Hello, any and all readers. Hopefully the first chapter did not wound you too much, and you're still here. As a warning not previously mentioned, this is a mature story, and before there can be change, there must be conflict. I'm thankful for reviews, as they keep an old storyteller speaking, and keep the Mistress that you all do so enjoy, well fed, and therefore happy. Without further ado, welcome to Chapter Two.

Consciousness was a feeling that Tsukune was unsure about as he awoke. The first thing he realized, was that he was naked. The second, was that he faintly felt damp, and that the cold tile floor under his face was cheaply made. It took a moment, but he stood, keeping a weary hand on the sink should his legs decide to give out.

Why am I on the floor? Who's bathroom is this?

A look around showed a small bathroom, strictly spartan in all of it's contents. Standing and cutting off the running cold shower,Tsukune noticed his clothes on the ground, and quickly threw on the pants before checking his pockets for his phone. That was when his body gave pause, and all of the previous night came back to him. Images happily rushed into his mind at the opportunity, determined to bring about his suffering again. He moaned quietly, sitting down on the closed toilet seat. His hands were bunched in his hair, pulling slightly, enough to sting. Any kind of pain is better than this!

Time trickled by slowly, and in a pair of jeans, shirtless, and a wreck, Tsukune began to think, to decide what do to.

I can't go home, I just can't.

He heard the hotel room open, and a voice, "Hello? Anyone here?" Indifferently he knew that it was the buxom brunette from the counter of the previous night.

Nervous for some reason, he stood and glanced around the corner, noting that she had inspected the small pool of blood on the floor, and had begun to walk towards the bathroom. Instinct guided him, his body straightening against the wall, a ghost in the mist of the jungle. His now unsuspecting visitor stepped a foot past him, and with grace that accompanied a hunter, he was behind her, hardly a breath away.

He found himself leaning over, her delicious scent filling his enhanced senses, her heart pulsing quietly, slightly on edge from the blood, but not hysteric. Then deep down, he felt the change, her instincts beginning to cry out, terrified by the presence of a predator. She spun a one hundred eighty degree turn, looking behind her, but saw nothing.

Tsukune's body had a mind of it's own, standing once again behind her. Before he leaned down, incisors extending, preparing to bite. Another deep breath, and he began to descend, starved beyond control. How dare you!

And he felt himself shocked into reality. She began to spin again, and deciding to avoid any confrontation, he drew a small amount of youki in his body, moving faster than her eye could catch out of the open door ways. He continued to blur through his surroundings, until the city became forest, and he no longer smelt the stagnant odors that accompanied it.

Standing in the wilderness, shirtless and shoeless, in the middle of winter was no brilliant idea, but Tsukune hardly had a choice.

I nearly bit her... he thought to himself, shaking his head.

The quickly escalating headache was making him wobble where he stood, and he briefly wondered about how he had made it that far out of the city in one burst. With youki, some monsters could increase their speed exponentially, giving them a way to move quickly from one location to another. Moka had moved similarly in her released form before, but never had he seen her attempt to go near as far.

Before he could continue that line of thought though, he lurched forward, choking harshly on blood, as it sprayed from his mouth to the ground, mixed with trace amounts of saliva. The crimson liquid looked almost black in the dirt, possibly a reflection of the truth. It burned hellishly in his lungs, and when he was able to stand straight, he remembered the night before.

It's strange. Usually water only affects me if I'm using my vampiric abilities. Why did it shock me, and what was that feeling at the end?

A brief memory of his agonized body pulling itself from the water was the only thing that gave him any indication of how he had survived.

Standing in the wilderness basically was doing him no good, so he began to follow the random dirt road that he had stopped at. A few twists and turns slowly crept past, before he heard the roar of an engine, and spotted a familiar bus pulling up behind him. Tsukune hadn't felt happy in a few days, but when he saw a symbol that connected himself to his old friends, minus a few, he felt himself smile for a moment. Then, his apathetic mask slipped into place, unsure of whether or not it was safe for the bus driver to know the affairs of his personal life.

The yellow bus pulled to a stop beside him, and the doors slid open, before a ring of smoke floated down to him. "What's it this time kid?" A voice that used to always give him chills rang out, but he couldn't bring himself to care about the near dead tone, this time.

"Can you take me to the exorcist?" Tsukune asked, an inquisitive eyebrow rising slightly, against the idea of walking anywhere.

"Of course, he'd love to see you I'm sure." he spoke, quiet and with a hint of the creepy smile he seemed to have learned from the exorcist.

"You should really get that smile checked out." Tsukune spoke, as he stepped up onto the bus, laying across the first row of seats with his hands behind his head. He tried to ignore the burning in his chest that happened before and after he had begun to cough up blood.

"There's a storm brewing" the driver spoke softly, dark with a hint of a chuckle, as he pulled the doors shut, and began to drive the bus in some random direction.

Tsukune chose not to answer, and instead asked a question of his own. "Why would the exorcist want to see me?"

