Duncan had been tortured for so long that he was beginning to feel sorry for his captors.
For every new wound the lashes inflicted on his body, they closed up before the new one could land. Sure, it was painful each time the strikes landed, but he could heal faster than they hurt. His two captors, on the other hand, only looked more and more tired with each flick of their whip. Their movements slowed, and they were missing more strikes by the minute.
“What exactly were your instructions? Torture me?” Duncan casually asked in Japanese. “That’s not going to force my elixir out.”
“Shut up, Westerner!” one of the captors yelled, flinging his whip carelessly.
It struck Duncan in the side of his mouth this time, splitting the right side of his face open. The uniformed Japanese soldier doubled down, panting in exhaustion as beads of sweat rolled off his face and dripped onto the floor.
“Let me talk to your boss.” Duncan adjusted his jaw as the open wound closed right up again. “You won’t hold out like this.”
“Every man… has his breaking point.” The other captor picked up a piece of hot iron and pressed it firmly against Duncan’s face. “Even a monster like you.”
Flesh sizzled and Duncan groaned in pain, but that was it.
“Aye, but so do you.” His blistering flesh smoothened itself in seconds. “And by the looks of it, you’re nearing yours.”
“We have men. We have other methods of torture.”
“I have time and patience. Loads of it,” Duncan replied calmly. “I can keep this going for another hundred years. Five hundred, even. Can you?”
“Cocky bastard!” the soldier yelled, pulling out a dagger and slashing at Duncan’s body in a frenzy. “Die, damn you! Die!”
He pulled out a pistol and fired a few rounds at Duncan, but the other captor quickly pulled his hand away. “What are you doing?! We already don’t have enough bullets as it is. Stop wasting them!”
The steel door swung open from behind the soldiers as Yuri walked into the cell, carrying a set of clothes. Duncan’s expression darkened.
“Out, both of you,” Yuri commanded. “I will have a word with him.”
The soldiers obeyed with a tired but firm “Yes!” before promptly leaving the cell.
“You’ve changed, Yuri.”
“And you haven’t. Five hundred years on Earth clearly wasn’t enough for you to adapt to the times.” The woman released Duncan from his chains and put the clothes on his body. “Your ordeal was not my doing. It was not I who ordered the soldiers to torture you.”
“Then you ought to tie me back up before whoever sent them finds me like this.”
“I need your help.”
“You’ve really got no tact, eh?”
“This is no time for pettiness,” Yuri insisted. “Hilda has been kidnapped by Miguel, and he’s demanding that I bring you to him.”
Duncan scoffed audibly. “And if I say no?”
“What’s wrong with you?!” the woman yelled. “My daughter is in danger! Why won’t you help me?”
Duncan grabbed her by the shoulders and slammed her roughly against the wall. Purple magic pooled in Yuri’s eyes in response, although she didn’t resist.
“Help you? You put me in here. I trusted you, but you have been lying to me all this time. You have been lying to your daughter all this time,” the man growled. “Since when did you become so selfish, Yuri? All you care about is what you want.”
Yuri shoved him aside and turned one step to the side, chuckling softly. “What I want? I have never gotten what I want. I didn’t ask for my soul to be trapped for five hundred years. I didn’t ask to be resurrected and dragged into this petty squabble. I didn’t ask to be a spy!”
Her voice cracked as she let out a suppressed sniffle.
“When I met Bertram, he gave me a glimpse of a new life. When I had Hilda, she gave me hope for a new start. For once in my life, I got to live on my own terms!” she cried. “But it didn’t last. All I want is to live again as a normal human. I didn’t want to do this to you, but this is the only way I can.”
“What do you mean? How?”
“With your elixir of life, Kubo can fully integrate my soul with this body,” Yuri admitted. “He has been trying all sorts of methods to elevate our mortal flesh. But when he found out about your elixir, he has since set his sights on extracting it for himself and his soldiers.”
Duncan frowned. “What does he intend to do with it?”
“Bring back the superiority of the Japanese people by taking over the world with undying soldiers.”
“And you are willing to aid him in such a childish dream?”
“My soul is bound to his the moment he resurrected me! If I even try to go against him, I’ll perish!” Yuri cried out. “What choice do I have?”
“Let’s say he does succeed, and you are no longer bound to him,” Duncan said. “Are you willing to live the rest of your life in a world ruled by immortal dictators? Is that a world Hilda would want to live in?”
“I…” the woman faltered. “I don’t know. All I know is that this is the only way I can become fully human again.”
“So that gives you the excuse to make use of my trust and bring me here, knowing full well what Kubo intends to do with me.”
The woman closed her eyes painfully. “Look. I’m sorry, Duncan. I really am. My life is a borrowed debt, and perhaps this is how I repay it. You’re right. It was my selfishness that brought her to this world. It was my sins that pulled her into all this. I know I’m in the wrong, and I’ll accept the consequences of my action.”
Duncan clenched his jaw, but he remained silent.
