Within moments, Yuichiro felt his body which had been on the verge of falling being pulled up again. He looked up and saw Kiki grabbing onto Temeraire’s leg.
“Don’t give up! Never let your hand go!” Kiki screamed. Not only her, but several Yellow tribeswomen were also pulling Temeraire’s body up. Temeraire gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Yuichiro’s left wrist with his bloody right hand. Simultaneously, Yuichiro’s body was slowly being pulled upward. As soon as he was lifted, his frail body rolled weakly on the wooden planks. Since he had lost too much blood, darkness shrouded his vision, his own breathing barely audible. Blood that gushed from his body quickly stained the wooden planks black.
“Yuichiro-sama!” Temeraire peered into Yuichiro’s face from above, mourning in grief. “Please hang in there! You mustn’t die!”
Yuichiro almost laughed, considering Temeraire’s words to be extremely reckless. The muscles in his face, however, stiffen and refuse to move in the way he had hoped. A hoarse cough escaped his throat as he heaved his chest painfully. Immediately, reddish-black blood gurgled out of his mouth. It seemed that even his internal organs were damaged. In fact, he had seen many people dying this way on the battlefield.
[I’m not going to last long.] Despite his condition, he found it amusing that he was analyzing his situation calmly.
Temeraire, on the other hand, was distraught, his lips quivering. “No, no, you can’t. Please, you can’t die. I’m begging you. Please don’t die…” His tone was pitiful, unlike himself.
The man, as if praying clutched onto Yuichiro’s hands. When Yuichiro felt Temeraire’s icy hands, his own began to tremble. In the meantime, the Yellow tribeswomen gazed down on Yuichiro in shock. Everyone stood dumbfounded before the dying goddess.
Then came the sound of heavy footsteps. With each stumbling step, Izrael approached Yuichiro. His midsection, which had been gouged by a cannonball, was gushing dark red blood. The dragon eventually collapsed, lying down beside Yuichiro, and asked in a feeble voice.
“Yuichiro… Are you going to die?…”
Ah~ I’m sure I’ll die, he wanted to joke like this. However, Yuichiro’s lips remained frozen. Then, with only his eyes, Yuichiro looked at Izrael who was looking at him with a sorrowful expression.
“I won’t let you die.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
[Is that so? Sorry, but I don’t think I can hang on anymore.] Yuichiro said silently to himself, frustrated at his inability to express himself.
Izrael leaned back and stared into Yuichiro’s eyes. “This might hurt, but you’ll have to bear with it,” he said to Yuichiro, before jutting his chin toward Temeraire. “Give Yuichiro my blood.”
“A dragon’s blood?” Temeraire replied, perplexed at Izrael’s suggestion, palms still resting on Yuichiro’s abdomen.
“That’s right. Hurry up and it’ll be too late.”
At Izrael’s insistence, Temeraire quickly moved. A wooden cup was handed to him by Kiki for him to capture Izrael’s blood as it dripped down. Holding the liquid, which appeared more black than red, close to Yuichiro’s mouth, he then pleaded.
“Yuichiro-sama, please drink this.”
Slowly, blood poured into the gap between Yuichiro’s lips. Although most of it spilled from the edges of his lips, a small amount managed to trickle down his throat. The sticky, coal-tar-like liquid ran down his throat and into his body.
“Temeraire, it’s time to hold him tight.”
At Izrael’s command, Temeraire blinked his eyes for a second, before immediately pressing down on both of Yuichiro’s shoulders from above. Yuichiro could feel his breath becoming fainter and his heartbeat weakening as time passed. However, just as his vision began to darken, a sharp pain pierced his entire body, as if his heart were being skewered.
“Gyaaaaaaaaargh!!!” He wailed agonizingly, as though a stick of dynamite had gone off in his body. The sensation of his heart, lungs, liver, and large intestine exploding one after the other, scattering through his body with a chattering sound. The searing pain accompanied by burning heat was turning the backs of his eyelids bright red.
“Arrggggghhh!!!” He yelled again, unable to express his displeasure with the burning sensation.
Inside him, every single cell was burnt and forced to regenerate itself. Yuichiro felt a creaking sound as his injured tissues began to knit together. His entire body began to scream in agony, to the point where he thought he would be better off dead. As his limbs flailed in a frenzy, Temeraire pressed down on him with all of his strength.
“Yuichiro-sama, please endure it!”
In spite of Temeraire’s pleading tone, Yuichiro felt a surge of rage rising within him. With no warning, he yanked Temeraire’s neck with both arms and bit the man on the shoulder with all his strength.
“Ugh!” A choked voice escaped from Temeraire’s throat. Yuichiro, however, was unfazed and ground his teeth together even more tightly. When Yuichiro’s canine teeth continued to dig into Temeraire’s flesh, he immediately got a taste of blood. Strangely, when he first tasted Temeraire’s blood, he thought it was quite sweet. With each drop of sweetness that touched his tongue, the throbbing in his head subsided.
Apparently, the dragon’s blood he just drank could be neutralized by Temeraire’s blood. At this realization, Yuichiro absentmindedly lapped up Temeraire’s blood. The more he drank, the more his mind relaxed, gaining back his sense of rationality. Yuichiro somehow felt his bones melted off his body instilling languidness into his body which made his mind blank.
“Ha….” Yuichiro exhaled an ecstatic breath, his mouth-stained red. Like an infant nursing from its mother, he kept suckling at Temeraire’s bloody wound.
“Teme—raire… give me… more…,” he stammered in a lisping voice, unable to articulate his words properly.
Temeraire laughed briefly at Yuichiro’s reaction, gazing into his blurry-focused eyes. He then tugged down the collar of his jacket, exposing his shoulders. There, where Yuichiro had just bitten him, were clear reddish-black teeth marks.
“Please indulge yourself as much as you like, until you are satisfied.”
Yuichiro bit the shoulder in front of him the second he was given permission to do so. Without hesitating, he sank his teeth into the flesh next to the tooth marks he had just made. Yuichiro gulped down the blood that was flooding his mouth with enthusiasm while wrapping his arms around Temeraire’s tensing back.
When the blood flowed sluggishly, he would bite at different places one after another. Like a starving dog, he flicked his tongue over the bloody teeth marks, feeling the pain subside as his thirst was finally quenched. His hazy brain quickly came to life, and the scene before him became crystal clear. He blinked slowly a few times before looking up at Temeraire. The man was staring at him, sweat dripping from his brow.
“…Yuichiro-sama, are you alright?”
Yuichiro, for his part, looked at Temeraire, who was questioning him anxiously, as if the man was staring at something strange.
“Teme..raire…”
When Yuichiro muttered his name in a hushed voice, Temeraire smiled in sorrow. It was a gentle expression as if directed at one’s own child. A question suddenly arose within Yuichiro at that moment.
“You… towards me…”
Then, Temeraire’s eyes widened as he heard Yuichiro’s following words.
“Didn’t you say you don’t want to see me?”
Translator’s Notes
This dragon’s blood is an elixir, I guess.
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