Hello, everyone! So I've recently gotten into Blood+ because most of my favorite animes/mangas have ended (*sob, sob!*) and I needed a new one to follow. I found the storyline of Blood+ interesting, so naturally, I developed my own story about it! :D

Really, this is just me being an irresponsible author and experimenting with new story ideas when I really should be working on chapters for my already-established stories. (*ducks as people throw chairs at her*) I will get on that as well! I really have no idea if I'll continue this story or not. I'm not committed to it at this point; I just want to muddle around a bit and see if it holds my interest.

Review if you want to; I will appreciate it regardless. :)

*Commence chapter one*

"Come and see the monster," Min said.

Saya looked at her suspiciously. She was new at Red Shield and there had been a lot of talk of monsters over the past few days. Most of it, she believed, had been to test her, to see if she scared easily. She did not scare easily. The Chiropteran were out there, she knew that, but it wasn't like they had Chiropteran running around the Red Shield headquarters. It wasn't as though there was some grayish, long-legged, slack-jawed monster spearing paperwork through its talons in the next cubicle. Red Shield headquarters was probably the safest place in the world against Chiropteran attacks. In fact, the idea of such a creature here, in this sharp, businesslike environment almost made her want to laugh. She contained herself and turned to Min, trying to place a serious expression on her face. "What monster?"

"The one they've got downstairs. Want to see him?" the lighter-haired girl questioned eagerly, gripping Saya's arm as she had gotten into the habit of doing. Saya was not sure that she liked it.

"If by monster you mean Chiropteran, why would they have one of those in the basement of an organization dedicated to wiping them out?" she asked sensibly, turning to get back to her work.

Min refused to relinquish her grip. She looked like a little child that wanted to play. "It's not exactly that. You'll understand when you see it, but you have to come!"

"Are we allowed down there?" Saya protested as Min tugged her over to a door in the corner. Really, she was just looking for an excuse to not have to go. She didn't know Min well enough yet to feel comfortable with turning her down. She did like the girl, even if she talked about finding a boyfriend and getting married far too much for Saya's tastes.

"Of course we are! We have Access, remember?"Saya squirmed as Min prodded her through the door. The multitude of responsibilities that seemed to come with having Access still felt overwhelming to her. She knew that she could not work here and not know anything about the organization, but still….

Then Saya halted as her eyes dove down over the banister at the beginning of the staircase. They followed the spiral staircase winding down, down, down, into blackened nothingness. She had never seen a pit this deep. The lights seemed to grow dimmer the further down they had been placed, and she wasn't even sure if she could see the bottom. "Oh no. No, thank you, but I'm not walking down all those stairs." She turned and pushed back through the door.

"But we have to!" Min protested, dashing after her. "There's an elevator, but we're not allowed to use it without permission. It's supposed to be reserved for important Access for the Hunters and top-level management. You'd better get used to walking down those stairs now, because the basement is where all the old records are stored. That's where we have to go every time we want to look something up."

"They must be insane," Saya growled, thinking that this was the exact opposite of efficiency.

Min was at her side again. "To tell the truth," she whispered, cupping her hand around her mouth, "if we catch one of the Hunters in a halfway decent mood, they'll usually give us permission to use the elevator right away. They certainly wouldn't want to waste all that time. But I don't see any of them now…."

She cast her eyes about worriedly as Saya turned to re-enter the room full of cubicles and chatter and the sounds of typing. That very moment, as if by divine intervention, the door on the far side of the room burst open and Lewis came strolling through, holding a bag full of pastries in front of his belly. Min's eyes lit up.

"Lewis-san!" she sang out, practically dancing over to him. "We're so glad you're here! We need to use the elevator, so would it be all right if you gave us permission?"

The man laughed good-naturedly at her comically pleading face. Lewis was not technically a hunter, Saya knew that he was really more of a transportation and intelligence man, but she figured that he was high enough in the ranks to count. He rubbed his chin and pretended to think very hard. "Weeeeellllllll…."

Min clasped her hands together. Saya couldn't tell if she was playing or being serious.

"All right, I suppose there's no way to resist that face! Sure, go ahead." Lewis laughed affably and waved at them as he passed through the room, exiting through the main doors on the other side. Saya sensed that she was out of excuses.

"Come on, Saya! Let's go down! That was lucky, for sure!" Min grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a small alcove in the opposite corner of the room. Saya watched the other girl's face and admitted to herself that she was a little curious. But only a little.

