Six minutes ago…

From the darkness of the alleys near Club Drømme, Fudo watched in fury at the cop being run over by Vance, who had somehow obtained a getaway car. Even as he saw Hai Yue and some human officers start pursuing Vance, dark thoughts began forming in his head as he clutched the side of his head where he had received the vampiric sigil from Eramuzg which was starting to ache for unknown reasons.

He will get away. They will not catch him.

They are useless. They do not have enough evidence.

The human courts will release him without charges.

End his reign of terror. Avenge your loved ones.

Chase him down. Hunt him down. Find him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.

At this moment, Fudo involuntarily transformed into his True Form, screaming the name of the one responsible for the death of his human lover and her brother as he charged out of the darkness, dashing past several surprised officers as he reached and dived into the Geylang River, somehow knowing exactly where to go, unaware of a small winged creature flying after him just out of sight…

Present time, 03:06, Mountbatten Road, 14 Jan 2075

Drivers and midnight riders abandoned their vehicles and fled from the bridge as Shawn and Hai Yue approached Fudo. The samebito, in his True Form and with red energy pulsing from the vampiric sigil he got scarred to his face, didn’t even seem to notice their presence as he ripped apart the roof of the hatchback and pulled Vance out of the wrecked vehicle by his throat as the latter flailed his legs uselessly.

“Let go of me, you ugly fuck! You know who the fuck I am or not?” Vance threatened Fudo.

In response, Fudo grabbed one of Vance’s legs and a sickening crunch is heard as Vance screamed.

“Fudo, that’s enough!” Hai Yue shouted at the samebito.

The samebito, in his True Form and holding Vance by his neck, turned to stare at Shawn and Hai Yue upon hearing his name.

“Your Highness,” he greeted, almost nonchalantly, while Shawn aimed his gun at the samebito who looked ready to just bite Vance’s head off.

By now, Joel, Kuang Lang and Kuang Bing had also gotten out of the SUV and, upon seeing the current scene before them, also had their weapons drawn as they slowly surrounded Fudo and Vance.

“Fucking hell, what are you pigs waiting for! Kill this thing!” Vance screamed at Shawn and Joel.

“Keep calling us pigs and we might let him eat you,” Shawn replied sarcastically.

“You ci bai motherfucker, I’ll remember you face! You better watch ou-”

Vance started screaming and cursing in pain again as Fudo crushed two of Fudo’s right fingers in his grip.

“Dumbass really thinks he’s some kind of big shot in gang society, huh?” Joel commented to Hai Yue, who merely sighed as she turned her attention back to Fudo.

“Look, I know he’s an irredeemable piece of shit but the humans have rules here in their society, Fudo. Put him down and cancel the manifestation of your True Form, now,” she warned as Shawn and Joel took a step forward, fingers inching closer to the trigger of their sidearms as they took aim.

“Why should I? He’s been living his life like he did nothing wrong after killing Miharu and Kazuya. Who knows how many other murders and rapes he has committed before that? Yet the humans’ law has not been able to put a leash on this mad dog,” the samebito argued.

“And you think killing him personally is going to solve the problem? He’s not the only one of his kind in this world or our world.”

“Does it matter? Both worlds would be better off without him around.”

“But if you kill him, you only bring justice to the crime he committed against you. What about justice for whatever other crimes he has committed?”

“But-”

“You gave me your word, Fudo. You said if the humans can bring Vance to justice, you will surrender peacefully. And here you are, ready to fuck up everything after the humans found enough evidence and a witness to reopen the case and bring charges that bastard you’re choking.”

“He’s already fled from justice twice,” Fudo snarled as he lifted Vance even higher, “I wanted to break my word to you earlier, but I waited and hoped. I saw the human law enforcement officers move into that club. I thought you would arrest him, but instead, he flees again! How is it that these humans allow this violent thug slip through their fingers again and again?”

“I don’t think he trusts us very much now,” Shawn commented.

By now, reinforcements have arrived. The first to do so were Sergeants Ang and De Souza, both men momentarily stunned by the sight of Fudo as they emerged from their patrol vehicle, but quickly recovering and pulling out their sidearms. Shankar’s vehicle has also arrived, with Zai emerging from the passenger side window with an assault rifle.

