THUMP, THUMP.

An unfamiliar sound echoes through the quiet room. A small, fragile beat, barely audible even if one listens closely—the sort of rhythm a newborn bird might play.

The most primal music a heart can offer.

The unique cadence of a single life, with its steady rhythm and the distinctive variations branching from it.

Within that rhythm, Tyrkanzyaka opened her eyes.

She hurriedly sat up like a child who had overslept. After staring blankly into the darkness, she began feeling her body and face in bewilderment.

“When... did I fall asleep?”

She had certainly been awake partway through. Before her, he had been sitting with his eyes gently closed. He was clearly doing something, but even with all her experience, Tyrkanzyaka had been utterly unable to tell what.

So she had lain still and watched him.

Tyrkanzyaka was accustomed to waiting. Otherwise, she could never have endured all those long years. She had spent entire days doing nothing but watching the night sky drift past for no particular reason, and when the mood struck her, she would burrow underground and sleep for a hundred years or so.

Simply gazing at someone's face for a few hours or days was no trouble at all.

Besides, studying every detail of his face was not particularly boring.

At some point, he moved, after sitting as still as the dead. While Tyrkanzyaka briefly puzzled over the unexpected movement, his hand slowly approached the card she held.

His fingers touched the card, and then her body.

At that instant, Tyrkanzyaka lost consciousness.

She did not know how long she had slept. What woke her was the steady beat of a heart within her body.

Like a wanderer returning home after a long absence, the tremor felt unfamiliar, yet at some point had blended naturally into the landscape...

“My... heart?”

The moment she realized it, Tyrkanzyaka hurriedly brought both hands to her chest. Quietly feeling the beat with one palm laid over the other, she soon let out a gasp of astonishment.

“It... cannot be.”

Her heart was beating. Certainly, beyond any doubt.

It was not slow. Nor was it as regular as a machine.

It was so natural that even Tyrkanzyaka had failed to notice it at first, yet it was a tremor she had missed so dearly that it stirred nostalgia for the distant past.

This was no brief flicker that rose and faded, as when electricity had coursed through her heart. This was unmistakably her own heartbeat.

It had beaten once before, and it would continue to beat. Tyrkanzyaka knew that instinctively.

“Impossible. He truly did it... But how?”

Tyrkanzyaka examined her body. Having attained the pinnacle of blood manipulation, she could control every drop of blood within her. Taking care not to damage her heart, she traced what had been done.

An ordinary person would never have noticed. But Tyrkanzyaka, who had honed her blood manipulation for twelve hundred years and could control even blood outside her body, soon discovered what had happened.

And it left her bewildered.

“Blood... manipulation? How, when he is not even a vampire? I only taught Shei...”

Blood manipulation was not impossible to learn if one wished to. Tyrkanzyaka had mastered it on her own while still alive, and Shei had picked it up in no more than a few weeks.

At its root, blood manipulation was a form of energy arts founded on understanding.

However, no matter how well one learned blood manipulation, controlling the blood inside one's own body was usually the limit. Shei knew this too, and focused solely on stopping her own blood loss or strengthening her body. Unless talent, chance, and experience came together and blossomed as they had for Tyrkanzyaka, extending blood manipulation into another person's body was all but impossible.

Yet he had changed Tyrkanzyaka through blood manipulation. And what he had changed was...

“The things I discarded... The things I cast away long ago, to survive...”

The things she had been forced to discard long ago, merely to survive.

The things she had pushed into a corner of her memory and left neglected for an eternity.

The things so old that, in time, she had forgotten they even existed.

All of them had been contained in the single card within her chest. Like an old diary carefully tucked away in the corner of a drawer, like a treasure chest filled with memories and buried deep underground.

A distant nostalgia swept through Tyrkanzyaka's heart.

Tears came.

These, too, were something she had lost.

Shedding tears of joy and longing, Tyrkanzyaka murmured in a voice thick with emotion.

“Thank you. Thank you so much. You truly did it for me...”

Of course, she had many questions.

How had he discovered those recollections, the memories of her body that even she herself had been forced to forget?

