Saint Rose’s artillery firing left me momentarily stunned. Hana ran off, presumably to cause trouble somewhere. By the time I recovered, I realized that this whole mess would be a great opportunity to eat something. I felt so starved subsisting on nothing but salty meat and watered down rum for almost a week. As such, I was most eager to tear into the crew.
For my first victim, I rushed up behind a short man who carried powder, and I tackled him to the ground. I started stabbing him until he stopped moving.
‘Who knew a fight could be so loud?’ The humans were busy with their battle tasks. Thunderous weapons, shouted commands, and general chaos masked any sounds of running or struggle that I could make. The night’s darkness also contributed to the ease of the hunt. I thought that this battle was actually the best thing ever.
When I finished this human off, I bent over him to drink deeply. I quickly circulated the mana I absorbed, sighing happily as I felt it soothe my meridians. I decided that consuming humans could be my path to eventual recovery; that deceiving healer didn’t tell me how to get better, but I figured it out myself!
While I enjoyed my meal, something flew through the wall and past my head. The bulkhead in front of me burst into a shower of splinters. Several jagged pieces of the ship impaled me. I looked down at myself in shock.
‘What...’
Then the pain caught up to me. I shrieked, and I grabbed at the splinters, gritted my teeth and struggled to pull them out. I was in agony as the wood shards tore me when I took them out, but they needed to get out of my body if I wanted to heal properly. I doubted I could survive this many wounds had I been fully human.
As I lay among the debris and my own blood, I hurriedly regenerated myself. Fortunately I literally had just eaten that sailor and had energy to spare. I now felt drained, and realized I should feed again.
Of course, I also couldn’t afford to lose myself in the hunt. If I neglected to help those spirit beast creatures escape from the Saint Rose, that animal-like demon, or whatever Hana was, would definitely come back and end me. I shuddered. I must have been out of my mind from the starvation to confront her as I had. ‘Thankfully I’m actually alive after that.’
Thinking of Hana, if we all got out of this fight alive, I needed to ask her how she could change back and forth between human and demon. It seemed like a useful skill if I could learn.
I got up and took the dead sailor’s knife and cutlass.
I decided to go get Sarah, who I left in her bunk when I went to find Hana earlier. As I made my way back, I took advantage of inattentive crew members to slaughter them and drink their blood. Killing them was excessively easy because everyone was busy right now and they usually recognized me, so the crew did not expect me to backstab them.
‘I don’t know how I lived without tasting live humans.’
There was something special about them; their blood tasted sweet and energized me. I latched myself onto my lasted victim, sucking eagerly at his wound to prevent losing any of his precious blood.
That was the state in which my immediate supervisor and two accompanying marines found me. My supervisor, a man named Benjamin, seemed stunned by the scene of his subordinate eating one of the crew, but the marines rushed me with their cutlasses. The man came first, thrusting his weapon to gut me. I kicked the approaching sword aside and slashed at its owner’s wrist. I spun to block the other marine with my weapon’s hilt while stiff-arming the injured man away. My attacker redirected her swing and cut into my right forearm instead of my sword. I gasped and dropped my cutlass. Before she could press her attack, I rushed inside her guard, kneed her in the stomach, and I bit her neck. She tried to slash at me wildly with the sword and cover her neck with her free hand. Since I was so close to her, I grabbed her sword hand with my left before she could hit me again. Then I kicked behind her leg and pulled her arm, so she lost her balance.
Her companion recovered and threw a knife at me before grabbing for his cutlass with his uninjured arm. I shifted my marine to catch the projectile with her back.
‘That should finish her off better than anything I did.’
I allowed her to fall and charged Benjamin, hoping to get to him before he started moving.
Unfortunately, he jumped back and threw a set of needles. I didn’t have a weapon in hand, so I did my best to twist around them, but he still managed to hit me multiple times; at least I avoided any needles getting buried in my joints. I cursed but continued toward him, trying to regenerate while fighting. After throwing his needles, Benjamin surprised me by kicking off the bulkhead behind him to jump at me and strike. His heavy hit knocked me to my back. He approached to stomp on me while drawing his sword. I grabbed his stomping leg and pushed it to the side as it fell, so he stood with a foot on each side of me; then I kicked him in his now-exposed groin; he howled in pain and anger.
I noticed the male marine approaching, sword in his left hand. I tried to pull myself away from him and roll to my knees, using Benjamin’s leg as a pivot. I barely managed to avoid a slash where my head had been moments before. Luckily, my movement now put Benjamin between us. Unfortunately, he recovered quickly from my attack on his future descendants. While I tried to stand, he turned and swung his sword, slashing across my chest. He was probably trying to cut my head off but didn’t realize how quickly I got up.
