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The gravestone was strong and stubborn, but silent and cold. Sakura hated everything about it, except for the name engraved on it. She adjusted the bouquet of flowers before it, took a deep breath of the cold night air, and left.
The vampire was at the entrance, chatting easily with some girls Sakura vaguely recognised from school.They turned silent as she approached, like she was a ghost. Satsuki didn’t even seem to notice. She turned to face Sakura with a bright, cheerful smile - the smile of a person who had never second-guessed herself in her life.
Then, she turned back to the girls. “Thanks for stopping to chat with me, but I need to walk Matou-san home!” Sakura could hear her wave as she followed Sakura, and Sakura had no doubt the girls waved back.
Satsuki was simply that kind of girl. Even becoming a vampire - a monster that ate people - didn’t change that.
—
Sakura watched as the blood seeped into Satsuki’s shirt.
She had barely seen the fight, only heard the vicious snarls and screams, and the shattering of stone. She understood why Rin had insisted she have Satsuki “assist” her. The other vampire was dead. Satsuki was alive. That was the long and short of it.
Well - Sakura still had a dozen duties to attend to. Cleaning things up, hypnotising any possible witnesses, collaborating with Caren on the “alternative explanations”. But all Sakura could think was Does she need to be stitched up?
Or maybe a new shirt. The brown-haired vampire couldn’t have that many, surely.
“Matou-san? Is something wrong?” Sakura started, glancing up at Satsuki’s face. The vampire was looking at her with an expression of curiosity, and Sakura realised that Satsuki must have been talking about something as they left the run down warehouse behind. The vampire glanced down at the blood, and blinked, her lips open in an “o” of surprise, the kind you might make at realising you’d given yourself a papercut. “It’s fine. It’ll heal by tomorrow, honestly. I’m pretty good at being a vampire, actually! Apparently I’d get top grades. Ehehe. I really wished they had let me study it in school. My best subject was Maths, and I only got A’s sometimes!”
Sakura giggled. She couldn’t help it. The joke had been bad, but there was something to the bloodstained vampire complaining about her grades that rendered it utterly absurd.
Satsuki was watching her smile with a grin. She reached out and grabbed Sakura’s hand, the cool fingers wrapping around her gently. “I think that’s the first time I’ve made you laugh, Matou-san!” She said, half-cheering. “Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket…? No, wait, Sion said the odds on those were really bad… And also you have to look older to buy one.” She pouted.
They walked on in silence, sticking to the shadier sides of the street to hide the bloodstains on Satsuki’s clothes, until Sakura shrugged off her winter coat and offered it to her.
“Thank you,” Satsuki said as she closed the buttons. “But are you sure you don’t need it more? It’s pretty chilly tonight, and I don’t really feel…” The vampire trailed off with a shrug.
“I don’t think we want to be questioned by the police, Yumizuka-san.” Sakura replied, lips twitching up into a smile. “Unless you want a repeat of the last time you tried to hypnotise an officer?”
Satsuki winced dramatically, and made as if to curl up into a ball. “It wasn’t that bad… I always thought Mystic Eyes were easy! Everyone acted like they were!” Sakura watched the vampire pretend at embarrassment for a few more moments, giggling all the while, until she helped her up from her crouch on the floor.
“You seem even more cheerful than usual.” Sakura said, as Satsuki stood up.
“Ah… yeah…” Satsuki said. Sakura wondered if Satsuki realised how fake her smile seemed at that moment. “I fed on him. During the fight. It’s - how I get all of my blood? Find another vampire and…”
She was looking at Sakura like she expected her to be angry. As if Sakura was in a position to pass judgement for feeding on others. She reached out, and grabbed Satsuki’s hand. “You made sure there wouldn’t be any more victims. And now you have the reserves to keep going. Right?” She felt a flush of happiness when Satsuki’s shoulders untensed, and the vampire squeezed her hand gently.
“Yeah. It’s kind of like having a bunch of coffee at once? I’m probably going to be running around until sunrise.” Satsuki made a face. “Maybe I can jump up some buildings…? Ciel-senpai always seemed to think jumping around like that was fun.” She looked up at the tenements that lined the streets, her lips pressed into a thin line of consideration.
“Take me up there.” Sakura said, before she could think through what she was saying.
Satsuki froze. Her mouth hung open, and Sakura noted with interest the pronounced canines she had. And also, how cute Satsuki looked when she was shocked. Like a rabbit.
“I mean - I’ve never even tried it. I don’t want to risk you getting hurt, Matou-san-” Sakura squeezed Satsuki’s hand tight. Tighter. It would be hard enough to hurt on anyone else, but all it did was make Satsuki look at her properly. To remind her who had followed her on this vampire hunt. The vampire gulped. “Alright. Let me just - practice a little first? Please?”
Sakura decided to take a leaf out of her sister’s book, and magnanimously allowed it.
A few minutes - and one titanic leap up the side of the slick, stone buildings that had Sakura staring upwards, her mouth gaping - Satsuki was beside her again. She swept Sakura into her arms, and suddenly, Sakura was flying. Below them was a garden of lights and shadows, Fuyuki laid out in irregular squares. And then - Satsuki touched down lightly on the roof of the building they had been next to, and set Sakura down.