The elevator came swiftly and silently, and soon they were whooshing down the empty shaft, surrounded by the velour walls of the compartment. Saya thought that she might as well get to know this place a little, even if it was only a temporary job and she wouldn't be staying. She was only an office girl here, after all. Red Shield might be a vast, worldwide, secret organization dedicated to the elimination of the mystical, vicious Chiropteran, but every organization needed managers and secretaries and office people as well as field agents in order to function properly. Red Shield was no different. This was not even their official headquarters; it was merely a branch located in Okinawa. It wasn't as if they were going to win the war against the Chiropteran because Saya made them good coffee or photocopied their documents correctly. If there was one thing Saya knew, it was that this job was not important. However, it would do for a summer job while she was still going to school, before she moved on to bigger and better things.

The elevator did not sound a note upon reaching the bottom like Saya was used to. It slid in silently, and opened to a long hallway full of doors. Saya glanced around skeptically, wondering where this "monster" of Min's was located. She did not believe for a moment that there was a real Chiropteran down here. Red Shield simply would not hold such a creature so close to a civilian population. In fact, she couldn't think of a reason they would hold it at all. Any Chiropteran that fell into their hands were as good as dead, the way it should be.

"All right, where-" she started, before Min began leading her forward. They passed by door after door, all labeled 'Records.' Most were closed, but some were hanging ajar, and the murmur of voices resonated from inside. Other workers were looking things up as well. They walked through several hallways until they reached a place where the doors stopped. Min did not stop, however. She continued walking, and Saya followed her in confusion, with the vague feeling that she was being taken in. The air was darker down here, without natural sunlight to add warmth.

Saya and Min turned down another hallway, and were suddenly facing a different sort of door. It was painted white, and stood out obliquely against the stony gray backdrop. It was marked 'Containment Unit.'

Saya suddenly got the feeling that perhaps there was some truth in Min's stories of monsters in the basement. She turned to the other girl tensely. "Min, what is this? What's in there? Is it safe?"

Min smiled, happy that the situation had now caught Saya's interest. "Sure it's safe. It's called a containment unit. It's meant to contain dangerous things. But I'm not going to ruin it and tell you what's in there. You have to come see for yourself."

Min slid her card through the reader above the handle, punched her password into the number pad, and the next thing Saya heard was the clack! of the steel door unlocking.

The inside air was colder than the outside. Saya wished she had brought a jacket to wrap herself in as she stepped nervously across the threshold. She did not like that Min was treating this place as a form of entertainment when there was obviously something at least partially dangerous down here. She pondered turning around and leaving, but decided against it when a pair of men with Red Shield ID badges hanging from their necks came meandering around a corner, nodding to the girls as they brushed past on their way out the door. They would not have been walking so slowly if everything was not all right within the Containment Unit.

Saya and Min stepped softly across the hallway until they reached a fork. Glancing down one portion, Saya saw a small, boxlike room built into the wall. Each wall of the box had a wide-paneled window made of what looked like very thick glass. Through the glass, Saya could see computer screens flashing and blinking. "That's the control room," Min whispered, startling her slightly. "Only the technicians are allowed in there. They can see every corner of the unit with their cameras, and they control all the doors and locks remotely. It makes it safer."

Saya had just started to feel nervous again when Min turned around and let out a small 'hm.' "Oh," she commented matter-of-factly. "The door's open."

"What?!" Saya whirled around, panic surging within her as memories of every horror movie she had ever watched raced through her mind. The hallway in the opposite direction of the control room seemed to be made entirely of glass on one side. There were at least five doors fitted into the steel frames which held the glass up. The one at the very end of the corridor was hanging wide open. "Oh my God!"

"Calm down, calm down!" Min insisted, quickly gripping Saya's arm again. "There's nothing dangerous about that. He's probably just been taken out for a blood transfusion or something. If there was something wrong, alarms would be going off and the place would be locked down."

"I don't know if this is a good idea," Saya murmured, her heart still thumping wildly.

"You've come this far," Min declared persuasively, turning down the other hallway. "Besides, you only have to look once. Then you don't ever have to come back. Come on, the lab is this way!"

Saya grudgingly allowed Min to lead her past the control room. Before they reached the door marked 'Lab,' curiosity caught up with her. "Why the hell would they give a blood transfusion to a monster?"

"You'll see," the other girl promised, pulling open the door. "Through here."

Like every other room in this basement, the lab was eerily quiet. The door which Min had opened led into a small room where another man with a Red Shield ID badge was tapping away on his computer at the lone desk in the room. There was a rolling cart full of bandages and medical instruments positioned under a long, clear window which provided vantage into the next room. Min pointed, the line of her finger positioning perfectly upon a long, black figure against the wall. "There."

