CHAPTER 4:

  Not a while after Haru had used a rune card to return home

  “Home sweet home…”

  Even though he stood before the door, nothing could be heard from the inside

  Taking that as a cue, he opened the door with the house keys that were in his pocket, it was all dark and gloomy before he entered

  (Well…at least I'm home…)

  Turning on the lights, there was no reaction, meaning his parents were indeed asleep

  The shopping items were temporarily set aside for him to prepare the kitchen

  His hunger was overwhelming, it'd been days since he last had eaten, in a surge he took it upon himself to male a salad

  “Hey, you're back home, I presume?”

  Sylvia's voice could be heard through the smartphone

  “Well yes but don't call me now. I'm busy cooking”

  The vegetables continued to fall on the wooden cupboard while he was talking

  “Oh ok, don't worry, I won't be coming tonight, I won't bother you, bye bye”

  The call came to a close before anyone could respond

  A sigh escaped his mouth, by now he was used to her abrupt personality…

  The smartwatch slid loosely from his wrist while grabbing a fork, it was a relaxing moment for him, a sense of normality and tranquility

  (Man…what a break for me…)

  “Haru!”

  Which was quickly interrupted by his mother coming downstairs, her cheeks were immediately stained by tears

  Haru was at first perplexed, with reluctance his body softened

  “What is it mom? Why are you so excited to see me all of a sudden?”

  “

  Are you kidding me Haru? Nevermind that for now, but where have you been all day!”

  Kuse gently wiped the tears away with the back of her hand from her cheeks

  Haru was yet again brought to the spotlight, for any other normal protagonist it would have been easy, but Haru has always struggled with emotions, the situation forced the lie out of his lips

  “I run off…after father accused me of skipping classes, I just wanted some space”

  Kuse moved her hand abruptly to slap him

  Immediately the soft flesh became red and then white in the same instant

  Due to the sheer speed of the healing Kuse didn't notice anything

  “I admit you're an absolute buffoon when it comes to emotions. You didn't even bother to call us or anything?!”

  At this point, Haru could obviously tell that his mother was furious

  In other words, he was trapped once again

  “I wasn't thinking clearly”

  With reluctance haru stood up from his chair, taking the salad with him

  “Don't wake dad up, he will see me tomorrow anyways”...

  With that Haru went into his room to avoid any further confrontation with his mother

  Whoosh!

  The door slammed…Kuse just stood there, as an adult, she couldn't bring herself to stay like this, but something inside of her yearned

  Maybe it was the maternal instincts

  It was safe to assume that both Kuse's and Shirou’s worries were proven true…Haru had discovered the ethereal world

  Kuse quietly made her way back to her bedroom, she didn't even bother to shut the door…

  Haru was chomping down on the salad hungrily, his hunger and tranquility brought back to him again

  While eating Videos on YouTube played in the background

  He lifted up his armpit to smell it

  “Jesus, I should take a shower”

  A decision needed to be made

  The door of his room opened with the empty bowl of salad in his hand

  On the way making a quick stop by the kitchen to place the empty(salad) bowl into the sink

  Then he undressed and took a shower with warm water, the water droplets harmlessly bounced of him

  When stepping out the entire bathroom was covered with steam

  “Fuck…”

  They didn't have enough money for a hair dryer, he had to resort to a towel

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  Now he has nothing else to do, a good sleep was deserving at this point

  The next morning, he had overslept…

  Clothes flew across the room in his search, it didn't help either that he didn't get a good sleep in last night

  Rushing outside Haru barely caught the bus at the bus stop and barely scraped by the bell to class, pommeling his body in the process of going to school

  Visible sweat had gathered up on his face, legs and hands

  Students and teachers alike looked at him weirdly, it'd be their first time seeing someone so utterly desperate for class

  “What the hell is up with him?”

  “Who knows”…

  The teachers scolded him over and over for not doing his homework or assignments that he had missed

  “Insolent brat, now could you miss again?”

  “Another one in my semester for the next year”

  Even his own classmates started laughing at him, guess the supernatural world didn't forgive

  He'd spent the lunch breaks all alone, no one even wanted to walk up on him

  They just laughed and pointed at him, he had faced pressure before

  But this time it was like no other, it was pretty unbearable just how utterly cruel and undignified the comments were about him

  Sylvia tried to contact him over and over through the smartwatch, every time she failed to reach him

  “Damn, what the hell is up with that boy?”

  (My parents are mad at me, everybody at school thinks I'm a bum, and I have to save the world? When did this all turn out to be such a huge mess?...)

