Call of the Night (2022)

[よふかしのうた]

Volume 13

Author/Artist: Kotoyama
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
In a surge of power, Kou destroys Nazuna's apartment building in his fight with the vampire assassin.

Story/Characters:
We open with sweater babe getting beaten by Kou and, definitely to my surprise, she breaks down in tears of frustration over being beaten. Azami shows up to get both of them out before the building collapses and the gang moves to Uguisu's hotel room to sort things out. Sweater babe's name is Susuki and now that she's been beaten, she's incredibly docile and explains what she was doing. Kiku is a problem and Susuki was after Uguisu because she thought it would be the easiest way to pick up Kiku's trail. Kou rather harshly warns Susuki not to try laying a hand on the people close to him again (a sign that his powers are having an effect on his personality). Also, because Kou wants to reconcile with Mahiru, he tells Susuki not to kill Kiku before then. Azami also tells her not to kill Kiku, but Susuki isn't interested in listening to what someone she's beaten has to say. She then glomps onto Kou's arm and says she'll obey him. Of course that's when Nazuna straggles in. As you can imagine, she's not to happy to see the woman who Team Rocketed her clinging to her boy. Susuki then explains her deal. Her life has been dedicated to the pursuit of strength, so obviously she would devote herself to someone stronger than her. (I do love how she starts to call Kou "Kou-pippi" and later just "Pippi".) A sign of her dedication, the moment Uguisu points out that Akira is one of Kou's friends, Susuki immediately pledges her life to Akira's defense. Susuki also vows to make Kou into a fine vampire. Nazuna doesn't take kindly to this, but Susuki doesn't mean that she'll sire Kou but rather that she'll train him after he's fully turned. Azami wants in on this action and Susuki readily accepts as she believes everyone should strive to be stronger. She further explains that she couldn't sire Kou even if she wanted to as she's now in love with him. The way it works is that a vampire makes a human fall in love with them to sire them. If a vampire falls in love with a human and then sucks their blood, that's against the rules and none of the vampires present know what would happen, but Susuki figures the human would die.

We cut to Mahiru with Kiku and she has him fully under her spell. We cut to them because Uguisu and Azami both figure that if Susuki's theory is true, then Mahiru is in danger because the way Kiku has attached herself to him is unlike any of her previous offspring candidates, that she might even be using Mahiru as a way to prove to herself that she's actually capable of love. Even if that's not the case, there's the chance Mahiru could end up like Uguisu's dad, which isn't much better. Kiku takes Mahiru to his home so she can pay her regards to Mahiru's mom, subject her to a little psychological torment for her neglect of Kiku's boytoy, and then offer to take Mahiru off her hands. While this is going on, Kou goes home to change and the rest of the gang (minus Akira, who goes to school) tag along. We first have everyone searching for his porn stash (which he doesn't have, as Nazuna found out when she visited) and then Nazuna and Susuki get to borrow some of his clothes (which is particularly important for Susuki as she's had this big gaping hole in the front of her sweater all this time). They then do a bit of a tactical meeting. Kou wants to avoid killing Kiku if possible and Azami says that if worse comes to worst, he would prefer to take the responsibility of dealing with his sire (would we say "dam" in the case of a vampiress?) upon himself. Then Azami learns via his information network that Kiku has been spotted. They only have an hour until dawn, so they've got to make it snappy. Back to Mahiru, he tells off his mom and gives himself wholly to Kiku, much to her delight. This is what finally snaps his mom out of her funk, but it's too late. While Kou heads to Mahiru's apartment and meets his distraught mother, Nazuna goes on ahead and gets a jump on Kiku. Kiku wants Mahiru out of Nazuna's reach and so she has him use her secret weapon: Nazuna's weakness.

A weakened Nazuna is carried off to a storage unit. Nazuna is her usual impertinent self, but that doesn't go over so well with a barely restrained psycho with Nazuna's weakness in hand. Nazuna's very much in danger of being killed and her bravado melts away with her crying for Kou to save her... and he does, kicking in the door of storage unit (which Kiku was quite confident would not be found and if it was, that it couldn't be breached). She isn't interested in an argument with him and phases through him to escape, only Kou gives chase and when he lays hands on her, she isn't able to phase to escape... so she just kicks him in the gut to punt him to the ground. This just makes him angrier and he goes right back after her. As for Kiku, she's becoming more unhinged, exulting in her victory of stripping Mahiru away from everyone that cares about him so that she is all he has. She runs off again, telling Kou not to come after her, but he's not going for it. Meanwhile, Susuki catches up to Nazuna and explains to her how Kou was able to cancel out Kiku's phasing. Basically, a vampire phases by reversing their body's polarity, so if another vampire reverses their polarity to match, the phase won't work. Kiku is getting increasingly annoyed with Kou's persistence, so she sets up a little punishment for him by phasing into an occupied apartment building for a game of tag. This carries the bad of seeing vampires in action and the worse of potentially getting innocent civilians injured or killed in the midst of this little game. Once they pop outside the apartment, Azami shows up to intervene, pleading with Kiku to stop. She says she will in that flippant way that makes you want to dig into the fine print. Ultimately, her game had two goals: to torment Kou and to buy time. Buy time for what, you ask? Why, cock-a-doodle-doo, sunrise. I love that she had casually picked up an umbrella while phasing through rooms and now uses it to shield herself from the rising sun. Azami and Susuki have to retreat, but Kou continues to go after her and demands she hand over Nazuna's weakness. She does (but we don't know if the weakness is still in the box or if it's the only one) and then the real last boss of the series appears. It's Kou's mom and she wants to know what he's doing out of school. Oopsie.

Art:
We get some really great shots in this volume. From Kou looking intimidating as his power ramp up to Kiku becoming increasingly deranged, good stuff all. The phasing game of tag is really neat and I really love the big panels of Kiku getting flattened by the door of the storage unit and her triumphantly unfurling her umbrella when her plan goes exactly as planned.

Other:
We get an afterword from Kotoyama with a little illustration of Kiku.

Conclusion:
The confrontation with Kiku is a big payoff for what we've been building up to, but there are also a lot of other smaller nice bits like Susuki going full dere for Kou and such. Kiku is proving to be a cunning adversary and I look forward to seeing Round Two, to say nothing of seeing how things develop with Mahiru now that he's almost fully in Kiku's thrall. Fans of this series have a lot to love here and this deserves a place in your collection.

Rating:
Own It