“But please, Hilda is innocent in all this. I’m begging you, dammit!” Yuri fell to her knees and gripped his hand tightly. “Hilda is in more danger by the minute. Please help me! I’m not going to exchange your life for hers; I’m just asking for your help to rescue my daughter! Duncan, please…”
Duncan continued staring at her with a neutral expression, as though calculating something in his head. Panic clouded Yuri’s eyes as footsteps stopped outside the cell. And then Duncan opened his mouth.
“No.”
The cell door burst open just as the woman released an anguished cry. Yoshida stormed into the cell, flanked by three soldiers.
“What is the meaning of this?” The lieutenant’s face was twisted in indignation. “Why is that man free? Tie him back up now!”
The three soldiers rushed forward to hook the chains on Duncan’s limbs again.
“No, no… Duncan!” Yuri wailed like a wounded animal as she struggled against Yoshida’s firm grip, trying to reach for the prisoner. “Please, please! Help her!”
With a forceful swing of his arm, Yoshida yanked the hysterical woman back to his side and began dragging her out of the cell.
“I have had enough of your nonsense!” He sent her sprawling onto the ground with a slap. “How dare you undo my commands! Who do you think you are?!”
The man pulled her up to her feet, and the cell door slammed shut.
~ ~ ~
Yoshida wasted no time dragging the woman by her hair and flinging her against the wall.
“Traitor to our kind! You fraternise with our enemy? You’re a disgrace to the Japanese!” he roared. “General Kubo should never have trusted a woman like you!”
The man drew a pistol, but it was knocked out of his hand by an invisible force before he could even aim it at the woman. Yuri flicked her fingers, eyes ablaze with purple magic, and flipped Yoshida’s body several times in mid-air.
Yoshida retaliated with a growl, sweeping the woman’s legs and throwing his body over hers.
“Stupid… woman… I’ve had enough of you…” He tussled with Yuri, trying to get a proper grip on her clothes. “Know your place!”
There was a ripping sound of fabric being torn open as Yoshida gouged a hole through Yuri’s softer clothes, exposing her shoulder. He snarled and dug his hand into her clothes to widen the hole—
“Stop it!”
A wave of purple particles rippled through the air, blasting the man away with incredible force. His body slammed into the ceiling with a loud thud before falling three metres and crumpling onto the floor. He groaned as he tried to push himself out, but the woman wasn’t done with him.
Without wasting a beat, Yuri snapped her fingers as purple chains strung up the dazed man. She let out a roar of frustration before hitting and kicking his immobile body as though he were a punching bag.
After a good ten minutes of being beaten like a Taiko drum, the chains finally dissipated. Yoshida’s bloodied body dropped to the floor, heaving slightly.
“Don’t ever touch me again, or I won’t be so nice next time,” Yuri hissed. “You’re no match for me, mortal.”
Yoshida lay on the ground for another five minutes or so before slowly pushing his battered body up. Part of him was tempted to just lie there until all the pain went away. He could barely move. He could barely think past the humiliation he was feeling.
Rage erupted within him in brief spurts, but it fizzled out quickly along with the soreness in his body. Yuri was right. He was no match for her, not in his current form. And the general, for all his leadership, was still just a mortal man as well.
No. He couldn’t let things lie like that. He couldn’t just sit back and watch the Japanese be indebted to a Westerner again. He couldn’t let the experiment prove successful with a foreign vampire. If there was power to be taken, then let a Japanese receive it.
And if fate had plans for a death today, then let him be the one to challenge it.
Yoshida staggered towards the huge machine in the middle of the empty warehouse. It was time for a shift change, and the vampire he captured wasn’t due to enter the machine for at least another hour. He had about a ten-minute window to defy the general’s wishes. Any longer than that, and his fellow soldiers would stop him before he could climb in.
The lieutenant flipped a few switches on the nearby control panel and waited for the machine to hum to life. He hadn’t done this before, only looked at General Kubo’s old paranormal researchers doing their thing.
But the principle seemed simple enough for him to understand. It was basically some sort of mixer that smashed human and creature DNA together in the hopes of fusing them perfectly.
With the Kiseigumo’s magic blocking venom, it should prevent the magic from overwhelming the human genome. And with its life-preserving properties, it should suffice to keep the life energies of both subjects from leaking out prematurely.
Yoshida squinted as a glaring white light peeked out of the machine, activating the Kiseigumos trapped inside. With the new iteration containing the magic signature of the vampire, this machine should be calibrated enough for a successful attempt this time.
Then again, that’s what the researchers said every time before the machine created yet another rabid man-creature hybrid that had to be put down.
Still, he owed it to Japan to try. He owed it to the general to try, even if Kubo didn’t understand how much he loved his country. This was Russian roulette with five bullets in the chamber. But if he survived the procedure, he’d finally be armed enough to get rid of Japan’s enemies.
The humming intensified as alarms finally started blaring. Movement shuffled from outside the warehouse, but his fellow soldiers would be too late.
Yoshida stepped into the machine as a grid of red light flashed over his body. He closed his eyes as the machine doors sealed him inside, feeling a strange sense of peace wash over him. Dying as soldiers was easy; living as men was harder.
So if he wasn’t going to die, then may he live as more than just a man.14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhNe6xkqw3y
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