  It felt as if every step that he took at school was suffocating him until the cup spilled over…

  Just as Miss Smithrowe tried to approach Haru out of nowhere a spear pierced through her chest, killing her instantly

  Haru froze on the spot, his heart skipping multiple beats and his eyes widening, the air in his throat vanished

  Miss Smithrowe's body slumped to the ground lifeless

  The spear being teleported away from her body, everybody in the vicinity panicked and started running wherever they could

  “What the fuck?!”

  “Lets get the fuck out!”…

  Tears streaked Harus's cheeks, Miss Smithrowe was the only teacher who even bothered to understand him all this time

  Amidst the panicked crowd, one girl particularly stood out

  Blonde hair, black and white clothing, red eyes, and slight bumpers on her shoes

  Haru immediately sensed her

  (She's most definitely a holy being…)

  Something about her seemed off until he noticed the spear, the spear of Longinus

  This time, they(the holy beings) came to him

  The spear of Longinus was made out of a mix of gold and silver lining where the edge of the blade was slightly curved but it had a pointy edge

  “Tell me your name”

  The mysterious girl chuckled enthusiastically

  “It's Annabelle if you must know darling, and I'd be more than honored to drink your blood”

  “Well you're a weird one, no matter”

  Haru leaped forward towards her, it felt natural to him

  But just about she was to retaliate

  Haru got pushed mid-air to the, Sylvia landed next to him roughly

  “That elf…”

  Annabelle was shaking from anger she was so close to achieving her mission, but a noisy elf came in, how annoying

  “You idiot, I guess I can't blame you for that, I never told you about the spear of longinus”

  “Sylvia? What on earth are YOU doing here?”

  Haru's hand instinctively reached out to attend for his friend

  “If that spear touches you, then we're toast, I don't have time to explain”

  “So I'll explain it later, just trust me!”

  “Ok”

  Annabelle launched her spear towards them at full speed

  At the same time, Haru pulled himself and Sylvia off the ground

  Instead, the ground shattered from the hit

  Hastily Annabelle spat on the ground and used her spear like a cane

  “A missed opportunity”

  They both rolled over on the schools floor

  “So how do we deal with this crazy chick?”

  “I'm not sure either, for now we should just dodge"

  Sylvia got off the floor first, Haru followed hurriedly, each step he almost tumbled

  Annabelle tried it again but Sylvia dragged Haru away at the last second

  The spear narrowly missed his chest, the impact of the force wasn't as great as before

  This time Annabelle barely managed to catch herself from not to slam against the wall

  “You're both so irritable. They didn't inform me that dealing with the new imaginary codex was this tiresome”

  The spear of longinus returned to her hand

  Haru and Sylvia managed ran off as fast as they could to the back of the school

  Although Annabelle was more than capable of catching up to them, she decided to slow her own pace down

  She thought that it wouldn't really matter if she tried or not

  (I'll let them escape for now, it will be easy to pick them apart anyways)

  Both Haru and Sylvia hid in a far corner in the back school, it was full of cigarettes and knives, broke or lost

  They had lost sight of Annabelle, it was safe to assume that they weren't being chased right now

  “Now that we are safe, mind explaining why I shouldn't touch that spear?”

  Sylvia's breath came off rugged from the running, sweat beads formed on her forehead, her knees buckled up together

  “If you do, it will trigger the true form of imaginary codex”

  “Wait wait wait, you're telling me there's a true form?!”

  “I was gonna tell you soon, but I never had anticipated that she would pounce this soon”

  “And what's it's true from then?”

  Sylvia took a deep breath before answering, grimly

  “It's true form, tribulation of God, when deemed absolutely necessary for the situation the spear of longinus will be impaled into the host of the imaginary codex which would trigger a crucifixion, the imaginary codex host will be immediately transported into a domain which is a blood of sea and then crucified”

  “When crucified the imaginary codex host gets granted by God himself the knowledge of everything, literally every reality, past present future thoughts conversation timelines fiction of every human and every living organism will be transported to their memory, killing them in the process only to be reborn by the healing factor”

  “The second situation is when this can occur is when the spear is deliberately impaled to the user”

  “So that's what the prophecy was talking about? Damn that sounds so bad…anything at this point”

  “Anything at this point?”

  “We will talk about that later, for now we have to focus on how to take down Annabelle”

  Haru said in a hushed tone while looking out for their flank

  The school had a reputation of not being security arises tight

  Naturally, he was being paranoid about Annabelle slipping past the security system

  “And how do you suppose we do that? As far as I know, she doesn't have any weaknesses”

  “No weaknesses….oh I got it! If the holy beings are all the same then we can just use their God complex against them, basically we have to stall, then you take that spear from her so I can engage with her head on”

  “That's pretty dull for a strategy, don't you think?”

