---

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The twilight above leaked through East Forest. Its silken glow merged with the stinging cold of rain onto Tomoe's cheeks. As he lay there huddled against a tree, crimson leaked out of his abdomen through an open hole slashed horizontally across his grey shirt. His eyes were void of thought - of feeling, of emotion. Scanning aimlessly across his body, his gaze wandered. How long had he been here? Was it a miracle that he had yet to die, or a curse that his death would be drawn out agonizingly slow? In the rare occasion that he read on his travels, he researched across his year of adventure - browsing tomes to discover the secret powers of vampirism. Legends held that vampires could regenerate due to their lack of internal organs, but Tomoe held neither the intelligence or the willpower to activate that latent power.

Thus, the rogue could only pathetically slide up the tree against his back slick with falling rain, meandering to the left and right in an attempt to regain himself and at least have his soles touch soil once more. Try as he might however, there were cuts and bruises lining up and down his body; some of which indicated a dislocated ankle or perhaps even a broken leg.

His eyes dashed to the right side of his vision when he heard muddy footsteps and grunting a number of yards east of him. Tomoe's survival instincts kicked in at that moment, and maneuvering to slide across the wet dirt and grime with a wooden spike sticking out of his chest, he threw himself into the thick bushes like a marionette on a string.

Rolling into the brush, he had just enough strength to turn his head to the left to peer through the bushes to see weighty boots covered in dirt and blood walk by the main path he was slumped next to mere seconds ago. If not for his unnatural silence it's likely he would not have made it this long, but especially now he found himself praising whatever forces conspired among each other out there to grant him that skill in that specific instance.

Digging his nails into the dirt, he pulled himself along further parallel to their path to continue observing them.

Sure enough...

Tomoe saw their familiar attire and gear. They were the same group that dragged him into this mess, and given their patrol along this road and shifty eyes there was no doubt in his mind they were here to finish the job.

The injured and bloodied vampire decided that his ability to reject noise itself would be a curse after all once a macabre thought invaded his mind. Before the thought could even finish, his hand moved with instinctual precision on its own to rip the spike out of Tomoe's chest like a glued bandage off of a since-healed wound. To a normal man this would be the part where his screams of anguish and misery alerted everybody in a kilometer's radius to his location. With help from his own innate stealth though, his pain was so quiet that one could hear their own heartbeat before they would ever hear him scream.

In the evening glow the man would look as a shambling corpse rising from the grave the way he leaned on his sword and his left foot to drag the rest of the useless parts of his body forward.

With death in his eyes, Tomoe moved forward on the energy reserves of sheer rage and killing intent to blend in with the shadows as he pursued the hunting squad ahead of him.

To take his mind off of the pain, all the moonlit corpse could do was reflect on his past actions, and how he arrived at this position in the first place.

---

[637/3000]

It was the most schizophrenic day Tomoe had ever had the displeasure of existing in. All at once he felt joyous for the rain, displeased by the brightening sky, and landing at content for the settling clouds darkening the day but not slicking the ground with god's tears. On such a day, it was no mystery that a vampire would get increasingly paranoid as to what would await him next. He felt on edge, his sole organ known as blood boiling within him in anticipation of something to go awry.

On such a day he was on a stroll through East Forest, smelling the roses and devouring birds and squirrels for blood wherever he could find. As long as no civilians wandered off the beaten path where one could find Tomoe on a day as insultingly random as it was, he was safe from their judgment and possibly the legal or moral ramifications of such acts.

"Bunch'a ingrates wouldn't understand even if they knew how it felt anyway.", he muttered between bites of a blue jay's intestines.

Once he had his fill of lunch, Tomoe strode over to one of the many rivers gracing the forest. The place was famous for its rich vegetation, lush surroundings and blue water.

"Well, at least the vegetation was right. This shit's everywhere.", he spoke with a chuckle, feeling a tad cynical for the many roots he's tripped and stumbled over on that day alone.

