Chapter 65 - The Fateful Encounter
The conversations around Bell were ordinary in a way that felt almost foreign after Orario: complaints about a geometry quiz, arguments over whether the train on the central line was running late again.
Bell packed his notebooks with deliberate care.
In Orario, an evening meant washing counting magic stones and listening to the restless noise of the districts where adventurers drank.
Here, the town was ordinarily simple.
Yet beneath the surface, there was an undercurrent.
The newspapers near the desks and the muted broadcast from the cafeteria at noon had both mentioned the same thing: three bodies found near the old warehouse district, drained and mutilated.
"Shiki-kun."
The voice was hesitant, coming from the aisle beside his desk.
Bell looked up.
Satsuki stood holding her school bag with both hands pressed against her plaid skirt.
Her knuckles were pale from gripping the leather too tightly, and a faint flush rose along her neck.
"Are you feeling alright." Satsuki asked.
She tilted her head, her brown eyes searching his face with careful attention.
"During the fourth period, you seemed... quiet. Your health is never very good in the autumn, so I wondered if the walk up the hill would be difficult today."
"I am fine, Satsuki." Bell said.
He kept his tone even offering a small, reassuring movement of his shoulders.
"Just tired from adjusting to the new schedule."
"You shouldn't push yourself." Satsuki's gaze dropped to the floor, her fingers shifting along the strap of her bag.
"The town feels strange lately. Everyone is in a hurry to get home before the evening. Even my mother told me not stay late after school."
Before Bell could reply, a heavy hand dropped onto his shoulder with an unceremonious thud.
"Look at you two, whispering by the window like a pair of conspirators."
Arihiko slouched into the gap between the desks, his uniform tie loosened and his jacket hanging open.
He had a battered paperback novel wedged.
"Arihiko, please." Satsuki took half a step back, her posture stiffening with immediate irritation.
"We were having a normal conversation here."
"Sure you were, Yumizuka. Purely academic." Arihiko grinned, giving Bell a conspiratorial nudge.
"Listen, Shiki, you just got back to that fortress of a mansion on the hill."
"If you let your sister keep you locked up every evening, you are going to turn into a ghost before winter break."
"We should go down to the arcade by the station."
"Not today, Arihiko." Bell said, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he stood up.
"Akiha expects me back before dinner."
"Ah, the ojou-sama." Arihiko rolled his eyes, though there was a trace of genuine caution in his voice.
"Right. Forget I asked."
"Walk safe, then."
"Get home before it gets dark, Shiki-kun." Satsuki added softly, lingering for a second longer before turning toward the shoe lockers with Arihiko.
Bell watched them go down the dim hallway.
He changed his indoor slippers for his walking shoes at the entrance.
Misaki Town fell away in tiers.
To the west, the train tracks divided the bustling commercial streets from the quiet residential hill.
To the east, where the Tohno estate stood behind high stone walls, the roads were steep and shadowed by ancient pines.
Bell took the slope down toward the shopping district.
His body, adapted to the physical instincts of Shiki Tohno, felt slightly light, his center of gravity unfamiliar.
As he turned onto the wide pedestrian avenue bordering the park, the noise of the traffic began to fade.
The street was lined with closed boutique shops and quiet residential gates.
Then...
A drop in temperature so abrupt that Bell could feel white mist before his lips.
The ambient sounds of the city, the distant train whistles, the sound of tires on asphalt seemed to retreat into the background.
Bell stopped.
Walking along the opposite sidewalk, beneath the bare branches of a row of maple trees was a woman.
She wore a simple, cream colored turtleneck sweater and a long dark skirt that reached past her ankles.
Her blonde hair was cut short, swaying slightly with each step she took.
She was looking at the shuttered storefronts with a peculiar interest, her head tilted like a cat observing it's toy.
Arcueid Brunestud.
In the visual novels, Shiki had lost his mind at this exact crossing, his suppressed Nanaya instincts tearing through his restraint, driving him to draw a knife and dismantle this girl into seventeen pieces of flesh.
Bell felt the exact thing in his right hand.
It was a cold itch in the bone, a reflexively sought to destroy the apex predator before it could strike.
'Is the world influencing me or what...?'
He drew a slow breath through his nose, letting the cold air settle in his chest.
His heart rate which had spiked for a second slowed down.
She had not turned her head fully but her stride had halted.
Her hands hung loose at her sides.
Slowly, almost languidly, she turned to face him across the narrow street.
Her eyes were not the calm blue of an ordinary woman.
They were a deep unsettling crimson.
There was no hostility in her gaze, only the intense unnatural curiosity of a girl.
She tilted her head, her blonde bangs shifting across her forehead.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
The wind blew a stray leaf across the pavement between them scraping against the dry road.
"You look at me strangely." She said.
Her voice was quiet, carrying across the empty street with effortless clarity.
Bell did not look away.
He adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder keeping his posture relaxed.
"Maybe you're just that special." Bell said simply.
[Tch, She's already charmed by you.]
She stared at him.
She took a single step off the curb into the street.
"Am I." She murmured, stopping in the middle of the road.
A flicker of genuine surprise touched her expression.
Somehow, this boy gave her very lovely feeling.
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A/N:
Dusk till dawn...