  “Shut up. If you have any better ideas, you better speak up”

  She sighed, they didn't have much time so she played along…

  Annabelle gazed at the blue sky, completely relaxed outside in the schools frontyard

  Then, Sylvia teleported beside her and quickly snatched the lance from her

  Annabelle simply chuckled and didn't move a muscle

  “My my, how amusing, so the mouse has come out to play?”

  Unknowingly, Annabelle chased after Sylvia, she caught up to her in seconds, stepping right into their trap

  As she extended her hand towards Sylvia

  Bam!

  Haru punched her right to the jaw at full speed from her right, knocking her to the ground

  Blood smeared on the concrete floor from Annabelle's mouth

  “Quick Sylvia, get out of there!”

  Without much stalling, Sylvia teleported into the far distance where she would be safe and invisible to them

  In reality, she was hiding behind bushes

  Haru quickly submitted Annabelle to the ground, not allowing her to retaliate, now physically on top of her

  He grabbed her wrist and kept them above her head

  “Don't try anything funny, I won't hold back”

  “You're quite a funny one, Haru. I admit, you certainly got guts punching a woman like that”

  “Weather it be a woman or a man or a demon or angel, I'll fight those who oppose me to the very end” he raised his right hand to punch her but stopped

  “I'd advise you not to do that now, pretty boy, I can reach out very long, so be aware”

  In a sudden move, she straddled his waist, bringing him closer

  He was now in range for her to bite him and suck on his blood

  “Vampire much? Dammit…you're clearly not try to hurt me you just want to stall to locate sylvia, i'm not gonna let you do that”

  “Wow, such a smart one you are”

  Annabelle knew that she didn't have much time left on the mission, quick thinking would save her much time

  “You know, pretty boy, I'm sorry, but it seems that our little encounter has to be cut short”

  “Cut short? What are you implying by that?”

  Haru tensed up, the sense of danger in his body heightened

  Annabelle drew him into a kiss, biting on his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood, then she proceeded suck on his blood

  Only to pull back abruptly after 15 seconds

  “My, that's some delicious blood you have, I was so right. Your blood is truly one of a kind”

  Haru was left blushing, the heart in his chest pumping violently as the words were stuck in his throat, blood flew freely from his lips

  Now that the small window had presented itself to Annabelle, she used teleportation magic, slithering her way out in a blink of an eye

  Haru was left gasping for air while laying on the ground

  (Shit!...)

  Even when Sylvia was hiding in the bushes, Annabelle could easily locate her

  “What the hell? How did you navigate?”

  “Foolish. For someone of your caliber you should know that you reek with a holy relic in your hands”

  She then quickly snatched the spear out of the elf's hands, without wasting another second she teleported again

  “Fuck! She snatched the spear off my hands! Haru, what were you thanking?! Why did you let her go?”

  He snapped out of his daze, the world around him was now spinning

  Sylvia's voice echoed through the smartwatch

  “I will explain later, but for now….wait did we just fail to beat her?"

  “Yeah it seems so. Not only did she get the spear back, but we barely scratched her”

  Annabelle had managed to slither away like that unharmed, after the not so thrill of a battle

  Haru and Sylvia continued to talk

  (What was that just now?...)

  “She did draw blood from my lips just now. Does that amount to anything?”

  Sylvia was left speechless, it had slipped her mind that Haru still didn't know almost anything about the ethereal kingdom, she took a deep sigh and spoke sternly

  “It's called the vampire kiss, vampires can't turn you into a vampire, they are born that way, but by sucking on a living organisms blood, they get stronger, however”

  “Wait, stop, I think I know where you're going with this, when she drank it she said something about it tasting very different or something, does that mean that the strength they get depends on the mana affinity of the blood?”

  “Well…yeah that's right, you certainly learn a lot quicker than I had expected, since you're a holy being you have godly mana, so naturally, it's very tasty for her”

  Haru had heard enough for the day, or so he thought, Immediately afterwards the call ended

  He stood up from the ground defeated, he may now be immortal but he wasn't unbeatable

  The students of the school had slowly come back to their normal rhythm after the fight between Annabelle and Haru had ended

  Haru rushed back inside to the main hall, seeing the paramedics coming in for Miss Smithrowe

  Without a second thought, he ran towards them

  The paramedics pushed him back, saying that she is presumed legally dead…Haru anticipated that much, it still hurt like hell

  “There's nothing else we can do kid, beat it”

  Her body laid there on the floor motionless

  That didn't stop the paramedics from working, the ambulance could be heard in the distance and the teachers talking in the background

  It was not enough for him to contain his tears, if only he'd thought about healing her but he didn't, since he had to protect himself first, a self directed curse escaped his lips and so did the tears

  He quickly wiped them away and faced the situation head on…

  If he wanted to save the world from the apocalypse( John's revelation) then he can't just break at one death

  Readiness was required, with a heavy heart he pushed his emotions downwards…