Kei sat at the edge of the hospital bed, unmoving, staring sightlessly at the thin white sheets and rough, greenish blanket. He'd spent a lot of time in hospitals the past few years, and they'd all blended together in his mind in an absent sort of blur that matched the way the rest of the world filtered through his eyes.

He wasn't blind. Not really. His brain just had a hard time focusing on the world around him, or at least that was how Rengokuin had explained it to him. Not that it mattered how it was explained to him, since it all meant the same thing anyway; that Kei was alone in the empty, dark cathedral that was his mind. Nobody to talk to, and nothing to hear but the echoes of his own lonely screams.

Sometimes Kei was deaf, too. Sometimes he couldn't touch anything, taste anything, feel anything. And that was alright, because even when all his senses were fully functional, on those occasional days when Rengokuin would scream about a breakthrough and enthusiastically trash several lab stations, Kei still felt nothing at all. It wasn't his body that was the issue anymore. It was Kei's very soul that was numb.

He just wished he could have seen Aldred before he left that night. Maybe, in a perfect world, there would have been a magical instant of perfect alignment and Kei could have pierced the foggy mire that was his eyesight, seeing Al walk away with a clarity like falling tears. Instead, all he'd seen was an indistinct blur of black and crimson that tore away at Kei's heart as it faded into the distance.

"See ya."

That was typical of Aldred. Kei had been bleeding out on the ground, Al was going off to his death (or worse, survival) and the only thing he could think to say was 'see ya'. Of all the impersonal, inconsiderate, uncaring-

But it had been a promise. 'See ya.' 'See you.' 'See you later.' That had been a promise and, as Kei had been reminded time and time again by his team in the bright, cheerful voices they only used when their hearts were shredded in their chests, 'Aldred doesn't break promises'. So all that was left to do was wait.

Waiting had been easy for the first month and a half, when Kei had been sedated constantly to keep the spear from destroying him from the inside out. Then Rengokuin had succeeded in bringing Kei's condition out of the critical zone and he'd been wrenched back into the cruel reality where Aldred was gone.

Often, Kei would stare out the window, seeing nothing but a blurry whiteness, and wait for a dark Aldred-shaped shadow to enter his field of vision. Sometimes, when the waiting got to be too much, Kei wandered the halls of the academy looking for him, until he'd lost control of his legs and had to be confined to his wheelchair twenty-four seven. Then Kei lost even the futile act of searching the empty hallways, and he could no longer even pretend that he had any way of bringing back Aldred.

Sometimes he cried.

And then there were the times Kei threw tantrums, smashing his bare fists against the walls until they were smeared crimson, screaming until his voice was gone and he could taste blood in his cracked throat. Once, the principal- Al's so-called loving father- had made the mistake of visiting during one of Kei's fits of rage and Kei had fallen upon him, striking out with all his fury and blindly screaming that it had been all his fault, all his fault, all his fault. Maybe, if the principal had been the noble type, he would have accepted the beating with a stone face and a kind heart. After all, Kei could no more have hurt him than a feather could hurt a dragon, and the principal had nothing to fear. Once again, Kei could see that other world, that perfect world, where the principal stood there saying nothing until Kei saw the tears on his face and realized that the principal really had cared for his son, really did miss him.

But when the backhand had hit Kei across the face and the Sheathe hit the ground, choking on his own blood, Kei looked up into the eyes of a vampire that had no regrets, that had used the son who trusted him as nothing more than a tool to be used and thrown away.

Hatred, real, unadulterated hatred had filled Kei's veins and he'd spent the next week under heavy sedation to keep him from chasing down the man he had once respected and making him feel the stabs of pain that had lacerated Kei's heart since the day that Aldred disappeared into the gate. Every. Last. Slice.

Since that day, Kei had withdrawn even further within himself. He didn't respond when people spoke to him anymore, didn't talk or move, sometimes forgetting to breathe until the painful tightness in his chest reminded him that, no matter how much it hurt, he was still alive, even if he spent that life trapped in a metaphorical hell.

Unlike Aldred, who was trapped in his own very real, very personal idea of Hell since That Day. Aldred, the least vampirelike vampire in the whole academy, who was now trapped in a world where he would have to feed on other vampires to survive. Aldred, who Kei had been told had only ever drunk milk before Kei had showed up and forced him to drink his blood or die.

Kei had, for the longest time, blamed himself for Aldred's willingness to go through the gate. Aldred had felt that he was already loosing his 'humanity', as he called it, simply because his body responded to Kei's blood with wild, uncontrollable bloodlust. Aldred had written himself off as a lost cause and headed off into Hell simply because of Kei.

Then Kei had realized that he was just a pawn in another person's game and had decided to be more upset about that. He and Aldred had had their lives twisted up in knots and chucked down the garbage disposal, but Kei would have given anything to have gotten the worse end of it. Aldred had paid the price instead, because Kei had been left alive and behind. Aldred had pulled his punches and taken the blows, and Kei had just let him.

Now all he could do was wait.

But Kei could wait forever for the vampire who had saved him from Hell.

BVQA: First Rust Blasters story. There probably won't be another. This was just to blow off steam because honestly the ending of this series just made me hurt sooo bad.

Aaand that's all I have to say.

Please review!