I know I've been gone a while, and I'm still not 100% back. College has hit me very hard. In the face. With a chair. But sometimes I need an escape from reality, so I either kill things via video gaming or write to hide from life for a while. Today I chose writing. I hope you enjoy Chapter Nine of this story, which is henceforth dedicated to a recently deceased friend whom I miss very dearly and who loved this manga.

Disclaimer: Apart from Rhine, I own nothing. Plot points are all Matsuri Akino's; I merely throw my character into the situations!


A week passed with little incidence. Rhine was comforted by the absence of visits from Leon Orcot, a weight off her shoulders to not have to worry over what the cop could pull on D and his pet shop in another attempt to put him out of business – or possibly even into prison. They had no customers desiring anything more than small house pets, certainly nothing on a large, mythical, or even dangerous scale. Rhine was quite content to wander from room to room with D as he explained which rooms were for which animals and the proper care techniques for the more unconventional creatures. She enjoyed helping with the new animals the most, and drew up the contracts each one required, the empty line where a new owner's signature would go forebodingly staring up at her. D would never tell her entirely what horrors awaited the violation of the contracts, and to be honest, she wasn't completely sure she wanted to know.

The next oddity began the morning D pointed out a certain obituary in the paper for a teenage girl, a drug addict, who had died of an overdose in the hospital. How the girl had obtained the drugs when she was in the hospital remained a mystery. Rhine saw no significance; Los Angeles was riddled with addicted teenagers and such incidences were far from uncommon. She might have guessed that everything D did held a great amount of importance, as not two days later, the day of the girl's funeral, a couple wearing all black came somberly through the door of the shop.

Rhine and D were in the parlor reviewing the week's sales, and D rose to his feet immediately, that familiar, seductive smile creeping onto his lips. "Welcome to Count D's Pet Shop," he greeted the couple. Rhine could feel the allure he possessed and shuddered. How could anyone not be taken in by him? He was far too charismatic, far too magnetic, to refuse. "This is Chinatown; a place where mystery is around every corner and your heart's desire behind every door. I'm sure we can find the perfect pet for you."

The couple was momentarily fascinated by Q-chan, the small wolpertinger having taken flight to investigate the new customers, flapping his wings to stay aflight as he circled the air above them. D invited them to the couch, and Rhine hurried to retrieve the tea the Count had put on the stove in the other room not ten minutes ago. When she returned, setting the tray of tea and biscuits on the table in the parlor, the wife had broken down, sobbing into a handkerchief. Rhine sat next to D, watching the woman sympathetically.

"We just lost our daughter recently," the woman explained in distress, dabbing at her eyes and drawing in shallow breaths. Her husband wrapped an arm around her in an attempt to offer her some comfort, but her tears would not cease.

"Your daughter," D said sadly, though Rhine didn't miss the mischievous glint that flashed briefly in his gold and purple eyes. "That's very unfortunate."

"Alice," the wife said tearfully. "She was like an angel…"

"Alice," D repeated. The smile returned, though his aura had transformed into something else entirely. Oh, he was still inviting, of course, but the darkness beneath his allure always sent a chill dancing down the length of Rhine's spine. "Well, then… I may have something to interest you. Please, follow me to the back." He shared a look with Rhine, and she somehow knew exactly where he would lead the couple next. She went to retrieve the contract from its place in a filing cabinet drawer as D coaxed the grief-stricken parents into the hall. She placed the official-looking paper onto the table next to the tea tray and followed trio into the back room destined for the pair.

"Here we are," D said, pulling open a door and ushering the couple and Rhine inside. She glanced at him sadly. This couple was about to fall under the same spell Angelic and Robin had, and she knew it couldn't end well for them. D pressed a finger to his lips and Rhine, understanding the message, nodded and stared grimly forward at the couple as they laid eyes upon the creature in the room.

This particular creature had chosen to take the form of a young girl with bright sapphire eyes and long wavy golden hair. Her physique was quite small, almost frail, and she had chosen a frilly white dress with a matching hair bow for her attire. She sat with perfect posture in an ornate chair, her hands folded in her lap and staring straight ahead.

