The Last Rising Sun

She is surrounded by an ocean of blood, sinking to infinity without knowing what to do. She can't move her body, can't open her eyes and can't breathe. But despite that, suddenly a warm feeling filled her heart.

It felt so warm and comforting. As if her mother was there, hugging her and stroking her hair. She felt safe in this place.

While she wasn't looking, two giant crimson hands moved through the blood. Those hands gently covered her.

'Where am I?" she asked herself. But there was no concrete answer to that question. She right now could be everywhere and at the same time nowhere. What this girl, Sakura, knew, was that this place felt familiar. This all felt familiar.

Then she heard the cry of a baby and the story of a tragic hero began....

...

...

...

***

She already forgot how many times she has walked these corridors. It's been more than two months since she arrived and everything has become so everyday that it was hard for her to think of any other place but here.

She found herself in front of the door to Sakura's room. On the other side of the wood, that girl rests with the hope of one day waking up. No one knows when, but that man had told her mentor that her recovery was likely to be swift. Under her hood she showed a stricken expression.

'She's so amazing...', because that meant Sakura had enough mana to heal herself from such a deadly wound.

Gray had seen that talent in her. Sakura was supposed to be the best student in the Modern Magecraft Department. She was simply too talented.

She wants to greet her during the mornings. She hopes that at some point she will open her eyes and show that kind smile to the world.

Click. The door opened. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the shadowy presence staring at Sakura. It was Assassin, standing at the side of the bed in complete silence. His eyes under his hood were dull as always. He didn't react to her presence.

"Good morning," she said, approaching him. "Are you taking care of Sakura?" she took a seat next to the boy, as he stood there doing nothing. It was even a little disturbing to see him like that.

He denied in response. He didn't let her know his intentions. She just looked at Sakura to avoid asking more. But seeing her, she had a distant memory of her childhood. She was sick, lying in bed and, beside her, her mother was taking care of her. That woman was quite troubled at the time....

'I don't remember her face anymore...', she thought as she remembered that.

Realizing that she was thinking of sad things, she shook her head twice and suddenly let out a question for Assassin.

"Don't you need mana?", her face turned red at the thought of yesterday's strange things. Her voice choked, expecting Assassin to ignore her as usual, but she was wrong.

"At the moment, no. I still possess enough mana to exist."

There was something about that that bothered her, though. Assassin looked tired. That was something she couldn't see until she was close enough to him.

"You haven't been able to get mana since the castle...."

Assassin looked like he wanted to refute Gray's statement, but couldn't. He remained silent without denying anything.

"You even spent more mana when you dealt with the curse that was on Sakura."

No response again. There was a stony silence. But suddenly Assassin was heard to sigh.

"You're right," he replied in a whisper. "But that doesn't mean I have no mana left. I can resist quite a bit without mana."

"Just because you can resist doesn't mean you won't suffer from the mana shortage," the cage inside the cloak shifted. Add wanted to see the Assassin. Gray pulled him from her cloak to listen to him. "Boy, you look like the kind of person who hides a lot of things. If you keep doing it any longer, it will be something you will regret in the future. Ask my depressing mistress to give you mana. Swallow your pride and ask her for help."

Assassin looked at Add. His face remained expressionless making Add feel frightened from one moment to the next. In fact, the Mystic Code regretted being so presumptuous. The boy's gaze was completely vacant and dull, which made him think that he was standing before a strangely terrifying being.

"It's okay, I guess," but he replied curtly.

"Huh?" both Add and Gray said in unison. They didn't expect him to agree right away. It was anticlimactic for everyone.

She looked at him silently as if the servant had said something odd. The silence was short-lived, as sometimes Add had a hard time keeping his mouth shut.

"Hmm... that was... weird. You could have at least said 'please', but that'll do for now," he turned around inside his cage with a small hop. "Now that Assassin boy agreed, you'll have to help him, girl."

"Oh? Me?", at the suddenness of the situation she felt confused.

"Of course you," Add snorted, "Do you see anyone else here, because I don't."