Saya looked, then took a few steps forward and squinted harder, thinking that she did not understand. The figure in the glass window did not look anything like a monster, Chiropteran or otherwise. It looked like a man sitting slumped over in a metal chair. His head was bowed, so Saya could not see his face, but his pure black hair was held back in a messy ponytail and his waist was cinched in a metal belt that seemed to be attached to the chair behind him. The chair had no armrests- the shoulders of the man were pulled back forcibly, and his arms were spread out to either side as if he were a scarecrow hung on a pole, his wrists manacled to each end. He was wearing a white shirt, and one of his sleeves was rolled up to give access to a needle driven into the vein in his joint. The line of tubing running out from his arm was full of red, and across from that-

Saya froze, a barely audible noise forming in her throat, for at last she saw what Min had meant by monster. The man's other hand was not a hand. Emerging from the white shirtsleeve was some sort of black, thick, scaly mass. It almost looked like a bird's talon, except there were five definite digits instead of three- but they were not what she would call fingers. They were unnaturally long, jagged as broken glass, and resolved themselves into five horrendous claws with deadly points at the end. She stared at the grotesque appendage in shock. The man did not move. He looked as though he might be sleeping.

"Freaky, right?"

Saya jumped, not realizing that Min had sidled up behind her. The first words to fly out of her mouth were, "What is that?"

"They're not really sure," Min said, tilting her head so that her brown locks fell to one side gracefully. "I think the Hunters found him somewhere, but the details of that are very secret."

"Is he a Chiropteran?" Saya questioned, taking another small step toward the glass and staring, her eyes wide.

Min shrugged. "Who knows? That hand is definitely Chiropteran."

"But aren't the Chiropteran sort of….monsters? Complete monsters? Why does most of his body still look human?"

"No idea. He came here about a year ago. HQ had no idea what to do with him, so they sent him to Okinawa inside of a super-reinforced steel container. They don't know how dangerous he is, see." Min lowered her voice like a young girl whispering a secret at a slumber party. "It could happen that he might turn into a full Chiropteran at any time. So they can't let him be near people. They keep him locked up down here and run experiments to see if they can reverse the mutation of his hand."

"Reverse the mutation? So he was originally human, then?"

"That's what the technicians think. Although I have no idea where they get their information. All I know is that when he first came here, I heard somebody say he must have been a failed experiment."

"An experiment? Of whose?" Saya's skin was beginning to crawl. Was Min saying that someone had intentionally tried to combine human and Chiropteran forms? She had a hard time imagining anything more horrible.

Min shook her head. "That's all I know," she assured Saya. "The rest, if there is any more, is top-secret-classified-information. Not for lowly office aides like ourselves." She patted Saya on the back in a companionable way. "Anyway, now you've seen it. Isn't it weird? It-Oh!"

Saya glanced up to where Min was looking, and jumped again. The black-haired man had raised his chin up from his chest and was gazing out into the glass. His face was porcelain pale, a perfect contrast with the black strands of hair which framed it. His eyes were dark, and he had heavy circles underneath them. There was something graceful about his features which seemed to almost set him apart from the monster limb attached to his arm. Almost. Saya felt her veins begin to prick with ice, and she vividly wondered what he was thinking about. She hoped that the other room was soundproof, that he had not heard them talking about him. He did not glare, did not appear angry or distressed. His gaze seemed slightly vacant, and Saya wondered whether he might be drugged to keep him from struggling and displacing the needle in his arm.

Min tapped the back of her arm suddenly. "I dare you to stick your head through the doorway and look at him right in the eyes," she whispered breathlessly.

Saya turned around, finally refocusing her attention. "What?"

"I do it with the other girls sometimes, for fun. It's like a test of courage, only with a real monster. The glass window here is a one-way mirror, so we can see him but he can't see us. You have to crack open the door and peek in so he can see you. Whoever can stare at his eyes for the longest wins." Min shivered dramatically. "Trust me, it's harder than it looks. I never win. But maybe you can beat the record."

Saya swallowed. "That's…." she murmured, feeling her stomach begin to twist again. She didn't think they should be doing this. This wasn't a manufactured test of courage with fake ghosts and artificial blood. This was real. Whatever was going on here with this man/Chiropteran, she felt sure that it was not all right to treat the Containment Unit as though it were a curiosity show intended for their entertainment. The last thing she felt was entertained. So why was she reaching for the door handle….?

As if compelled, Saya watched her hand turn the handle and push the heavy door open slowly. The hinges had been oiled and it swept over the ground soundlessly. The man was still watching, still with the same patient, vacant expression upon his pale features. Saya looked at him for a moment through the glass before taking a deep breath and leaning slowly across the doorframe, letting her face hit the light of the blazing fluorescents.

