chapter 14

A wonderful scenery. The lovely outdoors, the cold chill of the wind, the wonderful moonlight.

What a lovely night to be alive.

"it's so... Nice. Peaceful even." Walter only smiled, ah, how beautiful this is.

To be completely alone, just the two of them.

The world just has to ruin any state of peace, doesn't it.

His nose was filled by the stench of a nauseating amount of blood. Walter sighed, why can he just not relax a bit.

Walter looked to mitsuri, seems that she only smelt it a bit.

"mitsuri, that smell is blood. Its... nauseating. I had intended for this to be like a first date, but you and I both know that we can't leave that alone in good conscience." Mitsuri nodded.

"we can't leave it alone, so, let's go!"  The smile on her face entranced him, such a beautiful sight.

"yeah..." Walter walked ahead of her, his heart beating fast. He didn't blush, surprisingly enough.

But he focused on the scent of blood, it only got worse the further he walked.

Why was his shoe wet?

The man looked down...

"a puddle of blood... who caused all of this?" A womans deranged cackling drew the attention of the duo. She stood atop a mound of dirt in the small circular grassland bordered by the forest.

The woman had silver hair, blood red eyes and a short stature. She wore little other than rags utterly doused in blood, a euphoric smile rested on the unnaturally beautiful face she possessed.

Walter recognised her in a heartbeat.

'shalltear bloodfallen. I believe that confirms my suspicions. During the creation of this world, the visionary must have been responding to my subconscious thoughts. Especially since shalltear was my favourite girl from overlord.' He saw all the blood and realised one thing.

Shalltear was about to lose control.

"re-marry, yanagi no tsuma!" The blade turned a bright pink as red hearts appeared upon it. The blade coiled out of its sheath as the duo watched shaltears form morph into something horrifying.

Her once beautiful face had become hideous, a circular mouth with a disgustingly long tongue, her legs has become reminiscent of a satyrs.

A monstrous howl rang out throughout all of the forest, shalltear dashed straight for mitsuri, completely ignorant of the corpses left within the field.

As the two figures approached one another, both readied themselves. One blow could decide it all. The two had almost struck one another...

If not for walters blood splattered shoe slamming into the blood-drunk vampires face and launching her to the side.

"Walter... could... could I fight her alone?" His most loyal sternritter gave him a pleading look, the man swore he saw an image of kaien Shiba next to her.

'I see. This battle, its for her pride. She doesn't want me to coddle her, mitsuri wants to prove that she can be useful to me. Damnit! I... I don't like risks. But... she'd hate me if I didn't let her.' He gave her a silent nod but the hesitance was clear on his face.

"thank you, Walter!" The grateful smile she gave only slightly comforted him.

Mitsuri turned back to the vampire, no mark had been left from walters shoe but there was some blood now on her face.

Her long tongue licked it away.

Shalltear once again leapt at mitsuri but this time, the benevolent sternritter was prepared.

In a blink mitsuri had appeared right behind shalltear, her whip like blade coiled against her throat.

One swift action was all it took for shalltears head to fly

'somethings wrong. This... this was too easy.' The corpse of shalltear lashed out in all directions. But it swiftly reattached its head.

'I see. Her regenerative capabilities are far higher than in the anime. Similar to muzan but different. Muzan could regenerate as he was being decapitated but shalltear can merely survive decapitation and reattach her head.'

The blood craving beast charged forward like a bull, single mindedly aiming to murder the woman in front of her.

Mitsuri launched her blade in a sweeping arc towards her opponent.

The abomination dodged it with ease but a large gash appeared diagonally across her face.

What happened? She'd dodged the blade... so... what happened?

The beast didn't have enough cognitive function to over-think such trivial things.

The true vampire continued its charge and mitsuri repeated the same motion, the creature did not dodge and was sliced in half.

As its severed halves flew through the air, tendrils shot out of either half, pulling the two back together.

This was it! She was in range and the blade wasn't able to come back in time!

Shalltear had won.

"Blast core" or that is what she had thought. Shalltear found mitsuri's blast core charged knee buried into her jaw.

A swift strike had knocked the beast out.

Mitsuri looked down in curiosity as the true vampire returned to her former, beautiful appearance.

Walter let out a sigh of relief and approached mitsuri. What was her zanpakuto ability?

"are you alright? No injuries?" His gaze shot across her body, observing carefully. Mitsuri smiled and hugged him, pulling him deep into her chest.

It was nice for him to be so concerned even though he didn't see her get injured.

"I'm fine Walter. But... what do we do with her?" The Reincarnated man sighed in exasperation.

"don't know. We can't judge as we don't know her side of the story. But, just in case she is hostile upon waking up." Mitsuri watched in confusion as her companion took off the top part of his butler outfit revealing a similar black button up vest against his white shirt.

