Waking Blood Ch. 02

But their feast lasted only few seconds as their gullets constricted and they fell away from Satoru, regurgitating what they had taken. The vampire yanked hard on his neck, hoping to snap it when Satoru dropped his katana and heaved his massive shoulders and threw his head back. The bo snapped and he connected with her face, crushing her nose and the front part of her jaw. She staggered backwards, trying to get away from him but Satoru moved with elemental fluidity, rolling towards her and bringing his knees to his chest; he tumbled backwards and sprang, uncoiling like a pressed skein of steel and trapped her head between his calves. Satoru executed the opposite motion and pulled the vampire forward, flipping her head over heels and she crashed to the ground with bone crushing force. Satoru landed on top of her, pinning her shoulders with his knees. She spat up putrid ichor -- Satoru touched his fingers to her mangled lips and brought the ichor to his mouth. When it touched his tongue, it was like a jolt of fire rippled through his body. Satoru unleashed a maniacal laugh and drew his tanto knife -- knowing what was coming she laughed as well. Satoru sprawled his body over hers and his cock, now erect under the stimulation of such violence, found her cunt and she accepted him willingly. His thrusts were brutal and her moans elegiac as he ran the blade across her throat -- the ichor in her veins gushed, painting Satoru's face with its putrid stench; he embraced it and put his lips to her wound and drank, savoring the experiences of her dark rebirth and her initiation to blood: she took the lives of her most beloved. As he approached his final thrust and drank her last drop, she quietly sighed in relief as his hand crept to her sternum and her skin tore easily and her muscles gave way as he extricated her dark heart. Her head came off with no resistance.

Satoru stood over her body, flames dancing as the village blazed an unholy inferno. On the edge of the darkness, Satoru felt the eyes of one of the ronin he met earlier upon him. "Don't worry," Satoru said.

"I'm not. You're not one of ... them."

"No shit," Satoru commented. "Come, there's more killing to be had."

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Sunrise. Fewer fell in the village than expected -- the ronin who had gathered there were now better prepared to deal with feeders.

Satoru was rapt on vampire blood and sought Kamiko. Instead, he found Mojiro's dismembered body and a note inviting him to seek out Goru's nest.

Satoru voiced how both his human and dark heart screamed for vengeance. He forsook the katana that had served him well against the servants and he now prepared for their master -- he unsheathed Reaper.

*Kaiju, Blood and Rebirth

I

It had once been common to see a single rider trekking the paths that led the from the various villages to the warlord's compound. But the new warlord instilled fear in the villagers so none walked the paths any longer.

Except tonight. A single figure advanced with grim determination. His footfalls left not impressions as his weight did not disturb the surface of the graveled path. He wore a wide straw hat -- his broad shoulders and muscled chest were covered in a black hitatare. The wide, flowing pants floated around his legs as he skimmed the ground. In his belt was a tanto blade with a woven red handle and slung across his back was the foreign sword he called Reaper.

Once upon a time, his name was Mizaki Satoru. Now, he was simply Satoru. Tonight, he was prepared to bring the full wrath of his name against those who wronged him, twice taking from him the ones he loved the most.

The ronin he had encountered in a far away village had moved as many families as they could away from the evil haunting the warlord's compound. Those ronin who understood his mission offered their swords and their bows to his cause.

To this, Satoru had answered: "Protect the living. I will avenge the dead."

II

The tree lined path Satoru followed opened onto a field where the warlord's compound rose like a defiant curse against a pristine night. Torches flickered, equally distanced along the walls surrounding the edifices. This told him familiars were housed within the compound since vampires were at home in the darkness. From a distance, the walls seemed made of an alabaster compound unnatural to these lands. The walls were held by scaffolds made of bone.

Satoru halted a few paces before the main gate of the compound. He looked at the high, wooden door surrounded by arches of bone pushed it -- it swung open with unnerving east. He unsheathed his blade and entered the compound. The inner court reeked of foul magics that heightened the scent of blood that filled the night air. Trenches were dug in the ground and scarlet rivers flowed freely, drawing an eerie calligraphy. He sniffed the air and it swirled with the scent of cruelty, fear, and hatred. Satoru's mouth watered.