“Fudo Kaneki? There’s about twenty guns aimed at you right now. Surrender now, release the hostage and cancel out your True Form or we will shoot,” Zai called out to

“Why don’t you all just shoot me and get this over with?” Fudo roared back.

“Unless your scales are made of six-inch steel plates, you’re going to be shark fin soup, buddy,” Shawn retorted.

“Fudo, don’t make me do this,” Hai Yue warned as she unzipped her jacket.

The last time Hai Yue unzipped her track jacket (and nearly gave Shawn a nosebleed), she took down nearly two dozen gangsters with techniques that would impress both bareknuckle boxers and MMA fighters. This time around, however, she was also taking off her track jacket, tossing it into Shawn’s arms, and judging by the concerned expressions of Kuang Lang and Kuang Bing, it was not to show off her well-toned body.

Water began to manifest around Hai Yue’s right arm from hand to elbow, forming into the shape of a knight’s gauntlet before freezing into thick, solid ice. Fudo seemed to have noticed it as well, for he asked, “Princess, are you really going to do it?”

“Back on the Other Side, I am a princess, but here, I’m a marshal of the Night-Sea Patrol. My job is to help enforce the law on Othersiders living in the Human Side… If you are really going to break your word, then you can’t blame me for breaking you,” Hai Yue replied, her tone becoming cold and emotionless as the last few words left her lips.

“Come now, samebito, you lived in the Night-Sea for two years, you’ve seen the princess’s wrath before,” Kuang Lang said to Fudo.

“Yes, I have.”

“Then you know how bad things can get. C’mon, just put that human down and not make the situation worse than it already is,” Kuang Bing added.

“I want to… I want to, but I can’t. What if the human court decides the evidence isn’t enough to charge him? I would tear this whole city apart if he walks free… Better to kill him now than do that…”

“I guess you’re not standing down without a fight, then,” Hai Yue replied, to which Fudo seemed to grimace as red energy tendrils started to emerge from the scar-like vampiric sigil on his face.

Hai Yue and her bodyguards started moving into position, and Shawn immediately realized what they were going to do. He found himself wondering if he was going to witness a typical shōnen manga happening in real life, where the combatants throw every special move that comes into imagination at each other for one hour, surviving injuries such as disembowelment, losing fifty liters of blood and being nuked by some Ultraman-styled beam attack, with the loser being the one who passes out first.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

But real-life fights do not happen that way, even if the fighters are mythological beings from another world that do have superpowers, and there was no way a pragmatic fighter would wait for their opponent to unleash some hidden abilities that could change the balance on the field of battle.

Kuang Lang and Kuang Bing suddenly lunged forward, ready to strike Fudo with their weapons, causing the samebito to bring up Vance as a human shield, only for the two merlions to stop at the last moment and move aside in opposite directions. Caught off-guard by the feint, Fudo lowered Vance long enough to eat a flying punch from Hai Yue who had suddenly leap forward like a lioness pouncing upon its prey, a huge portion of the thick ice gauntlet she had created on her right arm shattering upon impact with Fudo’s face.

Winded by the sudden blow, Fudo released his grip on Vance, at which point Kuang Lang struck him in the throat with his club, bringing him to his knees as Kuang Bing slammed the blunt end of his axe to the back of Fudo’s head, finally knocking him out.

All this happened within one minute. Not exactly exciting to most witnesses, but for people like Shawn whose job involves reacting to a situation where a dozen possibilities could happen any moment, that one minute was one of the most heart-thumping moments he’s ever experienced.

“It didn’t have to be this way. You had to force the princess’s hand,” the younger of the merlion twins said solemnly as he and his older brother watched Fudo slowly transformed back into his human form, no longer able to maintain his True Form now that he was unconscious.

“Good thing he didn’t activate that sigil, or we’ll have to kill him before he kills all the humans present. Quick thinking to hit him from the back of his head, brother.”

As for Hai Yue, she could only stare at Fudo with disappointment before tearing off what was left of her ice gauntlet and throwing it over the bridge in frustration at how the situation had to be ended with violence while Shawn, Joel and three other officers secured Vance.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! I need to go hospital, why you arresting me!” Vance screamed!