Before mitsuri had any chance to question what he was doing, he appeared next to shalltear and using his coat to bind the vampire, much like a straight jacket.

Ah, she understood! This would prevent her from suddenly attacking them when the girl woke up.

Speaking of which, the vampire had opened her eyes to see Walter crouching to the side of her.

"well... this isn't at all worrying. A handsome and extremely powerful man has tied me up in this field, in the dead of night. I can think of many ways this can go. Quite a few... enjoyable ones." The sly, perverted grin on her face made her message quite clear.

The visionary wasn't amused. Not at all.

"I can appreciate a good joke every now and then, but when we're currently in an area littered with corpses... I don't see the appeal. Now, I'd like you to explain why theses bodies are here." His voice was cold and demanding.

This was just the kind of man shalltear liked, a dominant and confident one. Though, shalltear wasn't sure whether her reason would suffice.

"well, here in Romania, we vampires have two factions. The tepes and bloodfallen faction. The tepes, my fathers faction, are mostly male while the bloodfallen, my mothers faction, are predominantly female."

Vampires are such a pain in the ass. Creatures even more prideful and more obsessed with blood purity than devils. He'd never understand either faction. Walter never understood the reasoning for the marriage between rias and riser.

Why try to start an entirely new generation when sona and rias' generation were only high class? What good would a new generation do if their parents couldn't even protect them?

"why'd this divide happen?" He prepared himself, as did mitsuri. This early, he didn't expect anything majorly significant.

"honestly, I don't care. But it all started over a dispute between my mother and father. I don't recall what it was about, only that it was trivial. Something of how big a castle should be. Through a chain of events, any hopes of unification are gone. The vampires sent after me were likely from both my mother and father. I'm seen as quite the nuisance by both of them." Shallteae yawned, impassive at both her parents having attempted to kill her.

He was speechless, a child deserves their parents love... its their moral responsibility to take care of your own flesh and blood.

"what heartless people. To abandon their own kin so freely." Her eyes darted to me, amazement visible within her eyes.

"what... so, you wouldn't abandon your own child if it meant saving your own skin?" Walter frowned, displeasure clear within his eyes.

"never. I'd sooner give my own life to save my child than throw him to the wolves for survival." Mitsuri could only awe at his words.

Such confidence. How would their child develop...

'What am I thinking?!' The seeker of food continued to stumble over her words, repeatedly pausing and attempting to console herself but eventually deciding to stop thinking about it.

Lest she continue to stumble over her thoughts like a baby would stumble at walking.

"what will you do now?" An unfazed expression was all he received.

"I'm... not particularly bothered about it. I'll just go about normally. I have no reason to change how I act." The princess yawned, clearly bored of her predicament.

"Well... stay safe. If I see you again, I'll help you however I can." Surprise was clear in her eyes but she didn't respond.

Walter didn't bother untying her and just made a new jacket on his person.

"keep the coat. It'll save your decency." Walter stood up and began to walk away, mitsuri awkwardly waved to the vampire heir before following after her love.

"I would've thought you'd offer her to become a sternritter." Walter shook his head as they walked, his first sternritter speeding up to walk at his side.

"no. Its far too soon. I want to personally understand and give them a chance to understand me before proposing anything like that. Jumping into things headfirst with no understanding is not a safe bet. For all I know, she could've lied."

She nodded her head in understanding.

"what now?" There was no response.

"I don't know. I'll be honest, I've no clue. I'm no great leader, a virtuos and wise man who knows all the right decisions. That's just not me. I'm just a man. A simple man who cares far too much for people I know so little about." Mitsuri didn't have much to say, such an honest man.

Most would arrogantly or confidently proclaim they know exactly what they must do. But Walter... he's a gentle soul. He won't lie just to comfort people, he's honest to a fault.

"if you don't mind my asking, what is your shikai ability? It confused me to see her suddenly have wounds even after dodging."

"ah! It's very simple in principle! The blade with each turn creates a split in the opposite direction on what I can only assume is a different plane of existence!" Her hyperactive and simple explanation made him smile as they walked.

'reminds me of madara's limbo clones. Interesting ability.' Walter stopped, causing mitsuri to stop.

Why did he stop?

That's when she saw it, the absolutely beautiful waterfall. The rushing water was rather soothing to the ears.

"quite a lovely sight. The sight of rushing water is calming to watch."

"I love the water" I spun around and to my surprise, there was sujin.

I haven't reached bankai yet, so how was she here? Bankai is the materialisation of a zanpakuto spirit over a course of ten years.

"because you're referring to physical manifestation, not spiritual. Currently, only you can see me. When you reach bankai, then others would be able to see me." Sujin calmly stood into the water, showing zero discomfort or even signs of being wet.

"I know you'll likely ask where my other half is, but she's sleeping as its incredibly difficult for one of us to manifest while the other is awake. But, what's your end goal?"

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