Ryu – So, due to a massive case of writers block, I decided to take a small break from my other fanfiction. Well, my friend recommended I do something else, and not to force the story out. In any case, I have also been occupied by Devil Survivor 2 the game, where I noticed one of Yamato's character portraits has some cute fangs…. You can see where this is going. In any case, it'll get me back to writing, and freshen up my mind, hopefully.

FATEful Encounter

At a very young age, Hibiki knew he was different from the other children. Different in the case that his wounds healed faster than anyone else, his senses and strength were far stronger than others, and he could summon a sort of Familiar in the shape of a white tiger.

Oh, and he craved blood. There was that too.

He couldn't go to his parents, because they weren't his real parents. He had stumbled upon this when he was walking past their room. They were discussing his latest run in with bullies (something that occurred due to some of his differences). The discussion involved them trying to figure out what to do about him, when his father suggested that perhaps it was a phase that adopted children go through to get more attention. The conversation was dropped after that, and Hibiki was left alone to his problems.

At least, he was alone until one day he found out he could summon a white tiger. At the time, it was only the size of a normal housecat, but that didn't matter to Hibiki, and thus named the tiger Byakko after one of the four creatures of legend.

But Hibiki didn't tell anyone about his new friend for fear that people take it away. There was also the fact that it might have given more of a reason for his bullies to torment him. This left him to deal with them by himself, until it changed one day.

That change was in the form of a person named Daichi, who came to his defense. From that day on, they became the best of friends.

Of course that didn't matter now as he was currently fighting for his life, or rather Byakko, who had grown to become as tall he was over the years, was brutally tearing through those…

Ghouls… A voice whispered from the back of his mind.

Either way, more were showing up by the minute and Byakko could only handle so much. Hibiki looked around; trees surrounded him (he had come here to draw the Ghouls away from his neighborhood after coming home from practice exams and encountering them), and a fence behind him and Byakko, with more Ghouls on the other side of the fence.

They didn't seem to be able to climb the fence, so Hibiki came up with a plan to fly up to one of the taller trees in his bat form (discovered when he had been pushed from a cliff during an elementary school field trip. To his astonishment, he found out he could fly, and later found out from seeing his reflection that he could turn into a small white bat).

In any case, flying up to the tree seemed like a good plan. So Hibiki shifted, and then dismissed Byakko, perhaps a bit too soon as one of the Ghouls lunged up, managing to clip one of his wings with its hideous black nails, as he was flying up. Despite that, he ignored the pain and managed to fly up to the highest and closest branch with the strength he could muster. Immediately, he collapsed on the branch, searing pain shooting up from his wing.

From the looks of it, his wing was practically in tatters, and even his healing abilities would take a while to heal that up.

Suddenly, thudding noises broke him from his thoughts, causing him to look down and see the Ghouls trying to jump up at him.

'Now what?' Hibiki thought. He couldn't stay till dawn, his parents- No, not parents… -guardians would be wondering where he was.

Immediately, as if to answer his thoughts, flames erupted and engulfed all the Ghouls. They all shrieked in pain, before being silenced by the fire.

Soon the fire died down, leaving only ashes and the smell of burnt flesh wafting through the air. Hibiki didn't have to wait long to find out where the fire came from, as a lion like beast walked into view, followed by three other people in black and gold? -clothing.

"Well done Cerberus." The silver haired man said as he dismissed the beast.

"Sir, you didn't have to go out of your way. We could have handled it." A dark haired woman with well-endowed breasts spoke.

"We would have burned the corpses in the end. This just sped up the process." The silver haired man said as he observed the surroundings.

"To do so near so many flammable objects was risky even for you, Chief." The third person, a woman with blonde hair and also well-endowed in the chest area spoke. Seriously, what was with women these days? They all had large chests, even his other friend Io.

"As if I'd make a mistake that a pup would make." He said, before his gaze zoned in on Hibiki with amazing accuracy, causing Hibiki to almost flinch.

"What's wrong?" The dark haired woman said before turning her gaze. "An albino bat?" She said after noticing Hibiki.