Satoru heard soft footfalls as quiet as falling leaves in the dirt to his left. He raised his blade and moved in their direction. Before he could be seen, he leaped upwards and landed like a feather on a the ledge of the vestibule that separated the first inner court from the second. Three familiars suited as guards were guiding a bloated feeder towards a gate into the second court. Satoru realized that a beast master like Goru must already know he was there. When he fed and fucked upon the guardian vampire a few days ago, he had divined Goru's location. He smiled and decided that if Goru knew he was here, he might as well have some fun.

"Oi!" Satoru yelled as he landed heavily from the ledge. He rushed forward and leaped, rippling muscles launching him into the air. He clipped the first familiar in the face with a flying knee, snapping the head back past its natural limit. The guard hit the ground with a thud while Satoru rolled upon landing and made his way to his feet while the other guards turned to face him. The one closest to him on his right charged him with his sword and Satoru side stepped the charge, crouched and slashed at the guard's leg. The guard screamed and fell as his leg was severed in a misty cloud of blood. He caught the guard and ended him with a wrench of the neck.

The other guard was a more seasoned warrior, not launching into and attack but measuring his foe. The guard held his blade over his head in a classic form -- their swords clashed a few times yet the guard was soon overwhelmed by Satoru's speed and power. The guard's eyes were wide with awe as his head flew up into the air on a crimson fountain before hitting the ground, bearing witness to the blood gushing from the clean cut Satoru had made. Satoru took the time to empty the familiars of their blood before turning towards the stumbling feeder. It had only taken a few steps while Satoru had slaughtered the guards.

"Nice entrance," a familiar voice echoed. Satoru looked up and two vampires in black garb landed silently in front and behind him. Shingen was standing next to the blood filled feeder, tapping its grayish head. "But this belongs to the Master Goru."

Satoru froze -- his undead brother was only a few paces from him when the other vampires attacked. Despite his training and his feeding on the guards, he could not match the speed and drive of these powerful vampires; they countered his every blow and Satoru fell when the hilt of a katana cracked the base of his skull, knocking off his straw hat and when a blinding palm blow found his chin. He failed under the furious crackle of inhuman blows. It was enough to overwhelm even his darkly dual nature.

"More than human, this one," Shingen muttered as he spat on Satoru. "But not by much."

Satoru's eyes went dark.

III

Awakenings, Satoru was quickly discovering, were never pleasant when your were not quite human or quite dead. His eyes snapped open and his mind played back with fierce clarity his ongoing failure at avenging his Lady Ioshi. What his eyes registered, however, was beyond anything the shared experiences he had absorbed from the various familiars and vampires he'd fed upon could have prepared him for.

He was on his knees in the middle of what appeared to be a garden. Rows of red and purple bushes radiated from where he kneeled in concentric patterns -- their roots bathed in frothy emulsion of coppery smelling blood. The branches were adorned with gore stricken skulls, filaments of moist, dripping meat dangling from the bone moved lazily in the cold wind. Inter spaced between the bushes were statues of permutations of men and women in various stages of sex -- many of the bodies were mutilated or grotesquely deformed. As Satoru eyes focused, he could see the clean stitch marks where the bodies had been dismembered and reassembled. He heard the muted heartbeats beneath their ravaged flesh and heard in his mind their incessant screams. He understood that to vampires, the screams were like a soothing song. Satoru tried not to enjoy them.

He looked up and the top of wherever he was -- chains dangled in nonchalant arches lost in the darkness of what Satoru understood to be a black sky. Many of the chains hung to the ground, hook like appendages scraped the odd earth Satoru was kneeling on. Before him, he saw Shingen and a crew of other vampires gripping a series of looping chains connected to interlocking pulleys. They started to heave, their combined, massive strength barely enough the get the chains rolling -- the pulleys squealed and some other vampires climbed the chains with animalistic agility while carrying bodies. Satoru clenched his jaw when he saw those undead eviscerate their burden and allow the cold blood to run down the chains till it reached the pulleys and lubricated them.

Their work simplified, the crew's efforts lifted a large, amorphous figure from behind a buttress made of thick bones the likes Satoru had never seem. Once he was high enough, the crew heaved the mass forward where its many overlapping layers of oily flesh glistened under the flickering light of the green and red torches that illuminated the garden. They delicately deposited the pulsating heap against the buttress of bone and Satoru made out a head at its top. It had and elongated skull with long, pointy ears that nearly reached the top of its head. Its eyes were wide and black like an abyss. The mouth was a widening crease full of an innumerable, razor sharp teeth. Four bloated feeders, moving with a speed defying their girth, scurried up the sides of the creature till its mouth where they slit their stomachs. Blood erupted from their guts with a disgusting belch and filled the creature's awaiting maw and streamed down its gut. Other vampires ran to the pooling blood and lapped at it like mangy dogs.

