My heart is ripped from my chest.
Blood splashes upward, and I feel how the cold air rushes in through the open hole I now have in the middle of my chest.
Under the starry sky, where the cold breeze blows in the night, the pieces of old buildings around me are destroyed, full of cracks and holes, and my heart is in Mrs. Kiriko's hand, who's in front of me.
She squeezes her fist and crushes it without changing expression.
Blood slides down the corners of my lips, and I let out a groan because, honestly, this shit never stops hurting.
"Do you know what your greatest advantage is, Arata?"
"Huh... what...?"
As I ask that with a half-broken voice, the crushed heart in her hand dissolves into blood, floats back toward my chest, enters through the hole, and inside my ribcage a new heart forms again. The chest wound closes at the same time.
"Your regeneration."
She says it in a flat tone.
Ah, by the way...
We're in the middle of training. It's nighttime, it's nine o'clock, and this place is an old abandoned construction that in the past was my home, before Mrs. Yuriko adopted me as her son.
This place is perfect for Kiriko to destroy me without anyone seeing or hearing us. We could go to 24th ward, but there are many ghouls who'd be attracted by the smell of my blood.
Before coming here, I'd been watching movies at Rei's house with Saya. They ended up fighting over position on the couch, Saya on my left, Rei on my right, and me in the middle suffering.
Halfway through the second movie, Rei fell asleep leaning on my shoulder with her mouth half open, and at some point Saya also fell asleep, though she fell asleep with dignity, sitting with her arms crossed, pretending she'd only closed her eyes for a moment.
After that I took Saya back to the Takagi mansion, covered her with a blanket, and came to meet Kiriko.
Kiriko didn't even greet me before starting to tear off my parts.
But hearing what she just told me, about my greatest advantage being my regeneration...
"Pfff... hahahaha..."
"..."
Kiriko raises an eyebrow and looks at me with a weird expression.
"What's wrong with you, brat? Have you gone crazy?"
"No, no..."
I try to calm down a bit, but the laughter keeps coming out. I wipe the blood from my chin with the back of my hand and look at her with a big smile.
"You know, Kiriko? A while back, I was really envious of ghouls. For exactly that reason. Because they have pretty high regeneration capacity and at that time I didn't have even half of half of that. No, worse than that, I was even envious of normal humans, because even they had better regeneration than my past self. If I cut myself with a stone I accidentally kicked, the scar would stay for days."
"..."
"That's why I'm laughing. I find it funny."
"Hmph. Don't get cocky."
Kiriko snorts, and before I can dodge it, her hand moves and cleanly tears my head off my neck.
My head flies through the air, spins a few times, and while I'm looking at the sky from a pretty uncomfortable angle, my decapitated body stays standing for a few seconds.
Then the blood from my neck stretches out, grabs my head from below, and pulls it back. My head rejoins with a wet sound as the neck muscles reconnect, the spine too, and the nerves.
I shake my neck and crack the bones.
"Ow."
"Your regeneration is pretty absurd."
Kiriko says it looking at the blood she has on her palm, without much emotion. However, through her emotional frequency, I sense a strong desire escaping from her.
She wants to stick out her tongue and lick the blood on her palm. She wants to drink my blood desperately.
However, she doesn't do it and represses those feelings.
I don't understand her reason for holding back.
"Even if I decapitate you, you regenerate almost instantly. And when I rip out your heart, you don't die or transform into a demon."
"Demon?"
"Mm. When a Sanguinem vampire has their heart ripped out, they transform into something called a demon. That's why the Sanguinem are so careful with their hearts. They protect it more than any other organ."
Ah, I remember. That happens in Seraph of the End.
"..."
"But nothing like that happens to you. I rip out your heart and you don't even flinch."
While saying this, she sticks her hand in my stomach without warning, her fingers piercing through my skin. They grab what they find in there, and pull.
My intestines come out through the hole, unroll in the air, and fall to the ground in a wet, warm pile.
"Ghhk...!"
I spit blood and my knees buckle, but I don't let myself fall, because I know if I fall Kiriko's going to do something worse to me for being weak.
"So far, if I dismember you, you're capable of regenerating in five seconds. Not bad. In fact, it's too good. But..."
She swings her arm at a dizzying speed, and tears both my arms off at the shoulder.
My arms fall to the ground with a dry thud beside my intestines.
For some reason, losing my arms hurts more than losing my intestines. I don't know why, but it does.
Well, maybe it's because the first major wound I had in this world was when in that first encounter with a ghoul he ripped off my arm.
"But since you don't turn into a demon or die from these things, then we have to take advantage and get the maximum potential out of that regeneration of yours. When you fight someone strong, that regeneration alone will put you in an advantageous position over the enemy."
