"I wonder about that!"
With a shriek, Jiang Shi lunged at me once more. I could see her lengthened canines glisten amidst her other teeth, visible proof that she was a vampire. The specters that she had transformed her victims into...they were ghouls of some sort, I supposed.
Honestly, I didn't care. It wasn't my job to categorize her species or analyze her abilities. I wasn't an exorcist. I wasn't a ghost gunslinger. I was just an ordinary high school kid who died and was given a second chance at life in exchange for protecting a dead old man's granddaughter.
All I cared about was my mission. It didn't matter who my enemy was.
Like I said, I'm fine even without an isekai cheat. There wasn't anyone I couldn't defeat.
I met Jiang Shi's attack head-on. The both of us brushed past each other, our weapons clashing again. We both whirled around and exchanged another couple of blows, wood shrieking against keratin once more. Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I swear I could see flashes of red yin energy swirling around Jiang Shi's lithe figure.
It didn't matter. Whatever fancy techniques or flashy shows she put on, I would simply cut through all of them. That was the reason why I joined the kendo club.
Taking a deep breath, I stepped forward. With a single slash, I cleaved through the crimson maelstrom, dispersing all of the demonic energies in that stroke. Jiang Shi faltered, surprised, but she recovered, cartwheeling backward and launching a kick at my face. I tilted my head to the side and avoided it, but her foot grazed my cheek, leaving a cut.
Undeterred, I continued to pursue her stubbornly, striking with the peach wood sword and parrying her blow. She responded with a slash that I ducked, and I answered with a riposte that almost stabbed into her shoulder. Her swift reflexes saved her from a grievous wound, her body twisting to the side, and she made use of her momentum to convert that spin into a kick that almost connected with my head.
Dropping to a crouch, I thrust my peach wood sword forward. She bent backward to avoid it, and when I altered my trajectory at the last moment to slash downward, she caught the blade with her crossed nails. With her superior strength, she pushed me away and bounced back to her feet, straightening before she threw a kick at my midriff.
I jumped back a step, just narrowly avoiding her foot by a hair's breadth. Recalling the breathing techniques that Hao Jian Fa and my dad taught me, I regulated my respiration. As I did so, illusionary azure energies wreathed me and my peach wood sword.
I was sure these energies weren't real. They were illusions, visual impressions formed by people watching our duel. Perhaps they actually existed, manifesting as glowing, clashing lights of azure against crimson, but they had no effect whatsoever on the real, physical world. These energies belonged to the domain of the dead alone.
Nonetheless, the psychological impact that they produced upon viewers and opponents alike could not be denied.
Jiang Shi yelled and I bellowed as we clashed, our ferocious exchanges blurring within clashing storms of crimson and azure. Peach wood blade warded off lethal nails, purple sparks scattering between us. I ducked under a slash and whirled around with a riposte, which she parried before countering with a kick. I blocked that with an upraised knee and flicked my wrist to reverse the trajectory of my blade, almost catching her side. She twisted away and thrust her nails right under my guard, but I reflexively withdrew and dodged them.
My opponent sprang at me, her figure blurring as she propelled herself at incredible speed, but I spun away. As she brushed past me, I lashed out, only for her to deflect my blade with her nails. Azure and crimson energies mixed and combusted, almost resembling the chemical reaction that I saw in the lab so many weeks ago.
The both of us whirled around to clash once more, trading furious blows that left cracks and craters in the concrete walls and floor around us. Jiang Shi was physically stronger, and each of her strikes drove me back. Her speed was superior, and I almost wasn't able to catch up with her attacks. I was relying more on instinct and intuition than actually tracking her movements, and more than once I was counting my lucky stars after a close shave that left little more than scratches.
Otherwise, she would have eviscerated me, torn my face open, or straight up beheaded me. There was once I brought my wooden sword up without thinking, blocking her claws from sinking into my neck. Azure and crimson energies collided violently, and I desperately drove her off, my heart pounding from such a narrow miss.
Jiang Shi, for her part, clicked her tongue, and withdrew to reassess her options. I seized the chance to catch my breath, for my painfully human stamina was far inferior to hers.
Still, I was still proud that I had withstood her onslaught. Clearly, I had improved by leaps and bounds. If it was before, she would have overwhelmed me by now. The sword techniques I learned from the high school's kendo club were showing their worth.