By this time, Satoru realized his arms were pinned at the elbows to a thick bar that pressed against his back. Old chains held his arms in place and screws pierced his forearms, adding to the immobility. Only now, after the shock of awakening, did he feel the pain in his back. Satoru took a deep breath and sprang upwards from his knees and landed on his feet. His dark heart screamed and his vampire and human halves thirst for blood and vengeance.

"Goru," Satoru hissed as his mind filled with conflicting images he absorbed from his varying feedings. "You've ... expanded."

The thing called Goru laughed and limbs emerged from under the flabby fold of his flesh. The laugh was like rusty iron bending and snapping and his arms were thick and muscular, at odds with his misshapen body.

"Well said, little thing," Goru grunted. His weight shifted and he leaned forward to better examine this new guest. He sniffed the above Satoru. "Ioshi was my favorite plaything -- Shingen says you were hers. That makes you mine."

Satoru stared at the monstrous Goru with dark eyes cold enough to make Goru's entourage recoil. Goru snorted and rested against the bony buttress holding him up.

"I'm nobody's plaything," Satoru spat under muted breath.

Goru scratched his many chins, scooping the blood that dribbled and sucked his fingers dry. "Of course not. Ioshi made you a weapon -- when she gave you her heart."

"Love."

"What?" Goru asked with renewed interest.

"She gave me love," Satoru said. Though his voice was quiet, it resounded across Goru's garden. "That gave me strength -- thirst."

Goru sniffed the air. "How did she do it? My little Shingen said you were more than human."

"Maybe you'll have the chance to see," Satoru sneered.

"I hear you fucked a girl before my feeders went looking for a snack," Goru said as he snapped his fingers. "Would you like to fuck her again?"

IV

Satoru scowled as he saw a figure crawl over Goru's shoulder and scurry down his hairless chest. It was not a feeder -- but the limbs were of and unwieldy length and bent at odd angles, allowing it to move more like a reptile or insect. Its skin was pale and the mouth opened overly wide, showing long, yellowish teeth and a stretching, darting tongue. But the eyes made Satoru's jaw set and his eyes twitch. We he met them, he saw the innocence he had encountered on the road. An innocence that screamed behind the corruption of her body, though her hair and chest were untouched.

Kamiko.

"What did you do to her?" Satoru demanded as he started to struggle against his bindings.

"This?" Goru said, pointing at the Kamiko abomination. "Surprising what a little blood can do."

"You gave her yours ... She was innocent!"

"Was she?" Goru pondered. "From her smell, that was true till you took her."

"That was ..." Satoru stammered.

"What? Love?" Goru chuckled. "Your 'love' opened the way. I merely pushed her through. Now, I wonder -- what are you going to do about it?"

The Kamiko of corrupted flesh now faced Satoru, her long greasy tongue bathing his cheeks with it stinking spit. Satoru felt his skin crawl -- not only from the disgust of what has happened to Kamiko, but also from what he viewed as his ongoing failures. He failed to save Ioshi; she sacrificed herself for him. He failed Kamiko; he took her virginity and she now sacrificed her innocence. He failed in killing Shingen before he was taken by Goru's host; Shingen was now part of this obscene show. This was enough to ignite Lady Ioshi's final gift to him -- the dark demon heart that rested next to his warm one engulfed its living counterpart.

Satoru was thirsty.

He hissed with a ferocity that even made Goru move away -- Satoru jumped and shot his legs forward, smashing his heels into Kamiko's deformed face and sending her flying. At the same time he heaved his powerful arms and the bar and chains binding him snapped while the screws holding his arms tore from his flesh, spraying his blood onto the ground and the faces of the vampires witnessing his torture. They hissed as their skin boiled under Satoru's blood.

Despite his broken arms, Satoru threw himself onto the closest vampire -- a member of the crew who moved Goru into the garden. The vampire tried to fight Satoru off but he he pinned the vampire to the ground to his knees and tore the vampire's throat out. As the ichor in its vessels showered Satoru, he drank greedily as the ichor prompted his body to regenerate his wounds. Goru raised an amused eyebrow at the speed Satoru regenerated. Even a vampire required a few minutes to heal such wounds.

