Blood Cage and Accomplices: A Collar's Vow, Never to Part Until Death

Chapter 1: The Blood Pact of the Collar

"—Hey, Witch. Slit your throat and die, now."

The circular execution ground was strewn with rusted blades and shattered skulls. The stench of iron rust and dried blood-fat clung to the depths of his nostrils. Crow Valentine forcibly tore his creaking limbs from the bottomless mire of blood that had formed.

Splashes of filth dripped from his disheveled, jet-black hair. Without time to spit out the grit lodged in his throat, the concentrated killing intent in his grey, sanpaku eyes fixed on the silver hair below him.

"Just the fact that you're alive and breathing makes my skin feel like it's rotting off."

The voice he squeezed from his parched throat was low and rough, like a rasp tearing flesh. His bony right hand reached without hesitation for the slender throat of the woman crawling before him. A powerful vise crushing her carotid artery.

"Gh… ah, ah…!"

Beneath skin as pale as porcelain, a rapid pulse hammered. His nails dug into the woman's throat, and blood seeped from tiny breaks in her skin.

*Die. Cursed lineage that turned my kin to ash. Here, with these very fingers, I'll crush you into a mere lump of flesh.*

The instant he tightened his grip, fueled by hatred, a sharp, searing heat, like a flash of light, tore through Crow's own windpipe from within.

"Gah, aahhh!?"

Thud.

His vision violently warped from the shock of choking and vomiting blood. His left arm went limp, along with the silver chain wrapped around it, and thick, dark clots of fresh blood splattered from the corner of Crow's mouth into the muddy water.

"Oh, what a lively greeting, Sir Holy Knight? You should look in a mirror."

Without wiping away the blood spatter on her collarbone, Lilith Carmilla rose. Crimson curses pulsed eerily on her pale skin, and the smile that escaped her cracked lips cast a dark shadow. Through the rents in her Gothic black pearl dress, the frantic heartbeat emanating from her exposed chest pounded directly against Crow's ribcage, as if through invisible nerve lines.

"My blood-wedge is embedded in your heart, you see?"

Behind her cruel mockery, her fingertips twitched almost imperceptibly. Her eyes held not only hatred but also a physiological revulsion at having been touched. Binding their necks was a crude iron collar, emitting a dull, wet gleam.

A horrifying sense of connection, as if their bodies were sewn together by an invisible, potent poison, mechanically synchronizing the pulse of their carotid arteries. A forced existence that churned his stomach.

"Awake, are we, my deeply entangled pair of lovers and haters!"

A high-pitched, frenzied cackle tore through the darkness of the ceiling. Perched lightly on the tip of a massive pendulum blade, a guillotine knife, a jester with the right half of his face covered by a white porcelain mask stood on tiptoe.

"…You bastard. By whose permission did you do this to my neck?"

Crow knelt, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, and glared up at the jester on the ceiling. Deep within his eyes, the boiling flames of vengeance raged.

"The rules are exceedingly simple! If you separate your bodies by more than three meters, the collar's internal explosives will instantly detonate, turning both of you into lovely minced meat!"

The brass mainspring embedded in Georg's back began to reverse, grinding metal with a grating, ear-splitting sound.

"Furthermore, a ten-minute time limit! If you fail to annihilate the hundred corpse-dolls flooding into this hall, a deluge of corrosive acid will rain down from the ceiling, melting you to the bone! Now, mince your beautiful hatred and weave a supreme offering for this stage!"

Clang, crash!

Forty-two iron grates covering the walls simultaneously sprang open, echoing with the high-pitched clang of chains. Emitting the putrid stench of decaying flesh mixed with machine oil, patched-up dolls surged forth from the darkness like a muddy torrent.

"Don't mess with me, you jester bastard! I won't be dragged into your pathetic amusement!"

"Heh heh, isn't this interesting… Crow. If you want to kill me, first embrace me with those filthy hands. If we separate, we'll both be nice little chunks of meat, won't we?"

"Silence, Witch… It's my right to kill you. I won't let you be taken by some cheap theatrical device like this!"