"A doll?" the wife asked unsurely, looking around as though she expected someone was going to tell her this was a joke. When she did not receive the response she expected, she looked back. "No…" she realized, her eyes widening in amazement. "It's a child…"

The husband gasped, a noise so sharp and sudden that Rhine was slightly startled. "You're… Alice?!"

As the couple recovered from the shock of finding their dead daughter's incarnate in a back room at a pet store, Rhine and D lit the incense in the room to uphold the illusion.

"Why is Alice here?!"

"Are we dreaming?!"

The wife slowly reached out and caressed the girl's face, her fingers trembling. Her hand met smooth and soft porcelain skin and her expression softened. "No, she looks just like… she's just like Alice," she whispered.

D approached the chair and placed a slender hand upon the girl's shoulder. "I believe you are mistaken," he said stonily. "This is a rabbit."

Rhine stared very hard, concentrating through the incense, and saw it. An ordinary white rabbit on the chair, sitting straight up as though it was on the alert, looking out for danger. She'd gotten better at seeing through the illusions the incense created; or rather, the way the incense revealed an animal's true spirit. It wasn't quite an illusion. However, it still hurt her head to stare through the filter for too long, and she broke her concentration with a soft gasp. When she next looked, the rabbit was a girl again.

"A rabbit?!" the wife repeated incredulously, staring at her with an intense gaze of longing.

Rhine spoke up, prattling off the information D had relayed to her when the rabbit had first come in. "It's a rare species that almost died out on a deserted island off the coast of Australia."

"We're a pet shop," D elaborated strongly, drawing a finger along the girl's cheek in a fluid caress. "We do not have anything other than pets."

Rhine stared at him as he said this. Putting on his show. He always wanted his special customers to believe their special animals were truly human. It made them lower their guard to the true danger they were in. He "convinced" them it was only an animal and they always played along, though it had never been a lie from the start. He assured Rhine that she would understand the necessity of it soon enough, but for now she could see no positive end to this game.

And, like so many before them, the couple played right into his hands. "Yes, I understand," the wife said tonelessly. "She is a rabbit, then."

Her husband was slower to accept, but he got there in the end. "I guess so…" He took in a deep gulp of air and then burst. "Please! Give me—! No; sell me this rabbit! I'll pay you anything!"

"We'll keep it a secret!" the wife added adamantly. There was so much longing in her eyes that Rhine's heart twisted.

And so it was done. D named a price and the couple agreed almost too eagerly, and they filed back into the parlor with the rabbit accompanying them, wordlessly following her new owners (insert parents) and sitting between them on the couch as Rhine sank into a seat opposite them and held her head, listening as an amount was agreed upon definitely, a check was scrawled out, and then D read the rules of the contract.

"Thank you for your purchase. Now, if you will, please look over this contract. Oh, yes, and please be sure to read the three special clauses. One: Do not show her to anyone. Two: Burn the incense you receive on a daily basis. Three: Feed her fresh water and vegetables only."

Rhine held her breath as the both of them signed their names in that blank space, sealing their fates without truly knowing what they had just done.

As the couple left the shop with their new pet, Rhine begged them, "Please pay special attention to the third precaution. Don't give her anything other than water and vegetables. Even if she asks for other food, you must not give them to her." They were such a sweet couple, and they had lost so much already. She hated to think that their lives could turn to Hell with just one lapse of judgment, a mistake made in a mere moment.

The wife was looking at her strangely. "Y-yes," she replied unsurely. Rhine's hope dwindled further.

D came up behind Rhine, smiling and waving. "If any of those clauses are breached, we will not take responsibility for the consequences, no matter how tragic they may be."

"Yes, we understand," the husband nodded once.

Rhine buried her face in her hands as D bade them his usual farewell. It was almost as though their doom was hidden in the words. "Well, then… please take good care of her."

