"..."
The scene fell into absolute silence.
'How much is 1000 minus 7?'
'What's the meaning of this?'
Blade put on his signature sunglasses without lenses and fell into deep thought.
Dracula felt a sharp pain in his mouth.
His heart was stabbed by the silver stake, causing all his recovery abilities to stagnate.
The shape of the giant bat reverted to its human form, and he was still left hanging in the air.
'What does 993 imply?'
He opened his mouth and tried to say the answer.
"It's equal to 993."
"Fuck," Kaneki muttered.
The sickening sound of a finger breaking echoed in the alley.
Snap!
A Rinkaku Kagune whipped viciously across Dracula's face.
Kaneki asked again, "How much is 999 minus 7?"
Snap!
"992!" Dracula wailed eagerly.
Snap!
"Keep it down, how much is it?"
Snap!
"Ahhh!"
"991!"
"990!"
"..."
The Rinkaku Kagune that Kaneki wielded flogged all over Dracula's body time and time again.
Dracula was reduced to a pile of rotten bones now that his overwhelming rebirth abilities were suppressed.
The bleak wailing and the horrific method of torture had been pleasing to Blade's eyes at first.
He had initially wished for the boy to continue like this, but as he listened more and more, he felt a cold shudder.
It was not because of Dracula's painful cries, but rather the sheer madness of this white-haired boy that made his heart tremble.
He couldn't help but remember that the two of them had almost fallen on each other during their last encounter.
Snap!
"882..."
Dracula's breath became smaller and shallower, until there was nothing left at all.
Kaneki furrowed his brows one by one, finishing his snaps, and said in a depressed tone, "Dead?"
It had been far too casual to reach 882.
He was still unsatisfied, preparing to put his Kagune away and draw some blood to make up for his exhaustion.
At this time, Blade hurriedly interjected.
"The heart can only be regarded as a weakness of Dracula's immortality, but it is not a fatal vulnerability."
"Dracula is not dead right now."
Kaneki listened, looked over at Blade, and sneered.
"It seems you know a lot."
Blade responded with a dry smile, squatting down next to the corpse.
He grabbed the end of the silver stake and gently lifted it up, pulling it away from the position of the heart.
"Gasp—!"
Dracula's eyes widened and his limbs twitched violently.
The horrific wounds on his body recovered miraculously, a sight that genuinely shocked Kaneki.
'Is he still not dead?'
Blade hurriedly stabbed the stake back down, plunging it into the chest with a muffled burst.
Dracula immediately stopped convulsing and reverted to a severely weakened state.
"If you just pull up the silver stake, the heart will be restored, and Dracula will be resurrected."
Blade stood up and sighed.
He explained that every vampire hunter in history thought they had completely killed Dracula, but in the end, they were all slaughtered by him one by one.
He had guessed this secret by summarizing those historical failures, and it turned out to be exactly true.
This was just right; an endless Kakuhou granary was an incredibly cool concept.
Kaneki's interest was completely revitalized.
He threw his Rinkaku Kagune like a whip onto Dracula once again.
Another tragic scream echoed through the alley, making Blade stand aside, unable to bear looking directly at the scene.
This time, Dracula didn't even bother to say the numbers.
He figured he was going to die anyway, so he might as well just take the beating.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Not long after, Dracula died again.
But Kaneki was heavily dissatisfied.
There was no meaning in the torture if the victim wouldn't even count the numbers.
Feeling a little disappointed, he pulled out the silver stake and then immediately pierced it back in.
Kaneki remained dissatisfied, knowing the numbers lacked meaning without the victim's participation.
Still feeling disappointed, he pulled the silver stake out once more and immediately pierced it back into the flesh.
"Huh—you devil!" the resurrected Dracula gasped, opening his eyes to scold his tormentor.
He had lived for centuries, but he had never met anyone more perverted than this boy.
"Thanks for the exaggeration," Kaneki said.
"Well, it seems this is getting boring, so let's end it here."
Kaneki folded his Kagune away expressionlessly.
He looked down at Dracula and raised one hand.
"You..." Dracula rasped.
Just as Blade was about to ask what they should do next, he heard a sickening puff.
Kaneki's bare hand pierced straight through Dracula's chest, cutting off the vampire's fierce voice instantly.
Plunging his five fingers deep like a fishhook, Kaneki smashed the vampire's heart and extracted a thick handful of blood.
A little bit spilled over his knuckles, and then Kaneki directly drank it down.
When Blade saw this, he felt as if his liver had cracked in half from sheer shock.
"What are you doing?!" Blade shouted in horror.
"Vampire blood has the effect of inducing human beings to mutate into vampires!"
Blade couldn't understand why this white-haired boy was so strange that he wasn't afraid of becoming a bloodsucking monster.
Dracula yelled in pain, but he burst into manic laughter when he saw Kaneki's behavior.
"Haha, I didn't expect you to worship vampires so much!"