Kiriko says all this with a dangerous smile on her face while her eyes shine a bit.
This woman is enjoying this. Crazy woman.
"Hey, master. Has anyone ever told you you're very beautiful?"
"Hoh?"
Her eyes narrow into slits, while her plump lips painted light pink curve upward.
"I don't know if I should admire your courage for saying that to me, or catalogue you as a madman who's attracted to crazy women."
Wow, so she admits she's a crazy woman.
My arms on the ground start dissolving into blood, and from my shoulders new arms start emerging forming from inside out. Ny intestines also return to their place, rolling themselves inside me while body memory arranges them.
Of course, it's not like I don't feel pain. It hurts quite a bit. Every time she cuts off my head, every time she rips out my heart, every time she pulls out my intestines, it hurts like shit.
But according to Kiriko, pain in battle is a distraction, so I also have to learn to tolerate it, and better yet, to ignore it.
That's why this training, besides improving my regeneration, is also to get used to pain. Which is basically training to become a bit crazier.
"Again."
"...Yeah, yeah."
Kiriko moves, and this time I don't see where the attack comes from. I only feel a blow on my side accompanied by sharp pain, and when I look down I see she's torn off my entire left side, from the hip to below the ribs.
"Agh..."
"Don't scream so much, the neighbors will hear you."
"Kiriko... if the neighbors... hear this... the problem is something else..."
My body regenerates. Three seconds.
After that, she tears off an entire leg. Three seconds again.
Then an eye. One second.
Regeneration speed depends on the damage inflicted.
Then half my face, until my skull and a row of bare teeth are visible. Four seconds.
She splits me in half at stomach height. My upper half falls to one side and the lower to the other, severing both arms and both legs, and five seconds later I'm whole again.
This continues for a few more minutes. I don't know exactly how many, because at some point I stop counting them. I only know that at some point I stop screaming, stop complaining, and start reacting to pain with growls that get lower and lower, to the point where I seem like an annoyed person getting their finger pricked.
That's probably what Kiriko wants.
"Good. You're improving a bit."
"Heh."
Laughing, I'm about to prepare for the next attack, when I see something in my mind.
It's through the All-Seeing Eye.
At all times, I'm capable of seeing everything the eyes I've assigned to people I care about see.
In my mind, in different frames that look like holographic screens, different scenes can be seen.
This time I focus on one in particular.
The one I assigned to Meiko since we met.
Through it, I see Meiko discovered the truth about her mother.
The reason I felt uncomfortable when Meiko mentioned she'd ask her mother for permission to enroll in the same school I attend. It's because I already knew that woman wasn't human thanks to my All-Seeing Eye accompanying Meiko.
"..."
My brow furrows, and my body stays still.
Kiriko notices it instantly. She stops the hand that was already halfway to taking my head off again, and lowers it slowly. Her eyes get serious.
"What's wrong?"
"About that... I'm going to have to leave."
"Huh?"
She looks at me, and her gaze becomes dark.
"Want to run away, brat?"
"No. Someone I know is in trouble."
"..."
Kiriko observes me for a couple seconds without blinking, and then lets out a low laugh through her nose.
"You're seeing it again, aren't you? Through those disgusting eyes of yours."
"Yes."
I nod, and start bending my fingers one by one to make sure everything's in place before moving. The blood layer on my skin starts levitating before falling to the ground, leaving my skin clean.
"Who?"
"A girl. Meiko. I met her a few days ago."
"Another one?"
"Mm, not in that sense."
"Heh. Really? Poor Rei, I feel sorry for her."
Kiriko crosses her arms and looks at me up and down.
"And you're going like that? Without finishing training?"
"Yes."
"You think I'll give you permission? At least give me a valid reason. If not, don't even think about going."
"..."
My eyes become sharp in her direction.
"What's the point of having power, Kiriko, if you can't protect the people you care about."
If I can't save her now, then none of this training is useful to me, not the weird regeneration I have, not the kagunes, not the eyes I've assigned in case this type of outcome occurs. If all of this is in me but I can't use it when needed, then what's the point.
Kiriko keeps looking at me for a few seconds while the night breeze moves a strand of her hair over her face, but she doesn't bother to brush it away.
And then she smiles.
She can smile normally, huh? It's not a frequent smile, and that makes it more beautiful.
"Good answer, Arata. I'm satisfied."
"..."
"Then go. And whoever stands between you and your precious person..."
Her smile widens and shows her fangs.
"...destroy them."
My body dissolves into blood mist.
The mass rises for a second in the air among the rubble, and then shoots toward the night sky at full speed, leaving a faint trail behind me.
As I cut through the air toward Meiko's house, who's been discovered by her 'mother.'