The Sky Was Never Young: Vampire System Apocalypse

Chapter 36: The Shield of Humanity: Fukuro’s Secret

The voice from the other side of the heavy iron door was bold, steady, and entirely too casual for the depths of the royal dungeons. It sliced through the freezing dampness of the cell, carrying a sharp, mocking edge that made the dust motes in the air seem to vibrate.

"Fukuro..." the voice called out slowly, the vowels stretching with a lazy, deliberate arrogance. Fukuro came sprinting to the cell’s gate with low, calculated footsteps.

"Tell that vampire that if I weren’t there, he would have been torn apart today. Who’s walking like a boss right now, eh?"

The words hung in the dead silence of the corridor. Inside the cell, the frantic energy evaporated. Fukoro- the clerk with the crooked glasses and the dusty brown trousers- went utterly rigid. The color drained from his face so fast it left his skin looking the color of curdled milk. His eyes darted from the iron-reinforced door to Cassius, wide with a sudden, suffocating panic. For a fraction of a second, he looked like he might genuinely faint right into the puddle of brackish water by his boots.

But then, something strange happened. The sheer, terrifying absurdity of the situation seemed to force a bizarre, survivalist professionalism back into the clerk’s spine.

Fukuro swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing violently against his collar. He took a long, shaky breath, adjusted his spectacles with a quick, trembling snap of his finger, and smoothed down the front of his patched, soot-stained shirt. The terrified coward vanished, replaced by an aggressively proper bureaucrat.

With a stiff, theatrical precision, Fukoro turned on his heel. He marched two deliberate steps toward Cassius, clearing his throat with a dry, hacking sound that echoed off the weeping mortar walls. Standing before the towering, injured sorcerer, Fukoro dropped into an excessively formal, elaborate gesture- the exact, sweeping curtsy reserved for an ancient Queen’s messenger delivering a royal decree to a foreign court. His fingers fluttered in the damp air, mimicking the archaic etiquette of the high palace while his boots remained planted in dungeon filth.

"Mr. Bird," Fukoro said, his voice instantly shifting into a polite, high-pitched, and entirely ridiculous formal cadence. "Madam Florianthum asked me to send you a message. May I start?"

Cassius stood perfectly still. The ancient, volatile bloodline inside him hummed like a low-voltage wire, but he didn’t unleash it. Instead, he slowly slipped his hands behind his back, interlocking his fingers over his blood-stained coat. The heavy, dark grey of his human eyes locked onto Fukoro’s small, anxious face.

A short, low chuckle scraped out of Cassius’s mouth. It wasn’t a sound of amusement; it was a dark, friction-filled rumble that tasted of irony and old ash. A slow, mocking smirk played at the corner of his lips, but the warmth never reached his eyes. When he spoke, his tone dropped into a dead-serious, bone-chilling threat, thick with the sudden, heavy frustration of a legendary entity pushed to his absolute limit.

"Right now, you are the real messenger bird, huh..." Cassius murmured, leaning down just enough to let his shadow swallow the clerk whole. His voice was an airy, dangerous whisper that practically vibrated against the cell walls.

"I was the one who took the arrow on myself, even though I don’t trust people who really tried to finish me off. I want to hear nothing!"

------

To fully understand how Madam Florianthum could orchestrate such communications from deep within the high tower- and why a low-level civil clerk like Fukuro was the one delivering her letters- one had to look closely at the rot inside the kingdom’s bureaucratic machinery:

The mechanical reality of Fukuro’s existence was his greatest armor. In a realm populated by volatile bloodlines, ancient sorcerers, and predatory entities, he was a completely unrecognized entity. He was entirely safe from the violent whims of this unhinged world, operating like a ghost in the machine- at least until someone finally noticed his discrepancies and executed him.

He was the only living entity who was a pure human left in this terrifying environment. Yet, as a rare exception to his mundane nature, he possessed one small, specific magical power. Fukoro himself considered it completely useless: magical fabric stitching. He could magically manipulate, mend, and create any dress or anything related to cloth with a mere thought. In a world where raw dark magic could shatter stone, a talent for tailoring felt like a cosmic joke.

This unique humanity, however, was precisely why Madam Florianthum could talk so freely to him, even while holding the status of the King’s captive. Fukoro was, according to her confirmed conclusions from the past, her absolute left hand in this world.

The magical mechanics of the realm dictated an absolute rule: no vampire, not even the King himself, could listen to or intercept any conversation between Florianthum and a human. Fukoro’s pure, magic-dampening human biology acted as a natural, impenetrable shield against supernatural espionage. Because their communication was completely invisible to the dark senses of their captors, she trusted him with everything.