“Foo Kim Hor, as of right now, you are under arrest for the murder of Kazuya Kaneki, the rape and murder of Miharu Kaneki, desecration of the dead, criminal intimidation and conspiracy to commit murder!” Shawn said to Vance as he held Vance down.

“Your mother ci bai! Look at my leg! Look at my fingers! Like that you still want to arrest, is it?”

“JUST SHUT UP ALREADY!”

Shocked by Hai Yue’s sudden and uncharacteristic scream of anger, none of the officers were able to stop her from seizing Vance by the collar and lifting him two inches off the ground.

“One more word from your rotten mouth, I’ll rip off all your limbs and feed it to that shark, you hear me?” she snarled at Vance who, clearly intimidated by her eyes and her obvious fangs, quickly nodded.

Still frustrated about the situation, Hai Yue literally tossed Vance into the back of a waiting police vehicle, with the gangster heard cursing a blue streak about how he had landed on his crushed leg, but Hai Yue could not care less as she slammed the door shut and walked off to the side of the road, with Shawn waiting for a moment before approaching her.

“You all right?” he asked as he returned Hai Yue’s track jacket.

“No. If we hadn’t acted fast enough, Fudo would have activated the vampiric sigil he got from Count Eramuzg.”

“Count Era-what? Wait, name sounds familiar… Isn’t he one of the Council Leaders of the Sanguine Court of Southeast Asia?”

“Yeah. Seems he and Fudo knew each other… Of the Five Vampiric Sigils, Eramuzg’s personal Sigil falls under ‘Carnage’, the most dangerous of the Five. Anyone who receives his sigil has the ability to enter a state of berserker rage with substantial increases to one’s physical capabilities. A human under the sigil’s influence can demolish a small house with his bare hands. Imagine what Fudo could have done,” Hai Yue explained as she put her jacket back on and zipped up.

“It’s that dangerous?”

“Yeah, and it also binds the recipient of the sigil to the Count or Countess that gave it to them. Allows them to influence the recipient in subtle ways. I’m starting to think that Fudo may not have been a hundred perscent in control of his actions.”

“Even so, he did intent to kill for revenge, so there’s no way he’s escaping the law… Any way we can remove that sigil?”

“Yeah,” Hai Yue said as she conjured water from her hands and formed it into the shape of a blade which she then froze solid, “We have to mutilate his face even more, unfortunately. And best is to do it now while he’s still unconscious-”

Hai Yue suddenly looked up, startled by what looked like a bat flying past her and Shawn. Shawn stared at her quizzically, to which Hai Yue said, “It’s nothing, sorry,” before approaching Fudo with the ice blade in hand…

07:35, Lock-Up Section, VOID Headquarters Basement, Beach Road, 14 Jan 2075

Dragging a chair behind her, Hai Yue walked down the corridor of VOID’s special-built lock-up, each cell designed to hold Othersiders that they had arrested. VOID had around thirty of such cells. In Fudo’s case, he was placed in one of six cells designed to hold aquatic Othersiders, flooded waist-deep with either freshwater or sea water depending on the Othersider.

“Princess,” Fudo, whose face was now more scarred due to Hai Yue having to ruin the vampiric sigil so he cannot activate it again, greeted as Hai Yue stopped in front of his cell.

“Fudo,” Hai Yue replied, “Thought you’d be pissed to see me considering how it’s only about five hours since your arrest.”

“Funny, I thought so myself, yet here we are, cordially greeting each other,” Fudo said with a soft chuckle, but then he frowned before looking down, continuing, “I suppose an apology won’t make things any better.”

“Obviously not. Why do something so reckless? Am I not worthy of your trust?”

“I’ll be honest, I wanted to go into that club, drag that bastard out and rip him to shreds, but I didn’t. I had the intention. But I remembered what I promised you, and the reports I was watching on the television where the humans were arresting all those involved in the deaths of Miharu and Kazuya, and I backed off. When you all started pursuing my target, I was hoping you would capture him.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I, well, I can’t explain it. I started, well, I started hearing voices, and all of a sudden, there was this uncontrollable fear. I started thinking, what if that bastard escaped? What if he gets caught, but the human court decides there isn’t enough evidence to convict him? What if he does the same to others if he gets away scot-free? And then, I don’t even know when it happened, but I was in my True Form, swimming in the river until I caught up with the pursuit.”

