The Prince's Secret

Episode VIII

“How is your paper going on Sayaka?”

“-Oh gosh! Cloud!” Sayaka gasped.

“Hahahahaha… I miss seeing that surprised look! Every time you are writing or studying you seem to forget about your surroundings.” Cloud chuckled and sat on Sayaka’s desk. “Even though you have that charm, if you are not paying attention to it you won’t notice who or what is approaching you. That is dangerous.”

“A desk is not a chair. As a teacher you should know that.” Sayaka said as she gestured with her right hand for Cloud to get off on her desk. “Thank you for the warning. I will keep that in mind.”

“Since you were in middle school you never change your spot here in the library.”

“This is the only floor that students don’t usually go. Sometimes I wonder, how the school can’t afford to put an elevator here?” she chuckled.

“We can but wouldn’t that mean you will lose all your privacy here?”

“Yeah, I don’t want that to happen.” She sighed.

“This library is part of the original structures and the owner doesn’t want it get touched.”

“Ohhh…didn’t know that Henri is sentimental.”

“About that Sayaka, we want to talk to you about it. Nobody else aside from his servants, me and you knows that there is a pureblood in this school.”

“What are you talking about Cloud?!” she exclaimed. “Didn’t you introduce Henri to the whole class?”

“We don’t worry about the other humans or vampires inside this school, they won’t talk about Henri. However, you on the other hand have that charm so we can’t manipulate your thoughts.”

Sayaka turned her seat around with her eyes round in shocked with what she heard but before she can continue Cloud started to explain.

“Before you run your thoughts, and don’t think that I am mind reading because I cannot. We are not violating any rules, Henri’s identity is a confidential information even in the vampire community.” Cloud showed her a certificate with the seal of the Vampire Queen and the Kaiser of the World Government.

“Why is that so?” she looked at him with a troubled face. “Is this related to his family that he doesn’t want to talk about?”

“I came here to talk to you about the things that will be going on the coming weeks. Vampires from the Court will go here to evaluate us before they give us clearance for the upcoming school trip. They don’t know about Henri. They are instructed to watch over me, disgusting as it sounds, it’s because I am an ancient one, the recognized headmaster and owner of this school. There will also be a convoy of the Viceroy from the world government that will do the same evaluation. We are expecting you to keep Henri’s secret.”

“I see no problem with that because you are authorized to do that.” Sayaka put her index finger on her chin and realized something. “Uhh, so all this time that the school has been running, does it mean all of the students here have their memory of Henri manipulated?”

Cloud nodded in response. “Every time they leave the school premises they cannot remember Henri.”

“Oh my… How does Henri feel about it? Is it also the reason why he doesn’t go out of the campus?”

“I also came here to give this to you.” Cloud lifted his right hand and a tanto appeared.

“Why do you have a tanto?” she asked.

“Isn’t this your weapon of choice? You don’t look like it but you’re good in fighting with a tanto. ” Cloud smirked and handed the small black blade to Sayaka.

“This tanto it’s beautiful. Oh, whose crest is this in the pommel?”

“That’s mine.”

“Yours?”

“Yes. I want you to have it.”

“Why are you giving me a weapon that can kill even a noble vampire? This is no ordinary tanto.”

“Hmmm…” Cloud chuckled. “You can try hitting the kid with that. He won’t die but it will hurt him a bit.”

“Hahaha…what?! Did you two had a fight?” Sayaka chuckled as she twist her right hand and flips the tanto.

“I told you, there will be Evaluators coming in. You’re safe from the Viceroy’s convoy, but the Magistrate and his company are vampires we don’t trust.”

“It’s funny how you distrust your own kind. Is this the reason why you’re giving it to me?” Sayaka stopped feeling the tanto and asked, “Where’s the saya of this beautiful blade?”

Cloud raised again his right hand and a white box appeared. “Open this in your room later.”

Sayaka is confused. “Is the saya in there? You didn’t have to wrap it.”

Cloud just smiled and vanished from her sight.

He dodged the questions he doesn’t want to answer quite spontaneously. Cloud is clever but why does he have to wrap the saya? Does he want me to walk all the way to the dorm carrying this tanto and look like I’m about to murder someone? I don’t have my bag with me! All I have is my pen and notebook, goodness!

As Sayaka stand up from her seat an arm tried to pin her down on the desk but she was able to counter it and moved away.

“Not bad eh, Sayaka-san? Or should I call you Lady Sayaka? Hilarious!” The female student who attempted to pin Sayaka said as she sat on the chair. She faced Sayaka and placed her hand on the backrest. She has pale skin, long red hair and brown eyes.