Standing my ground, I waited for Jiang Shi's next attack.
She charged at me once more, stabbing with one set of claws, then the next. A storm of blood-red energies crackled around her lethal fingers, giving her a demonic tint. I defiantly met her, wreathed by an azure cloud. Nails crashed into sword, and neither of us yielded. For a moment, an unstoppable force met an immovable object.
Then Jiang Shi's superior strength won out and I began to slide backward. She pressed on and knocked my sword aside. With her other set of claws, she stabbed downward. I grunted and stoically bore her attack, twisting my body just a bit to take the full brunt of her attack on my left shoulder. Her nails sank in, punching through bone and causing me to scream in pain.
However, I wasn't done. Holding my ground, I drove my sword into her chest. Jiang Shi's eyes widened when she realized that I had deliberately allowed her to bat my sword away, that I had intentionally showed her a lapse in my defenses and lured her to exploit it just so I could ensure a hit. She tried to twist her body away, but her nails were stuck in my shoulder.
The peach wood blade pierced through her gut. I missed her heart totally, but the entire blade sank past her ribs and into her lung, rupturing it. Blood spilled out of her mouth and she jerked violently, but it didn't seem like a mortal wound.
"You bastard!" She snarled and slammed her forehead against mine. My head snapped back and I fell, my consciousness fading.
As darkness consumed me, I heard triumphant laughter from above.
*
When I woke up, I found myself in a park. Blinking, I sat up and squinted at the bright blue skies. The sun was up high, with hardly any clouds to hide behind. Thankfully, there were plenty of trees around to afford some shade. Shuffling across the grass, I stood up and glanced around, wondering how the hell I ended up here.
For I recognized the location. It was Gong Yuan Park, the biggest park in Cheng Shi City.
Families were spread across the verdant area, having laid out huge mats and enjoying picnics. Laughter drifted across the warm summer air, parents playing with kids or munching on snacks and sandwiches.
…wait, summer? How long had I been out for? Was I in a coma for several months? But that didn't explain how I ended up in the park instead of being hooked up to life support machines in a hospital. Or maybe I lost my memories and only just regained them?
Pushing my glasses up, I stood up and wandered around. I didn't see my parents. I didn't recognize anyone in the vicinity. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to calm down. If I was in Gong Yuan Park, then I should know where to…
"…eh?"
I stopped and blinked, staring at a single girl who was seated by herself on a bench next to a huge fountain. She looked oddly familiar, though I was pretty sure I didn't know any eleven-year-old kids. Currently, she was holding up a sketchbook and scribbling across it with what looked like crayons. She was incredibly cute, and though her hair was short, it resembled a similar style to someone I knew very well.
"…oh."
If the sketchbook and the girl's clumsy attempts to be an artist hadn't given it away already, her huge, round glasses would. I was looking at a younger version of Lian Hua.
Despite myself, I allowed my curiosity to get the better of me and leaned over to stare at her drawing. To my astonishment, her use of crayons was brilliant. There were hints of dark arts…ahem, I mean ominous sketches, with one page completely painted in red that almost looked like blood. That brought to mind the gruesome paintings she did and covered when I first visited the art club room.
Was she always this…uh, gloomy? I swear, she could make a career out of being a horror manhua artist. That was partially a compliment – her artistic skills were literally out of this world. There was a creepy sort of life to her drawings, the writhing bodies amidst a sea of blood. They didn't have a concrete shape like they would have in her future drawings, but they wouldn't look out of place in a manhua panel.
"Hey, what are you drawing?"
Both young Lian Hua and I were startled by the question, jolting up and turning around to stare at the source of the voice. To my utter surprise, a young version of Yun Shan stood there, holding a balloon. Even though she was currently half my height (and less than half her height about six years in the future), there were signs that she was growing into the tomboy she would eventually become. Her hair had been cut boyishly short, she developed a slight tan, and her clothing was simple. While young Lian Hua was dressed in a simple white one-piece with a flower on the front, young Yun Shan had chosen a sleeveless shirt and denim shorts. She grinned, her white teeth sparkling against gently sunburned skin.
"That looks amazing!"