Nothing changed. Saya watched him silently, and he watched her. His eyes were very, very dark. His chest was moving in and out, slow, human-like breaths. There was a faint roaring sound in her ears. After awhile, Saya felt silly for peeking around the doorframe like a timid child. So she stepped out into the doorway and looked at the man. She wondered if he really might turn into a Chiropteran. Maybe he was just biding his time, waiting for a kill. And yet, Saya could not help thinking as she looked at him that she had never seen a more miserable-looking creature. She took a step forward, and then another one. She was inside the room.

"Saya! That's way too far! I didn't mean you had to get so close! Come back!" Min cried out behind her. Saya felt a hand snatch at the back of her shirt and she shrugged it off, stepping forward out of her companion's reach. "I'm fine."

"Don't, don't, don't!" Min begged, sounding nearly frantic. "It's too dangerous, you don't know what might happen! Saya!"

Saya stepped forward one more time, telling herself that she should not go any further than this. The man was still watching her, but his expression had changed ever so slightly. His eyes were wider and they seemed more focused, directed into hers. Saya glanced warily at his clawed hand. If he moves it, I'll run, she promised herself. He did not move it, and she remained standing there, swaying slightly because she was not used to keeping so still. She wasn't sure exactly what she was trying to accomplish, but….

"That's enough, girls." The voice of the technician cut across Saya's consciousness, and she unthinkingly glanced backward. He had gotten up from his desk and was standing in the doorway with a slight frown of disapproval. Min was staring at her with wide, frightened eyes. "I understand that you like your little game, but you really shouldn't get too close. You haven't been trained, and it isn't safe. "

"Come back, Saya," Min whispered, as if she was afraid too much noise might cause the chained man to attack them.

The moment of thoughtlessness had deflated. Saya took Min's outstretched hand and felt her neck jerk back as the other girl dragged her out of the room and tossed the door shut loudly. Saya winced at the sound.

"Come on, let's go. Let's go back up," Min insisted, and after a moment of standing still, Saya allowed herself to be herded back out of the lab. The technician had returned to his seat and begun typing again, as though he had never left. Saya took one quick glance backward as she was pulled out the door, and saw that the dark man's head was bowed again, long hair falling across his face. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he'd gone back into hibernation.

In the elevator upward Min scolded Saya fiercely, obviously still shaken. "Saya! Why did you do that?! That was way too close! I only meant for you to peek your head around the doorframe! You won the courage contest for sure, but you scared me!"

Oddly enough, Saya did not feel afraid at all. It was as if all her fear had evaporated once she had seen his eyes. This happened to her sometimes. Curiosity, her father called it. Curiosity makes you forget your inhibitions….for a little while, anyway. "I'm sorry for scaring you," Saya said, to placate Min. "I felt for sure…." She closed her eyes and leaned her back against the rising elevator's wall. "I felt like he was going to say something."

"Saya, he can't talk," Min informed her, as if she should have known this for herself.

Saya looked up in surprise. "He can't talk? Why not?"

The other girl shrugged. "How should I know? Whatever happened to him, the Chiropteran thing, I guess it messed with his vocal chords. You know they can't articulate human language. He can get a few words out sometimes, with a lot of effort, but after that it's like his throat just closes up and he can't make any more sound. I heard one of the technicians talking about it."

"You seem awfully interested, for someone who's so scared of him," Saya commented, trying not to stare too hard at Min.

Min shrugged her thin shoulders. "It's interesting. In a very morbid way, of course. It's really too bad…. I think he'd be really handsome if he didn't have that horrible monster hand attached to him."

The elevator slid silently into the ground floor, and Saya pushed herself off the wall. The two girls disembarked and made their way back into the light, the noise, the general buzz and chaos of the office. Min suddenly smiled. "Wait till I tell Hannah that you broke her record by, like, two whole minutes!" she exclaimed, dashing off into the maze of cubicles. Saya sighed resignedly and followed. Apparently, Min's disapproval of what she had done was not going to stop her from spreading the story to everyone she could find. At the same time, Saya was glad to be out of the basement. The sunlight streaming in through the windows reminded her that the weather was nice enough for her to ride her bike through the park today on her way home, a lively trip which she always enjoyed. The roses would be blooming….

"Otonashi-san! We need some photocopies done on the second floor!" The voice of her supervisor rang out from behind her cubicle wall. Saya straightened up and deliberately focused her mind on the present, pushing away thoughts of the strange man with the hideous hand and the compelling eyes.

"Coming!"