Once the couple had departed with their new pet, D patted Rhine's shoulder, feeling her shudder beneath his palm. "You said it would get easier," Rhine accused him shakily. "You promised. It doesn't get easier, D. How can it?! It only gets harder and harder, watching more and more people suffer… die…"

"It will be easier," D assured her softly. "This is only your third sale. As time passes and you find yourself, it will become much simpler. Enjoyable, even."

Rhine jolted away from his touch. "You find this enjoyable? Like some sort of sick pleasure?! You enjoy punishing people, is that it?!"

"I am not here to punish anyone," D said dangerously, and Rhine shrunk away from him. "My intention is to teach them." His expression softened and he sighed, realizing he'd intimidated her. "I am here to make them realize their mistakes."

Rhine bit her bottom lip, sighed again, and marched back into the pet shop without another word.

The last person she wanted to see came through the door not twenty minutes later – Detective Leon Orcot. Rhine could just scream from frustration to see his face.

"Welcome." D seemed to have no such qualms over Orcot's presence, however, greeting him with his usual smile. "Oh, it's you, officer. You have good timing. Always coming around at teatime."

"He certainly is a creature of convenience," Rhine muttered bitterly, and she didn't miss the momentary glare the detective sent her way, though her thinly veiled accusation held an astounding amount of merit. The man did have a knack for showing up just when D was getting the tea and cookies out.

Rhine glared at the detective as he took a place on the couch opposite her. "Hey, you're the weirdoes drinking tea all the time," Leon rebuked them, a little feebly in Rhine's opinion. "How's business?" Orcot asked, out of social obligation more than anything, Rhine supposed. That or he was attempting yet again – and rather poorly – to put D out of business.

D chuckled. "Brisk as usual, officer," he said, handing Orcot a teacup.

The detective looked towards Rhine, who was still giving him a hostile glare from beneath the lenses of her glasses. He grinned in spite of it, which only irritated her more, and asked, "How ya doing, sweetheart?"

He could have sworn a growl escaped from her throat. "Don't call me sweetheart."

What a feisty creature she is, D thought, chuckling slightly to himself.

Orcot, hearing the count's sounds of amusement, angrily pulled out a cigarette and made to light it. Laugh while you can, D. Because you're going down. One of these days your doors are going to be closed for good.

He found his lighter snatched out of his hands just as the flame approached the end of his cigarette, and he looked furiously towards Rhine. She was dangling it in front of his face, holding it gingerly by her fingertips. "If you wouldn't mind not smoking in here," she said stonily. "That'd be great. I don't particularly care to receive the lung cancer you're sucking in."

Orcot swallowed down the retort he wanted to make, which involved an impressive amount of swearing (even for him) and after considering wrestling the lighter out of her hand and lighting his cigarette anyway, he put it back in his pocket and she reluctantly returned his lighter to him. He compensated for the crappiness that was not smoking by taking a drink of the tea D had handed to him instead, and immediately he gagged on the liquid. The stuff tasted like very thin, faintly herbal honey and quite frankly, it was a little disgusting. "What the heck is wrong with this stuff?" he spluttered, looking around frantically but seeing no way to get the taste out of his mouth.

"I put some sugar in the jasmine tea," D smiled innocently, and Rhine felt a pang of sadistic satisfaction at the detective's discomfort.

"Is there a problem, Detective?" she asked sweetly, making a point to politely decline the teacup D offered to her. She'd make a pot without the excessive amounts of sugar later.

"Are you nuts?!" Orcot demanded, snatching at a pastry on the table and biting into it in an attempt to get the taste of tea out of his mouth. "Aren't all of your candies sweet enough for you?! Black! Make it black!"

D looked almost dejected and Rhine stifled a laugh as she listened to her caretaker mumble, "My goodness, so picky about what you like…"

"You're the sugar freak, not me!" Orcot huffed as P-chan swooped down and settled on D's shoulder, curious as to what all the ruckus was about. The detective took another large bite of cake and said, almost to himself, "These are actually pretty good."

D smiled. "Really? Let's see…" he picked up one of the small cakes that he'd had Rhine pick up from a shop up the street that morning and examined it. "They are, aren't they? They're made with extra brown sugar."

