The Best Way to Learn the Truth Is...

"What... what are you talking about?"

Hearing Shitō's words, Rea looked completely baffled, while everyone else stared at him in surprise.

"It's very simple..."

Looking at Rea before him, Shitō smiled and held out a hand to her.

"You are one of us, understand? Miss, you died once and then came back to life. And this... is God's Gift to us!!"

As he spoke, Shitō raised both hands high.

"We are the chosen ones!"

"Th-this... but I..."

Faced with the nearly crazed Shitō, Rea had no idea what to say. Shitō, however, seemed not to care about her reaction and continued speaking.

"You don't understand? I can tell you the truth about all this. You have no idea what kind of beings we are!"

At that, Shitō closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Then, like a politician delivering a speech from the podium, he began speaking with impassioned enthusiasm.

"Once, people like us existed on Earth. We looked no different from ordinary people, and we too believed we were merely ordinary people. But for all sorts of reasons, before we could live out our natural lives, we died in accidents... Just when we thought we would fall into hell, we discovered that we had come back to life!"

"...Huh?"

"That's right, truly resurrected! We lost our weaknesses. We no longer felt pain. We escaped death. We would live forever in this world!"

As he spoke, Shitō's voice grew increasingly impassioned, then increasingly furious.

"Yet the ignorant humans of that time feared us. They called us the walking dead, immortal monsters, Vampires... They pinned every sin they had committed upon us immortals, gave us all sorts of names, and claimed we were the source of evil, monsters of darkness. But in truth, we were nothing more than ordinary people