Prologue

Thoughts

"Speech"

It wasn't much to look at. Just a run down house with a couple of fields that were once tended by multiple hands but had now been overtaken by the vegetation. A primitive forest now surrounded the entire area with only one dirt path that lead to it all. But it was not what was outside that mattered but what was inside that interested the five figures driving up to it.

"So this is the house Guren sent us" A tall, pink haired boy observed "It doesn't look like much"

A super short, purple girl snickered"You're not much to look at either Kimizuki"

At that comment, the other three members burst into laughter while Kimizuki could only sit on the driver's seat, unable to even strike back.

"That's one more for Shinoa and another zero for Kimizuki" Mitsuba counted

"Why are you counting?" Yoichi asked

"It's always good to keep count of anything" Mitsuba responded with a devious look on her face

"All right, we're here! everybody get out" Shinoa brightly said

Kimizuki pulled the car into a slow stop and everyone got out of the car to observe the house and the surrounding fields.

"There's not a lot of cover here" Yoichi notices "That's a problem for me"

"Don't worry, it's just a quick in and out mission" Yuichiro reassured "I doubt the vampires would even knew what's in here"

"Well we don't know what's in here either so at least be a little careful" Shinoa warned

"And don't slack off like last time" Kimizuki added in

"It's not my fault you can't wake up properly" Yuichiro rebuked

"And who was it that was supposed to keep watch?" Shinoa asked with a sly smile

"I was watching for Horseman, not wild animals!"

"So you really don't have anything else in that brain of yours" Shinoa exclaimed with exaggeration

"I never expected it to be that bad" Mitsuba observed

Yuichiro's face turned bright red at the comments "Shut up"

Kimizuki couldn't resist to add in one more jab "What was that? I don't think I caught that. Just like how you didn't catch that fox"

"Alright thats it! Get your ass over here pinky!"

The two boys began to brawl fight on the field while the other three members of the squad just continued to walk towards the barn. The door to the house was completely rotten and there was an unknown language on the remains of the sign that barely hung on the door.

"Looks like someone hasn't been here since the catastrophe" Mitsuba observed "There are no clothes or old remains at all"

"That seems a bit strange." Shinoa muttered

"Why?" Yoichi asked

Shinoa didn't respond but instead opened the door and entered the crumbling building cautiously. There was not much inside the barn to note. There was just hay on the ground and the roof had many holes in it, shining down rays of light, revealing a small circle and some mysterious symbols surrounding the circle.

"You know what they mean, Shinoa?" Mitsuba asked

"No, I've never seen anything like this before" Shinoa was actually slightly unnerved on the inside.

This looks... Odd

Shi-kun, Do you know what this is?

I'm not sure. It looks familiar but there's…. Something off about it

Thank you for the helpful advice.

You could always let me in. I can get a better sense of the energy around it

Nice try but that's if you can get past my walls

"Shinoa?"

Shinoa was brought back to reality by the voice of Yoichi and realized she had been standing there with her eyes closed.

"Yeah, sorry about that"

"What happen? You just stood there" Yoichi questioned

"It's nothing, I thought they looked familiar but it's nothing" Yoichi opened his mouth to speak again but Shinoa spoke first "Mitsu, are they still outside?"

The blond girl took a quick look back at the two boys who were still brawling "Yeah"

"Perfect" The short girl skipped out the door and started to make her way towards the two on the fields

"This is going to be entertaining" Mitsuba said

"Should we start setting up camp?" Yoichi asked

"Nah, They can set it up for me. I'm too tired"

Mitsuba immediately yawned after saying that and begun to drift while Yoichi continued examining the mysterious symbols and circle. Outside, both of the boys were holding each other by the collar with one hand while the other was pulled back into a fist and their mouths were still insulting each other

"Dumbass!"

"4 eyes!"

Now this looks like a job for me

"So have you boys figured it out or do you need me to step in?"

"Shut up Shorty!" They yelled at the same time. When they realized what they had just said, Shinoa had taken out her scythe and, despite her smile, was not happy in the slightest.

"Uh Sh-Shinoa, Y-You know we meant none of that. R-Right?" Yuichiro weakly stuttered out.