“Why are you carrying something this dangerous inside the school human?” a hand appeared on the side of Sayaka and reached out for the tanto but she immediately withdraw. “Where did you get that?!” another female hiss with her eyes turning into red.

“I told you, this is not a good idea.” Another female student showed up from the bookshelves.

Sayaka took another step away and realized that Cloud might have been warning her earlier. She wasn’t paying attention to her charm, now that she does she realized that the three students in front of her are vampires. “You are assaulting me.”

“Hmm-hmmm… let’s see...who do you think would be the likely assailant? The one carrying a deadly anti-vampire knife or vampires who are wearing restricted charms?”

“Restrictive charms? So, you are most likely from a noble line of vampires.” Sayaka said. “Don’t worry, I will not be using this on you, I can handle you just fine.”

“Human, you don’t understand. This restrictive charm you humans made is funny…how do you think we were able to conceal ourselves until Lord Ehrensvard is no longer around? We can use our powers and manipulate you to attack us and we will just say we were forced to fight for ourselves.” the blonde vampire said.

“I think you are the ones funny. Don’t you think that Cloud know that you are here-”

“-Insolent!” the red-haired vampire shouted angrily, her brown eyes turned red. “How dare you not properly address Lord Ehrensvard!” she said and pointed her index finger to Sayaka and gestured to cut her neck.

Sayaka gasped and immediately backed off but to her surprise the vampire stopped and looked shocked.

“How?! How are you not getting cut?!” she exclaimed with her round glaring red eyes.

“It must be her charm.” The green-haired vampire said as she flips on the book she’s reading.

“Impossible! Those charms doesn’t work on us nobles.”

“Marie, she also have that spell imbued knife, her charm may be different from the other humans. She’s from the founding family anyway. The knife she's holding is not an ordinary knife, it was scary, I thought I might get a curse when I almost touched it earlier.” The blonde said as she fold her arms.

Sayaka thought about what Henri said about the charm, the fact that these noble vampires are troubled by it, this might be a property of a powerful vampire. She also thought of how poor the quality of her previous charm. “You should stop, there’s nothing to fight with in the first place.”

“Your mere existence is the problem.” Marie said as she approached Sayaka.

“What?” she said puzzled.

“Clare.” Marie called out the blonde vampire.

Clare suddenly appeared on the back of Sayaka and tried to bind her hands but a static field throw her off. The green-haired vampire switched Sayaka to the chair closed to Marie by snapping her fingers. Marie tried to cut through the static field and aimed to destroy the charm but she was violently thrown off.

“What is happening? How come that the charm can let out a static field like this?” Marie exclaimed.

Sayaka is at a loss, everything happened so fast and she is still unscathed. She was raised to fight vampires but maybe having no experience in a combat where her life is on the line, made her realized that she’s too conceited of her skills.

I cannot win this. No, I won’t even be able to defend myself from them if it weren’t for the charm. I need to escape or talk them off. But they looked like they are more pissed than earlier. There are three young noble vampires glaring at me now. Should I use the tanto? But the blonde one said earlier that this is spell imbued, even a slight scratch from this might be fatal. I can fight them using this but I also risk killing them. I shouldn’t have this tanto in the first place, this is a violation of the school rules. No, they shouldn’t be attacking me in the first place. Oh no, Cloud!

“What now?” Clare asked Marie.

“We can throw her off the railings.” The green-haired vampire said as she closed the book she was reading. “We’ll make it look like an accident.”

“Hahahaha… that’s a good idea. I thought you are no longer interested in this Ingrid.”

“Clare, I never said I wanted out. I just thought that we should do it on another day because Lord Ehrensvard was here earlier.”

“We can just throw a book off the floor and have Ingrid switched it with the human.” Marie chuckled.

Sayaka fixed herself and stood calmly. She closed her eyes and sighed. She finally realized why she is being attacked. These three vampires, they were the ones she saw with Cloud in his chamber. She flipped the tanto and hold on to the blade with the pommel facing Marie. “Look, you shouldn’t be doing this. The lord you adored gave me this earlier.”

“Haaa…. What…Why? Why he would give that to you?” Marie exclaimed.

“I don’t know.”

“You insolent human!” Marie shouted with her fangs out but Ingrid tap her on the shoulder.

“We should stop. That is Lord Ehrensvard’s crest on the pommel.”

Clare just looked angrily on Sayaka with creased eyebrows and scoffed, “b***h!”

The three vampires hurriedly speed off the stairs and finally disappeared from the sight of Sayaka.

Sayaka slumped on the floor and was relieved to be out of danger. She creased her forehead when she noticed that the charm is brightly red. She turned around and saw no one and then the charm finally stopped illuminating. 

There are no more vampires lurking.