Rhine had seen that smile before. D broke it out when he was looking to charm someone into his will. And Rhine had never seen it fail before. He set the cake down and picked up a plate with a sliver of what looked to Rhine like some sort of pie (she hadn't seen it before) and offered it to Orcot. "Why don't you try this tapioca soufflé? It's best while warm."

The detective took it gladly and Rhine hid a smile behind her hand at the look on his face when he realized he was falling, like so many before him, for the count's charm. Rhine knew she herself had fallen victim to it long ago, although strangely, she didn't mind.

"What are we doing here, D?" Rhine asked, shivering in the crisp air as she followed D through the cemetery. The last time she'd been in a graveyard it was for Robin Hendrich's funeral, though the one in question had been one in a much different, richer part of town. She was cradling a bouquet of flowers in her arms, glancing around in confusion at some of the names on the headstones, looking for a familiar title.

"We're looking for answers," D answered smoothly, halting at a grave and giving it a long stare. Rhine stopped at his side and read the name engraved with a modicum of sorrow tugging at her heart. Alice Hayward. Beneath that, a date of birth and a date of death.

D turned around to address the groundskeeper, who was trimming bushes not far from where he and Rhine stood. "Excuse me," he called. "Would you happen to know what caused this young girl's death?"

The man seemed surprised for a moment, and Rhine couldn't blame him – she guessed that not many people who came to a certain grave were unaware of the circumstances of the person's death. "Alice Hayward?" he asked, adjusting the brim of his hat as he considered the question. "She had such a sad, lonely funeral. But it couldn't be helped. Alice had the face of an angel… but the heart of a devil."

Rhine felt the atmosphere tense immediately. "D?" she asked, her voice trembling. The expression on her employer's face was unfamiliar – it was an expression vaguely reminiscent of horror, and that more than anything scared Rhine. D was never fazed by anything.

"Leave the flowers, Rhine, quickly," he snapped quite suddenly, and Rhine jolted at his tone. "We need to go." He turned and began to make his way back to the cemetery's gate before Rhine had even stooped to lay the flowers over the grave. She hurried after him with a lump in her throat. Whatever was going on, it was not good.

D and Rhine were accosted by Leon Orcot a block away from the Hayward mansion, and from the sheer magnitude of sirens resounding from their destination and the amount of police and EMT's swarming about the area, Rhine could only assume that something terrible was happening, and she couldn't shake the guilt. This was her fault. Her and D's.

Orcot grabbed Count D's arm and yanked him in the direction of the general chaos, and Rhine could gather from the look he gave her that she was to follow him. She went willingly, for once her hatred of the detective not rising to the surface. It was hidden beneath panic. D, however, appeared to compartmentalize well. "Ow! You don't have to manhandle me!" he protested, looking genuinely hurt.

"You two just shut up and come with me," Orcot growled, never faltering in his pace, though he did release D's arm. "You were the ones who sold that monster to the Hayward family, right?! We already have the contract as evidence!"

"Yes, I did sell them a rabbit," D said, completely nonchalant. He obviously was not swimming in the same guilt as Rhine. Rubbing his hand and looking around, D paused. "But I wonder which one of these rabbits it is."

Rhine was close to having a near heart attack when she saw what waited for them. Rabbits upon rabbits. Hordes of them lining the streets so that it would have been impossible to walk down a path without stepping on one of the creatures. White rabbits, all of them, their fur dingy with dried blood.

Leon grabbed D's shoulder, looking half-mad as he pointed at the sea of rabbits. "Just do something about those things!" he demanded. He looked close to shaking D.

D simply smiled innocently, pulling out his charm. "Well, it's not like I'm the pied piper. I can't just lead them away."

Rhine wished she could be so calm. Her chest hurt. Blood on all those rabbits. What sort of havoc had they wreaked? Feeling sick, she looked around at the emergency vehicles and caught sight of a woman perched on a chair next to the ambulance. She would have been beautiful if not for the several scratches covering her face, and her hand was heavily bandaged. It looked as though she was missing a few fingers. The face, mutilated as it was, was somehow familiar…

Mrs. Hayward. Alice's mother. The one who D sold the rabbit to.