After the severe beat down that the two boys got, the three of them walked back into the barn and set up their own individual beds while Kimizuki began cooking some unknown meat. The smell of food woke up Mitsuba who was delighted to see the food cooking and took a seat around the fire Yoichi had set up. They ate in silence, taking in the fresh breeze and the sounds of wildlife as they scurried around in the dark in peace, not needing to worry about this new world where you could be killed in an instance if you were not on guard.

"You know, with a little touch up, We could live here" Yuichiro suddenly said

"What?"

"I was just thinking that this would be a good place to live"

"Kimizuki must have hit your brain too hard" Mitsuba said

"You don't even know how to farm" Kimizuki chided

"We can always try" Yuichiro said

"I don't think so cherry boy" Shinoa teased

"Can you stop calling me that name"

"What does that mean?" Yoichi innocently asked

"Ah it means-" Shinoa was cut off when her mouth was covered by Yuichiro's hand

"Nothing at all" Yuu loudly proclaimed while his face turned bright red again. Shinoa just smiled and turned her head away from him.

As the sun went down, so did the conversation and the squad started to disperse and began to sleep. Eventually, it was only Shinoa and Yuichiro still awake by the fire.

"Why do you think Guren sent us here?" Yuu suddenly asked

"Hm?"

"I don't see what's so useful here other than the symbols we found and we don't even know what they mean"

"You mean you don't know" Shinoa teased

"Do you know?"

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't" Shinoa said with a mysterious voice

"Ah I give up with you" Yuu said with a defeated tone "I'm going to sleep so can you keep watch?"

"How cruel, making a girl keep watch by herself. Especially one as good looking as myself"

"Do you want me to keep watch with you then?"

"Any boy would want to spend the night with such a beautiful girl as myself" Shinoa proudly said and then leaned in closer to Yuu "Do you not want to?"

Yuu's face turned slightly red and he quickly looked away

So easy to tease

Then Yuu did something unexpected. He walked over to where Shinoa was sitting and sat right beside her and snuggled her in his blanket.

"Wha-What are you doing?!" Shinoa squeaked out

"You said it would be cruel to spend the night alone, right?" Yuu said "Just wake me up if anything bad happens"

Yuu put his head back and almost immediately began quietly snoring, his black hair falling onto his eyes as his body relaxed and his innocent face softly breathed. Shinoa began blushing harder when she began to realize the more finer details of his face and her heartbeat went faster when she placed her hand on her chest.

No, stay focused!

She tried but eventually she put her head on Yuu's chest and accidentaly began to fall asleep to the rhythm of Yuu's heartbeats, unaware of the eyes that were looking at them from the forest.

11:30

(The forest)

Yuu? Why are you here?!

Mikaela was not happy seeing Yuu here. The mission itself was supposed to be a quick one. Investigate the remains of an unknown experiment conducted by the humans and take whatever was needed back to the capitol

"Hey, Keep your eyes up"

"Just ignore him. He's like that"

The voices belonged to Bakul and Larus, 2 vampire that had been sent by Ferid to accompany him on this mission. However, Mika knew that Bakul and Larus were here for some other reason other than just investigating some old remains.

He's going to either leave me behind or betray me.

no , dosen't matter right now. I've got to get Yuu out of those humans hands

Mika began to slowly position himself away from Bakul and Larus, who was still watching the humans inside the barn rest. He positioned himself to have the barn entrance on the opposite side while Bakul and Larus were to his right. He could still see Yuu through the holes in the walls but it wasn't Yui that had his attention.

What is that?

There were more symbols on the wall but there were burns on them and some sort of weird stain that made Mika want to go throw up but also drink blood as well.

Why? How can something even smell bad and make me so thirsty at the same time?!

Is it the symbols? And how did I not smell it until now?

Mika's thoughts were interrupted as a flash of movement to his right drew his attention away from the strange smell and symbols. He turned his head to see Bakul running into the barn with his sword in his hand and bloodlust in his eyes with Larus running right behind him.

Damn it! They're moving ahead of time! They can't get to Yui first!

Mika jumped up to the roof of the barn and stood as the two vampires rushed in, waiting for his chance to take him away

11:50

(Inside the barn)

Wake up, idiot! They're coming!