“Was that-?” Sakura nodded before Satsuki could finish the sentence, and noted how the vampire perked up at the reassurance, letting out another sigh of relief. “I think I overestimated how much force I needed to use. That’s why we went up so high.”
She seemed embarrassed at the idea, and Sakura wondered if she ought to say something about how much she had enjoyed the impromptu flight.
Sakura brushed down the roof and sat down, as Satsuki wandered over to the gap between the building they were standing on and the next, and peered down. And then, Satsuki started to hop between the roofs. It was like she was playing hopscotch, only above a 50 metre drop.
It was a display of power and precision so incredible, Sakura thought of her Rider, or her Saber. How casually they had moved, like that kind of power was natural to them, even as they carved through stone or moved as fast as bullets. It was so beautiful it made Sakura feel sick.
“Does that hurt?” Sakura asked, to distract herself from the sensation, gesturing at where the wound was. Satsuki blinked at her. It had been barely ten minutes, and the vampire had once again forgotten about the injury that would kill anyone even close to human.
“Oh! Um, you can look, if you like?” Satsuki said. Sakura wondered if Satsuki knew how weird that sounded. But she did, in fact, want to see, so she nodded. Satsuki shrugged off the coat, throwing it at Sakura, and then, she began to unbutton the shirt she was wearing. Sakura watched with fascination as the buttons were undone, revealing a stark red flower of blood and meat, torn into Satsuki’s pristine skin.
It was incredible. As Sakura watched, she could see the wound close. Slowly, as if it was never there. As she stared, she was aware, distantly, that Satsuki was watching her in turn.
“Tohsaka-san mentioned you lost someone, last year.” She said, and Sakura nearly jumped, tearing her eyes up from the wound to meet Satsuki’s gaze.
She expected to see pity, or sadness, or one of a dozen other emotions she had seen from all the people who knew her. She saw none of them.
“I don’t know if Tohno-san even knew who I was.” Satsuki said. It was like she was making small talk, despite the gaping wound in her chest, slowly closing. But Sakura knew. She knew the lilt behind those words, thick with anger and longing and a kind of slow, bitter malice that made you stare in the mirror and knew you ought to have died when you were born.
“He knew Yumizuka-san. But to him, I was just… a classmate. A classmate.” Satsuki paused over the word, running her tongue over the syllables like they were made of broken glass. “I think me becoming a vampire will be the only reason he’ll ever remember me. If he’s even alive.”
Sakura had never been looked at like that before. Nobody had ever been jealous of Sakura Matou, quiet, reserved, a girl who was like a ghost.
“Whatever you did - Tohsaka told me a little about it, but Matou-san, it’s not what you are . Everytime I pass someone on the street, every time I hear someone speak… I want to tear out their throat. To see what it feels like. But I don’t need to see what it feels like. I already know. I wanted Tohno-san to see what I was. To make sure he knew who I was. But I didn’t want to show him, in the end. So I just… killed people, because I was thirsty and scared and angry. I’m - I’m better now. I won’t ever forget what I did. That’s why I left. There’s no forgiving what I did.”
Oh. The answer had been staring Sakura in the face all along.
Sakura smiled at Satsuki.
“I killed over six hundred people. I barely remember them at all.”
She probably shouldn’t have enjoyed the expression of shock on Satsuki’s face, as the quiet, prim young woman she had known for the last month of investigation casually admitted to mass murder. “I wasn’t really in control of myself, but… After that. I was a monster. I wanted to kill the people I loved. I was going to destroy the world. I only lived because I have a sister that loved me, and…” She thought of a person who had smiled, as swords tore through his skin. Who had made a promise and broken it. “I live with that every day.”
The wind sang an eerie requiem, but all she could hear was the rasp of their breath’s, as they stood face to face, Satsuki’s shirt still unbuttoned. Saying it had felt good. Like she had coughed out a thing stuck in her throat, that been choking her for the better part of a year.
She reached down, and grabbed Satsuki’s hand, bringing it up to her chest, over her heart. “Satsuki,” she said, and watched the vampire’s heart dilate. “I trust you. I’m happy you’re alive. I’m happy you’re here. Whatever you’ve done - I’ll bear it with you. OK?”
Those words were her spell. They were the reason she was alive. Why she had to keep living. She had no interest in saving the world, or people she didn’t even know. But this girl - like her, and unlike her. She was someone who needed a person like her.
A monster soaked in blood was still worthy of being loved. There was no sinner who didn’t deserve a hero.
A bird that had been forced to live in the ocean surfaced - and flapped its wings.
“I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself. And you don’t have to forgive yourself either. But - thank you for being here. With me. I’m here for you too, Yumi- Satsuki. Satsuki.” And before she could stop herself, she said, “Would you like to stay with me?”
“...Yes. Yes, please. Thank you. Sakura.” Satsuki said, leaning in close, shivering. “Thank you.”