How had he sealed them in a single card and imprinted them upon her?

How could he use blood manipulation when she had never taught him?

She wanted to know it all... but those things were secondary.

“Thank you. How can I ever repay this kindness...? You need only ask.”

With tears welling in her eyes—something she had once forgotten—Tyrkanzyaka smiled radiantly at him and spoke.

“If it is within my power to give, I shall give you anything. Tell me.”

He was nodding off, his head drooping as though exhausted.

She wanted to let him sleep, but he would hardly rest well here, without even a proper bed. Tyrkanzyaka reached out to wake him.

Her hand touched his shoulder. In response, he raised his head. His unfocused eyes met hers.

“...you?”

Tyrkanzyaka waited for him to speak, ready to gladly accept whatever request he might make.

What he had given her was that precious.

“Who... are you?”

But her tender feelings lasted only a moment.

The words that left his mouth rendered even Tyrkanzyaka speechless with shock.

Shei had been watching the underground armory for days, barely getting any proper sleep.

It had already been three days since the Instructor had said he would perform some ritual with Tyrkanzyaka. Since then, that sturdy steel door had not opened once.

Not the slightest sound came from within, and with the interior made of solid steel, she could not see through it either. All she could do was wait outside for the door to open.

‘What on earth are they doing? Surely it isn't anything indecent...?’

Shei shook her head.

That was a foolish thought. For one thing, vampires felt no desires beyond the urge to drink blood and reverence for their blood lord, and he had never shown any suspicious behavior either. That really was a leap.

Still, in all honesty, the Instructor bore a fair share of the blame for her growing suspicions. Just what sort of ritual required him to act so secretive?

‘Tch...! If you were going to take three whole days, you should have explained things in more detail before you left! I've barely slept because I'm so curious!’

Just as she was unfairly blaming him, unable to find any outlet for her frustration...

“Woof, woof!”

Azi approached with a ball in her mouth. While the Regressor sat in the yard watching the door, the bored Azi would take it as a sign that playtime was coming and ask Shei to play ball.

Wanting to stay on good terms with Azi, Shei obliged whenever she asked.

However, both the way she played and the result were somewhat different from his usual approach. Holding the ball in one hand, Shei raised Sky Cherry Blossom with the other.

“Heavenly Sword Art, Tailwind.”

“Woof?”

Before Azi could react, Shei swung Sky Cherry Blossom and sent the ball flying. Wreathed in wind, it darted every which way across the yard, rising and falling on its own.

Having bought herself a brief respite, Shei was turning her glare back toward the closed door when Azi sat down without even trying to chase the ball and tapped the ground at her feet. Shei looked back at her.

“Azi? What is it?”

Azi shouted, looking thoroughly disgruntled.

“Woof! You, not playing! Only me, playing!”

“Huh?”

“Woof, woof! Woof, woof, woof! You, no fun!”

“No, no, wait.”

Apparently, her grievances had been piling up for quite some time. Until now, Azi had played by herself and then quietly disappeared, but this time she seemed determined to make her point, barking at Shei without pause.

The King of Dogs was endlessly friendly toward humans.

Faced with that king's displeasure, Shei found herself at a loss.

“No, I was... Well, I was trying to make things a little easier.”

“Woof-woof-woof-woof!”

Had she taken the King of Dogs too lightly just because she was friendly toward humans?

Apparently, this approach would not work. Shei sighed and summoned the ball back. It sailed through the air on the wind, and she caught it.

“All right. From now on, I'll throw it by hand, without any tricks. Will that make you happy?”

“Arf! No! Arf, arf!”

Azi barked loudly once, then turned sharply away from Shei. Rejected by the supposedly kindhearted King of Dogs, Shei could only stare blankly at her retreating back.

Ruffling her own hair, Shei muttered,

“... Ugh. I don't get it. How on earth did he get along with Azi so well?”

She hated to say it, but Shei, too, was quietly hoping he would return. He was the only one who could answer all the questions that had piled up, or solve the problems confronting her right now.

Though she would never admit it, perhaps she had grown a little fond of him, too.

That was when the door opened.