Chapter 187: I’ve died four times in my life
I’ve died four times in my life.
The first was eight years ago, the evening I came home from school and found my parents’ decapitated bodies lying on the living room floor.
Fuck… the image of their mutilated corpses lying in a pool of blood still haunts my nightmares.
Even though the evidence and the neighbors’ testimonies pointed to Zayn from the very beginning, my mind refused to accept it.
There had to be another explanation.
A robbery gone wrong. A hitman sent by a rival family…
But when the evidence became undeniable, and they even put a bounty on my brother’s head — my own flesh and blood…
…that’s when I died for the second time.
I spent the next two years at the Care and Vocational Training Center, a facility that takes in young vampires who have lost their parents.
Despite its name, it’s nothing more than a military barracks disguised as a children’s home, taking in abandoned kids and turning them into future soldiers of the Scarlet Army through training that calling brutal would be an understatement.
That’s where I learned how to fight… though, as you’d expect, I was always terrible at it.
To keep up the appearance of a place that lovingly cared for abandoned children, they occasionally organized events that, on Earth, we’d call school plays.
Mediocre performances thrown together in a matter of minutes between training sessions for one reason only — squeezing donations out of wealthy benefactors.
It was during one of those performances that I met my muse, Isabelle Valakys.
Not that I didn’t already know who she was — Isabelle was practically a celebrity at that place, and not just because she was the queen and the strongest vampire in the kingdom.
The Care and Vocational Training Center was literally covered with photographs and paintings of her training within those very walls when she was little more than a child.
And not just her.
Several other high-ranking members of Mildlar’s army came from that place as well, and their portraits were displayed everywhere too.
Partly to inspire the children confined there, and partly as free advertising.
The truth is, so many children passed through that place that it was statistically inevitable some of them would grow up to become big names.
Because of the brutal war fought against the Kingdom of Ravessia fourty years earlier and the staggering number of casualties, most of the children of the Scarlet Army’s soldiers grew up within those walls.
Isabelle was one of those war orphans.
And despite all that, they still insisted it wasn’t a military barracks.
Yeah… right.
Anyway, it was during one of those fake school plays that my life changed forever.
The performance was held at the Valakis Palace, and I insisted on singing a rap song.
Rap was practically unheard of in the Kingdom of Mildlar, and it was one of my friends at the Center who introduced me to it.
His older brother had been a member of the Crimson Requiem before dying years earlier.
During a mission on Earth, he’d brought back a gift for him — a rap music CD, which my friend listened to day and night in memory of his brother.
I was captivated by it the moment I heard it.
It took a lot of convincing before the headmaster finally agreed to let me perform.
And when the show finally began…
…it was a complete disaster.
Seriously, nobody liked it.
Not even me.
And yet, among that barrage of boos from the audience — especially Princess Mia’s — the only thing that mattered to me was Isabelle’s applause.
That single compliment I received marked the beginning of my career as Young Blood.
She liked me so much that my first performance was followed by another… and another… until I was performing at the palace almost every week.
Within the Center, I became a genuine celebrity, and even the headmaster started treating me with a lot more respect.
Of course, that had everything to do with the money my performances were bringing in from the palace, not because he actually liked my music.
But who the hell cared?
For the first time in my life, I was finally being appreciated for something. And that was the only thing that mattered to me.
I was finally living my dream… but harsh reality woke me up in the worst possible way.
My third death — or rather, Young Blood’s — came on the night Markus Dulcar, backed by many of Mildlar’s most powerful noble families, the four generals of the Scarlet Army, and the Crimson Requiem, overthrew the throne.
With the Dulcars’ rise to power, the Center was officially converted into a military orphan barracks, and what little freedom we’d had vanished overnight.
If I wanted to keep chasing my dream and have any chance at a normal life, I had no choice but to flee to Earth.
By pure coincidence, the portal I stepped through completely at random brought me to 8 Mile in Detroit.
The very neighborhood where my friend’s favorite rapper came from — the one who made me fall in love with the genre.
The first face I saw after arriving on Earth belonged to the HESPARC agent who registered me the moment I stepped through the portal.
His name was John Kendrow.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget the look in his eyes — he seemed ready to kill me at any second.
He intimidated me so much that I was almost tempted to turn around and go back.
Through HESPARC’s job placement program, I found work as a sanitation worker.
It wasn’t anything special, but the pay was decent, and they even rented me an apartment at a discounted rate.
The worst part was that the HESPARC agent assigned to me — the one who would occasionally show up at my apartment for inspections — was none other than John Kendrow.
Needless to say, his visits, complete with interrogations and searches, were worse than torture.
Then one evening, instead of John Kendrow, a young woman showed up at my apartment door, accompanied by a bald mountain of a man.
I never learned her real name.
She simply introduced herself as Blue, while her bodyguard went by Green.
Blue wasn’t a HESPARC agent, yet she knew everything about me.
That was the night my new career as an assassin for that organization began.
And yet, it wasn’t the money they offered that convinced me to accept.
It was the promise of a record deal.
My first assignments were nothing more than killing ordinary humans.
For a vampire, it was easy work.
Looking back, I can’t understand where I found the nerve to murder men, women, even children in cold blood without feeling the slightest hint of remorse… and without ever being told why.
I suppose the years I spent at the Care and Vocational Training Center had turned me into someone that ruthless.
After all, that place taught us only one thing: kill whoever you’re ordered to kill.
After successfully completing countless missions, I even earned a codename of my own — Orange.
I’m guessing it was because of my hair color.
I would’ve preferred Red, but unfortunately that had already been taken by that bastard, Axel Volkom.
And then came the assignment that turned my life upside down once again.
Convince Ren Toya to join my organization.
And if he refused… kill him.
Who would’ve thought that the boy I was supposed to kill would become my best friend?
Or that I’d finally find the happiness I’d dreamed of my entire life in Tokyo?
Yeah… it really was incredible.
But apparently, some sadistic god decided my life was meant to be nothing but misery.
Maybe I was only ever allowed those brief moments of happiness so they could rip everything away from me afterward and throw me back into the abyss.
What a shitty life.
With Dorian’s sword hovering just inches from his face and not even enough strength left to stand, Leon can do nothing but squeeze his eyes shut.
A river of tears washes the blood and dirt from his cheeks as his entire life flashes before his eyes in an instant.
I’ve died four times in my life.
When I lost my parents.
When I found out my own brother was the one who killed them.
When my dream of becoming a singer was shattered.
And finally… this.
The last one.
The one there’s no getting back up from.
“Kneeling in front of your enemy, crying. What a pathetic end,” Dorian mocks.
He then pulls the blade back slightly, ready to deliver the finishing blow.
Isabelle… Ren… Chris… Zaira… Iris… Yuzu… and you too, Mia… even if it was only for a little while, I’m truly glad I got to know all of you.
Thank you… for everything. Goodbye.
SHHK!
“One down,” Dorian remarks with satisfaction as he pulls his bloodstained sword from Leon’s head. The blade had entered through his eye socket and pierced straight through his skull.
Leon’s lifeless body slumps forward, but Dorian kicks it away before it can collapse at his feet.
He then turns his gaze into the distance, where Mia and Evelyne are still fighting.
“Now that I’m done warming up, it’s time to get to work.”