The Fallen Vampire-Chapter 251 - Chapitre : Returning Home

"Stay still, Daddy. You'll wuin my masterpiece."

"Masterpiece, sweetheart."

"Yeah, that!"

Taira continued his ever-painful job of sitting still with his eyes closed.

His head rested atop Aveena's thighs as Yukiko scrambled across his chest.

According to Yuki, her father's tattoos were too lacking in color.

So, instead of working on the coloring book she'd initially brought for the long trip, she had decided that her crayons were in need of a more worthy canvas.

Was there a better one than her one-of-a-kind father?

Taira was happy to encourage her artistic expression, but he was learning very quickly that red crayons didn't exactly feel great on the skin.

"Done!"

Taira cracked open an eye and found Yukiko hovering above him. The proud look on her face was practically genetic.

"Well, let's see what you've done..." Taira sat up and walked towards the mirror in their cabin.

He stared at his shirtless physique and noted the hastily drawn spider lilies adorning his tattoos.

"Well??" Yukiko asked with extra big eyes.

"I look like a yakuza." Taira noted.

"What a yakuza??" Yukiko tilted her head.

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"It's one of those things from your white-haired mommy's old world." Aveena answered. "A criminal organization who get tattoos fairly similar to how your father looks now."

"Ohhhh..!" Yukiko nodded slowly.

She turned back to her father with big eyes. "So, do you like it?"

Taira stared at his daughter for a couple of seconds while deciding what to say.

Eventually, he parted his lips to say something that Aveena couldn't believe.

"I could've done better."

"Uwah!?"

Taira's lips showed a faint smirk. "I could. Shall I show you my sketchbook?"

Aveena hurled a pillow at her husband. "You know full well you can't show her that!"

Taira caught the pillow while giving his wife a dry look. "I do have more than that one, you know?"

Aveena didn't know. She didn't have a single clue.

Yukiko stared at her father with a sort of crestfallen look.

"You don't like it..?"

"I didn't say that." Taira patted her on her head. "I like them because you took the time to draw them, but from a purely artistic standpoint, I know I could've done better."

Yukiko's cheeks puffed out. "Nuh-uh!"

"Could too."

"Nuh-Uh!"

Taira snickered as he lifted the young girl up on his shoulder. "If you want to learn how to draw, I will teach you. Maybe I'll even make you better than me."

Yukiko seemed intrigued by that vision. Just the thought of drawing a masterpiece that made her father fall on his butt was enticing enough on it's own.

She clenched her fists together and nodded resolutely. "Okay...I'm going to be a super good drawer!"

"Two artists in the family?" Aveena hummed. "How will the rest of us ever survive all of the painful angst?"

Taira seemed vaguely offended as he looked at her. "...I'm not angsty."

"Of course you aren't, my broody darling."

"...I don't brood."

"Of course you don't, honey." Aveena blew him a kiss.

Taira was beginning to form a vague suspicion that his wife was purposely trying to get a rise out of him.

He was vaguely aware of the fact that it was actually working on him.

*Knock, knock, knock!*

Taira placed Yukiko down on the ground so that she could run to answer the door.

When she threw it open, she found the only other person who was on board.

"Hello, Shakti!"

"Good day, Princess. I was just coming to inform you that we seem to have arrived."

"Only her?" Aveena asked from the bed.

Warmth ran through Shakti's cheeks as she briefly locked eyes with Aveena and Taira.

She didn't know what she thought this trip would be like, but she would admit to being slightly surprised by the fact that she got to sleep alone last night.

Now, as she looked at these two, she was wondering if maybe they had left her alone to get into her head and leave her feeling even more conscious of them.

It was working.

"Shall we get going?"

Taira pulled on his gi jacket while Aveena slipped on her robe.

Yukiko found her shoes in the corner of the room and, after mistakenly putting them on the wrong feet and correcting herself, she placed her shoes on the right feet.

Finally, the three of them followed Shakti outside and into the daylight.

The beautiful, blue sky overhead was sparsely dotted with white, fluffy clouds. A slight chill was carried by the wind, which was a nice change from the uncomfortable summer heat.

Taira walked over to the edge of the ship and stared overboard.

Hundreds of feet below them, a familiar collapsed structure was nestled within an overcrowded forest. But unlike the last time Taira was here, the place was significantly less crowded.

"Is this daddy's old home?" Yukiko asked from atop her father's shoulders.