"N…no. It's really not…"
Young Lian Hua stammered and pulled away, looking nervous. It appeared that the root cause of her shyness lay even further back in her past. Not that I had any right to pry…
Neither girl noticed my presence. To test out my hypothesis that I was simply a phantom looking into someone's past, I stuck my hand out and waved it in front of their faces. Neither responded. They simply moved through me, as if I wasn't there. As if I were no more than an immaterial phantom that didn't exist.
So I was a spectator, a voyeur who was peeking into the past of these two girls. No wonder everyone said I was creepy.
Young Yun Shan continued to grin and yammer away, almost dancing around the bench and staring at young Lian Hua's masterpiece. She prodded here and there, causing young Lian Hua to flinch.
"Can I borrow these?"
"Y…yes."
"Oh…you can hold onto this in exchange."
Young Yun Shan traded her balloon for young Lian Hua's crayons. She flipped the pages about and began doodling on a blank page. For fifteen minutes, she remained quiet, her cute, boyish face scrunched up in intense concentration. Then she finally gave up, tossing the crayons down.
"I can't do this!"
I stared at her drawing, unable to make out anything other than a round circle with eyes, a mouth, and…something sticking out of the circle. A new version of Pacman, I supposed? It was munching on a conical thing with…hair.
"What's that supposed to be?" I asked. "It's like nothing I'll ever see."
Obviously, young Yun Shan couldn't hear me. Fortunately, young Lian Hua was on hand to aid me. She stared at young Yun Shan's drawing curiously and pointed at it, while still holding onto the balloon with her other hand.
"Um…w…what is that? A monster?"
"What do you mean, monster?" Young Yun Shan stormed. "It's my rabbit, Fuzzy! He's eating a carrot. Ah, I'll just show him to you. Fuzzy! Over here!"
She ran off to one of the picnic mats where her parents sat. A middle-aged couple smiled as they watched their daughter approach, and the father let go of a white rabbit that immediately flew into young Yun Shan's bosom. I watched with amusement as the rabbit – Fuzzy – rabidly nuzzled its face into young Yun Shan's chest, but finding itself crashing into a flat surface. Nonetheless, it didn't look disappointed and continued to enjoy what it thought was a leveled heaven.
"This is Fuzzy, my rabbit," young Yun Shan introduced her pet to an overawed young Lian Hua. Then she pointed toward herself. "I'm Yun Shan. What about you?"
"L…Lian Hua."
"What a beautiful name." Young Yun Shan held young Lian Hua's hand with her free one, the other still clasping Fuzzy to her (lack of) bosom. "Can we be friends? Please! Let us be friends!"
"O…okay." Lian Hua blushed, but she was smiling. She gestured to her sketchbook and the crayons scattered all over the grass. "Shall we draw together…?"
Her offer was cut short when a man in an expensive business suit strode over impatiently, glancing at his watch.
"Xiao Hua, let's go!"
Young Lian Hua's face fell when she caught sight of him. She hurriedly gathered her art tools.
"Daddy…but you said we could play today."
"I've a meeting at 3pm. Didn't I bring you to the park, as you requested? That should be good enough. Let's go. I'm already running late. I can't keep my clients waiting." He stopped and stared at young Yun Shan with a frown, intimidating the poor girl. "Who…?"
"A friend," young Lian Hua said quickly.
"Ah." Lian Hua's father sounded dismissive. "Well, anyway, hurry up and pack up. We're leaving."
"Okay." Young Lian Hua frantically kept her stuff, flustered. She made to return the balloon to young Yun Shan, but the latter shook her head.
"You can keep it. Consider it a gift."
"T…thank you."
Lian Hua's dad was still staring at his watch. He hardly shot his daughter a look as she fell into stride beside him, but when his quick glance rested upon her sketchbook, he scowled.
"Wasting time drawing again? I wish you would devote that time and energy into your music lessons instead."
Then they were off.
Suddenly, I was reminded of Lian Hua's drawing that day in the amusement park, when she was participating in the art contest. She drew herself and Yun Shan, holding cotton candy and a balloon.
And Yun Shan whispering that Lian Hua remembered…
I looked at the forlorn young Yun Shan, who glumly watched her new friend disappear. Her father came over to put a comforting hand on her shoulder and lead her back. I then turned and made to follow young Lian Hua and her father, but found myself rooted to the ground.
"Eh? I can't move? Damn, I don't approve."
Then I woke up.