Distorting the burn scar on his cheek into a hideous grimace, Crow swept aside his tattered, jet-black Holy Knight's cloak. Forcibly pushing down the intense revulsion and urge to vomit, he roughly pulled Lilith's slender waist close from behind.

"Gah…! Don't touch me so casually… Get those greasy fingertips off me… I want to kill you so badly my spine tingles!"

"Don't move. If you step on my foot, I'll snap your neck."

Pressed back-to-back. The body heat that transferred was terribly cold, yet the fierce heartbeats, as if trying to burst through their spines, asserted their lives with maddening insistence. The silver chain unleashed from Crow's left arm tore through the air with a sharp howl, pulverizing the skull of the leading doll.

"My blood comes at a high price, Sir Holy Knight!"

Without hesitation, Lilith plunged her sharp nails into her own pale, slender wrist. The gushing blood instantly crystallized by her magic, transforming into a crimson-glowing long spear. *Blood Crystallize*. A flash. The scarlet trajectory swept through the air, severing and impaling the bodies of the surging dolls one after another.

"Hah, hah, what a sharp edge! Shed more blood, Witch! The scent of your blood is driving me mad!"

Wood splinters and chunks of flesh from the corpse-dolls flew wildly, black spray wetting their profiles. Each time their shoulders brushed, a shiver akin to intense pain ran through them. Yet, it was the very depth of that revulsion that pushed the precision of their insane cooperation to its limit.

"Magnificent! That dance of hatred! The sight of you holding hands while cursing each other, truly the pinnacle of tragicomedy!"

"Shut up! Next, I'll slit your throat!"

Crow's silver chain pierced the brow of the last large doll, shattering its core. Wood splinters and flesh scattered.

It was at that moment. Thwack!

With a dull tearing sound of flesh, Lilith's ribcage jolted.

"Ah, guh…!?"

A purplish-black poisoned blade, hidden in the doll's blown-off forearm. It had plunged deep into Lilith's back, just below her shoulder blade.

"Gah, aaaaaahhh!"

The linked collar pulsed with dazzling red light, and a searing heat and paralysis, like a high-voltage current, surged directly into Crow's spine. An agonizing pain, as if his internal organs were being crushed. Their bodies tangled, collapsing into the mire of black blood.

Chapter 2: The Kiss of Poisoned Blood

A mechanical, enclosed waterway, where layers of gears and pistons hummed with a heavy groan. Superheated steam leaked from pipe joints, clouding the narrow space white, and the clinging humidity choked their breath.

"Hey… wake up, Lilith! Don't lose consciousness, if the collar registers you as stopped, I'll be blown to bits along with you!"

Leaning his back against the cold iron wall, Crow gasped for breath, slapping the cheek of the convulsing woman in his arms. The doll's blade had been coated with a necrotic venom that instantly invaded the nerves. Through their shared link, the edges of Crow's own vision began to darken, and the sensation in his limbs rapidly faded.

"Gh… I told you not to touch me… Get those filthy hands… off my skin…!"

A convulsion of rejection to his touch. Lilith's lips had turned purple, and her ruby eyes were losing focus. Yet, she still made the blood-curse marks etched on her exposed thigh writhe, weakly trying to push Crow's chest away.

"Shut up. If we stay like this, we'll both be minced by heart failure. I'm sucking out the poison."

"What… are you mad!? My blood is a vessel of one hundred percent pure curses! If a living human drinks it directly, it'll melt their esophagus right down to their stomach!"

"Since that night, my insides have been scorched by the fires of vengeance. A cup or two of poison water now? Bring it on!"

Merciless fingers roughly tore open the bodice of Lilith's black pearl dress. Revealed were her pale, smooth collarbones and the stab wound, now beginning to blacken with poison.

Crow cast aside all hesitation and roughly pressed his lips against the poisoned wound.

Thump, thump, thump…!

"Stop… get away, Crow! You'll defile me… Your heat, your muddy breath filling me… I feel like I'm going mad!"