"Uh... I...," she didn't know what exactly to do. Her eyes looked into Assassin's. She thought of all the possibilities and ways she could give him her blood. One of them was something she remembered from a vampire book she read a few years ago. Her face turned red at the thought. If Assassin approached her, grabbing her around the waist ready to bite her neck, she couldn't with such intensity.

Those strange thoughts made her head even hotter as she seemed to be steaming. She thought Assassin would be able to do that to her, for at the Castle of Separation something similar happened. He grabbed her waist and 'blended in' with her body. If this guy was that kind of man, she thought maybe regretting this might have been a better idea.

The bad thing about all these thoughts was that she couldn't tell that Assassin had approached her without eliciting any sound. Add celebrated this.

"You seem to be able to act like a man, Assassin boy."

Add's voice brought her out of her thoughts. When she realized her closeness to Assassin, she felt her heart racing with fear and embarrassment. However, those feelings changed as she watched Assassin kneel before her holding her hand. She looked down at him as he looked up at her. The expressionlessness of Assassin's gaze conveyed to her a great deal of unease and curiosity, but most of all, a great dark emptiness. Whereas, that servant's weathered hands made her feel a depressing warmth.

She saw through the sleeves of the boy's kimono that he had a lot of scars and burns. She could only think of one thing...

'You... who are you?'

Asking that to someone else was too ironic. She always asked herself the same question. Every time she looks in the mirror. Every time she hears her own voice. Every night she goes to sleep and every morning she wakes up.

Assassin's presence had vanished in front of her. She no longer felt so much fear towards him. Although deep down something was screaming at her to run away, her mind was only thinking about solving this mystery that has been tormenting her lately. There is even a bit of hatred towards this servant because, although he is dead, he is still walking among the living. That was one of the things she disliked the most. But looking at him more closely, she wondered if thinking like that was right.

Assassin, taking her hand, touched her fingers with his. He took his index finger and slowly opened his mouth. She opened her eyes instantly, frightened and confused. Before she could pull away from him....

"Yum...," he slipped Gray's finger into his mouth.

She felt, her face red with embarrassment, the inside of Assassin's mouth was warm and wet. She stammered trying to pull away, but Assassin held her arm.

"Ow," she groaned as she felt a prick on her finger.

Assassin bit her finger with his fangs, causing blood to start flowing down his tongue. It was only a few small drops of blood that trickled out of the small wound, but Gray felt Assassin's tongue move caressing her finger. Every slimy movement inside the servant's mouth made her feel shivers run through her body making her feel strange.

He swallowed the blood making that characteristic swallowing sound. Thus he consumed the mana present in those drops of blood. As he did so, he opened his mouth and pulled away from Gray's hand, leaving a thin trickle of saliva between his finger and his tongue.

She didn't know how to react. Her whole body stiffened and her breath came in short gasps. Assassin sighed as if the blood had tasted good, and in turn, reached out his hand which glowed a faint green color.

"Thank you for the food," he whispered, stroking Gray's hand with his own.

She felt that soft throbbing pain disappear in seconds. In fact, her racing heart calmed down a bit after that. Although her mind had become a chaotic mess full of embarrassing situations, she still had room to think about other things. She herself was the one who said she wasn't very smart and couldn't process that much information easily, but that wasn't true. That was just this girl's insecurities speaking for her.

He let go of her hand and stood up. She realized again how tall he is. Kneeling he looked like one of those elegant fairy tale princes, but standing he looked like the sinister dark silhouette of death. They were two completely contradictory postures, but they made the expressionless Assassin have more strange facets that she was still getting to know.

But what she undoubtedly thought was that he is totally shameless. He doesn't seem to understand the meaning of shame and decency. He doesn't seem to understand others either and that was a problem. Overwhelmed by this, Gray looked down at the floor. She looked at her hand as if her finger had been torn off and clenched her fist gently as she realized that the small wound on her finger was gone. After that, she returned her gaze to Assassin.

"I thought if I was quick about this you'd save yourself a lot of trouble," he said, and tightened the knot of his scarf a little, for it had come loose when he bent down.

Gray didn't know what to say. What had just happened was extremely strange.