The bus driver smiled, though Tsukune couldn't see it, "Only he would know." His hat covered his strange eyes from Tsukune's angle and he couldn't tell whether or not the bus driver was enjoying his confusion.

Tsukune wisely chose not to think about it, and lay back down, trying to get at least a few hours of semi-comfortable sleep, after all, no one ever fought on the Youkai Academy bus.

"It's been a while..." Tsukune thought of his old school. The adventures they'd had, and the heartbreak that it had all ended with. Mizore had left, moving on with her life, eventually married. Kurumu had not been as complacent though, and after a scene where she nearly tore down half of is hometown, she had been exiled. Ruby stayed, an apprentice of perhaps the greatest wielder to ever walk the earth. The last time he had seen Yukari, she was actually planning on helping Ruby, or possibly becoming a teacher at the academy. Lost in his thoughts, his long ride on the bus went smoothly. When he felt the bus pull to a stop a few hours later, he stepped out, down on the ground and rolled his eyes. Dead trees were everywhere, the ground was just dirt, and there seemed to be no signs of life at all.

Tsukune turned to thank the bus driver, but only found empty space, the bus already gone. Shrugging, Tsukune turned to walk towards his old academy. The trail was narrow, and hardly straight, but he began to walk, thinking about the sudden bouts of coughing.

Now I'm sick, great.

He thought, stopping at a spot where the path narrowed. Tsukune calmly walked up, sitting back on his heels, taking a hand through the dirt, looking towards the direction he had came, "It was right here." he said, hiccuping slightly as tears threatened to fall again. A bike had shot over the hill, and without warning, Moka had crashed into his life. I'm such a baby. He thought, but couldn't bring himself to stop the few tears that trickled down his face. No longer satisfied with wallowing in his pain, Tsukune began to turn and briskly walk towards the academy. When the familiar building came into sight, he saw the many students running around, chattering on the other side of the closed gates, holding their books, without a care in the world.

Sardonically he smirked at their innocence, remembering how unsafe his years at Youkai Academy had been. When he stood before the tall iron gates, he looked back and forth, searching for a handle. Seeing none, he reached out to grab the metal. Less than a second after his hand had touched the cool metal, it began to swing away, opening as if it had been waiting for him. The old school was the same as it had been since the day he left, run down and generally resembling a giant haunted house.

Students parted before the stranger that smiled nostalgically as he walked, half-naked, unknowingly showing a bit of his youki to split the crowd. When he pushed double doors at the front, he was reminded of times when Mizore popped out of the ceiling, when Kurumu had suffocated him, when Ruby had shared her masochistic fantasies, and even when Yukari begged for threesomes between him and Moka. Moka. He thought again.

I just can't seem to escape you can I?

An old enemy met him inside, Kuyou of the campus 'police'. Tsukune remembered the fight, if not all out battle that had happened between them. Kuyou's power had been immense, his fox form deadly. The only reason Tsukune had survived was because his friends took the attention while the inner Moka gave him the blood to survive.

In a round about way, I could thank him for giving me the strength to protect my friends.

"Why are you staring at my face like that?" Tsukune hadn't noticed but he had slowly paused and was staring with a flat expression directly at Kuyou. Kuyou hadn't particularly changed, his hair cut shorter, a few small scars across his face, likely from the fight, or working for the exorcist.

Good to see someone hasn't changed much.

Although Kuyou wouldn't admit it, when Tsukune had stopped, not falling in line as he had presumed, he was slightly edgy. In his last encounter with Tsukune, the youth had been given the blood of an S-classed vampire, allowing him to gain demonic strength and speed that few could match, even if temporary. A few rumors had spread that Tsukune had eventually become a second-born, a vampire made by the slow corruption of his blood; Kuyou was in no way willing to test them.

"It's nothing," Tsukune spoke, "I was just realizing that you haven't changed much physically, besides the slight haircut."

Kuyou rubbed an anxious hand through his blond hair, "Yea, the exorcist made me cut it some. Didn't really explain why though." His hair had been a direct representation of his pride, and when forced to cut it some, it had bothered him immensely.

Tsukune seemed to have stopped paying attention by then though, and had begun to walk in the direction that he knew the exorcist's office was. The halls hadn't changed much, students walking to and fro, some laughing near the stairs, others standing in small groups. His senses picked up their heartbeats, their whispered conversations, the smell on their breath, and even their natural forms' scents.

A young man walked past him, hardly noticing how everyone naturally avoid Tsukune, and Tsukune caught the scent of his true form. It was ironic that the first youkai to walk close to him was the same type of being that he had once nearly been killed by. Through the carefully maintained image and wash, the young student had nearly completely covered up the strong smell of his hybrid ancestry. The smell of orc was subtle, but Tsukune picked it up. Girls giggled nearby, and his nose identified them as harpies. Two rooms over someone was enjoying themselves in a way he had not with his woman during school.

She always was a bit... of a prude, well up until yesterday.

Kuyou interrupted his thoughts suddenly, "Tsukune, the exorcist will not wait long." his tone was frosty, already tired of waiting. Tsukune gave him a look but nodded, "Yea, I guess you're right."