He took in the wind coursing through the hair on his head and the finer points unshaved across his arms and legs. With his eyes closed and a free breeze shifting his hair in all directions, he took off his sandals and placed them next to him in an effort to relax with his bare feet in the river water. While there were few things left that entertained him as much as they did when he was human, the feeling of cool liquid against flesh never ceased to amaze him. It was such a simple and mortal pleasure, but nevertheless one that brought great joy to him.

That joy was abruptly cut short when he could hear the rustling of bushes behind him. His eyes sharpened, and in a single motion that tensed the calm breeze around him, he rolled his feet out of the water and into his sandals with a splash and his sword now drawn and pointed in the direction of the disturbance.

Before him were five men and a woman shoulder to shoulder, donned in matching black leather armor and each brandishing spears, swords and guns. The silver gleam tipping the edges of their weaponry and the shining barrels of their guns suggested a group of decent pay and success. They sternly approached, closing in on all sides except for the river around Tomoe with their spears at the ready.

"Out of the bushes, guys? Really? That's so cliche.", Tomoe spoke with a passive-aggressive tone, eyeing among each of them without a shred of joy in his features. After a while of silence with the woman rummaging through a pack of her belongings, she dug up some kind of folder from a pocket and scanned it over while taking quick glances towards the samurai in the center. Rolling it up into a tube and stuffing it in her pocket, she pulled out her gun and fired it into the air.

"It's not the right vampire! Fight to kill, men! We don't need this one alive!"

---

[1217/3000]

"Vampire? You got it all wrong, babe. I'm not-"

"Your shadow."

Tomoe was interrupted harshly by the woman as the men began closing in on him. The revealed vampire bit his tongue and forgot how noticeable that trait truly was to a trained eye. In hindsight it was an obvious flaw of the species, one that he was always paranoid of. In broad daylight it was the most noteworthy to anyone perceptive, and as fate would have it the sun was peeking out from behind the puffy white clouds above.

"Well... there's a few ways we can do this.", he spoke, trailing off with his last few words due to narrowly avoiding a spear lunge at his left flank.

This persuaded him, especially following the gesture of the woman lowering her arm to point the gun towards Tomoe's chest, that there was only one way they would be interested in ending this interaction. There was not a single clue in the man's head as to the why or the how, and especially not the who - but he nevertheless persisted with the thought prevailing in his mind.

"Gotta fuck off...", he muttered lowly under his breath as he parried the spear tip of another warrior.

He rolled to the side of the far left flank among the group, slicing along the left spearman's right ankle and skidding behind him to kick him into the trained and angled spear of his comrade on the other side of the semi-circle. The resulting momentum behind Tomoe's movement and subsequent kick forcing the man's body forward impaled him throat first through his friend's spear. Unintentionally committing to the murder of his friend, the warrior dropped the bloody and impaled spear holding his ally's throat flooded with crimson, to grab hold of his sword.

"This is personal now you fucking bastard!", the man screamed, unimportant as he appeared to Tomoe.

What was important was an escape plan. As he blocked the next spear of the man closest to him, he found himself being pushed against a tree while the vengeful man from before strode in to deliver a slice across Tomoe's abdomen.

"This is for you, Carl! Die you goddamn monster!", the vengeful man snarled, prepared for a follow-up attempting to deliver the tip of his shortsword directly into the wounded vampire's throat.

Using sheer strength channeled by his vampiric survival instincts and the enchanted ring on his left ring finger, he slid his cheek along the flat of the spearman's spear tip holding him in place in order to duck away from both of their following strikes.

Feeling the rush of battle, the first rush stoking the flames of death that he experienced since coming to Fiore, his stance became more feral as he regained his composure a number of feet away.

Licking the side of his bloody face to reset the flow of blood down his cheek, Tomoe stared down the two redoubling their efforts.

"You're all going to die, y'know that?", Tomoe spoke, the flesh on his face creasing like rubber as he ducked behind another nearby tree to avoid the gunfire of the woman who now had a clear shot on him. As he felt the footsteps approaching the tree from the other side, he didn't dare peer out as he wasn't quite a fan of being shot in the face too often.

"Now then... let's get this buffet started.", he muttered to himself just loud enough that he'd hope the group approaching him would hear.

