A/N: Hey guys! This is one of my first knk fics and I hope you like it! I've been considering turning this into a full-length story eventually, and you should let me know if you'd be interested in that! Thanks for reading!

It had started out as an effort to protect her. His breath scraping against his throat, already scratched from screaming her name, was labored and panicked as he tossed himself between the sharp tentacles that reached for her trembling frame, already weakened by the anemia she seemed perpetually cursed with. He didn't think about it. Didn't have to. He knew he wouldn't die, but she could and he was not going to take any chances.

The fleshy tentacles penetrated him, tearing through arteries and muscle, stabbing through his heaving lungs, shattering his pumping heart into pieces inside his chest. Her scream rattled the air, desperate and terrified and it was his name that came from her lips not the title she used to address him.

A flash of red sliced through the air before him and then the tentacles were gone and the ground was hard beneath his back. He felt cold, aching, empty, though pleased that he'd made it in time. She would not be able to recover from such an attack. Through the agony of a body that repaired to bring itself back from the dead, he could feel his consciousness slipping, punctuated by her yells of fury, the wails of pain and the squelching of something sharp violently piercing something very soft.

When he woke again sometime later, the air was very still, a hard weight on his chest. This all felt strangely familiar and dread dropped into his stomach as he pushed himself up. His eyes - sharp eyes, youmu eyes - first registered the blood draped over him like a blanket before he turned his gaze down to the small girl in his lap, her pale hair crusted with crimson, her cardigan soaked and torn down the back. A thrill of horror coursed through him as he took in the gouges in her back, the tattered remains of her sweater and her uniform.

The realization struck him like a bolt of lightning and his voice cracked as he called out to her tiny frame, unable to see any of the damage to his surroundings past the broken girl in his lap.

"Kuriyama-san!" he yelled, his hand soft against her pale cheek, raw horror grating his throat. "Kuriyama-san! Wake up! Kuriyama-san!"

And strangely enough, he could feel himself slipping, as if the inhuman part of him was clawing at the chance to emerge again. With clumsy hands, still saying her name over and over, repeating the word as if it were the only thing in the world, he pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and dialed the number of the only person he knew could help.

"Ayaka-san," he cried out when she answered, his voice rough and afraid. "K-Kuriyama-san is unconscious and she won't wake up." His voice held a slight tremor. "There's so much blood."

Her voice was calm as ever, he supposed, in an effort to soothe him, but he was inconsolable. "Bring her to the hospital; I'll alert our doctors and let them know she'll be coming in." She paused, hearing his labored breaths on the other end of the line, how he was shifting to gather he unconscious girl in his arms. "It'll be okay, Akihito-kun."

Mitsuki Nase was sitting in the waiting room when he emerged to wait out the time Mirai would be in surgery with the spirit world doctors who were well aware of her dangerous blood. He didn't even know the extent of the damage; all he knew was that it was his fault she was clinging to her life by mere fingers. And to think that jumping in front of that youmu had been to protect her.

Akihito glanced once at Mitsuki, knowing why she was there and wishing that he didn't have to think about this right now. Every part of him ached for the entire day to be erased and he didn't think it was possible to hate himself even more for his weakness, but he did. Oh, how he did.

"What happened?" Mitsuki asked quietly, almost kindly, nothing like her usual demeanor. He paced back and forth in front of her, pulling at his unruly hair, tugging at his clothes, stained with blood.

His face became hard and he looked over to glare at her, pausing mid-step. "You know what happened."

She stared him down. "I need the details."

He was instantly bitter. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Gotta keep every single one of my accidents on file. Heaven forbid you forget to write one little mark down in a report!"

"We need to call the Cleaners for any damage you may have caused," she replied flatly. "I'm sure you don't need to be reminded that every time you transform, it becomes harder and harder to bring you back."

He flinched and a flicker of immeasurable pain twisted his face. "We were in the mountains," he relented, agony coloring his voice. "A couple miles from town in one of the valleys. My destruction was confined to that area, so no one else got hurt."

"Why were you out so far?"

His hands were still crusted with blood as he cradled his face. "Kuriya. . .she was low on money. None of her other jobs paid well, so she was low on money for rent and groceries. She decided to go after the youmu that possesses the lake outside of town and I couldn't let her go after that thing alone. . ."

Mitsuki fell quiet and for that he was grateful. There was no changing the past but he thought that it wasn't fair. No matter what he did, no matter how hard he tried to be anything else, he was a monster. He couldn't even protect someone he cared about for deeply without turning around and hurting them almost to the point of being beyond repair. What good was his immortality if he couldn't even use it without putting people in danger? How many more people would he hurt before the Nase family finally destroyed his existence?

It felt like hours dragged by on bricks. Mitsuki sat in her chair, silent. He only regarded her presence when his frayed brain wondered why she was sticking around when she had information to deliver back to her parents, but then he'd remember what information she had and then Mirai Kuriyama would be at the forefront of his thoughts again. He wasn't sure what he'd do if she wasn't okay. If it was because of him that she wasn't okay.

After an eternity, one of the doctors approached, eyes on Akihito with an expression that made him hopeful.

"You are the one that brought in Mirai Kuriyama, yes?" she said soothingly as she came to a stop before him. A nice smile smoothed across her face.

"Is she okay?" Akihito asked hoarsely.

