Dawn Of Twilight

As Tobi predicted, his theory was a success.

Treating Bella's condition required two to three sections per week minimum, each one lasting a period of four hours. He needed two hours for the treatment itself, while the remaining time was necessary for him to bathe and recover his vigor.

Fuelling Mana Bella's with his own, before manipulating it simultaneously. And with the blood-washtub took a lot of toll on him each time, the good news was that with so much practice he felt less pained with his wrist cutting, and his healing factor getting accustomed to the wounds. Giving him precise time on how fast he could heal any wound.

He had also been watching out, for an unfortunate and sudden blood hunger, which might make him go on a killing spree like in the movies. But that again made him sighed in relief, at least for now he wasn't going to be needing blood not any time soon.

Every treatment became easier than the previous one, and her health was quickly improving. Bella was now able to walk properly, even helping out with house chores.

She could even afford to take long walks outside when the sunny weather was good.

Christopher and Tobi also seemed to be bonding well, spending much more time while creating a father-son bonding. He had also started imparting his lessons on how to operate a farm and carpentry, even though Tobi was still very young his skinning and butchering skills were awe-inspiring, Christopher had no qualms trusting Tobi about making him a personal knife for butchering.

Things began to be weird for Tobi, every time he treated Bella, he would notice the strange atmosphere. Both his mother and oldest sister had an odd look in their eyes.

Often, they would open their mouth, only to close them immediately giving him the silent treatment for the whole day. Tobi couldn't figure out the reason for their weird behavior, so he started spun high with various thoughts.

'Have they started noticing that the red portions are actually my blood? Just maybe they have their guess but don't want to tell me?'He thought.

Tobi grew paranoia soon enough and his anxiety wouldn't give him even a second of rest, his mind was always on one thought or the other. He also heard them sighing quite often. Which made him realized something was definitely off about their behavior.

The confrontation took place in their parent's room, where they all gathered for Bella's treatment.

"Tobi, did you notice that your sister has changed so much, in a short time?" Christy asked pouting.

"Yes, I did mother. Sis Bella is feeling much better and healthy."

"Of course child. But don't you notice anything here and there?" She waved her hand, going from Bella's head to toes.

"She's now taller?"

"And what else?" She prompted.

"Her health is getting better and better. And not bad to worse." For the first time in all his lives, Tobi had the opportunity to see with his own eyes a synchronized facepalm outside internet meme gifs. His father was fuming by the side.

"Really? Don't you notice that her hair had become soft and silky? That it never tangles nor gets splits ends?" 

Tobi had never noticed all this, rather he didn't pay attention to it. Bella had light-shaded black hair, but ever since her treatment began, its changes had become more like those expensive model human hairs, shown on tv.

"Apart from that, don't you even notice how her skin has become rosier while becoming delicate and smooth. With no taint or blemishes to it?

"Even more slender than her peers? If not for the fact that she doesn't play outside, I would have suspected otherwise."

Tobi kept scratching his head. He knew nothing about being a girl. Also, what they seemed to be described must be the side effects of her beginning to turn into a halfling or maybe even a vampire!

This was one of the things he feared the most would happen, but still, he wasn't sure if he was correct and he had no way to test this theory.

"Why is that a problem mother? Aren't those all good things?" Tobi said not trying to raise any suspicion.

"They are envious of those things, idiot! They just want you to do the same for them." Bella chimed in.

Tobi was flabbergasted by such a demand, not that he couldn't do it for them, but if he did is household would housing a bunch of vampires! 

The thought of that made him feel a sense of pity for the villagers.

"Tobi, dear, being attractive for a girl is a pretty big deal. For your sisters, it could mean having the possibility of choosing between a well-to-do husband in the future. It can affect their entire life and happiness as a growing woman."

Tobi was rather flustered, he had never really interacted with a woman in his previous life, except his mother and siblings. So he knew nothing about how an average woman's beauty issue works.

"While for your poor old mother, it means that she can finally make all those pompous, high and mighty neighbors of hers, who keep bragging about their wealth, with all their beauty portions and looking down on me, killing themselves with envy."

That sounded right and wrong to Tobi's ears. Right because he had felt a sense of guilt over his special treatment to only his sister. Wrong because one misstep, could turn them all into vampires. And that wouldn't be a good thing concerning their current situation, those people might exterminate his whole family when they arrived, so he might as well be careful with what he does.

With a sigh, he fell prey to his family pleas. Again he had to spend a few days calculating how much of it, was okay or might be too much.

He had to spend at least one afternoon every week for his mother and big sister's treatments, dumbing down the reason for once per week to be lack of portions.

With all that practice his body has undergone great improvement, with qualitative changes to his Mana core and recovering speed.

Right before he knew it, his father soon joins the beauty frenzy. With the weather improving, the neighboring families even if wary would meet often. More often trading transactions would be made within the village, so it is inevitable to avoid one another.

And that was driving Christopher nuts.

"Son, you have to help me!" His plea was desperate.

