She charges at me, her white fangs glistening with spit and traces of my blood. The world seems to slow down as I think. How did she attack me even through the safe-zone of Trestar? PvP isn’t allowed, so either she’s an NPC or…

  “Damn it Bai-ko!” I curse her, flipping backwards and delivering a kick to shut Sukine’s mouth while putting some space between us. My movements feel sluggish, as I’m still under the Vampiric Poison debuff, but I’m clearly a higher level than her. I’m not the underdog in this fight…As long as Vampiric poison doesn’t have any other effects. “Sukine, calm down,” I begin trying to reason with her. She’s charging wildly, not even using her brain, clawing at me with her hands and snapping her jaws at any part of my body that’s close enough. “Sukine! Calm down!” I shout louder, but she still senselessly continues her onslaught. Growing irritated, I take out a handful of Rapunzel’s hair from my inventory. I begin wrapping it around my hand like I’m taping my hand for a boxing match.

  [Skill ‘Weapons Improviser’ activated! Item: Rapunzel’s Hair, will now be recognized as brass knuckles!]

  “I said,” I clench my fist and step closer to her, slamming my punch into her opened mouth. Her fangs sink into the hair, which has a durability higher than most metals. I bring her head to the ground – a little forcefully to get back at her biting me – “Calm, DOWN!”

  She writhes on the floor for a few moments, chomping on my wrapped hand repeatedly, but due to my improvised brass knuckles her teeth find no flesh. I position my knee on her chest, pinning her completely. Finally, after several more minutes of effort, she begins to lose energy. Whether it’s because she realized she was making no progress or because she’s running out of stamina is unclear. “Awiugh, ei guf unp,” she incoherently chokes out through my hand.

  “Sukine,” I begin slowly, rubbing my bite mark with my other hand, still feeling some lingering pain from it, “I’m going to be honest with you when I say this. I don’t much appreciate that you tried to kill me after meeting. I feel like that’s fair. Wouldn’t you agree?” She tries to gargle an answer out again, but I cut her off, “Just, not or shake your head, ok?” She nods. “Brilliant. Now, I’m going to ask you one very important question, and I want you to be honest with me, ok?” She nods and I continue, “Are you going to try to kill me again when I take my hand out of your mouth?” She hesitates, and I swear for a moment I see her nod her head yes, but then she shakes her head no. “Are you lying?” She shamefully and slowly shakes her head yes. I sigh, but take my hand out of her mouth anyways, my legs and body weight still pinning her down.

  “Cough, cough! What was around your hand?! It was terrible!” She complains, spitting out the flavor onto the floor next to her as best as she can.

  “Well, it was either that, or I killed you and took one of your lives. I feel like this was a fair compromise.”

  “Mmm,” she hums, trying to come up with something to say to excuse herself, “It’s just a matter of resource management,” she mumbles, “You’re you, you probably still had all 3 lives. I’m a vampire, it sucks in this game, I have to taste human blood every night as soon as the sun sets or else we’re catatonic! Not my fault tasting blood activates a blood frenzy. It’s just terrible game design.”

  “Mhm,” I nod, growing to better understand the conditions, “So, I can take that to mean the blood frenzy is over now?” She nods. I tentatively lift myself off her, watching her carefully. But much to my relief, she slowly gets up and languidly stretches. “Ok, good.” I smack her cheek.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “OUCH!!? What the hell was that for?”

  “For lying! You said you were going to try and kill me if I let you stand back up!”

  “I was joking!”

  “That’s not the time to be joking!”

  “Oh, OH, oh I didn’t realize I was talking to an upstanding citizen! Remind me, how many times did you change your grades in high school?”

  “That’s a low blow, I was a teenager and I just wanted to see if I could.”

  “Ohhhhh a likely story, really explains why you did it every year for foreign language and history.”

  “CODING IS MY FOREIGN LANGUAGE!!” I exclaim in a frustrated voice, it still irks me that my school wouldn’t accept that, “It’s way harder than learning an actual language and it’s 10 times more useful!”

  The two of us stare at each angrily for three seconds, just looking into each others eyes, before we both suddenly burst out laughing. We embrace in a friendly hug, “I missed you, Betsuki.”

  “I missed you too, Sukine.”

  [System Alert: Message from Bai-Ko]

  I furrow my brows, but open the message and read it over Sukine’s shoulder.

  [Remember to report wat she tells u abt Thanatos when u find her! Also, we found the last gemstone while u were gone, so cum back soon >:) ]

  “Hmm…Sukine, I have something to tell you,” I admit, separating from her. She looks at me innocently, blinking twice. “I’m actually one of the people actively on the 4th floor, and I need to go back to help clear it. I only came down to find you, since the leader of Private Eye owed me a favor and helped me find you. But, you should add me…” I trail off, as soon as I opened my menu it reminded me that she’d see me as Kazesoku. But Sukine wouldn’t judge me for that, right? She would know I didn’t mean for anything that happened to have happened, right?

  “As a friend? Of course!” Sukine sends me a friend request, oblivious to my worries.

  [Username: {Kayama} wants to be friends.

  Accept? O Deny? X]

  “But there’s one more thing you should know,” I say quietly, looking around to make sure we’re alone on the rooftop. “I’m actually…Well, ok, listen, I-”

  “Are you Kazesoku?” She asks, smirking. I blink, completely taken aback by her guess. The two of us just stare at each other for a moment, her giggling at my stunned silence and me stunned into the aforementioned silence. “I just had a gut feeling was all. Only you would have luck that bad as being attacked randomly in the colosseum, and being called out by the administrator day 1. So, was I right?”

  “Yeah,” I murmur, a soft smile appearing back on my lips.

  [Username: {Kazesoku} and Username: {Kayama} are now friends!]

  What an idiot I was, of course she knows me better than that. Of course she isn’t going to freak out just because of a thing like that. But I need to make sure she knows I’m not in Thanatos. “But, I’m actually-”

  “I actually joined Thanatos just to find you, haha!” She announces with an innocent smile, “I just don’t know how you figured out killing other players gives so much EXP! Oh! Do me a favor and don’t tell Phantasia you’re friends with me? She’d probably murder me if she found out! I couldn’t even ask her to send you a message, everybody who’s tried to talk to her about getting in contact with you has been rejected in pretty extreme ways.”

  “So…You’re actually a part of Thanatos?” I whisper to her, having completely forgotten one of the reasons I came to look for her was because Bai-ko suspected her to be.

  “Yeah!” She grins brightly, her pearly teeth still tainted with the color of my drying blood, “The Constellation of Blood, Kayama!"