Rhine swallowed down the bile trying to force its way up her throat.

Leon's eye was twitching in a dangerous way. "Can't you at least figure out what their weakness is?" he asked in exasperation, releasing D and balling his hands into fists. Rhine half expected him to punch her employer.

D scanned the scene with an analytical gaze. "Those rabbits are like koalas and kangaroos. They're marsupials. Because of their tendency to propagate, they only lived on a certain island."

Rhine listened to his explanation as a distraction and found it satisfactory to calm her frayed nerves a bit. "Just one island?" she asked. "Then wasn't the island ridiculously overpopulated?"

"Yes, very easily overpopulated," D replied. "But it's also in their nature to eat each other when they reach the peak of their reproduction."

Rhine grimaced. That was one explanation for the blood, but she knew without a doubt the rabbits had been responsible for Mrs. Hayward's missing fingers. As for the woman's husband… Rhine could speculate what had happened to him, and she couldn't imagine a more horrible way to die. "So… when do they reach that point?" Rhine asked. She could almost feel the blood draining from her face.

D thought it over. "Hm. It could be when this city… no; when this continent has been picked clean. Though if I get rid of the rabbits before that happens, perhaps the president would reward me in some way…"

Rhine wanted to crawl into a hole and find a nice quiet place to throw up, but at the same time she wanted to get properly furious with D. All of North America was being threatened by the existence of murderous rabbits, and what D was meditating upon was a possible reward, should he prevent 2 billion people from losing their lives to those monsters.

But then D got a little more sullen, and Rhine felt some of the tension that had built itself up in her muscles ease. He was going to take this seriously after all, then. "Or else, as in the story of the pied piper, the whole continent would lose its children," D indicated Mrs. Hayward, who was still in that chair next to the ambulance looking utterly miserable. "Just like she has…"

D turned and went to Mrs. Hayward, exuding a soft confidence Rhine had seen so often in the last few weeks. She followed him to the ambulance.

"Madam," D greeted Mrs. Hayward quietly. The woman reeled around, falling out of her chair when she saw D. "Count!" she exclaimed, her voice choked. Rhine felt a fresh wave of sorrow for her.

D knelt down to help hold the woman off the asphalt of the street. "Why did you break the contract?" he asked gently. Rhine had never seen him act so tenderly with anyone (anyone but herself, that was). "Why did you ignore her diet?"

The woman began to protest, growing more frantic with each word. "Oh! Because… because…" And then she broke down, tears rolling from her eyes ceaselessly, her voice a whimper as she sobbed. "She begged me for it! She cried and she pleaded for candy… And so I told her 'only one bite' and gave her a cookie… and her smile was so bright…" Her voice was a whisper now. "She smiled like an angel!"

Rhine expected D to get angry. But he didn't. He remained gentle and calm, looking at the woman tenderly. "It's amazing how deep a mother's love can be." He slowly took his hands from the woman's arms and sat back. His expression turned somber. "That's how you killed the real Alice, too, isn't it?"

Rhine hid her gasp with a cough. Leon looked equally stunned by the new turn of events.

"You gave her everything she wanted," D continued, his voice eerily calm. "Ever since she was a little girl. You never held her responsible for her actions… and how could a child like that grow up? Dropping out of school, a drain on society, committing crime after crime, hurting other people… getting into drugs."

Mrs. Hayward moaned, clearly in agony from the memories D was forcing to the surface. "She was in the hospital… she was in so much pain…"

"But even then she still had a chance at redemption," D said. Rhine gave up on keeping herself standing. Her knees week and trembling as she realized the circumstances of Alice Hayward's death, she slid to the ground behind D, burying her face in her hands.

"She was in so much pain!" Mrs. Hayward repeated, hysterical. "And she would cry and say she needed the drugs… I didn't want her to hate me…."

D stood up and Mrs. Hayward crumpled to the ground, curling in on herself as she started wailing, "I just love her so much!"