Yuichiro woke up immediately and brought Shinoa down onto the ground with him. Right after he did that, A blast of old wood woke up the other members and Mitsuba and Kimizuki were thrown into the fields outside while Yoichi was thrown against the wall behind him.

"Whats going on!?" Shinoa yelled

"Blood suckers!"

Yuichiro took out Asuramaru while Shinoa took out her own weapon. He heard a moan behind him and turned to see Yoichi wounded and was on the ground. There was suddenly a great clang beside him and he saw Shinoa fighting against the vampire.

"Better than I thought you were" The vampire snarled

Damn it! Where were they and when they get so close?!

That's your fault! Learn to pay attention Asura lectured

Yuichiro ignored him and rushed to help Shinoa, who was struggling to defend against the vampire as he pushed harder and harder on the girl. He swung his sword and the vampire was forced to jump back and release his lock with her.

"This is not good. They caught us completely off guard" Shinoa noted

"We still got this" Yuichiro confidently said

"Wait-"Shinoa was cut off when he rushed towards the vampire ahead of him, sword in hand and began fighting him.

"Idiot!"

Shinoa turned to look at how Kimizuki and Mitsuba were doing. Kimizuki was defending against the other vampire attacking them while Mitsuba covered his attacks whenever

"Uhhh…" Shinoa immediately went to Yoichi side and observed his injuries.

This isn't looking too good

Yoichi had a big piece of wood stuck on his left side hip and was slowly bleeding out from his side. He was still conscious but he was very obviously in pain.

"Yoichi! Can you hear me?!"

"...Sh..Shinoa? Wha..What's happening?"

"Your hurt! We need to get you out of here! Can you walk?!"

"Al….Alright"

Shinoa tried to move him but he shouted in pain and Shinoa was forced to put him back down. Yoichi suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her towards him.

"It ...h-hurts..bad"

"Don't worry, it's just a flesh wound!"

"Is..Everyb-body...All r-right?"

"Don't worry, we can handle it"

Just as the words left her mouth, Yuichiro flew into the back of the barn and there was another familiar blond vampire was rushing towards him.

"Mika!"

Mika turned to look at the short girl calling him and felt a flash of anger towards her.

I won't fall for your trick again, human!

Shinoa tried to reach out but he just ran back to Yuichiro and picked him up in his arms and prepared to leave. Shinoa was forced to leave Yoichi and rushed to Mika, scythe in hand and pointed her weapon towards the vampire.

11:59

"Stop Mika"

"Don't get in my way, human"

"If Yuu goes, we go with him"

Mika's anger grew and he took out his sword in one hand while putting Yuichiro on his other.

"Sword, Drink my b-"

"G-Gekkōin!"

A green arrow suddenly came from right behind Shinoa and Mika was forced to duck down. Shinoa saw her chance and swung her scythe but Mika dropped Yuichiro and rolled away. Shinoa immediately got in front of Yuichiro and saw that he was knocked unconscious but was unharmed overall

12:00

As if on cue, A bright blue light illuminated the entire barn. The symbols began to glow and literally came off the walls and floated around the circle. The back of the barn glowed red and the smell that Mika had noticed was suddenly gone and was replaced with a massive gust of wind.

"What is going on?!"

4 floating symbols attached themselves on the four figures inside the barn. Suddenly, they were all floating with the other symbols and the back of the barn turned into an oval, revealing a dense forest with smoke rising in the background. Yuichiro and Yoichi were then thrown through the portal, Yoichi now unconscious due to his wounds.

"Yuu!"

"Yuu-san! Yoichi!"

The other two who were also floating were then also thrown through the portal and once they were through, the portal shut down and the last thing they saw was Kimizuki and Mitsuba rushing to the barn while calling their names.

(In the forest)

The forest was an excellent training ground for any newbie who wanted to test their skills against the numerous danger beasts that lay hidden deep within and out of the way of the village nearby. Outside of the forest was a small, local village. The village itself was nothing special, just another one in the tens of thousands that dotted the land but it was home to three small figures hunting inside the forest.

