And there I was.

  Perfectly submitting to my idol masters.

  “See? You look like a proper refined gentleman now!” Bea said brightly, circling me as if inspecting her handiwork.

  Her encouragement bounced right off me.

  My Executioner clothes were as itchy as ever. The silver lining stitched onto the fabric grazed my skin in all the wrong places, and the heavy scent of ginger clung to me like a punishment.

  “Yeah,” I muttered, adjusting the collar, “and I smell like a vampire’s worst nightmare.”

  “Precisely the point…” Jia yawned from behind me, arms folded as she leaned against the rooftop railing.

  I slumped my shoulders and gave up resisting the discomfort. I was currently standing on the penthouse rooftop, staring over the glittering Tokyo skyline like some knock-off Batman.

  Only less cool.

  And far more itchy.

  “Quick question,” I said, glancing sideways at Talia. “How did you cover up the vampire incident last night? There were loads of people who saw the aftermath.”

  Talia didn’t hesitate. “The Church has its hands in most institutions. Media. Police. Infrastructure. They’re very efficient at containing irregularities.”

  “Efficient is one word for it,” Jia added dryly.

  “But why?” I pressed. “Why keep all of this a secret?”

  Jia pushed off the railing and stepped closer, her expression sharpening slightly.

  “Because,” she said evenly, “if the general public discovered they could become stronger, faster, and effectively immortal by turning into a vampire, how many do you think would consider it?”

  Her words were both precise and uncomfortable.

  “I think a lot more people would gamble their humanity than you’d like to believe.”

  I raised my hands defensively. “Sorry for asking questions, yeesh.”

  She blinked, then exhaled softly.

  “Sorry as well,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m just tired. I get a bit grumpy.”

  Her tone was genuine.

  I nodded. “Fair enough.”

  The city lights flickered below us.

  Somewhere out there, a Monarch was building a kingdom in the dark.

  “So here’s the plan,” Talia said, her voice steady against the wind. “Me and Jia will split up and cover central Tokyo and north Tokyo. You and Bea will head down to east Tokyo. Predominantly the Asakusa area. Vampires like to prey on tourists wandering at night.”

  Of course they did.

  We nodded, stepping closer to the edge of the rooftop. I felt significantly safer knowing an Inquisitor would be nearby.

  I felt significantly less safe about what came next.

  Bea was already at the ledge, bouncing lightly on her heels.

  “What’s taking you so long?” she asked, glancing back at me as I hesitated at the edge of the ten-story drop.

  “I don’t know,” I shot back, “maybe it’s the idea of jumping off a ten-story roof that’s the problem!”

  She huffed dramatically. “You’re a demi-pire, you got this!?”

  Demi-pire?

  Right.

  Encouragement, apparently.

  “Just jump,” Jia called lazily from behind. “You’re not going to die or anything…”

  It wasn’t death that scared me.

  It was the pain.

  The sickening crack of bone if I misjudged it. The feeling of my body splintering before healing. The sensation of gravity punishing me for overestimating myself.

  “You risked your life the other day for others,” Jia added, her tone sharpening slightly. “Why can’t you do it again?”

  The station flashed in my mind.

  Blood. Screams. Gore.

  “Because…” I said quietly, staring down at the concrete below. “The only life at risk right now is my own.”

  “I can assure you,” Talia replied calmly, “that you’re incorrect. Every second we’re not hunting vampires is another second someone else might die. And this time it won’t just be Executioners. It’ll be civilians.”

  The words hit hard.

  Every second of hesitation, every moment of fear was another potential station, another avoidable death.

  The guilt weighed heavily on my chest.

  “Fine.”

  I took a deep breath, stepped to the edge.

  And jumped.

  “Woah…”

  For a moment, I wasn’t falling.

  I was flying.

  My body had launched into the moon’s gaze with far more force than I expected, the city stretching beneath me in glittering lines of light. The air rushed past my ears, but everything else felt slow. Suspended.

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  Time thinned out.

  The risk of plummeting to my death didn’t bring fear.

  It brought exhilaration.

  My stomach dropped, but not in panic. In thrill. In hunger. In something sharp and electric that made my pulse surge instead of falter.

  My instincts twisted again, just like in the tunnel.

  But this time, it wasn’t violence.

  It was controlled, it was power.

  My body adjusted mid-air without conscious thought. Shoulders angled. Legs tucked. Arms shifted to stabilise. The landing point below me felt less like a guess and more like a certainty.

  Gravity no longer felt like an enemy.

  It felt like something I could negotiate with.

  Something in me smiled, something that wasn’t entirely human. And I realised, with a strange clarity—

  I liked this.

  I landed on a lower rooftop with a powerful thud, the impact cracking the surface beneath my boots. My muscles flexed instinctively as I straightened, rolling my shoulders and stretching out my limbs. My legs felt numb, caught somewhere between pain and adrenaline, the latter keeping the former at bay.

  Yet I couldn’t help but feel free.

  Uncontained.

  Like gravity itself had bowed to me.

  For the first time in my life, it felt like I was in control of every decision, every movement. Like no one could box me in.

  “Woah, that was one hell of a jump!” Bea landed beside me lightly, clearly impressed.

  “Thanks.” I smiled.

