Karasu no Tengoku

Chapter Sixteen: The Second Awakening

(’Why is it that, lately, it’s felt more real when I’m asleep than when I’m awake?? Just like in Matrix, eww, well, not that I don’t like it…’’…that had been bugging Hideki for a while now, another three months had gone by and the summer was, fortunately, not near yet, it was the end of November by then, he was getting more and more exasperated because he couldn’t find Kaito at all, and Ryuuichi wasn’t of much help anymore, actually, he’d never been, he’d considered him a good investigator when he’d given Kaito and him the files about the murders in Shinjuku, but now he was truly disappointed, Ryuuichi couldn’t seem to find Kaito, and he himself either…)

(The “MidoriYama” had recently changed its opening hour to ’after sundown’, so Eiji was always present there, Gin was sometimes in his office and other behind the bar making coffee himself and Hikari was ALWAYS serving and making coffee, and bla, bla, bla…that night the three of them were in the bar talking since there wasn’t much else to do and there weren’t any customers either when the door opened…)
“Iwamoto-san?? Long time no see…what brings you here tonight??”
(Hideki sat on a stool next to Eiji…)
“I NEED caffeine…”
“Ah, an addict, another…”
“That’s interesting…”
“What kind of coffee would you like??”
“Um…express…can it have some essence??”
“Of course…”
“Let it be…vanilla…”
“Now, THAT’S weird…”
“It’ll be ready in some minutes…”
“Thanks…”
“Well, well…now that you’ve told Hikari what you want to drink, tell us, what have you come here for?? The coffee isn’t the only thing…”
“Am I that easy to see through??”
“Oh yes, you are…especially for me…”
“I should’ve expected that from a vampire…actually, I came here too to speak to you Eiji…”
“Really?? About what??”
“I want to know more about vampires…”
(Eiji considered carefully that statement, Hikari had just given Hideki his coffee, so he’ll wait a bit to see how the caffeine might calm him down, ever since Hideki entered the café he’d sensed his aura was rampant and boiling with rage and exasperation, Eiji turned to Gin, who was paying attention to the conversation but didn’t say anything nor looked at any of them in particular…)
“What do you want to know??”
“Everything…specially, how to turn into one…”
(Now THIS got Gin’s attention too, now both, Eiji and Gin were looking at him…)
“Don’t stare at me like that…I know you BOTH felt the change in the atmosphere when I got here, I felt it myself!! So I suppose you might know that I’m not escaping some kind of reality issue by wanting to know that and maybe turning myself into one, if that’s possible…I wanted to know, vampires have the highest spiritual abilities, don’t they??”
(Eiji thought about it for a moment before answering…)
“Maybe not the strongest…but almost, yes…”
“That makes me wonder…if I was a vampire…I could use those abilities to…”
(Hideki trailed off here because he was more thinking out loud than actually talking to anyone…until Eiji brought him back to this world…)
“To? Hideki?”
“Ah! Nevermind…”
“Tell me!”
“Find someone…”
“Your partner??”
“How did you know?!?!”
“Do you really have to ask??”
“Damn…so…how can I turn into a vampire?”
“Aaaaah…it’s a bit complicated…and there are at least 3 ways…”
“I want to know the three…”
“Ok…of the three, only two are legitimate…the classical of one single bite and the vampire drinks your blood, and then gives you his or her own…that’s a quick legitimate one, then the fake one, a virus is injected in the soon-to-be vampire’s bloodstream and then it falls into a coma, if it dies, then it’s obviously over, if it wakes up, it will be called ’vampire’, but it’s artificial, because it’s lacking a lot of vampiric abilities…and to be accurate, I don’t know which is the virus injected…”
“And the second legitimate one??”
“The ancient one, the first one, and in fact, the one used on me, you measure the amount of blood of the vampire and the human, and then calculate the 25% of each, that first quarter of blood, from the vampire is transferred intravenously to the human and the human’s blood is drunk up by the vampire and then one week is left to pass…after the week goes by, the same exchange, another 25%, and another week passes, then, the remaining 50% is transferred in the same fashion, right after that, about a day or one and a half, you’ll experiment clinical death and then you’ll come back to life as a true vampire, you come back about 3 or 4 days later…before you die, you’ll have high fevers alternating with ridiculously low body temperature, like about 22 °C…”
“Eiji…can I ask you a favour??”
“If…you’re going to ask what I know you’re going to ask…I don’t know…”
“I’ll ask anyway…will you…turn me into a vampire??”
“I knew…why?? Why do you want to turn into…that…??”
“You know that as good as I do Eiji…please, please!!!”
“Oh man…ok…I’ll do it…”
(Hikari and Gin turned to look at him, this wasn’t the outcome they expected for the night…Hideki smiled a bit too bitterly but he did, then Eiji spoke again…)
“I’ll use the long method…when shall we start??”
“Is there any requirement from the human??”
“Good health…”
“I have it…”
“Ah…and we need to measure the amount of blood…I know I have…6…6.75 litres, we need to know the amount of blood in you, then we may begin…”
“Is that difficult to know??”
“Not at all, you can go to a doctor; every hospital has machines to know the quantity of blood in the human body…”
“And where are going to make the ’transfusion’??”
“Mm…a doctor could also do it…Gin, do you know of any doctor who could help??”
“Mm…I do…he’s an old friend of mine…actually, he’s the owner of some blood banks and things, he could do it…”
“Fine…then Hideki…come back when you have the amount of blood…”
“Mmm…ok, Sakamoto-san, how much do I owe you??”
“Ah nevermind about that…”
“Ok…then I’m leaving, it’s getting late…”
“Bye~”
“Good-bye…”
“Good-bye Iwamoto-san…are you really going to do it?? I thought you had a really bad experience with Makoto…”
“I did…I just couldn’t say no…I’m…kind of curious of what he’ll do about the reason why he wanted this so bad…after everything’s done of course…besides, there a lot of vampires out there much scarier and powerful than myself…”
“Vampires…who gets them??”

