While the Skill was incredibly useful, allowing Shizuka to move around virtually unseen, and even enter places that her physical body was simply incapable of doing so, the Skill made up for this by having an astronomical MC cost.
And right now, with just how much of a drain bringing Edward with her had put on her body, she felt the same way she had the first time she had activated her Skill.
It had lasted for approximately 13 seconds before the Skill had forcibly deactivated itself, her reforming and collapsing on the ground, thoroughly exhausted.
In fact, it was not too dissimilar to how exhausted Quinn had been during his fight against Nate in Power Fighters after using the Hammer Strike Skill for the first time.
Where he had been completely immobilized by his exhaustion, making him a sitting duck and giving Nate an easy win.
Edward watched Shizuka as she continued panting and breathing heavily for another few seconds or so.
Eventually, she managed to compose herself, and got back onto her feet.
"C'mon," she replied in a serious tone. "Let's go."
The two of them then began to walk into the castle, heading down one of the winding halls.
As they walked, Edward noticed that, rather than looking in front of her, Shizuka had a strange, circular, flat device in her hand that was roughly the size of a soft ball.
Honestly, to Edward, it looked like an oversized version of an old piece of Human technology known as a "pocket watch".
The screen, which took up a majority of the front, was blue with a light-blue grid pattern.
In the dead center of the screen, there was a bright, glowing, white triangle with a white, glowing dot near the upper-right corner of the screen.
It seemed that despite the fact that the communication functions of the military base's wristwatches couldn't be activated on this "Vampire Settlement", mostly due to the fact that it lacked the "Communication Towers" used by the Humans both on Earth and the colonized Beast Planets, the built-in trackers on each of the wristwatches were still giving off a signal.
Just like with the wristwatches given to the students, the wristwatches for the higher-ups also had trackers in them.
This way, the base could track down both staff members and military personnel on the off-chance that anything happened.
And just as the retrieval group had used this very tracker to locate the group of Quinn, Tsukuru, and Vorden back on Pioletic, Shizuka was currently using it to track down Sergeant Faye.
She had figured that it was likely the only way to traverse this castle without getting lost while trying to make her way back to the throne room where, as far as she knew, the others were still waiting.
As they moved through the halls, Edward noticed that multiple Vampires would suddenly turn and stare at Shizuka.
It wasn't hard to imagine why.
Being the lone Human in this castle, and probably the whole Settlement, she stuck out like a sore thumb.
A short while later, the two stopped in front of the double doors leading into the 9th Family Castle's throne room.
Shizuka's face hardened, and she pushed the doors open.
***
Inside the throne room, the group of Muka, Sergeant Faye, and the six other 9th Family Vampires waited in silence for Shizuka to return.
One of the Vampires crossed his arms, a scowl on his face.
"So…what is the plan if the Human manages to get herself caught?" he asked.
Sergeant Faye narrowed her eyes.
"There's no need for a plan, because that's never going to happen," she replied in a tone of finality. "Shizuka's never been caught when using that Skill."
It was then that another Vampire, one of the females on Muka's right, spoke up.
"Well, to be fair, we did just see her whole body crumble into a bunch of rocks," she replied. "I doubt anyone's first assumption upon seeing that would be 'Human'."
The male Vampire who had made the previous statement let out a dismissive snort.
It was then that they felt the unmistakable scent of a Human coming from down the hall, causing everyone in the room to turn towards the front wall of the room.
The scent was quickly followed by the sound of echoing footsteps.
Two sets of footsteps, to be exact.
And as the sound of the footsteps got louder, the smell of Human got stronger.
"Looks like Shizuka's back," Sergeant Faye replied.
Moments later, the set of double doors leading into the room were pushed open, revealing Shizuka, as well as an elderly man that Sergeant Faye did not recognize, standing in the doorway.
The Vampires on either side of Muka remained uncharacteristically quiet as the two entered, all bowing slightly.
Seeing this, Sergeant Faye's face scrunched up into a look of suspicion.
Given the fact that they had just been referring to Shizuka as "the Human", it was unlikely that they were bowing to her.
Meaning that the person that these Vampires were showing with so much reverence had to be the elderly man at Shizuka's side.
The two walked right up to Muka's throne, where they stopped.
Edward and Muka stared at each other, a tense silence filled the air.
The Vampires on either side of Muka dared not utter a single word.
Given the particular circumstances of the 10th Family, this man was the closest thing to a "Vampire Leader" they still had.
As such, this was, effectively, two Vampire Leaders meeting each other.
"Vampire Knight Edward," Muka finally replied. "Welcome to the 9th Family Castle."
Edward remained quiet for a moment.
"Give it to me straight, Leader Muka," Edward replied, a look of pure and utter desperation on his face. "Is what was written in that letter…true? Have you really discovered something about the fate of our former leader?! About…Vincent?!"
The Vampires in the room heard the elderly man's words choke up upon him saying Vincent's name.
It was as if simply speaking the name was hard for him.
Muka remained silent for a moment, before she then nodded.
"Yes," she replied. "I have."
She looked back towards Sergeant Faye's location over by the far wall, her having not moved from where she and Shizuka had been talking before Shizuka had departed.
"Allow me to introduce the newest member of my family, Faye Dallum," she replied. "She is a former Human from one of the Human Outposts where they train their next generation, something called a 'military base', where we believe she has found your former leader's long-lost heir."
Edward turned towards Faye, and gave her a long, hard look.
"Is…Is she a sub-class?" he asked, a look of confusion on his face.
Edward had been in the Settlement for a long time.
Long enough that he could identify a Vampire's rank, or whichever sub-class they belonged to just from their physical appearance and their Vampire aura alone.
But…when he looked at this girl, he felt as if his brain genuinely did not know where to place her.
She looked indistinguishable from a normal Vampire, yet she let off the aura of a sub-class.
'Is she a halfling?' Edward thought. 'Or…no, it couldn't be…'
Edward turned back to Muka was a serious look on his face.
"Leader Muka, did you…make a Dhampir?" he asked, worry evident in his tone.
Muka stared at Edward for a moment, before she let out a low, amused chuckle.
"No, she's not a Dhampir, Vampire Knight Edward," she replied. "Though, I don't blame you for coming to that conclusion. It was the very same one I came to myself when I had first turned her."
Muka remained silent for a moment, and unknown to all those around her, she had a wide smile on her face under her helmet.
"Faye is a…very special, very rare, kind of Sub-class," she replied. "So rare that I needed to consult a book I acquired from the Fifth Family just to figure out what she was."
Muka leaned back on her throne.
"Faye Dallum…is a Blood Knight," she replied.
Edward's eyes widened in shock, and his head instantly snapped back towards Sergeant Faye, looking at her with new eyes.
Sergeant Faye diverted her eyes, looking away.
The look the elderly man was now giving her…unsettled her.
It was the look one would give upon coming across a living creature long-believed to be extinct, like a dinosaur.
"A Blood Knight," Edward gasped, a tone of reverence in his voice. "In the long history of the Vampire Settlement, among all 13 Vampire Families, only two Blood Knights have ever been known to exist. And one of those was the result of a Vampire Family spending multiple generations trying to intentionally create it!"