"Your mother looks ten years younger than me, and I am starting to look more like her grandfather instead of her husband. People keep murmuring about how she was unfortunate to marry me.

"Please can you do your thingy on me too?"

"Fine, but only with the usual conditions, from everyone. Nobody must ever know about it except for you and me, not even John."

Christopher nodded attentively, as he accepted.

A few days later, with his usual routine of selling vegetables, Tobi had headed to Gloria's house, due to his family treatment he had skipped a lot of sales.

Before selling his safe stalks of veggies, he wanted to acquire the precise amount she wanted for the evening.

With the dawn light sprinkling its hue around him, like a sunflower. The wind slightly shifted the grain of sand to its right.

Tobi arrived at his destination, with a couple of knocks on the door he waited outside as usual for her response. That day he decided to earn a couple of coins for his savings.

With the help of Christopher his father, he had earlier made for him a wooden box, with a vertical hole where he kept his savings.

As soon as he knocked, the expected response was none and void, as there seemed to be nobody around. Going through the back of her house, if maybe he could see her. A dark streak hit his forehead.

Tobi's eyes went blurry for a moment before he felt someone pulled him to the side by the collar, making him fall to the ground sending a few kicks to his ċhėst.

"Look who's here, the little demon!" A voice of a male between eight and nine years said.

Six boys quickly surrounded Tobi, kicking him while he was still lying down.

"You little piece of sh*t, John already told us you would be coming and today we will help the Chief Priest, purge such an abomination!"

"Yeah!" Another enraged voice yelled. "Who knows what harm and evil, you will bring upon our village!"

"May the gods of our land, bless our good deeds!"

Despite how Tobi had curled up, desperately trying to shield his head and crotch, another kick grazed past his face. Making one of his baby teeth fall out.

"Let's see how he gouges our souls out, without his demonic ways!" A boy who had earlier kicked had moved forward with his wooden stick, with enough force he struck at Tobi's waist.

By coming that close, the boys were forced to stop kicking him, and a moment was all that Tobi needed to get back up.

With his right hand, he held one of the wooden sticks with enough strength to dismantle its structure.

Unfortunately, while he was distracted with a fight, another, then the second set of the wooden stick had hit him right behind his head and body, making him collapse on the ground again.

"You are a mumu man, you think you wise!"

"How dare you touch us! I get it now, you want to initiate us into your demonic coven!"

The beating resumed but more heavily, this time with no hint of mercy or any attempt to hold back. Tobi had blood all over his mouth, while his baby teeth were scattered out.

Earlier he had not excepted to be attacked all of a sudden, so he had his guard down, not even in his wildest dreams did he ever thought that he would be attacked? 

Surely they would but at least, he didn't expect it to be now of all sudden.

The six had him surrounded from all corners, Tobi tried multiple times to grab hold of their legs only to get a broken hand, every single time resulted in one hit to the other.

His healing property was the only thing keeping him, from losing consciousness. If it were any other kid in his position, they would have long died from a single hit in the head.

Lots of feelings were raging through his mind, while his body was burning with excruciating pain. The spite for those damn villagers, And why he couldn't live a normal life like other kids were seething through him, and the rage of being ȧssaulted by boys who were twice his age and size.

But most of all, he felt really helpless and afraid, he didn't know how long this was going to last, but he knew his healing factor might not really last that long. Because he could feel his body becoming weak by the second.

While his conscience was slowly starting to fade away, Tobi couldn't help cursing himself for his inability to kill them.

It wasn't that he couldn't really fight back, but him fighting back would only result in a straight-up, killing. He didn't want his family to be killed just because of him, the feeling of helplessness was overwhelming him, he could only endure and think of something else excluding killing or giving them a fatal wound.

Suddenly, something strange occurred with much more excruciating pain and quickly spread to his head that soon blurred his vision. Accompanied by head-spinning nausea-like he had never experienced before.

'What happening to me? Am I losing too much blood?' He thought. 'This can't be a bottleneck right?'

Soon he started gasping for air, also the pain he was feeling began to lessen. He became incapable of moving his body or writhe in his previous stupor.

'No! I can't die! I don't want to die again. Not after enduring so much!' He thought in reverie.

Finally, his watery vision becoming blank, as well as his body becoming numb then stiff. 

The boys stopped for a moment unsure of what to do next, "Is he playing dead?" One of the boys asked with a worried tone.

"No the little demon, shouldn't be dead at least not yet," A brown hair boy said, as he sent a kick toward Tobi's head, but Tobi's body was rather stiff.

"I think he's dead? Did we really just kill a child?" One of the boys who spoke earlier had tears brimming at the corner of his eyes coupled with his voice trembling, he didn't really plan to kill him. At least a few lessons to just vent his anger that all, He had not expected things to escalate to such an extent.

"Stop panicking Razz! So what if he's dead? We should be rejoicing that we have taken care of the demonic child for once!

"We have actually done a heroic job for our village and the Holy Shrine.

Do you know what harm he would have caused our family or village?" The brown hair boy said, with a stern and righteousness tone to his voice.