Hello Darkness, my old friend....

"Nice to meet you, Kiss Shot Acerola Orion Heart Under Blade." I greeted the golden haired beauty on the roof.

Kiss Shot Acerola Orion Heart Under Blade.

The best waifu of the Monogatari series.

Part time Vampire, full time babe.

The princess of myth, born with such beauty that people killed themselves after seeing her, unable to bear the ugliness of the world around them.

And when a witch cursed her, turning her body inside out due to jealousy, it turned out her insides were even more beautiful than her outside. So pure that it washed the malice from the heart of the witch who then promptly killed herself from guilt, leaving the poor princess cursed, stranded and alone.

Unable to bear the deaths she had unwittingly caused, she ran away, wandering the land until she came upon the mysterious castle of one vampire, a confusingly flamboyant woman, Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicide-Master.

Seeing the princess's suffering, she prophecied that only the kiss of true love from a prince who could see beyond her beauty and recognise the girl beneath would lift her curse naturally.

Unfortunately, that was very unlikely and the princess was tired of waiting.

So she chose the second best option.

Breaking the curse by changing her fundamental nature.

Abandoning her humanity. Becoming a vampire.

Her master then gave her the unnecessarily long name after her rebirth.

Kiss Shot Acerola Orion Heart Under Blade.

This broke the curse but did not turn down her beauty, causing her to isolate herself in Antarctica.

Until she got bored and jumped all the way to Japan, landing in a lake, causing it to spontaneously wash away, causing the first rains after drought.

Seeing this, the villagers treated her like a harvest goddess and finding company for the first time in her long miserable lonely life, she played the part.

Then, things just got better as she met the oddity slayer, her first minion. And I suspect, lover.

The samurai that was now glaring daggers into me.

"I'm not here to kill you, so tell your boytoy to keep it in his pants." I assured her, eyeing the increasingly alert samurai.

Seishirou Shishirui.

The oddity slayer and master swordsman. Wielder of the demon blades, Kokorowatari and Yumewatari.

Heartspan and Dreamspan.

One kills supernatural beings and the other heals them.

I will get those one day. Not today, no. They'll be no good against the worms.

But someday, yes.

Kiss Shot looked at me amused and gestured at Seishirou to relax.

"You seem to know mine name, young warrior. Pray tell, who art thou? It is only polite to introduce thyself." She asked with a bewitching smile.

No.

No horny.

Focus.

"I'm Jay Walker. And that, over there in the clouds above is The Darkness, a corrective entity that has come to kill you and all you hold dear."

"Kakkakakakakak!" Kiss Shot laughed, "How foolish! I am immortal. I cannot be killed."

"Not to that you're not. The Darkness doesn't just kill, it deletes your very existence. Wipes it away. There is no recovering from that.

It hunts down all those oddities that stray from their true nature.

Like you, a vampire pretending to be a god."

Kiss Shot looked at me with discerning eyes and then looked back at the clouds carefully, before her eyes flickered silently.

"If it is what you say it is....why warn mine self? What doth thou stand to gain from it?" She asked.

"And if you aren't here to kill us, warrior, are you here to help us?" Seishirou added.

"No such thing. I just want to capture the Darkness. It just happened to emerge here."

"And mine self just happened to be thy bait? A trap?"

"I didn't say it." I shrugged, "But yes. Essentially. I want you to stay and if you can, help me capture it. If not for me, then for the life you have built here. Don't you cherish this? If you help me, maybe you can keep it.

To protect what you love.... that's a good enough reason to fight, is it not?"

Kiss Shot looked at the samurai below and thought for a moment as a blush spread across her face.

"Indeed. It is." Kiss Shot smiled, her cute little fangs glinting in the dim light.

Damn. That's fucking hot. And more than that, it's diabetes inducing cuteness!

I gotta get myself a vampire waifu.

I'd take Kiss Shot herself if she wasn't already in love with the sword idiot before me.

Something to consider after this is over.

.

The cloud was soon above us, thin nearly invisible streams of pitch black shooting down periodically, wiping away villagers, one after another.

A clap of thunder. Black lightning. And then, nothing remained. Not even ash.

It was a thorough being. No one who remembers the harvest deity Kiss Shot was allowed to live. Or leave.

But I didn't move. Just watched.

It moved too fast for me to react.

No. I had to wait for it to come for Kiss Shot.

Hours passed, as the villagers disappeared while I sat on the temple steps, meditating, covering the entire complex with my nen.

Practicing an advanced nen technique.

An En. A nen technique that create a field soaked with your own nen that is an absolute domain of the user. Nothing inside goes unnoticed to the user, increasing their sensory capabilities up to 11.

Most people wouldn't be able to wield their nen hours after awakening it, much less apply a technique as advanced as En.