"How rare, although even though it's bleeding, it seems strange for all the Ghouls to go after it." The blonde said, taking a step toward the tree before movement stopped her.

In one graceful motion, the silver haired man moved and shifted mid-leap. Proceeding to fly up to the branch that Hibiki was on, and latch onto the branch above it and hang upside down. Then he fixed a strong gaze onto the other.

The first thought Hibiki had for the larger, and all black (there wasn't one spot of silver) bat was-

'How can he hang upside down like that? I wonder if I can do that…' Hibiki thought as he tilted his head to try to change the view.

Before he could continue with that thought process, he was promptly smacked in the face by a wing, sending him tumbling out the tree. His inability to fly caused him to panic and lose concentration on his bat form, much to his, and the two women underneath him, surprise.

When the feeling of falling had passed, Hibiki opened his eyes to see one of the women's breasts pressed up against his face.

'As nice as this is and all, it's getting hard to breath.' Hibiki thought as he tried to push the other off, only to hiss in pain.

"Although you might be making him happy right now, it's probably best to get up." The blonde said, causing the dark haired woman to get confused.

"What do you me- ah!" She said before noticing that she was smothering Hibiki with her breasts, and instantly jumped up and away. A very pronounced blush already spreading across her face.

The lifted weight allowed Hibiki to see what had caused him pain. Upon looking, he saw that the wing that had been torn up, had become his hand and was severely cut up.

Before anyone could say anything, the silver haired man dropped down onto his two feet, after shifting mid-fall, and promptly spoke, "Which coven do you belong to?" He said in an authoritative tone.

Hibiki didn't know what to say to that, for one, he had almost died twice, although the fall probably wouldn't have killed him, probably, and as for the other, the thought that there were more like him was finally catching up. Luckily, he didn't have to say anything as the blonde cut in.

"Now, now Chief. We should heal him first before interrogating him." She said as she walked up to Hibiki and lifted his hand. A warm glow then appeared and Hibiki watched in quiet astonishment as his wounds began healing. "I'm Otome. What's your name?" She said as she looked up from her healing.

"Hi-Hibiki Kuze." Hibiki said after finding his voice.

"Well, Kuze-kun, the flustered woman is Makoto, and the grouchy man is our esteemed chief, Yamato Hotsuin." Otome said, causing Yamato to shoot her a glare at the last remark.

"U-uh. It's… nice to meet you all." Hibiki said, grimacing. What else was he supposed to say in this situation.

The rest of the healing was spent in silence, with an occasional breeze ruffling the trees. Once his hand was all healed, Hibiki gave it an experimental flex, and was surprised to find it didn't hurt anymore. With that problem out of the way, that left another problem.

"So… what's a coven?" Hibiki said, causing Makoto to frown slightly, Otome to look concerned, and Yamato to give him a look that said "are you stupid?"

Needless to say, Hibiki should not have asked that question. Nevertheless, Makoto answered anyway.

"A coven is a group of three or more vampires."

Vampires. He had had his suspicions before, but this merely confirmed it. He, and probably his birth parents, were vampires. Surprisingly, Hibiki didn't feel much from this revelation.

"I… am not part of a coven. I only have my friends, and my par- guardians." Hibiki said after a moment of silence. The last part causing even Yamato to frown.

"Your guardians are humans, are they not?" Yamato said.

"Yes." Hibiki said as he caught Otome and Makoto whispering to each other.

"Why would he not be with his birth parents?"

"My guess would be that they abandoned him due to his bat form's albino colors."

"They abandoned him just because of superstition!?" (1)

"Perhaps, or maybe they just thought he wouldn't make it through life."

Yamato paid them no heed as he stared long and hard at Hibiki, until he turned on his heel and began walking away.

"Sir?" Makoto said in a confused tone. Yamato didn't acknowledge the response, and merely disappeared among the trees. Otome and Makoto shared a look, did a final glance at Hibiki, and then proceeded to follow after Yamato.

'Weird.' Hibiki thought as he headed back home once he was sure the coast was clear.