Even as Satoru turned, Kamiko was on him, her claws tearing the black fabric of his hitatare and drawing blood -- it did not burn her like it did the vampire. Satoru was able to twist his body and strike her chin with an upward blow from his elbow with a strength even a vampire would have cause to fear. Her teeth smashed together and some broke and still red blood dripped for her mouth. But she had wrapped her legs around Satoru's hips and she was not letting go. Those legs -- an her arms -- morphed into tentacles and encircled his waist, legs, and neck. Satoru braced his forearm against her throat to keep her angry, snapping maw from reaching his neck.

Satoru sensed eyes on him. He also felt Kamiko's vicious embrace. As much as his human self has responded to Kamiko virginity, so did Satoru's dark half respond to her corrupt flesh. His cock sprang with unheard vigor as her monstrous form pressed against his. He tensed his muscles as Kamiko tightened her coiled limbs around his body. As they struggled, Satoru remembered when he made love to the Lady and when he made love to Kamiko and the effects it had -- he threw himself backwards and landed on his back. At the same time, he hooked his right arm behind Kamiko's neck and yanked her head forwards, pinning it against his. While she struggled, he managed to undo his pants and released his member with his left. His erection was like a stone pillar and its head grazed the entrance to her pussy. The Kamiko beast froze under this unexpected assault.

Satoru thrust upwards and he entered her with little resistance -- he invaded her corrupted flesh and she simultaneously howled and moaned with different voices. He felt her grasp slacken and he released her neck and fought kiss her ruined lips. Kamiko head butted him and clamped her inhuman jaw on his shoulder. Satoru grunted but he continued to fuck her, his cock moving in an out of her pussy with fury as her juices dripped across his thighs.

Goru laughed at the spectacle while Shingen watched intently. He appreciated the savagery the oddling was demonstrating -- a will to survive and a thirst for violence that rivaled his own. But, there was a scent of guilt upon him that Shingen found disconcerting. There was also something else -- something ... familiar.

Satoru managed to roll Kamiko onto her back without slipping out of her. Despite his blood loss and struggle, he stayed hard and the heat he generated as pleasure struggled against the pain she was inflicting as she gnashed at his bloodied shoulder radiated through Goru's garden, forcing the undead back and even making some sweat blood. Satoru looked down at the young woman he had made loved to only a few days before the madness caught up with him -- he managed to slide his arms between their entwined bodies and he forced them up his chest, knocking her head back, causing her to tear flesh and muscle from his shoulder blade. He rained blood onto her neck and chest and changed his pace to a gentle rocking of his hips as her tentacle legs shook and their grip wavered. He fought to remain conscious and took a nipple in his mouth and circled it with mounting pressure.

Kamiko's moan of pleasure was very human -- Satoru released her nipple and kissed her. This time, her snake like tongue sought his and their saliva coated appendages danced. He continued to fuck her at a steady pace and he looked into her eyes and saw the Kamiko he had known. He pushed her tentacle arms aside and laid them upon the ground -- with every thrust of his hips, he penetrated Kamiko more deeply and her limbs shrank to a more human decree.

Satoru flipped onto his back and Kamiko straddled him -- her face was slowly regaining its humanity. She rode Satoru's erection and her flesh melted away, revealing her more living attributes. For Satoru, he understood he was at the edge of consciousness as his shoulder wound wept. He closed his eyes and forced his hips to meet her swaying motions and he felt moist bits of flesh splatter his cheek -- opening his eyes, he was struck by the sight of her beautiful, natural smile returning. Swathes of skin fell from her tentacled arms and legs and her elegant limbs reemerged. Her beautiful breasts were heaving as she moaned and climax approached.

Satoru felt his own orgasm creep up -- Kamiko laid herself o upon his chest and the blood she had shed as she regained her humanity and the blood from his shoulder wound mingled. It made his dark heart scream and he matched it and came in her tight pussy for the second time, pulling her with him into orgasm. As bliss overcame them, Satoru sensed the abyss fighting to regain control of the body it had claimed. From his mind's eye, infused with the darkness of Lady Ioshi's gift, he dove into the abyss.