But with my enhanced intelligence and code of psychic immortality, it was easy as pie.

A bit rudimentary and crude in it's application, sure. And it wouldn't last long before I depleted my reserves of energy.

But it would give me at least one single shot at it.

One. Chance.

And I intend not to miss it.

As the last villager disappeared, Kiss Shot informed.

It was time.

I stood up, spear in hand and stared at the nebulous cloud above us, a swirl forming within it.

"Get ready." I said, downing the last swig of my mega seed juice, boosting my senses even further.

"It's coming."

And no sooner had I uttered the words that a clap of thunder echoed, and the lightning struck.

In a flash, Seishirou struck out with the demon blade Heartspan, and Kiss Shot buffeted the Darkness with blood flame, burning the sky an deep bloody red as far as the eye could see.

But it was for naught.

The lightning struck again. This time tearing through Seishirou's sword, wiping it away as pixelated chunks of metal fell smoking to the floor.

Then, it cleaved through him.

Half his body disappeared, the other half fell to the floor, sputtering blood like a fountain as Kiss Shot let out a heart wrenching scream.

"Nooooo!" She cried, tears of blood streaming down her face, distracted for the briefest of moments as she slid to the floor, clutching her beloved's severed corpse.

But I didn't move.

I waited. For the perfect moment.

For the certainty. For when there was but one target.

Then, as another bolt struck down, I flared out my En, covering the entire courtyard, while the rest of my nen, formed into my hatsu, which I had lovingly name, Enuma Elish. The Chains of Heaven.

A fitting name for the curse that can suppress the anything non human.

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl, and I moved as if through a thick sludge, the wind crashing against me like a tidal waved.

My bones cracked, my skin burned red, and I pushed forward at a breakneck speed.

My one chance was here.

The spear shot forward, faster than lightning, and the faint visage of a ghostly golden chain with black etchings across it appeared at it's tip.

The black lightning met the speartip, inches from Kiss Shot's head, her hair singed by the superheated air, and the speartip bent and creaked, fighting utter erasure.

But eventually it prevailed. The curse found purchase.

Like an eldritch vine, the chains climbed up the bolt of lightning to the glitching blot of nothingness in the sky, spreading across it in veins of shining gold, lighting up the great absence of it's being.

I smiled, as my legs gave way under me, broken and bleeding, and yanked at the chain, bringing the Darkness down.

"Sit boy!" I chuckled as the Darkness struggled against my hold, the chains creaking as they tried to contain it.

"You're not getting free bud. Just settle down already, and give in." I suggested, stabbing the spear through the blanket of blackness.

Manipulating the chains, I wrapped the Darkness around the spear like a bandana, leaving it to flutter in the air like a flag of doom.

I smiled, satisfied.

My gamble had paid off.

The nature of the True Longinus, was anti-divinity, which also gave it a minor anti-order and anti-status quo attribute. Over it's centuries of use, it has no doubt come to represent the upheaval of the natural order and downfall of servants, entities and residents associated with the concept of Heaven or the general elite class of organisms.

This meant that it should in theory be effective in controlling and curtailing a servant of the natural order of the world, a veritable agent of Heaven that is the Darkness.

It was the reason I picked the True Longinus over say Annihilation Maker or Dimension Lost.

Even Balmung given it's anti-worm property.

Because I can't fight them all at the same time like this, but with the Darkness, I can wipe them out in fell swoop.

Looking over at the devastated Kiss Shot, I saw her tremble in fear as she gazed at the captive Darkness, and shrunk back, dragging the corpse of Seishirou with her into the sanctum of the temple, guarding the gate with her blood flame.

In there though, I could see her hunched over him, contemplating her options for a moment before she bent down to bite him.

"Stop! I don't think that's wise." I interrupted her.

"Thou! Why must thou hurt me so? If thou hadn't stalled...if thou had helped...he would still be alive!" She cried.

"It was the only way and you know it. If you insist, I won't stop you. But hear me out. He is a hunter of all things supernatural. Things that go bump in the night. That eat humans. Things like you.

Do you think he would appreciate being turned into one of the monsters he hunts? To become the very thing he swore to destroy?"

"Why doth thou care? Leave! Leave mine sight lest I do something unnatural to thou in my anger. And bother us no more!" She cried, bloody tears dropping onto Seishirou's cheeks, as she stooped down and opened her mouth, glistening fangs extending out from within.

And I turned around, opening a portal.

This is none of my business. If she wants to do it even after I warned her, it's not my problem.

And with that, I left, as the sounds of flesh sprouting and writhing filled the temple complex, and a regretful life birthed into the world, bound to the sad fate laid out before him

And once more, it was none of my business.

I had my own problems to deal with.