"Have you found anything yet?" A boy with short black hair yelled

"SHH" A girl with long, black hair angrily shushed him.

"Sorry Sayori but it's been hours and we haven't even found so much as a rabbit!"

"If you were to stop yelling so loud every five minutes, then we would have found something Ieyasu!" Sayori said

"It's not my fault! Tatsumi can't even hit them properly whenever we do find anything!"

"Speaking of which, where did he go now?!"

As soon as they mentioned his name, Tatsumi walked out of a thick bush with a bunch of very noticeable slashes on his sleeves and carrying two rabbits in his arms

"Hey guys" Tatsumi cheerfully said

"Where did you go? And how did you get two rabbits?" Sayori asked

"I found an area full of game and I think there was some deer too"

"Deer? Awesome! Special meal tonight!" Ieyasu cheered

"We could sell their hides too!"

"Alright then, lets go and hunt some deer!" Tatsumi said with determination

The three began to follow Tatsumi's trail, keeping their ears out for any prey that could come their way while making sure they were not too loud with Sayori taking point.

"Hey, Tatsumi" Ieyasu quietly call out

"What?" Tatsumi respond

"You wanna go to the capitol?"Ieyasu asked

"What?!" Tatsumi exclaimed

"You know, to get a better job or something" Ieyasu explained
"How would a couple country boys even get a job in the capitol? We'd just get laughed at."Tatsumi said
"Then let's be soldiers!" Ieyasu quietly but excitedly said

"Who's going to train us?" Tatsumi chortled

"Us! We can train by ourselves!" Ieyasu

"We don't even have weapons and even if we did, we won't even know how to swing one"Tatsumi said

"Uh, guys?" Sayori called out

Sayori had stopped walking and was looking at the clearing with confusion and concern in her eyes

"Yeah what's up?" Ieyasu said

The two boys walked up and saw what she was looking at. In place of all the animals were 4 figures on the clearing. One girl who appeared to be very young was attending to the injuries of a brown haired boy while a black haired boy appeared to be arguing with a blond boy wearing bright white clothes, contrasting the black uniforms the other 3 were wearing.

"Who are they?" Sayori asked

"I don't know. I've never seen that uniform or anybody with those clothing" Ieyasu observed

"We should go help them" Tatsumi decided

"No, we need to be careful" Sayori countered
"They have someone injured with them, we need to help them" Tatsumi reasoned

"Tatsumi's right" Ieyasu said

Sayori sighed and nodded her head in agreement

The three slowly walked out and began to approach the mysterious people. At this point, the girl had noticed them and said something to them but they couldn't understand what she was saying.

"What?"

"Can you understand?"

Shinoa POV

Shinoa was completely caught off guard by the three children that were walking towards her. She was not expecting children in a forest this thick and especially in the clothing and equipment they had and were wearing.

"Help!"

The three didn't seem to understand what she said but she caught some words in English and realized that they probably didn't speak Japanese.

What was help in english?!

"uh, Help!"

Shinoa spoke in halting English and that seemed to get the attention of the children who immediately rushed to Yoichi and began to speak rapid english to her but Shinoa couldn't understand because of the speed. Finally, Yuu and Mika finally noticed the children and began talking to the children in better english about the situation. Shinoa noticed more defining features of the children that seemed off to her

Those clothing, the weapons. Who would come to hunt in a forest by themselves without an adult as well? and they don't look like survivors...

Her thoughts were interrupted when the children and Yui began to pick up Yoichi and place him on a makeshift stretcher and started carrying him out while Mika stayed far away from them but close enough to still be seen.

"Shinoa!" Yuu called her "They said they have a village nearby! Lets go!"

Shinoa walked in the back with the girl with long black hair while the boys ran back with the stretcher. The girl was very curious about Shinoa and began talking to her at a quick pace but Shinoa couldn't understand her quick pace so she just smiled and nodded while she thought to herself where they were.

Just where did we go? And what was that thing that got us here?

And here starts my second story! Thanks to Darkbeast42 once more for giving me some tips to improve my writing. I plan on updating more soon but with exams coming up, my work will definitely paused for a bit before I can actually continue writing the next story. Be sure to leave a review and read my other work!