I staggered back and looked down at my wound. I’d been cut and stabbed so many damn times tonight; I started crying again, tears blurring my ability to see. I was in such pain, being impaled and cut and put together and cut again.
‘I’m not gonna fucking die here no matter how much it hurts. I survived everything up to now; I won’t go down from a fight with some mortal human!’
I circulated my mana quicker than I should, trying to rush regeneration. My meridians burned and more blood came from my mouth. I gurgled trying to laugh at the humans in front of me and bared my little human fangs at them. I wasn’t going to die no matter what. These two bastards were going to die. ‘That’s a promise!’
I drew my knife while the two repositioned and shouted at me. “Traitor, cannibal! Try to live through this!”
They punctuated their words by attacking together.
I moved toward the marine, deflecting his sword with my knife. Doing that showed Benjamin my back, and he slashed it open. I felt the intense pain but continued to attack the marine, punching his gut, biting at him, stabbing at him with the knife. I felt like I was acting on instinct more than thought. I kept hurting him; I drank from his wounds. Exhilaration filled me even while my body hurt like I was dying. I felt Benjamin slash my back again, causing me to scream. I gulped down more of the marine’s blood and turned back. I hissed at my supervisor, glaring at him from atop the marine’s body. Benjamin slashed at my head, trying to finish me off.
I snapped and caught the blade in my mouth. I felt teeth break and my cheeks cut open but I didn’t care anymore. I only thought of ripping this hateful man open. He stabbed me again when I pounced on him, taking him to the ground. We rolled and grappled on the deck, striking each other with our hands, shifting our bodies to try to pin the other down. I tore at him with the remains of my broken teeth; they hurt like hell and my gums itched. He pulled my hair, forcing me to stop biting. None of that mattered, I was so intent on killing the bastard under me. I snarled and gouged his eyes, forcing him to release my hair, so I thrust my face forward and bit deep into his throat. I drank him dry while his attempts to cut me and push me off became more and more feeble until he became still.
My memories became somewhat foggy after that, but I know that I wreaked havoc on the mid-deck, ripping and tearing my way through anyone I came across. I continually should have died but kept healing through my wounds because I was high on so much mana from their blood. I recognized some faces, many were people I thought were nice, but in my current state I fed on them too anyway.
By the time I calmed down, I was sitting in the messy remains of an entire cannon crew, panting heavily. I didn’t know how much time had passed. I did know that I had just been deep into some kind of hunting madness or frenzy, even though I’d never experienced such a thing before. Human blood was just too intoxicating. And I had been in such incredible pain! However, the slaughter had a bright side too. I was brimming with mana. Also, I had regenerated more than just my wounds. I could feel the sharpness of my formerly broken teeth, half-remembering the ease with which they shredded through humans’ flesh. I experimentally concentrated some mana to strengthen my legs and jumped up. Relief swept through me when I didn’t suffer backlash from this most simple of techniques.
I opened wide and felt my proper new fangs happily. ‘Ah, how mommy missed you! Welcome back girls!
I couldn’t tell if anything else had changed, but I was glad to be a little closer to my old self. No longer must I settle with being crippled and with having small, undersized, tiny, dull, pathetic human teeth!
‘Hunting humans is so energizing, so delicious, so sweet. Today sure is shaping up to be a great day.’
Then I remembered something troublesome: I forgot to grab Sarah and to fulfill my deal with Hana!
First, I withdrew and concealed my aura now that I’d actually recovered a bit of my cultivation. For some reason, humans seemed to always hide their auras, so I decided to fit in that way. Then I went to look for my human.
I didn’t find Sarah in the female quarters. ‘I guess I should have expected as much, considering we’re supposed to be at general quarters and it’s loud as hell.’ Before I left to find her trail, I made sure to grab my things. I likely wasn’t coming back here, after all.
‘During a battle she can’t really fight. I bet she is running powder then.’ So, I decided to go down toward the powder room next. I suddenly had a good idea; I stole some of Sarah’s clothes to change into, throwing away my tattered and soaked clothes. I didn’t need everyone attacking me on sight for definitely being whatever horrible creature slaughtered their crew mates and bathed in their blood.
‘I know for a fact that I didn’t catch everyone who saw me. Haha, well now I’m just a cabin girl doing cabin girl things. I’m not a bloodthirsty huntress. That ain’t me. Nope.’
While searching for Sarah in the hell into which Saint Rose had descended, I ran across several sailors who seemed lost in a total daze, unaware of the carnage around them. I assumed Hana had done something to them to weaken our crew while her allies attacked. I thought about killing them too, but I also needed to hurry. I eventually found my friend. When Sarah saw me, she dropped her load of powder and ran over.
