“You were supposed to be a delicacy Dex, a gift for my birthday. As Vampiric Entities we would only be required to satiate our blood lust once a year or so, else our Essence would be robbed from us and we would vanish.”

“...Why didn’t you just go through with it?” A serious tone of voice left Dex’s mouth as he stared at the Miki’s deep crimson eyes. Miki could tell that he was 100% serious with that question and admired him a bit for asking her that directly.

“It was my fault...” Gritting her teeth and forming an incomprehensible look on her face. Tears started flowing out of Miki’s eyes and she started shaking as she was filled with guilt.

Without a moment’s delay, Aoi stood up from her seat, patted Miki’s head comforting her and….started stomping Dex.

What the hell man?

Surprised, Miki stared at her uncle in disbelief, while Dex was too caught up with the surprise attack and was reeling from the stomps.

“You don’t have to explain anything more to this guy, Miki. I’ll wring out information from this dirtbag and we can get on with it. There’s no need for you to feel regret, it’s this bastard’s fault that Ernesto’s dead.”

Aoi started grabbing the ends of Dex’s hair and lifted him up with just one hand. He then started to wail his other hand’s fists onto Dex’s stomach causing him to vomit.

“Dex, where’s the Rising Feather base? The least you could do before you die is repent and tell us. I’m going to take revenge with my own hands.”

Chuckling once again, Dex looked at the old man with a tired pair of eyes hidden away with his messy hair.

“What’s this? I wanted to find out more, but you step in at the right time. There’s a limit to how protective you can b-”

A blow to the stomach finished that sentence prematurely.

“You’re just going to get kille-”

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Another blow makes it’s way to his stomach.

“Don’t joke around with m-”

This time, Aoi slammed Dex on the wall, slightly cracking the bricks. Passing out briefly, Dex’s head went limp and he was abruptly woken up by another punch to the gut. Miki was dumbfounded at what she saw. She had never seen her uncle that way and had always seen him in a loving light. She started to use her wings to try and stop him again, only for her wings to be grabbed right out of the way.

Glaring at his niece, Aoi gave Miki an annoyance-filled glare, as if screaming "don't get in my way". Similar to parents would sus out their children with just a nasty stare, but imagine this being a thousand times worse because of the nasty horns and contortions on the old oni’s head.

“Don’t get in my way Miki. You’ve been holding back ever since. This is exactly why Ernesto died.”

The combination of the death glare and those words that she didn’t want to hear caused Miki’s head to return static. She went quiet, wallowed in her guilt, and stared at the two with a sad face. She had wanted to at least explain to Dex what they were after and why this was happening to him, and realizing that she was thinking about this “fairly”. She thought that Aoi was indeed right, she was too attached to the young man. She had silently approved of his methods and simply nodded sadly.

After a few more beatings and punches, Dex’s body was badly bruised all over his body. His face was swollen with only one eye still able to be opened. His lips bloody and dripping with blood. He couldn’t feel certain parts of his body anymore and the pain of having his hair constantly grabbed to lift him up has completely been overpowered with the different pangs of pain emanating from his body.

And yet.

“What the hell. You decide to give me a place to live and take care of me, only to decide to eat me, and then when it doesn’t go your way, you blame me?”

Blood-filled spit flew from his mouth to Aoi’s right temple. This action was the final straw for Aoi, he had now decided to kill this stupid brat in front of him. He would just go out there and look for them himself, without information or anything. He would rampage and destroy, all to avenge his best friend. Not even his beloved niece could stop him, and he didn’t care about the repercussions the Association would do to him after he was done. He would simply do it.

Aoi let go of Dex’s tuff of hair and slammed him to the ground, causing a creaking sound from either Dex’s body or the floor, he really didn’t care right now. He then picked him up again, but this time by the neck, pushed him to the wall again and started to choke him with his one hand.

“I’ve had enough Dex! This won’t change anything, but it’s gonna make me feel a helluva a lot better. This is what happens when you humans don’t acknowledge us! Repent and die already.”

Miki couldn’t stand looking at Dex’s head as the color of his face started growing paler and paler so she had turned away. She kept telling herself that this was for the best and that this was the result of her halved-assedness resulting in her father’s death.

Hearing a soft squishing sound and a small yelp, Dex’s head had been bent with a small sound. This was the picture in her head, it was a disgusting sight, after all she was close to Dex, but at least it was over. Breathing a sigh of relief, she turned around to face her uncle, only to see something totally different from what she was imagining.

“ACK WHAT THE-” a pain-filled shout came from Aoi’s mouth.

Aoi was still in the same position as before, clenching Dex’s neck like a spring chicken, but there didn’t seem to be any force in it like before. His other hand was clenching his right eye. Looking at it closely, his right eye was bleeding profusely, it’s as if it was “popped”.

Miki slowly panned her eyes to the still-alive Dex. Grinning a bit, he held a bloody fork with his right hand.

“Don’t think I’ll just roll over and die like this, AFTER ALL I'VE BEEN THROUGH!”