  She didn’t smile back.

  She froze.

  Her eyes sharpened.

  I noticed my mask had fallen off at some point, probably ripped away by the wind. But that didn’t explain her expression.

  Why was she afraid?

  What was wrong with her?

  Does my face disgust her?

  What if I said her face was disgusting, huh?

  Why is she looking at me like that?

  So rude.

  “Is everything okay?” I asked, forcing my tone to stay even, holding something ugly down in my chest.

  “N-Nothing.”

  “Don’t lie to me.” The words came out flatter than I intended.

  Her hand tightened around her kunai.

  Was I her enemy now?

  What was wrong with her?

  She inhaled sharply, then exhaled, steadying herself. The kunai lowered slightly.

  “I apologise for startling you. I-I just noticed… your teeth.”

  “My teeth?”

  “Yes,” she said carefully. “You’ve suddenly grown fangs.”

  Huh.

  Interesting.

  I reached up and touched them.

  Ow.

  A thin line of blood trickled down my finger. They were sharp. Knife sharp.

  I ran my tongue lightly over one and felt the edge.

  “Must be my instincts,” I muttered.

  I suppose I could forgive Bea. She was only surprised, after all. Her reaction had been unbecoming, but I was a gracious guy. And she was an attractive girl.

  So I’d let it slide.

  Just this once.

  We kept moving.

  Jumping from building to building in near silence as we carved a path across Tokyo toward Taito City. The skyline blurred beneath us, neon signs and apartment lights streaking past in flashes of colour.

  I took a breath mid-leap, enjoying the whistle of air tearing past my ears as my body sliced through the night. Each landing felt cleaner than the last. More precise.

  Bea followed close behind.

  She was inhumanely fast.

  But I could feel it.

  I was still ahead.

  “Try your hardest, Bea!” I called over my shoulder.

  “This isn’t a race, Jō!”

  “Oh really? First to get there gets a free favour from the other at any time!”

  She paused for half a heartbeat.

  “Oh really? Bet.”

  Her eyes sharpened.

  And something animalistic flickered across her expression.

  The next second, she accelerated.

  Not gradually.

  Explosively.

  The gap I’d built shrank almost instantly.

  Whatever speed I had felt impressive moments ago now seemed insignificant compared to the way she surged forward. Her form tightened, posture streamlined, feet striking rooftops with terrifying efficiency.

  I pushed harder.

  My legs burned as I forced more power into each jump, muscles coiling and releasing at their limit. The distance between us fluctuated by inches.

  No normal human could pick up speed like that.

  Was that a blessing?

  A technique?

  Or something else?

  We were roughly a mile out from Asakusa now, and I was running out of straight-line advantage.

  Then I saw it.

  A high-speed train slicing through the district below.

  I didn’t hesitate.

  I adjusted my trajectory mid-air and dropped onto the roof of the train.

  “A train? Unfair!” Bea shouted.

  I gripped onto the metal surface as the wind nearly ripped me off, crouched low to reduce drag, then timed it perfectly.

  As the train passed beneath a slightly elevated rooftop, I sprang from its roof with every ounce of force I could muster.

  Bea lunged after me.

  For a split second she was less than a metre behind.

  I could feel it.

  But I hit the rooftop first.

  Rolled once.

  Then landed cleanly in Asakusa.

  She touched down a second later.

  “I win,” I said, smirking at her despite my rapid breathing and burning lungs.

  She grumbled, crossing her arms.

  And somehow, she looked like she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

  Her stamina was downright ridiculous.

  “Now you owe me.”

  “Yeah, yeah, you win. What do you wish for, my dear Jō?”

  “Well…”

  “I shall not grant perverse desires.”

  “I wasn’t even thinking about that.” I lied. I absolutely had.

  “Hmph. Whatever you say.”

  “We’ll come back to this later. For now, what’s nex—”

  Something shifted. The air thinned.

  A foul pressure crept over my skin, subtle but suffocating, like mildew spreading across a damp wall. My instincts flared violently, every nerve in my body snapping to attention.

  Another vampire?

  I didn’t know how I knew.

  I just did.

  Had I evolved? Gained some new perception? Or had it always been there, buried under my humanity?

  Doesn’t matter.

  This one felt… cultivated, older. Nothing like the feral peasants from the tunnel but rotten in a way that had been preserved deliberately.

  I turned.

  “Bea—”

  And there he was.

  Tall.

  Gaunt.

  His hair hung in greasy, sickly green strands that clung to his face like wet seaweed. Patches of inflamed rashes and cracked lesions dotted his pale skin, as though decay had tried to claim him but failed to finish the job. His lips were thin, stretched into a polite, almost aristocratic smile that did not reach his blood-red eyes.

  Those eyes held something worse than hunger.

  Conviction.

  An odachi rested against Bea’s throat, the blade long, slightly curved, old-fashioned. Its edge kissed her skin with clinical precision.

  He stood too close.

  Too intimate.

  “I would be quiet,” he said softly, voice smooth and disturbingly refined, “if I were you. My Monarch wishes to speak with you.”

  His tongue traced slowly behind Bea’s ear.

  “The both of you…”

  His smile widened.

  And then—

  He bit down.

  Monday...