“Ali, I thought you were dead! Where were you?” She cried and flailed at me. “You’re cruel, making me worry!”
I embraced her and tried to calm her down, “I’m okay, Sarah. We’re both alright. That’s what matters.”
She grabbed onto me tightly. I rubbed her back to comfort her, “There now, we’re here together now. No one’s gonna get hurt.”
Sarah eventually stopped sobbing into my chest and looked at me, “I’m so scared! I haven’t been in a fight before.”
I was getting off this ship no matter what, but I liked being around Sarah and I wanted her to come with me, so I tried to get her to follow. “Listen, we need to get out of here before one of us gets killed.”
“Just, run away? Where even?”
I was glad her first thought was how to escape with me, rather than talking about loyalty to the ship’s crew or some similar nonsense.
“We can go to Hana; you like her, right?”
“Y-yeah, but what does a pretty woman have to do with surviving a freaking battle!?”
“She’s a strong cultivator. She’ll protect us. I talked to her before this all started. She promised to help, okay?”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
“It doesn’t need to! I’m telling the truth, Sarah!”
“But why would-?” she started to ask.
“It’s complicated,” I tried to evade her questioning, “Please just trust me, okay? You took care of me when I arrived here; now I’m doing the same.”
She looked at me like I was crazy.
“Okay, I promised to help Hana steal the spirit beasts, so she would accept us with her friends,” I admitted.
“What? Ali, that’s… kind of bad, actually. But okay let’s do it. I… don’t want us to die here. I want to live, both of us!”
“Yes! Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way,” I was glad Sarah would accompany me.
While we headed toward the live cargo area, I briefly explained Hana’s plan and her friendly relationship with the attacking pirates. Sarah seemed surprised that anyone would go to such lengths over a bunch of animals, no matter how special. I agreed with her on that point.
We passed quickly through the mid deck where I’d slaughtered my crew mates earlier. Sarah vomited at the scene, but I kept her moving and we got through.
Somewhere above us, a practitioner in their foundation building stage released their aura as they fought, knocking me to the deck under its oppression. I groaned and painfully forced myself back up.
‘That pressure came out of nowhere!’
Sarah seemed totally unaffected, but noticed my reaction and asked, “Are you okay? What happened?”
“Yeah, a powerful aura.”
“Oh, I’m glad. I thought you were hurt!”
I wanted to ask her why she somehow seemed fine, but didn’t want to expose myself as non-native to Terra if that was common knowledge here. I again found myself wishing I didn’t drop out of school. I lacked so much awareness about Terra, often having to rely on second-hand accounts or rumors. We continued on our way to rescue some dumb animals for Hana.
---
’Studies of the Vampiric Demon: Notes on Fangs
Demons which can subsist almost wholly upon blood, those now called vampiric demons or simply vampires, rarely appear in Terra, yet to the wise minds at the Royal Acadomy, these demons are not totally unknown. Live specimens have yet to be studied, but one can draw some conclusions from autopsy results.
Scholars previously determined that demons and humans must share a distant common ancestor. For why else must their general features to be so similar despite having wildly different diets and lifestyles.
Teeth of the vampiric demon have adapted to tear flesh and drink blood. They are ill-suited for chewing solid food. They have sharpened, tapered, and lengthened canines and incisors. Vampire molars appear more jagged, losing their ability to effectively grind. Their teeth and gums also become more durable. Their jaw bones and jaw muscles are denser and stronger as well.’
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Yes. They were understandable. Votes: 16 84.2%
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Yes. But it's hard to sus things out, and it took a lot of effort, or was jarring. Votes: 3 15.8%
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No. Something about them was unclear. Votes: 0 0.0%
Fighting the patriarchy, that's what they're doing......
Let's see if we can get Ali a desertion from each branch of the military by the end of this story.
thanks for continuing to read with me
@LilyVictoria She should totally have a little badge collection at the end.......
Keep writing good stuff and I'll keep reading! As long as its yuri.........or really amazing
@HonestMistake
Ali's final downfall is being convicted of 5 counts of desertion in a court martial. Nothing to do with all the people she killed and ate.
Don't look forward too much to the girls love. I don't really know how to write healthy / cute relationships since my experiences are kinda toxic.
@LilyVictoria The story's great so far, so just let it happen naturally? As for toxic.......throws those people out a window, no excuses
@LilyVictoria given the mc's innocent seeming demeanour and inexperience with humans and emotions I think leaning into that should allow a cute relationship to develop.