---

[1801/3000]

The man with the shortsword would attempt to circle the tree and deliver a lunge at his target, but met only the clashing of steel against Tomoe's curved and rusted blade. To a normal person, the rage the shortsword man felt would crumble the guard of such a weapon immediately, but the resistance Tomoe's vampiric strength resisted with proved to push back the attacker.

"Is that all you got, little bitch?"

With his senses heightened and his clothes bloody from multiple different bodies, Tomoe was like a wild animal resisting against poachers. His goal was to become the hunter rather than the hunted, and with the instinct of a leopard ducked downwards, causing the spear tip flanking him from behind to meet the fresh forest air.

"Big mistake, bud."

The hunted vampire used the tree as a wall to step and jump over the spearman, his blade meeting the top of the unsuspecting hunter's head in a helm splitting slash. The rusted blade would meet the man's cranium rather ungracefully, and Tomoe needed to rip it out with both of his hands, leaving something resembling a saw mark at the top of the spearman's head.

As the helmless hunter fell forward to the ground, unconscious, Tomoe would quickly grab the dropped spear and throw it towards the stunned swordsman like a javelin. With panicked reaction, the man with his shortsword parried the projectile and only suffering minor scratches to his left arm. Focused on the spear however, he wasn't quick enough to notice the katana blade pointed and lunged into his agape mouth. Blood from the throat came pouring out and soaking into Tomoe's ruffled, feather-like tufts of hair. Normally the man would be in a dire sort to wash the blood off at the very least, but he was no man at the moment. His emotions had risen to animalistic paranoia as he was slowly being tempered with each cut, dodge and parry.

Gunfire brought him back to his senses as he noticed a new wound flowing from his left forearm. Only afterwards did he realize he allowed himself to be away from the tree's deceptive limbs hiding his features. He was a target, wide open in the moment, and very much didn't appreciate that.

With another moment's breath staring down the barrel of an approaching gun, Tomoe rolled back into the forest's good graces of trees and bushes just in time to avoid another shot. With leaves in his hair and multiple insects likely crawling on him from the dirt strewn about, he dashed among the plants and wildlife to circle and flank an unsuspecting hunter. He was poking his head around in bushes and had a minor cut on his hand that was bandaged. Despite this, it was just enough for the bloodlusted daylight vampire to pick up on and follow. Rather than tactically so, Tomoe greedily pulled the investigative man into the dark bushes and underbrush with a sword slicing across his body. Very quickly though, a blade became unnecessary. As the woman with the gun and the last hunter by her with a spear approached, the only things they could make out were the struggles of their friend as they heard flesh being torn and joints being broken. Crushing sounds eventually drowned out by hungry chomping noises and the sucking sounds one would hear from an ice cold drink on a hot Summer afternoon. Afterwards, silence.

The woman reloaded her gun in caution as she tilted her head in gesture towards the last spearman, signalling his approach towards the bushes. He would carefully poke and prod at the soft green walls of the bushes as a farmer would with their hay.

Eventually, after enough poking, he found blood...

---

[2424/3000]

Poking further inside with the polearm, the spearman found fragments of organs strewn about. Horrified as he was, he didn't even notice the blood pouring onto his cheeks until he was already pounced upon.

"You gotta realize what you're dealing with here, and fight appropriately... the same way I will."

A blood-trimmed rusted katana impaled the left shoulder of the spearman from above, and Tomoe would shortly after descend upon his now defenseless body after ripping the sword out and allowing blood to flow freely from the shoulder wound. As the savage, amateur assassin leaned in with his fangs, he felt a stinging pain ring out from his stomach. The impact blew him off the unconscious spearman, and Tomoe saw blood pooling out of his abdomen. He felt it briefly, and noticed it wasn't too deep but certainly hindering.