"Well, she's banged up pretty good. A couple of fractured ribs, a concussion, and a couple of deep gouges on her back. The cuts missed important arteries, though. We stitched her up and gave her some medicine for the pain, so she's sedated right now, but she's going to recover nicely."

He felt sick to his stomach. "Can I. . .can I go see her?"

The doctor frowned, her expression regretful. "I'm afraid only family - "

"Kuriyama-san is an orphan," Mitsuki explained as she rose and came to Akihito's side. "He's the only one who has come for her. It'd be wise if you didn't keep them apart."

"I see, Nase-san," the doctor murmured, inclining her head toward the dark haired girl, then turned toward Akihito. "Very well. Follow me."

Kuriyama-san had always looked small swallowed up by her pink cardigan but now. . .now she looked frail too. The doctors had left him alone in the room with her, her heart monitor beeping regularly to assure him that she was still there, no matter how pale and broken she appeared in the hospital bed.

He held her hand, both of his palms encasing her as if clinging to her would keep her there, stable. Once she woke up he knew that there was a chance she'd be afraid of him, maybe even disgusted by him, and while he wouldn't blame her, it would hurt any less. He'd let her stab him a thousand times over if that's what it took. The relief that she would heal was palpable, he could taste it on his tongue, feel it in the tips of his fingers as he cradled her hand.

Time passed and he sat there. Even when the nurses came in to check on things, they offered him a smile and asked if they could get anything for him. He wasn't hungry, didn't know if he'd ever feel hungry again, and she he shook his head no and heard them leave. Eventually, his eyes began to grow heavy, and he twisted and re positioned himself until he was facing her bed in the chair, his head resting on the mattress, her hand trapped beneath his.

It must have been hours before he became aware again, called into consciousness by the idle fingers sweeping through his tousled hair. He remained immobile even as his eyes blinked open, surprised, almost pained, to hear how gentle and unabashed she sounded as she hummed under her breath. As if this was a normal morning and she wasn't lying in a hospital bed. As if he hadn't almost killed her less than a day ago.

He stirred and her fingers stilled before slowly pulling away. "Senpai?" she whispered.

Akihito sat up and stared at her, his face twisted into all the pain and self-loathing he held. Her glasses were set on her bedside table, so her honey-colored eyes were wide and unbearably tender, if a little hazy from the medicine. A bandage wrapped fully around her head, a dark, angry bruise poking out from behind it and suddenly his eyes became misty. "I'm sorry."

Her tears were immediate. She always did have a tendency to cry over him. "What are you sorry for? I'm the one who wasn't strong enough, Senpai! I'm sorry I couldn't protect you!" She kept her face turned towards him, lip trembling as the tears slid down her cheeks and dropped onto the off-white hospital gown she wore, as if she wasn't crying, as if trying to be strong would somehow make him think that the blame did lay entirely on her shoulders.

He stared at her in absolute disbelief. It seemed to take him a moment to find his voice, but when he did, it was rough and almost angry. "This is not your fault, Kuriyama-san."

She shook her head vehemently, and the tears came harder. "It is! You only jumped in front of me because I was too slow! A-and you had t-to go through that awful experience aga-" she hiccupped as he grabbed her hand and squeezed his eyes shut against her self-blame.

"It's not your fault," he said, softer this time, his eyelids pinched together. "Please - please - do not place the blame on yourself."

"But I -"

"No."

"Senpai, you don't understand, I -"

His eyes snapped open and he fixed her with a glare. "When are you going to realize that those words are not right, Kuriyama-san? You're the one who doesn't get it! I woke up and you were lying in my lap and I called your name and you weren't moving." His voice became strained. "And there was blood everywhere. I called Ayaka-san and she called the doctors to let them know you'd be here and I checked for a pulse but I couldn't find one and I thought you were gone. I thought. . .I thought I killed you." He took a deep breath, the unwanted tears gathering in his eyes. Her face was wide as she listened to him, eyes scrunched in pain, her own tears still trailing salt tracks down her cheeks. "So don't you dare go and put this on you. You're in the hospital because of me, because I'm a monster and I can't do anything to protect the people I care about. It's not your fault, it's mine, and I'm so sorry, Kuriyama-san."

A sob broke through her lips and she used his hand to pull him forward towards her. He let her, knowing that if she moved, her stitches would pull at her skin, and felt his own tears spill over as she threw her arms around his neck and cried. All the tension melted out of him as he pressed his face to her shoulder, her tears soaking the front of his borrowed hospital clothes.

"You're not a monster, Senpai," she sobbed, grabbing him tighter, afraid of letting him go. "Monsters don't save people from jumping off rooftops and put themselves in danger for another person, and they don't apologize for something they have no control over. They don't care for clumsy spirit world warriors who can manipulate blood. But you. . .you do, Senpai! Please," she cried, "please remember that."

Feeling more tears rise to the surface, he placed his arms on either side of her and breathed heavily against her shoulder, smelling the sterile gown she wore, trying to ground himself. He would never be able to forgive himself for putting her here, in the hospital; was incredulous that she even blamed herself for the entire predicament.

She was special to him. Important. He couldn't bear to lose her, and so, he'd so anything she'd ask of him.

"Okay," he murmured thickly, turning his head, his nose bumping against her ear. "I'll remember."