'I... I felt really weird...', she hid her face inside her hood. Her face was hot and flushed again. She clenched her fist because somehow, every time she lost her concentration, she felt Assassin's tongue caressing her. 'That's not from God,' sitting back in the chair, she hugged Add's cage inside her cloak. But she felt too guilty when she saw Sakura lying on the bed.

She felt that she had done something wrong even if she wasn't the one responsible for this strange situation. She was still unresponsive to what Assassin said earlier, but he had kept quiet. Maybe he wasn't expecting a response and that reassured her a little.

'I'm sorry, Sakura,' she thought she was betraying this girl. Though there was really nothing to feel guilty about, maybe?

It was all a bit awkward after that. This thunderous silence was very different from the silence of the library. Her eyes couldn't help but glance at Assassin, but he had hidden himself in the darkness of his hood. All she could see of him was his nose.

"Assassin boy," shattering the silence, Add rattled inside his cage. "That whole thing earlier was a lot of fun, how about from now on you stick by this pathetic little girl?"

"What?", Gray was surprised. Add ignored her and continued.

"Standing here watching your master and doing nothing must be so boring. You've said it before. That you're always bored. If you stay close to her you can ask her for mana whenever you want. I'm sure she won't refuse."

"No, I-"

"You could even get closer to her. If you fall in love with her I'll give her to you."

That last made the confused Gray fall silent. She rose from her chair and raised the cage high. Her gaze was completely expressionless, which made Add think the worst was about to begin.

"Hey, wait. Let's talk a little bit. I can apologize," he sounded full of fear. "I didn't really mean that. Come on, child. You know I always say things like that. I'm really sorry. I won't say anything like that again," but his pleas went unheeded.

She then waved the cage as if it were a flag. Assassin witnessed this in silence. Add rattled inside the cage vigorously, banging on the small bars that made metallic clanking noises with each strike. By the time Gray finished rattling the cage, Add was face down, eyes rolling.

"I don't regret anything..." he said, before passing out.

She stood watching the cage silently, trying not to look at Assassin, but he just didn't seem to have reacted to that.

"I... should I?", his soft voice trailed off.

"Should you?", Gray looked up at him at once.

"Should I be with you...?"

That didn't make sense, at least not to her. She couldn't believe Assassin had even considered Add's words. Moreover, that last part, about falling in love, that bothered her. One shouldn't talk about such things as if they were a joke, it would confuse people.

Now Assassin was saying that as if it was nothing. Another proof that he had no shame about anything.

"It's true that being taking care of Sakura can get overwhelming," she calmed down and as she spoke, she thought about what Add suggested and what Assassin said. "It's true that it can get boring to be alone here, but I don't think you'll be happy to follow me around."

Assassin walked to the window and opened it. He watched the leaves on the trees and met her gaze.

"It won't be any different than with Sakura-sama," because it was simply being by someone's side all the time. That wasn't something difficult. That was even better than standing around watching for eternity. "I don't see the difference," and he turned around to look at her.

The coldness with which Assassin said those words made her understand that he really didn't care about Sakura, but that was very contradictory from his actions. That was something very hard to understand.

"You just don't care?"

"I didn't say that," Assassin refuted. "Not seeing the difference in something doesn't mean it doesn't matter. But in the end it's what I can do best. Stand by someone... fight... protect..." he paused for a second. "destroy...", and he whispered in his monotone voice.

"You will definitely regret it," she said, mimicking the same words as the servant.

Assassin nodded in confirmation of that.

"But, until then, I'll be there. Besides...", he took off his scarf. "The words you say to me are something you wouldn't say to just anyone, right? That's because I sense your hostility towards me."

"You don't... how?"

"Because I'm a ninja. I'm trained for that."

"Ninja...", that word got her a little excited. So, whoever is in front of her is a ninja.

Before she could say anything, Assassin began to vanish into thin air. His scarf evaporated in his hand before his whole body and finally disappeared. Gray stood expectantly, but nothing else happened.

She looked down and sighed.

"Today has been a strange day..."

And it will continue to be that way for a while longer.

To be continued...