Looking up, the injured vampire saw the lone gunner reloading her pistol as fresh steam of sorts poured out from the barrel. Shuffling quickly, Tomoe jumped to his feet once more and stepped over the spearman in a dash towards the woman. Halfway to her he was staring the gun down, and took another shot to his shoulder to deliver a counterattack with his sword towards her throat. Slowed down from his injuries however, she pulled out a knife at the last moment to block the blade and dash out of the way to Tomoe's flank. Reloading her gun once more, she shot and noticed her bullets touch clean air as her prey took to the air, scattering blood and no doubt opening his wounds further as he did so, in order to deliver a swift kick to her face with his right knee.

Stunned backwards, she would regardless recuperate quickly to block Tomoe's sword with the iron of her gun and deliver a quick slash to the vampire's forearm in retaliation.

"If you'd just sit down and succumb to your wounds this could all be over. You'd be free from your curse."

Clumsily reeling from his open abdomen wound, Tomoe could not react fast enough to the swift kick to his chest that sent him to the ground. His vision grew blurry, able to only hold his sword in front of him for the moment in defense.

"Yeah... I don't think of this as a curse. Not really. It's pretty awesome all things considered, and folks like you are the reason why I don't wanna give it up just yet. I have something to prove, to judgmental fucks like you.", he responded with a grin, spitting blood out at her feet and defiantly staring the woman down.

She would wordlessly respond in kind with a gesture of disappointment, shaking her head in a mixture of pity and acceptance.

"You'll die, then.", she spoke coldly, almost as if she was spitting bile towards the man she didn't know before all of this.

For the first time she raised her palm towards the sky and a magic circle appeared just above. After a moment, wood began to form from fragments splintered in the environment and culminated in a long wooden spike in her hand.

Tomoe backed up, unsure what to make of the magic, and narrowly avoided impalement through the head by dodging to the side; despite this, he still felt the impact of the spike sinking into his chest.

Fueled by adrenaline as he could feel his consciousness fading, he slashed at the dry earth around him to create a smokescreen to escape from, and then throwing his sword through the dust towards the hunter woman. After a second of his fleeting footsteps he heard the clanging noise signifying she would not fall for a surprise attack, but it seemed she was not effective at discerning visual disruptions of even the most mundane kind.

The running currents of the river filled Tomoe's ears as he dove in, turning parts of the crystal clear liquid a gruesome crimson. Floating face-up, he felt his eyes grow weary as he barely maintained consciousness with the river carrying him downstream.

---

Thus was the situation Tomoe found himself in, an adventure in the rainy night that has lasted much longer than he gave himself any credit for. As he dug further away from the hunters who had lost his trail, knowing they had definitely received backup, he crawled and struggled his way back to Magnolia.

Paranoid and cautious, he found himself in the Fairy Tail guild hall late in the evening - or early in the morning, depending on one's point of view - bloodied and muddied. Less so than how he was during his forest escapades due to his vampiric regeneration, but definitely still scarred and wounded fiercely.

Taking a seat at the bar counter where he usually found himself, he found his exterior self rougher than usual as he raised a hand for the bartender.

"The usual water. Throw some ice in there though, I need to spoil myself today..."

Sighing as the bartender quickly filled a glass with tap water and ice, he slid it towards Tomoe with a raised brow.

"Yeah, I know. Don't ask. It's been a real rough day, man.", Tomoe would spit out with a finger raised to pause the bartender's questions.

As the rain persisted onwards outside and the water in the injured warrior's glass became more and more shallow, he rubbed his forehead in exhaustion.

"I'll just lay here for a few minutes... that okay?", the weary wanderer spoke in a raspy, nearly whispered tone.

The bartender, adjusted to Tomoe's activities, knew any refusal would be met with resistance anyway, and nodded his head in acknowledgement. For the first time that day, a warm crease crept across Tomoe's features, feeling his humanity come back to him slowly as his adrenaline wore off and fatigue set in.

"I'll just be... a few minutes..."

Like that, as quick as lightning, Tomoe found himself falling into a state of deep sleep. While normally someone would eventually bump him to wake up if he attempted this action, anybody around in the stormy dead of night that it was wouldn't dare go near the scarred and bloodied sleeping man.

As if for the first time, Tomoe felt grateful just for that simple pleasure.

---

[3000/3000]

[Exit]