In his arrogant opinion, only enthusiastic admirers would take the initiative to swallow the blood of a vampire.
He believed that consuming excessive vampire blood would cause a mere mortal to burst and die.
'Sure enough, humans are stupid beings,' Dracula thought.
"Do you think I am human?" Kaneki asked softly.
After tasting the blood, the cells of Kaneki's entire body entered a hyper-active state.
The endless RC factors in his system were practically cheering in ecstasy.
This was the feeling of evolution.
He looked down condescendingly at Dracula.
"An admirer?" Kaneki chuckled.
"I am ignorant of your titles; I just treat you as an endless granary."
Dracula's arrogant laughter stagnated instantly.
His complexion turned completely dumbfounded.
Someone was actually regarding the immortal Lord of Vampires as food.
He finally realized that the boy's previous ravenous gaze was completely real.
"No, you are never allowed to do this!" Dracula roared hysterically.
"You are humiliating the great Vampire Lord!"
Snap!
Kaneki immediately gave him a brutal slap across the face.
"It seems you haven't seen the facts clearly yet."
Kaneki touched his chin thoughtfully.
He once again swung his Kagune, beating Dracula until the vampire was an unrecognizable pulp.
This time, he didn't pull out the silver stake, leaving it pierced firmly in the vampire's chest.
Kaneki then took out a large black bag from his backpack.
He beat Dracula into a compact, bloody ball and stuffed the immortal lord inside, holding the heavy bag casually in his hand.
Blade sniffed the air.
His dark face turned incredibly pale.
The overwhelming smell of blood leaking from the bag made him gag.
"Why? Did you smell something again?" Kaneki glanced over and asked playfully.
This black bag was a must-have item for him whenever he went out.
It was essentially his tableware for storing food.
There were always people in the United States who couldn't think straight.
The thugs who searched for death every day provided a perfect way to keep his stomach full.
"No... I didn't smell anything," Blade replied.
His back broke out in a cold sweat under Kaneki's playful gaze.
Feeling a little dazed, Blade bitterly denied his own senses.
If this situation escalated like their last encounter, and without Natasha Romanoff there to relieve the siege, his own end would be far worse than Dracula's fate inside that bag.
Kaneki sneered and walked swaggeringly out of the alley, effortlessly carrying the heavy black bag.
Blade watched the boy's retreating back.
Kaneki looked thin and fragile, but Blade never expected to witness a scene so utterly terrifying.
Shaking his head, Blade took out a flask of silver water and began sprinkling it on the severed stumps of the vampire minions, starting the tedious finishing work.
Manhattan District
A luxurious villa was brightly lit against the night sky.
Light Inksworth sat leisurely on his sofa, watching the evening TV report.
On the screen, government councillors were intensively debating the implementation of the Mutant Registration Act.
Suddenly, a strong, coppery smell of blood entered Light's nose.
With a soft creak, Kaneki opened the front door and walked inside, lugging the dripping black bag.
"Kaneki, what is this...?" Light asked, raising an eyebrow.
"The Lord of Vampires. I think he was called Dracula," Kaneki replied.
He hesitated slightly when saying the name; perhaps because he hadn't paid much attention to the arrogant vampire, there were some memory omissions.
Kaneki untied the bag, revealing a gruesome meatball of flesh with a silver stake pierced straight through it.
Light was completely dumbfounded.
Kaneki then proceeded to explain the entire encounter in the alley.
"An endless Kakuhou granary! That is a rare find," Light said.
Light nodded, expressing his full approval of Kaneki's harvesting practice.
But the smell of blood was a bit too permeating, making it a bad idea to keep the bag in the main living area.
"We have a basement. Just lock him in there."
Acting on Light's suggestion, Kaneki carried the bag down into the dark, empty basement.
He found a large, flat rock in the corner and threw the immortal vampire directly onto it.
Light scratched his head and walked back upstairs.
He had absolutely no interest in staying to watch how Kaneki planned to swallow his meal.
Just as he sat back down on the sofa, the holographic avatar of his AI, Alice, projected upward from his phone screen.
"The task assigned to the T-800 has been completed," Alice announced.
"The address and the visual feed have been transmitted. Please open the door."
A Chemical Plant in Afghanistan
Rat-tat-tat-tat!!
Heavy gunshots rang out in rapid succession.
Sparks shot everywhere across the catwalks, filling the air with the pungent, choking smell of sulfur.
"Ahhh!"
A desperate cry of wailing echoed through the cavernous factory.
The sound made the remaining survivors feel as if they had fallen into an ice cave, cold and biting to the bone.
"Damn it, another brother died," a bearded terrorist muttered.
He hid trembling behind a concrete wall, patting the stone angrily as he listened to the screams.
His eyes were entirely filled with primal fear.
He had never seen such a terrifying person in his life.
No, the attacker couldn't even be called a person; he was an immortal monster.
_______________________________
Word count: 1758
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