"Izzzaaayyyaaa-kuuunnn!" Shizuo yelled into the night, bullets cascading off the church building, flying into the flowers and tearing their petals to shreds.

Izaya merely laughed at him, voice loud in the vicinity as his cackling managed to raise Shizuo's temper even further. The vampire added to the flames of his fury and Shizuo gripped his gun harder in his right hand, teeth gritting and eyes glaring.

No matter what he did, however, his bullets kept missing their target. Izaya was way too fast, way too strong. Fears of failure clouded Shizuo's thoughts sometimes, but he knew that in time, he'll have all the experience and necessary information to finally kill the bastard.

Kill him.

Yes.

Because Orihara Izaya ruined so many lives. He itook/i so many lives.

And he was going to pay.

"Shizu-chan! I am delighted you changed your bullets! The old ones were getting a bit boring." Izaya grinned and crawled up the wall like a spider that crawled on its web. He dodged gold bullets that ricocheted off the white plaster, moved like he was a professional acrobat. When he reached the top of the church wall, he pushed off the surface, flipped in mid-air, and landed in front of the panting blonde hunter. With a grin, Izaya snatched the heavy one arm machine gun out of Shizuo's hand, caught it in the air and easily bent it in half before throwing it nonchalantly behind the hunter's back. The vampire wiped his hands of invisible dirt, smirking all the while, and got up close and personal to Shizuo's snarling face.

"Now what Shizu-chan?" he asked, playful voice goading him on. Shizuo roared and harshly grabbed Izaya's shoulders before the vampire knew it. He pushed the vampire onto the church wall and proceeded to bash is head in. Right fist, right fist, right fist. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Shizuo's punches were so powerful, Izaya's face was unrecognizable after only three or four punches. While that was happening, the force of the blows pushed Izaya into the church wall, his body quickly becoming wrapped in crumbling white plaster.

Shizuo finally released some of his anger, but one thing made his fury grow stronger as the time passed.

Izaya kept laughing and healing. He barely made the effort to fight back.

Then suddenly, the vampire's eyes narrowed - red, bright like rubies and grin so wide the fangs protruded from his mouth.

Shizuo felt an inkling of fear for the first time in years.

OOO

Mikado didn't know what to do, he felt lost and confused and scared at the same time.

That's when he noticed a lone body lying heavily on the empty street, thick blood pooling out onto the dark pavement creating a distorted red painting. Mikado knew he should ignore it. The guy was an enemy, after all, and he probably wanted him dead. The scent of his blood was making his stomach ache rather than making him excited or blood thirsty and it was a fact that he felt all too well.

The worry kept eating away at him, and he wished he wasn't so curious either, because-well, curiosity might actually kill the cat this time. Might kill more than just a measly cat, actually.

Mikado stumbled up from his crouched position, Izaya and a tall blonde man fighting at the corner of his eye, and he crept silently and slowly to the body.

Then suddenly, a gun was in his face.

"Mikado?"

Mikado's eyes widened as he traced his eyes from the barrel of the handgun to the hand that was holding it; to a sweater covered arm, all the way up until his eyes met familiar honey brown. They were dark and perplexed and swirling in a storm of emotions.

The vampire stood still and slowly put his arms up as a show of surrender. Mikado's heart was beating so erratically it felt it was going to pop straight out of his chest at any moment...

...No.

He didn't ihave/i a heartbeat anymore. Mikado wasn't breathing either and with horror, he finally realized how different he was to his human best friend standing in front of him - Masaomi, who apparently wanted him dead (like the man he was going to help…)

Masaomi chuckled bitterly, his eyes crazed as he waved the gun around like a limp noodle. Mikado's eyes stayed on the gun. His life was literally in his friend's hands now and he was scared and ashamed and guilty. He never wanted it to be like this.

"Masaomi?" he asked, but then he closed his mouth promptly and covered his mouth with a blood encrusted hand. He noticed Masaomi's eyes pin themselves on his mouth-his fangs, which were the mark of a monster and a killer. Mikado looked away and lowered his eyes, which were too intense, too bright to belong to a human.

"You're a vampire now?" asked Masaomi, whose voice was littered with disbelief and accusation. He laughed again. "So that's why you disappeared from school. I thought you went back home to Saitama. I thought you had left me. Left Anri too."

Mikado wanted to say something, but he noticed Namie approaching very quickly. "Ma-...Kida. We are no longer friends. How can we when you're out to kill me!" Mikado smiled wide, maniacally so that his fangs showed imposing in the moonlight above them.

/Please forgive me, Masaomi. It's better this way./

He made his eyes ice cold and narrowed as he forced his body to be tall, confident and intimidating. He stalked closer and closer to Masaomi, who seemed to snap out of surprise, as he tried to push the blonde away from the oncoming female vampire.

/I'm sorry./

Masaomi pointed his gun straight at Mikado's eyes, narrowed his own eyes back as he threatened in a voice Mikado heard rarely,

"I could kill you right now and at this very moment, Mikado. I know you were turned recently. You can't survive this bullet. Not now. Not for a while. You'll die a painful death and no one would care because you'd die a monster. You'd die a killer."

Mikado laughed darkly in response. He pushed forward so the gun was pushed into his skin. "Do it." he said, eyes peering intensely into Masaomi's own dark ones.

The blonde hunter cocked his gun, pulled back the metal so a click rang out. Mikado saw Namie within twenty feet of them, running, more like floating with how graceful she looked - and quickly coming up behind Masaomi's back.

Mikado leaned forward and bit his friend in the neck, cutting through the flesh and tearing skin. Blood poured heavily from the wound. Masaomi's sharp gasp was loud and clear and Mikado's blue eyes flared brighter than before as soon as the red liquid hit his palate.

