mounting amount of curiosity about Shakti's past, but the way she spoke now was only further fueling it.

Her life clearly hadn't just been a cakewalk either if she was able to understand him as well as she was.

Taira hadn't realized it, but he had come more than just a little bit closer to Shakti.

He only became aware when he heard the sound of her heart beating wildly in her chest, but... by then, he didn't want to move anyway.

"Since you seem to know me so well... You should also be aware that I don't care much for compliments."

From this close, Taira could see Shakti's eyes hidden underneath her hair. As always, they were a beautiful, burning red that made him feel grateful to be one of the few who actually got to see them.

"I believe... that may be very difficult for me." Shakti finally said.

"And why is that..?" Taira asked.

Shakti bit her lip rather hard as she fought for something to say that didn't make her sound like some obsessive ditz.

However, her mind suddenly went blank when she felt Taira's tail wrap around her waist.

Before she even knew what she was doing, she grabbed him by the face and kissed him.

However, it seemed as though her momentary slip-up was only a knee-jerk reaction.

Nearly as soon as their lips made contact, Shakti was pushing Taira away and shaking her head like she was hoping to restart her brain.

"F-forgive me, that was... Not what I meant to do."

"You could have fooled me."

Shakti hung her head even lower when he said that.

"I admit that it was... a very nice experience. But I am your Hand, and...if you asked for my body I would give it to you, but I don't want it to seem..."

Shakti clenched her knuckles so hard that the joints popped. She was growing increasingly frustrated with her own inability to speak.

"May I ask you a question..?" She finally said.

"You don't need to ask that." Taira smiled faintly. "Ask whatever you need."

Shakti nodded as she spun around slowly, turning her gaze towards every spare inch of the cavern.

"This place... this is your goal, yes? You want to train us here?"

Taira nodded as he began covering their surroundings in sheets of cold, hard ice. "You can say that."

Shakti twirled her fingers while trying to ignore the 'noise' coming from her lower body.

"Then... if I were to... indulge in you… would you still be able to treat me the same? Train me the same?"