The next day, things returned to normal, or at least relatively normal. Throughout the day Hibiki had the feeling that he was being watched, but when he threw out his senses, he didn't find anything out of the normal, except a pair of students making out behind the school. He wasn't going to get into that.

Other than that, there were only two noteworthy things that were particularly strange. One was when he had been called to the nurse's office to pick-up and deliver medication to one of his teachers. Hibiki wondered why the teacher couldn't just pick it themselves, but he was too busy restraining himself to think much on it.

The reason he had to restrain himself? There was another student having a massive nosebleed, and the scent of blood saturated the air. Only years of practice and will power prevented Hibiki from doing anything potentially harmful. Of course now he had to make an early trip this year to the small market, nestled discreetly between two larger buildings, that sold animal blood among other things.

It would have been insane and suicidal to have gone all these years without some kind of blood. It had been very fortunate that he had stumbled upon the place after walking as quickly as he could from a very bloody crime scene that he had unfortunately encountered on his way home.

Still, that was there and then, and now Hibiki wouldn't be able to hang out with Daichi and Io, since he had to get some animal blood to satiate his cravings.

So, at the end of the school day, was when the second strange thing happened. Hibiki was getting ready to part with Io and Daichi on the excuse that he had some errands to run, when a large gust of wind suddenly passed by, and then Io gasped.

Hibiki turned and saw that Io's hand had been cut. It wasn't too big or deep, but it was bleeding. Hibiki immediately squashed the cravings. He would not dare harm his friends, ever. So with a strong resolve, he walked up to Io, pulled out a handkerchief and wrapped it around the hand.

"It's only temporary, so you should probably go get it bandaged." Hibiki said as he finished tying the knot.

"Oh, thanks Hibiki." Io said as she put her hand to her chest.

"Yeah. We'll get to it. See you tomorrow." Daichi said as he and Io began walking the opposite direction.

Hours later, as the sun was beginning to set, Hibiki found himself in an abandoned playground finishing the container of blood with a grimace. Animal blood did make the cravings recede, but that didn't mean it tasted good.

Hibiki closed the container, put it back into the paper bag, and then threw it into a nearby trash can. Silence took over after that, and Hibiki got up to leave when he noticed the monkey bars.

On a whim, Hibiki got up on one of the bars, hooked his legs around it, and let the world turn upside down. Surprisingly, Hibiki did not feel the head rush that Daichi mentioned a lot during their childhood when he did similar motions to what Hibiki was doing now.

"Maybe I should do this in my bat form." Hibiki mumbled to himself as he let himself dangle. His bunny hood had fallen over his head when he dropped his body, the ears moving occasionally as they caught the breeze.

As Hibiki dangled there, he began to mull over yesterday's events. While he was happy that he wasn't alone, but he still didn't know that much about himself and other vampires. The books that he had read were somewhat helpful, but they were hit and miss. Some lore seemed true, but others just seemed really ridiculous.

He did not burn in the sun (nor did he sparkle). All he got were sunburns, only when he was out in the sun for a long while. He also wasn't repelled by Christ, or anything related.

"I should've asked the-" Hibiki mumbled before something hot and bright came flying at him.

Immediately Hibiki swung out of the way and let himself drop- onto the back of Byakko who he had summoned when he had swung out of the way.

Byakko didn't need a command as it began to get some distance from the monkey bars, and as Hibiki righted himself, he could see that a fireball had hit the bars and left it charred. Then he turned to see Cerberus and Yamato, who had a look of approval on his face.

Before Hibiki could so much as utter a word, Yamato spoke. "With every passing moment, you continue to exceed my expectations."

"…"

"You have survived this long, have strong restraint, and good instincts."

"…"

"You would do well in my coven."

"…what?" Hibiki said, dumbfounded.

1. In some Asian cultures, white in certain contexts is linked with Death.

Ryu – Well, this was a satisfying chapter to write. Yes I did watch the anime, and as for whether I will leave this as a oneshot or make more chapters, I don't know. In any case, I hope you all enjoyed.