Kuyou and Tsukune did not speak again until they arrived in one of the darker, deeper areas of the school, outside the exorcist's office. Ancient runes glowed along the door, casting an ominous light around the area, and even Tsukune's vampiric hearing and smell could identify nothing beyond the door.

Tsukune gave one final nod to Kuyou before knocking, and hearing the "Enter." from the other side. If Tsukune were honest with himself, he'd admit that he was worried about speaking to the exorcist. The man, if he could be called that, always knew so much, too much really. However, he knew that he needed some help, and the exorcist was one of the best to have on his side.

Stepping inside, Tsukune felt like he had entered an old forgotten library. Tomes lay open in random places, dust all around, and a general sense of dread filled the room. Shadows covered vast expanses of the room, so much so that he could hardly tell where the walls were. Archaic runes flowed all around the floor, runes shaping runes, shaping runes that he didn't even begin to comprehend. A small couch was off to the side, next to a bookshelf, and a desk sat in the center of the room, piled high with papers new and old. The exorcist sat calmly in the chair, not moving at all, as if frozen in time.

However, once Tsukune made it to the two chairs that sat in front of his desk, he motioned for Tsukune to sit. "You've began coughing up blood?" the exorcist spoke slowly, deliberately, rhetorical, just asking for confirmation.

"I don't think it's that bad, sir. Nothing that would require your attention." Tsukune spoke slowly, almost shy in front of the man who had saved his life in the past few years too many times.

"Spoken like a true vampire." The exorcist's glowing eyes narrowed, and Tsukune noticed his hand sitting on the Rosary of Judgment, beginning to trail his fingers along the edge.

"I hear you've had a fight with the Mrs. Aono?" he said, eyes now holding his gaze.

"I did." Tsukune could not lie to him, as much as he wanted to argue it was his own personal business, his body disagreed. The exorcist nodded slowly, leaning back in his chair, removing his hands from the rosary to steeple them on the arms of his chair.

"You do know that you're not allowed here now that you've graduated, without my express permission, correct?" The exorcist asked, keeping his eyes locked on Tsukune.

"I'm sorry, I had no where to go." Tsukune spoke softly, ashamed.

"You have a home, a wife. Her family is quite rich; I'm sure they could shelter you." The exorcist had not moved, and was staring intently.

"My house is no longer a home. I can't go to Moka's family about this." Tsukune kept his head down, regardless of the natural predisposition of a vampire to do the opposite.

"I'm afraid that that doesn't change anything. These principles keep our society safe, guarded, and controlled. What could have warranted you to cross, illegally, with knowledge of the consequences?"

Tsukune's mouth opened and closed a few times, his mind racing to come up with something to say.

Shuzen will kill me if it gets out that his daughter is unfaithful, it'll kill his image. Moka will too.

"I...I...can't."

"Then I've got no choice but to call a meeting between myself and your dark lord. We will decide what to do in your case." The glowing eyes were darkening slightly, "Take him to the guest quarters. No one I don't authorize is allowed in."

For a moment Tsukune wondered who he had spoken to. Then he felt a hand pull his head backwards, to the chair. Before he could think about his actions, Tsukune violently grabbed and twisted his would be attacker's arm, hearing a satisfying snap, before releasing it, and springing into action. His chair was flipped backwards onto the original attacker, and his other hand caught a bladed limb coming from the dark in his peripherals. The edge cut slightly into his palm, opening the left over wound of the key.

Before he could continue, an icy chill set over the area, dragging his breath from his body forcefully. He panted, his breath smokey in the cold, his body heating up to counter the sudden freezing temperature. His next plans were trumped when glowing eyes opened behind the desk, and seemingly thousands of pounds of weight began forcefully pushing his body to the ground.

The blade was brought down to the back of his neck, and in the dark he saw an ethereal shape behind the calm exorcist, a vicious faced creature with horns and clawed hands, floating in a ragged cloak, a sharp tanto in it's jagged toothed mouth.

The cold blade at his neck brought his mind back to his current predicament.

What was that! Why did I do that! I was going to kill them!

The exorcist's calm voice entered his ear again, "Take him to the lock down room. Have Ruby posted as his guard. He won't hurt her."

Tsukune felt a needle pressed into his back, and a thick liquid being forced under his skin. His world went black quickly after. After the guards had picked up the tranquilized vampire and left the room, the exorcist reigned in his form, locking the fierce aura away with precise control. He thought over the interaction, remembering key points during which Tsukune would act differently.

Tsukune doesn't want to risk exposing something.

His hands rose, rubbing the area between his eyes on his nose. He had saw the uncontrolled glaring eyes of the ghoul a moment before Tsukune had reacted to being pulled straight. The way Tsukune had moved was too controlled though for the ghoul, too...smart. He had decimated one opponent, and disabled another before the exorcist could even draw breath.

If it had not been for my quick intervention, this could have gotten bloody. I need to do some research.