"That it is..." Taira said, unintentionally brooding.

Avaeena took his hand without saying anything.

He offered his wife a small, quaint smile designed to reassure her that he was fine.

It was hard to tell whether she actually believed it or not.

"Let's head down."

He wrapped his arm around Aveena's waist and made sure Yukiko was secure atop his shoulders.

Shakti was almost ready to leap over the balcony when he suddenly held his hand out for her instead.

She didn't even feel herself take it. It was by far her most mortifying experience of the last 24 hours.

However, her chances to feel embarrassed were cut short when Taira suddenly jumped overboard with all of them in tow.

Yukiko's excited screams were nearly as loud as the wind whistling through Shakti's ears. If she were not still painfully aware of whose hand she was holding onto, then she might very well have been lulled into smiling by the sound.

Taira controlled the wind as they fell so that their descent was not quite as volatile as it should have been from a height like this.

The trio landed on the roof of the decrepit castle. Yukiko's hair was adorably strewn across her face.

"That was so fun!"

Aveena chuckled as she lifted her child off of her husband. "I'm glad you had fun, but you remember the deal, right? You have to be sure to stick close to Shakti now so that she can keep you safe."

"Okay!"

Shakti hurriedly released Taira's hand.

Yukiko rushed to climb up the gentle giant's shoulders and she hurriedly stuck her face inside her afro.

"So floofy..." She sighed contentedly.

At this, Shakti did crack a very small robotic smile.

With their child situated, Aveena turned back to her husband.

"Did you notice?" Was all she asked.

Taira nodded his gaze towards the far east side of the castle.

There, his senses were telling him that there were a small collection of individuals there. Two cultivators at the beast realm and three mages of the three-star realm.

Their weakness gave Taira the assumption that they were probably just here treasure hunting, or maybe even just exploring.

"Should we do something about them?" Aveena asked.

Taira considered it, but eventually just shook his head.

"We can leave them be for now. They can't get to where we're going anyway."

Taira held out his hand and their boat dropped into his palm in it's miniature size. With their transportation secure, Taira started leading the girls towards the very rear of the castle.

Walking along the roof, there were numerous holes in the ceiling that allowed one to peer down into the interior.

Shakti and Yukiko alike were both looking quite hard. Their minds were desperate to put together a more vivid image of what exactly it might've been like in it's glory days.

Taira leaped off the roof when they finally reached the very rear of the castle.

Aveena and Shakti both followed him. There, they landed in front of what appeared to be an old, broken-down greenhouse.

The glass windows had long been broken in and smashed. The plants still here were either already dead or terribly overgrown.

Shakti recognized the coloration on some of the plants from her time in the secret realm. Aveena knew them from one of Vermeil's study books.

"So much poison here..." Aveena muttered as she looked around. "This wouldn't happen to be my deceased mother-in-law's garden, would it?"

A bitter smirk formed on Taira's lips. He was better acquainted with this lace than his own nursery. "I never thought that I would ever be back here... Make sure not to touch anything, Yuki."

The small girl nodded. "Okay..."

Taira ripped the remains of the greenhouse door off of it's hinges.

Tossing it to the side, he wandered in to the infamous black garden while trying to keep any thorns or venomous petals away.

His goal was to keep this place looking as untouched as possible. This way if more scavengers turned up, they would find little reason to investigate this place further.

The greenhouse wasn't just big. It was enormous.

It was even bigger than most mansions you could find back in Ferran.

Aveena counted at least thirty-five different strains of toxic plants before she gave up. Most of them had grown beyond the confines of their pots and were rooted into the floor.

Some even appeared to be hybrid variants of somekind... Aveena thought for sure that this was the kind of place that Vermeil might've been very interested in.

Finally, the group reached the center of the garden where a large fountain stood.

In the middle of the fountain was the sculpture of a beautiful woman holding a rose.

The water inside the fountain had long been turned murky, and dark.

Even still, Taira didn't hesitate to roll up his sleeve and plunge his hand inside.

He felt around the bottom of the basin for a particular stone tile.

*Ker-Chunk!*

The statue suddenly rumbled.

The pedestal that replica dhalia sat upon suddenly slid backward, allowing the water to drain out into whatever opening was suddenly available.

When the water was fully drained, their eyes finally settled on a staircase of moss-slicked steps that looked to lead to an unfathomable depth...