Chapter 108 – A Lottery

The girl was sitting on the floor with Aurora between her legs, hugging her from behind like a big cushion.

Aurora wasn't even struggling anymore.

"You're very tense, Papa."

Matt looked at her from where he was, standing, arms crossed.

"I'm not tense."

"You are." The girl rested her chin on top of Aurora's head. "But don't worry. I didn't touch her breasts or any of the other important parts."

"…"

"So you can still use her without any problem."

Aurora went red all the way to her ears.

"W-What?!" She turned her head back so fast she almost hit the girl's chin. "What exactly do you mean by that?! Use?! Use how?! Explain yourself! Explain yourself right now because that sounds extremely strange and I—!"

The girl moved her fingers.

"No! No, no, no, wait—! Hahaha! Ah! Stop! STOP!"

Matt watched the scene in silence.

He stayed there, still, while Aurora squirmed and kicked and the girl laughed on top of her.

"So then," Matt said at last.

The girl looked up without stopping the tickling.

"Mm?"

"To summarize. My body is now at the peak of its vampiric power. The conditions were met. That's why you were born, and that's why you grew so fast."

"Exactly."

"Fine." Matt uncrossed his arms. "That explains the timing, but it doesn't explain the other thing."

"What other thing?"

"How you learned to walk."

The girl stopped moving her fingers.

Aurora took the chance to breathe.

"Iris took a while to control a physical body," Matt went on. "She fell over. She tripped. Same with Noxx, and Noxx had an even harder time of it. You got up off the floor and kicked a princess two hours into existing. You know who Iris is, you know what Noxx did, you know how this place works."

Matt stared at her.

"Where did you get all of that?"

The girl smiled.

"Because I've existed for a very long time."

"That's impossible."

"Why?"

"Because I separated from Noxx two days ago."

"Uh-huh."

"You didn't exist three days ago."

The girl let go of Aurora for a moment and opened both arms, gesturing at everything around them. The walls, the ceiling, the hallway visible through the open door, the whole house.

"All of this," she said. "Everything around us. What do you think it is?"

Matt didn't answer.

"It's your vampiric power, Papa. Not a part of it. All of it." She lowered her arms. "And not all of it is alive, I'll grant you that. But there's a part that is. A part that's as alive as I am, and that's been watching this whole time."

"…Watching what?"

"You. All of you." The girl shrugged. "You. Iris. Noxx. Everything you do, everything you say. Watching and learning."

Matt frowned.

"That didn't happen with the other two."

"Are you sure?"

"Iris never mentioned it and neither did Noxx."

The girl sat there thinking. She took her time, looking up at the ceiling with her fingers still tangled in Aurora's hair, until she finally tilted her head.

"With Iris it makes sense," the girl said. "She was born first. There was nothing to watch yet. I suppose the power didn't pay it any mind, because we hadn't developed that much yet."

"And Noxx?"

"Ah, Noxx." The girl made a face of distaste. "Noxx was born at the worst possible moment. Your body was empty, Papa. No meat, no blood, nothing. You were starving yourself by choice for years."

Matt said nothing.

"So yes, Noxx was born weak and took forever. But honestly…" The girl raised a finger. "Noxx got lucky."

"Lucky?"

"Enormously lucky. She got to be the dominant consciousness. The one that represents the vampiric power." The girl smiled. "That doesn't happen to just anyone."

"I don't follow."

"Mm."

The girl went back to thinking. And all at once her eyes lit up.

"I know how to explain it!" She lifted Aurora up a little, excited. "When there isn't a representation, being the representation of the power is… it's like a lottery!"

Aurora blinked.

"A lottery?"

"A lottery!"

Matt stood there looking at her.

And then he started laughing.

"So it's technically impossible," Matt said. "If the power itself is alive and draws the next one every time a place opens up, then I'm never going to be able to get rid of the vampiric power. Ever. No matter what I do."

The girl puffed out her cheeks.

"Don't say that."

"It's what you just explained to me."

"But don't say it like that!" She pointed a finger at him. "A good part of your vampiric power is quite fond of you, just so you know!"

Matt raised an eyebrow.

"Why?"

"You honestly don't see it?"

"No."

The girl sighed.

"Your power has been watching you this whole time, Papa. And it ended up fascinated by you." The girl rested her cheek against the top of Aurora's head. "Because you didn't do what everybody else does."

"And what does everybody else do?"

"Fight it. Lock it up. Crush it until it shuts up." The girl smiled. "You fought it too, yes. But then you did something else. You gave it a body. Its own body. And then you did it again."

Matt felt something go cold in his stomach.

"Because of you there are more of us in the world now," the girl went on, delighted. "We exist out there. We walk, we eat, we talk to people. Do you know how strange that is?"

"Your explanation is absurd."

"Excuse me?"

"It's absurd and it makes no sense." Matt ran a hand down his face. "You're talking about vampiric power as if all of it were people with opinions."

"Well… it's complicated to explain." The girl tilted her head. "Actually, you just reminded me of something."

"What?"

"Mama's cells."

Matt looked at her.

"I talked with them quite a lot back in the day," the girl said. "They're… peculiar."

"Peculiar in what sense?"

The girl got up off the floor.

She dragged Aurora along with her, dropped backward onto the bed that was in the room and arranged Aurora on top of her stomach, starting to stroke her hair as if she were a cat.

"I'm a little tired."

"I asked you something."

"I did a lot of things today, Papa." The girl yawned. "I fought a princess, I brought out Clapton… I want a reward."

"You came out on your own."

"Mm."

"You took my body without permission and used a power that, if anybody else had seen it, would have landed us in serious trouble."

"Papa is so paranoid."

"Let go of Aurora."

"Aw, but she's comfortable."

"I AM NOT COMFORTABLE!"

"Let go of her."

The girl complained, made a long noise of irritation and then let her go.

Aurora rolled off to one side and lay there, breathing like she'd just run ten kilometers.

Matt watched her.

That was the part that still didn't add up for him.

That girl had more initiative than Iris and Noxx put together. She moved on her own, made decisions on her own, got into fights on her own. And even so, every time he gave her a direct order, she followed it.

Then the girl sat up on the bed and opened both arms toward him.

Matt looked at her without moving.

"What do you want?"

"A hug."

"No."

"If you want me to keep telling you what I've been doing all this time inside you," she said, with an enormous smile, "you have to pay me."