“So you broke your word over fear? Samebitos are some of the most fearless people I’ve ever met. Hell, you look like you were ready to fight my father when we confronted you about your fugitive status all those years ago,” Hai Yue commented.

“I suppose even we who have a reputation for courage are not immune to fear… But, actually, now that I’ve got a clear head, I seem to recall the sigil I received from Count Eramuzg starting to act up while I was outside the club. That was when I started to feel the fear I was telling you about.”

Hai Yue nodded as she adjusted herself on the chair.

“You became paranoid at the same time the sigil started acting up?”

“I guess so. Not too sure about it, but I could feel energy coming off it. It happened again when I, well, when I committed those murders… Wait, come to think of it, I did want to kill those bastards for what they did to Miharu and Kazuya, but the brutality… Why was I so brutal? I only wanted to break their necks so they die instantly.”

“You tore them apart, remember?”

“Yes, but I don’t remember wanting to be that brutal… What’s going on with me?”

“How much do you know about vampire sigils, Fudo?”

“That vampires can grant a small portion of their powers to those who received their sigils, and that although all vampires have their personal sigil design, they can only have the powers of one of the Five Vampiric Sigils.”

“There’s more to just receiving a demo version of the vampire’s powers. Remember what I said to you when we had that little reunion in the park?”

“That I leashed myself to him.”

“Exactly. That’s what happened. Count Eramuzg’s personal Sigil, do you know which of the Five it falls under?”

“Carnage… Wait, are you saying it was his fault that I was so cruel?”

“Maybe you were already cruel. You did want to kill those humans. You were angry, and perhaps the sigil amplified it… Or maybe the Count wanted it to happen. Accepting a vampiric sigil binds one to the Count or Countess that gifted it, allows them to influence one’s thoughts and decisions.”

“No, Count Eramuzg would not do that. That man stands up for Othersiders living in the Human Side whenever they faced injustice.”

“There’s a lot of things you do not know about Eramuzg. I’ve not even told my human colleagues about him. The ones who’ve heard of him only knows that he’s a philanthropic vampire who runs a legitimate tech business, and that he’s nicknamed the Blood Debt Resolver because he helps Othersiders seek justice on those who slighted them. But the truth is, well, the Count has many dark secrets. There’s a reason why he was exiled from the Night-Sea, and why he has never been voted to be Council Head of the Sanguine Court of Southeast Asia despite his years of service on the Council.”

“So I turned to the wrong person for help.”

“Pretty much how it went.”

“In that case, about the sigil, can you do something about it?”

“Already did. Touch your face.”

Fudo touched his face and felt the presence of fresh stitches, which cause him to show signs of displeasure.

“What did you do?”

“Had to cut an extra line through the sigil to neutralize it… Sorry about your face.”

“No, I understand. I now know why you were so disapproving of me receiving a vampiric sigil. My only regret is that I was too blinded by rage to realize it… So, what happens to me now?”

“The humans will hold you for now. My father is in discussion with both human and Yōkuni diplomats about whether to have you sentenced here on the Human Side, back in the Night-Sea or to have you repatriated back to Yōkuni… You know it doesn’t matter where you get sentenced, right? Only thing you can choose now is either a noose, a rifle squad or a blade.”

As she finished speaking, Hai Yue sighed, sadness filling up her heart as she shook her head.

“You’re a good man, Fudo. Still a good one despite all the shit you pulled recently… Kegan is taking over the whole thing and my shift’s ending, so this is probably the last time I’ll ever get to talk to you. Anything you need me to do before I leave?”

Fudo merely let out a sigh of his own as he sat down in the water.

“I made those choices, it’s my own consequences to bear… For what you did to try and help me all those years ago, I thank you once more. My only request is that you don’t add me to your list of burdens, Hai Yue. That is all. Goodbye, your Highness, and may your path not be as painful as mine was.”

Hai Yue nodded and stood up, picking up the chair and taking one last look at Fudo, a sad smile on her face knowing it was too late to help him, before finally leaving the lock-up.