Driven by a frenzy of fear and rejection, Lilith's nails dug deep into Crow's back. Crow's throat gave a faint groan at the flesh-gouging pain, but his lips did not leave the wound. Instead, he sucked even harder, drawing blood from her skin as if squeezing it out.

"Bite me, gouge deeper! If you don't dig your nails in with killing intent, my nerves will succumb to the poison's paralysis…! G-guh, aahhh!"

The poisoned blood sucked from the wound was hot and bitter, like nitric acid scorching his tongue. But deep within it lurked a sweet, dense, demonic aroma that violently awakened Crow's senses. A shiver of dread and ecstasy ran down Crow's spine.

Lilith's back arched, her slender neck curving backward towards the ceiling. Her nails, once digging in rejection, had at some point transformed into a feverish embrace, weakly clutching his back.

"Ah…! N-ngh, ah…! No… What's… what's entering me… My blood, in your mouth…!"

Their hearts, transcending the collar's synchronization, began to beat the same frenzied rhythm from the very contact of their skin.

The drawn blood mingled, and remnants of the Witch's memories surged into Crow's mucous membranes like a torrent. Flashes of past shadows.

*…What are these memories?*

The Valentine mansion ablaze. The crimson inferno that young Crow had looked up at. Beyond the sparks of that fire, with puppet strings pierced into her chest, exposed to Georg's mockery, crying out his sister's name as a hostage—it was none other than *this* Witch.

"…You. Weren't you their accomplice?"

Spitting out black blood, Crow stared at Lilith, breathing heavily. The Witch, her lips stained crimson, met his gaze with vacant eyes, a self-deprecating smile etched on her mouth.

"…How pathetic, Sir Holy Knight… I won't make excuses. The fact remains that my blood turned your family to ash… If you pity me… I'll tear out your throat right here."

"…Pity can go to the dogs. I just want to decide who gets to snap the neck of the mastermind cackling while wearing this collar… that's all."

Wiping the poisoned blood from his lips with the back of his hand, Crow stood up. At that instant, the iron plate beneath his feet rang with a deafening tearing sound, warping violently.

CRAAAASH!

The platform crumbled away. In his plummeting vision towards the abyss, a colossal arena teeming with countless blades of judgment awaited, along with the distorted grin of the puppeteer, steel threads entwined around his fingertips.

Chapter 3: The Accomplices' Dance

Floating at the bottom of the void was a circular iron stage, shaped like the pan of a scale. At its four corners, colossal brass syringes, designed to draw the blood of victims, towered, repeating an eerie pulsation.

"Bravo! A splendid sucking out of poison, truly a beautiful entanglement of love and hatred! But this scale is merciless! Unless the mass of one person's life is offered, the exit door will never open!"

Georg's arms writhed madly, and steel wires extended from his ten fingers into the depths of the darkness. What he dragged forth was a colossal, five-meter-tall doll with a massive rotating saw embedded in its chest—the 'Mother of Condemnation'.

"Crow, use me as a stepping stone!"

"Don't order me around! Give all that blood to my chain! I'll make it into a supreme blade!"

Crow unleashed the silver chain on his left arm. Simultaneously, Lilith slashed the palms of both her hands, pouring forth a torrent of high-purity fresh blood onto the chain. *Chains of Blood Condemnation*.

The silver chain absorbed the Witch's cursed, poisoned blood, swelling into a colossal sword of blood-condemnation, glowing with scorching red light.

"Go, my executioner!"

Lilith pushed Crow's back with a surge of blood-power, and Crow, with her waist still embraced in his arms, kicked off the edge of the scale. The crimson demonic sword tore through the void. It met the Mother of Condemnation's massive rotating saw head-on, shattering it.

Clang, CRUNCH!

Sparks scorched the night. Steel buckled, gears exploded. Their breaths were perfectly synchronized, and the collar's agonizing pain was now transformed into a force of acceleration.

"W-why!? Why aren't you killing each other! You're a revenger whose family was slaughtered, and you're a Witch who curses humanity to its core! The script is all wrong!"