(The name of the doctor who made the exchanges of blood and all was Midorikawa Hiroto, it was an old friend of Gin…Eiji was tired and drained, literally, after all this, so they went to Gin’s house, and placed Hideki on a futon next to Eiji’s bed when they came back, it was about 3 o’clock in the day when that happened, Eiji said he’ll go to sleep and Gin said he’ll go for some food, they’d leave Hikari and the doctor to take care of Hideki, mainly Hikari, the doctor would only come if it got bad, they hadn’t done anything much in those days, only the transfusions and it had taken its toll on the 3 of them…the clinical death had come much sooner than expected, about 6 hours after the last transfusion, Eiji and Gin had been really alarmed about this, but the doctor had said that everything was ok despite the early death…)

(After 5 days passed, Hideki regained consciousness slowly, very slowly, he began to experiment with moving, and like his body was a bit stiff it was more less complicated, in the end, he sat on the futon, judging for the little light that was visible through the heavy curtains in Eiji’s room it was still night…he stood up carefully, and, as much as he could perceive, he didn’t feel very different at all…he went out of the room and down the stairs sluggishly, he could feel how the blood in his veins was flowing slower, much slower than usual, that’s the first thing he noticed…he went to the kitchen, as he had crossed all the first story, the living-room, the corridor, the studio, etc, he guessed there wasn’t anyone home…so he waited, he was tired, he couldn’t tell if it was because of the transformation or because he wasn’t used to not sleeping during the night yet, he went to take a shower meanwhile, he stunk, or so he thought…)

(After some hours, maybe two or three, Eiji came back home, the dawn was close, and again the tickling sensation was settling in, but he had so many things to tell to Hideki, he rushed to his bedroom and saw that it was empty…)
“Finally…I was getting worried…”
“Really??”
(Hideki was coming inside when he said this and sat upon the futon, Eiji smiled…)
“You make a nice vampire…”
“Do I??”
“Oh yes…but this is just the beginning…for starters, have you noticed anything different in your perception whatsoever??”
“Yes…all the senses are heightened, and the blood…it’s sluggishly dragging in my veins…and…above all, the spiritual awareness of all types…it’s the most heightened…”
“Wow…a lot of changes for someone so young…as I said, you make quite a nice vampire…ah, about all the common things, like not exposing yourself to the sunlight and not sleeping during the night, you’ll get used to it gradually…so tell me…now that you’re a vampire and that you see things under a different light…what would you like to learn first??”
“I want to learn to use the All-Seeing Eye…”
“…the Third Eye chakra…they say that depending on the person it would develop into an All-Seeing Eye or a Fore-Seeing Eye…but I don’t believe it…I know that the two abilities can be awakened…”
“Were you able to awaken them both??”
“Yes…I want to tell you that, your Third Eye chakra is already opened…you only need to train it and learn how to use it as an asset…which is not at all difficult…”
“How much will it take??”
“That depends…it might take you 5 years or 3 months…it’s depends on dedication more than anything…”
“Oh…about the feeding stuff…”
“Ah right! Instinct alone will do as a guide, trust me…and, by now, you may only drink my blood…for at least a week…after that, you’ll be free from any kind of tie of creation from me and you’ll be able to manage yourself as an independent vampire…”
“Sounds like nursing a baby…”
“It IS like nursing a baby…”
“Well…if you don’t mind…may I?”
“Oh yes…of course…”
(Eiji sat by him on the futon and offered his wrist, Hideki instead, took the inner elbow, it was the first time Hideki’s fangs showed themselves, and it’d been such a long time since Eiji’d been bitten…after some minutes, Hideki stopped, Eiji felt weird, agitated, he’d not stopped him because it was crucial the blood from the first week as he’d said, no matter how much strain it’ll put on the body of the older vampire…it did sound like nursing a baby at all extents…)
“Thanks…why didn’t you stop me??”
“I-it wasn’t…necessary…”
“Oh…um…ok…by the way…about the chakra opening…how is it that I get to master it??”
“Ah…there was a special charm used to open the Third Eye chakra, but you won’t need that anymore, since yours is already opened, so…you’ll only have to learn the sutras to use its powers….”
“Sutras?? You mean Buddhist sutras??”
“Yeah…though, the Buddhist sutras ain’t the only ones used, nor in existence, it’s all a cultural matter…you were born in Japan…so I suppose the religion you’re familiar with is the Buddhism…am I wrong?”
“No…”
“Well then, if you had been born in England for example, you would have used another type of incantations, coming from the Bible…things like that are the ones that change…”
“Sounds simple…”
“It is…”
“So…when can we start??”
“After this week…”
“Excellent…ah by the way…I want to ask you something…”
“What is it?”
“For about 2 or 3 months before becoming a vampire, I began feeling the sensation of being awake in my dreams…”
“…the awareness of being asleep, so you’ve already accomplished the All-Seeing Eye…that’s good…”
“So it was THAT all along???”
“Yeah…as I said, the Third Eye has 2 abilities, and the both can be awakened, and it seems, like you already developed one…that’s excellent, then it’ll all go quicker and smoother!”
“Good….”