/I'm sorry./

Masaomi pulled the trigger.

OOO

Izaya and Shizuo looked away from their fight as they heard a loud bang. And when they saw the image: smoke coming out of the barrel of Masaomi's gun, Namie's standing between a fallen Mikado and a wide eyed Masaomi, they noticed the gun was pointed a little ways to the right. It was pointed at Mikado just a few moments ago, that's for sure.

Masaomi stood stock-still, blood oozing from his neck as Namie pulled Mikado up none-too-gently and ran away with him to some place safe. Their bodies melded together and moved as a blur-only vampire, werewolves and hunters could see them.

And then Izaya's smirk returned to his face and he bit down on Shizuo's own neck, eliciting a sharp grunt from the blonde.

Shizuo yelled a string of curses as the too long fangs remained embedded in his flesh, and then Izaya pulled out, backhanded the hunter so hard until a crack was heard and ran away in the direction of his coven. When he was 30 feet away he turned around and waved while shouting in glee, "That was fun, Shizu-chan! I hope we can do it again next time!"

Shizuo held the side of his neck tightly, blood gushing out and staining his shirt as he removed himself from the destroyed church wall.

"Oh yeah!," Izaya added. "Nice hunting group you got there!"

And he fled. Fast, like a shadow slinking against the darkness of night.

Shizuo groaned, cursed some more before observing his surroundings. The place was destroyed; the gardens were a mess, the church wall was cracked in several places, blood dripped down one of the prominent cracks where Izaya's face was bludgeoned, the trees bore numerous bullets, Masaomi was still frozen as he stood on the street alone, and Tom was lying on his back, his breathing erratic.

Shizuo sighed and kicked the wall. "Dammit!"

This situation was horrible.

The notorious hunter took out his phone and called a familiar number, "Celty, Shinra, we need your help."

OOO

Izaya found Namie and Mikado hiding inside the darkened church. Namie was sitting in the front pew, shooting looks at Mikado once in a while and sighing several times. She gently held the picture of Seiji in her hands and as Izaya eased himself closer by walking down the middle aisle, he could see she was tracing the contours of her brother's face with her fingertip.

Mikado was kneeling in front of the altar. His head was tilted down and an uncomfortable silence surrounded the two vampires.

"Oi!" he greeted the pair, walking steadily down the aisle, dragging his feet on the long trail of rug with a little jump to his movements.

No one moved, but Namie's eyes met his for a brief moment before returning to the picture in her hold.

Izaya pouted.

"Come on now!~ The sun's gonna rise soon. We must head back to our little headquarters so we don't burn to death. We don't want that now, do we?"

Namie promptly removed herself from the pew, brushing back her long dark hair and folding the picture neatly and gently. Izaya nearly twitched. They needed to get back now - more for Mikado and Namie's sake than his own - but he didn't want them to all die on him.

That would set his plans back for years.

After Namie told him she was ready to leave, Izaya said to the kneeling boy, "Mikado-kun! We need to get going now. I don't think you'll enjoy the sun that much..." he walked a few steps closer to the young vampire. When he received no response, his voice darkened in warning. "It hurts. A lot."

Mikado snapped out of his musings at the sound and shivered involuntarily. Izaya withheld a smirk and helped the other up, smiling when Mikado nodded mutely and moved to follow Namie.

Namie shook her head, though Izaya could tell she was nervous. He had that effect on people, after all.

The trio made their way out of the church, the sun rising steadily, peeking out behind the clouds as dawn approached. Izaya scowled, Namie's face was unreadable and Mikado's face was scrunched in worry.

"I guess we'll have to move quickly." Izaya said with a hyena smile. "—or we can wait out the day and stay indoors the whole time, though its much more painful and difficult to resist the urge to attack in broad daylight. I guess it's okay if you don't need blood, but...we're also gonna be vulnerable to hunters and the like." He turned around and asked his coven. "What do you wanna do, hmm?"

Mikado and Namie seemed to agree on the obvious solution. "I'd like to get back to your place, if you don't mind, Izaya-san."

Namie nodded and transferred her weight to her other leg, eyes trained on the moving sphere of light. "Yes. I agree with the kid. We should head back to the apartment. It's the safest, especially for Ryuugamine-kun."

Izaya smirked. He knew it.

"Okay then, let's go."

The group of vampire stayed in the shadows, hid between buildings and used secret passageways to get into Tokyo. It became more difficult to slip past unseen with the large population of humans milling about, and Mikado needed help to manage it. His vampire features were still prominent: a sign that a vampire is either a.) hungry for blood or b.) a fledgling. Izaya guessed it might be both, but it was too risky to even try to acquire a meal in broad daylight. Mikado would have to deal with it for now, but the vampire knew he could manage it well enough.

They were now somewhere with less people and a small Shinto shrine peeked out strangely amongst the buildings. Mikado was panting heavily now and Namie appeared the tracest amount of worried. Her eyes kept darting to the blue-eyed vampire.

Izaya led them into the secluded area of the shrine, the inside where the monks stood guard. Mikado fell right to his knees when they ended up in a small room decorated with statues and figures of Shinto gods and spirits.

Namie suddenly declared from her position near Izaya, "He needs to feed, Izaya."

Izaya nodded. "Yeah. I know."

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"I wasn't so sure with Mikado-kun. He's really unpredictable and hard to read." he smiled and cocked his head to the side, chuckling as his sharp features grated on the female's nerves. "I'm not quite powerful enough to read minds yet, but that's all in due time."

Namie's face tightened.

"I'll go get him something. Don't worry. Just watch him while I'm out, okay, Namie-san?"

Namie nodded before leaning against the wall and crossing her arms. Izaya smirked. "Well?" she said, giving him a look.

Izaya laughed merrily and left the shrine in a billow of dark clothing.