The sudden tension in the damp cell faded as a memory forced its way into the front of Cassius’s mind.

***

It was the day when Cassius’s chest was violently ripped open by Florianthum’s sheer madness and overwhelming magical power. The agonizing strike had shattered the air, forcing Cassius to vanish entirely within a thick, purple, glittery aura. The volatile magic tore him away from the battlefield, teleporting his broken body into a vast, long-grass area. This wilderness was a barren place, located far away from the oppressive shadows of the deep dark castles.

When the purple light dissolved, Cassius found himself sitting heavily on the cold, charcoal ground. He slumped backward, propping up his weight with the support of a dusty, pipelined dark wall that cut through the overgrown field. The sight of the legendary sorcerer bleeding out against the grime portrayed him like a piece of useless trash thrown away by this unhinged world.

Then, through the quiet hum of the wild grass, came this average-looking man, Fukuro. He was trudging along with a heavy, water-filled drum, completely unaware of the dying entity nearby.

As Cassius managed to regain a bit of his consciousness, he aggressively tried to stand up from that miserable place. But his balance failed. His vision blurred, and he accidentally slammed his head right against a big, low-hanging iron pipeline.

Thud.

The heavy, metallic strike rang out sharply through the open field. Listening to the sudden thud, Fukuro stopped in his tracks, adjusted his glasses, and began walking slowly towards the sound.

"Who’s there?"

Even though Fukuro flinched due to the sudden, metallic thud, his feet dragged him forward anyway, stepping toward the strange, crumpled figure sitting in the dirt. Cassius gave him no response. The sorcerer simply held his head in his palms, sitting there in absolute, blinding pain while his chest oozed blood onto the charcoal ground.

"Ezaily... why..." Cassius murmured.

The words were thick and slurred, completely inaudible to Fukuro through the rustle of the overgrown grass. Frowning, Fukuro adjusted his glasses with a quick twitch of his fingers, collecting every ounce of his fragile bravery to face the stranger. Leaving his heavy water-filling drum behind in the dirt, he moved forward with slow, steady steps. He carefully lowered himself down, haunching beside Cassius in the shadow of the dusty pipeline.

"Who are you?" Fukuro said slowly, his eyes scanning the ruin of the man’s clothes.

"Florianth... you needed help, then.. why..." Cassius was still keeping his eyes tightly closed, murmuring slowly into his own chest as the lingering poison burned his veins.

The moment the broken name left the sorcerer’s mouth, Fukuro’s eyes widened behind his lenses.

"Florianthum? Madam Florianthum?..." His breath hitched, his mind racing through the forbidden ledgers of the high tower. "Hey, what are you? Tell me?"

Driven by a sudden, anxious impulse, Fukuro reached out and placed his hands firmly on Cassius’s head. The skin was burning hot, confirming a fierce, unnatural fever.

The uninvited contact acted like an electric shock. Cassius instantly snapped back to his senses. With a violent jerk, he threw his hands upward to break the touch, then slowly raised his head, fixing the human with a lethal glare.

"Leave me!" Cassius snarled.

The sudden force caught Fukuro completely off guard. He lost his balance from the unstable, hunched position and fell flat onto his backside on the charcoal ground.

"Yah!" Fukuro yelled, rubbing his tailbone as he glared back at the terrifying entity. "What are you doing? Hitting the one who’s trying to help you- what an idiot!"

"Help me? Just kill me, what you say... yes! You want my soul?... hahaha," Cassius said, squinting and forcing his eyes to adjust through the blinding, broken pain as he glared at Fukuro.

The hollow laughter scraped out of his throat, completely unhinged. Swinging his hands wildly in the air, his long fingers cut through the empty space between them.

"YOU... yes, you!" he shouted, snapping his wrist forward to point directly at Fukuro’s face.

"Hungry?... Come here, have my blood first, if you need stamina to kill me... COME FAST, YOU BLOODY-LUSTFUL VILUCIOUS’S BASTARD!"

With a frantic, desperate motion, Cassius reached up and violently ripped open the collar of his torn uniform, exposing the pale skin of his neck to the open air. His tone was a volatile, agonizing mix of rage and raw exhaustion; he was completely depressed, entirely broken by the betrayal, and wanted nothing more than to give up on everything right then and there.

Fukuro didn’t run.

Instead, he dropped forward, slowly crawling on his knees across the charcoal dirt to come near him again. His spectacles sat crookedly on his nose as his eyes widened with a quiet, profound concern, looking directly into the sorcerer’s unraveling mind.

"What if I say I am a human?" Fukuro whispered softly.