"Shut up, you third-rate director! It's my hand that will take her life! I won't let her be a tool in your pathetic script!"

"That's right, you pathetic puppeteer! Only this man has the right to slit my throat! I won't let a vile madman like you defile our hatred!"

Without hesitation, Lilith plunged her fingers deep into her own chest, directly above her heart. Pouring all her magical power, she unleashed the greatest crimson thorns. *Blood Prison*.

Blood thorns, covering the entire stage, instantly entangled Georg's puppet strings, completely crushing any escape route.

"Crow, now! Take his breath, along with my blood!"

"You don't have to tell me… I intended to from the start!"

The blood vessels in all his muscles boiled. Crow transformed himself into a cannonball, bursting through the blood thorns and closing in on Georg.

"H-hee hee!? Stop it, if you collide at that distance, you two will also be caught in the collar's implosion—"

"If we're going to hell, you're going first!"

Crow wrapped the cursed collar's chain, which had bound him and Lilith, multiple times around Georg's slender neck.

"GYAAAAAHHHH!?"

CRACK!

A strangulation with all his physical strength. The white porcelain mask shattered, and Georg's cervical spine snapped with a fatal crunch. The collar's detonator, reaching overload, emitted a flash, and a massive explosion that pulverized the stage along with the scale's pan swallowed the shadows of all three in scorching inferno.

Chapter 4: The Abyss's Vow

The outer edge of the collapsed palace stretched out in white smoke and scorched earth. The cold light of dawn faintly illuminated the grey dust. From a gap in the rubble piled against the cliff, Crow pushed aside heavy debris and rose.

His ribs creaked, and the taste of iron welled up from the back of his throat.

"…Hah, still alive. Stubborn monster."

A few steps away, Lilith was exhaling ragged breaths, her soot-stained silver hair swaying. Her exposed skin, peeking through her torn dress, bore countless abrasions. Yet, her ruby eyes held a vivid spark of life.

"…Hmph, you too. To still be standing after letting so much of my cursed poison flow into your stomach, you've ceased to be human."

With Georg's death, the internal implosion trap had silenced. However, the collars themselves remained. The sturdy silver shackles were still on their necks.

The chain, torn in the middle, clinked coldly at their feet. The physical restriction of distance had already vanished. If they wished to escape, they could turn their backs and leave right now.

Crow stood up, and silently extended his right hand, covered in blood and soot, towards her.

*…What will you do, Witch? Turn your back here? Or…?*

Lilith stared intently at the rough, outstretched palm. Her eyelashes, wet with morning dew, trembled slightly. The woman who once detested the touch of others above all else, who had screamed in frenzy—without hesitation, placed her own blood-stained hand upon his.

The shiver of rejection was nowhere to be found. What passed between their skin was the undeniable pulse of survivors.

"The collar's explosive function is gone. You won't be minced even if you go more than three meters away. If you're going to disappear, now's your chance."

"Disappear? Heh heh… Don't make me laugh, Sir Holy Knight. The Imperial Senate that threw us into this grotesque theater… Until every one of their heads is lined up on a pedestal, I won't allow you to vanish from my sight."

"…What a coincidence. I also have no intention of dying until I've torn out their throats."

Crow tightened his grip on their clasped hands, pulling Lilith's body close. Their gazes met at close range. Behind the hatred and killing intent, a fervent madness of accomplices, never to be encroached upon by others, resided.

"Promise me, Crow. The moment we've slaughtered every last one of them—that you'll let me tear out your heart with my own hands."

"Yes, I promise. In return, keep shedding blood by my side until the very last moment, Lilith."

"Yes, gladly. My beloved executioner."

The morning sun cast their long shadows across the wasteland. Supporting each other's wounded bodies, they walked towards the path of vengeance, beyond the rising white smoke.

Thump… thump…

The silver shackles remained on their necks. Though the physical chain should have been severed, beneath their skin, a single, overlapping heartbeat resonated as if they shared one heart. They had not yet realized that this curse was a bond of souls that would never be broken.