"So you gave her the drugs. That one dose that put her over the edge," Rhine whispered. Tears were threatening at her own eyes now. "That last dose… it killed her."

D sighed, looking at the two women on the ground. One a stupid human woman who had lost all sense and reason in light of tragedy and the other the girl he had grown very fond of, the not-quite human child who had a heart bigger than he had ever thought possible for her species, even a mere half-blood such as she.

"That rabbit was born eating its way out of its mother's womb," D said calmly. "Parents raise their children by giving them a part of themselves. Children born from deep and unrestrained affections… are born from their parents' blood."

Rhine jumped when the sound of static ripped through the air like a gunshot. The noise broke as quickly as it had risen, and D looked towards the source. One of the policemen had tripped over a wire attached to a computer system setup near the edge of the street and caused the noise. The man sitting at the computers turned and yelled out, "A message from the helicopters! The front line of rabbits have reached the highway. At this rate, they'll reach the center of the city."

"How many rabbits are there?" D asked sharply, crossing to the monitors and peering over the man's shoulder, staring at the feed from the helicopters. It was a fuzzy overhead view of the city, but D could still easily see the waves of white dots, each representing a murderous rabbit, overtaking the highway.

"How many total?" the man asked unsurely, confused by D's presence. "I'm not sure… Fifty thousand, maybe sixty…"

"That means that the next time they multiply, their numbers are going to rise to two hundred thousand?" A panicked cop barked, looking mortified by the thought.

Chaos broke out among the authorities.

"What?!"

"We have no choice. Burn them with flamethrowers! We can't let them spread to other areas!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Wait!" This voice was different. Panicked, yes, but in a different way than that of the police officers. D turned, slightly surprised to see Mrs. Hayward rushing forward. "Please, wait!" she pleaded, and to D's amazement, the panicked chatter died down. She had their attention.

"Still…" Mrs. Hayward muttered, a tear trickling down her cheek. "She is still my daughter. Even if she's a drug addict… or a murderer…" She began sobbing.

"D!" Rhine's shriek pierced the air, and he reeled towards her voice. She was back on her feet, slowly moving towards him by taking steps backward, pointing up the street. He let his gaze wander towards where she was indicating.

The rabbits were coming. Hordes of them leaping up the street, their eyes black and glistening ominously.

"Ma'am, come back!" he heard an officer shout. His attention went back to Mrs. Hayward, who was staggering towards the sea of rabbits.

"No, it's too late!" she screamed. D sighed. So his words hadn't gone without effect after all. Making her face the truth – that she had unwittingly murdered her own daughter – had driven her insane. He watched, eerily calm, as Mrs. Hayward broke free of the grasp of the police officer attempting to restrain her and stumble directly into the mass of white rabbits.

It was at that moment that Rhine barreled into him quite abruptly, nearly knocking the wind out of him. "I can't watch this!" she was saying desperately, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest, close to tears. "I can't! Oh, god…"

In spite of himself, a smile crept across his lips. "It's alright," he said calmly, pacifying her by briefly running a hand through her hair, letting the strands fall through his fingers and cascade over her shoulders. "Look." She shook her head, and he could have sworn he heard a muffled whimper. "Rhine," he said, more sternly this time. "Look."

So she looked, and her eyes widened in disbelief. "What?" she asked, her voice unsteady. "What happened?"

The rabbits had dropped, their mouths foaming. Some of them were clearly already dead, while others were still twitching and writhing on the pavement. Ordinarily Rhine would have been sickened by the sight, but the relief of seeing Mrs. Hayward, still whole and – thank god – alive in the center of the bizarre scene had overtaken her every other sense.

The cops in the area were shouting again.

"The rabbits are all dying!"

"The ones near the highway have stopped in their tracks!"

"The rabbits are just falling over!"

"The rabbits all appear to be dying, sir!"

Rhine gasped as D was roughly wrenched away from her by Leon. "D! What is going on!" he demanded, looking almost desperate. It was an expression Rhine had not seen on his face before. It amused her. She couldn't suppress a snicker.

"It's the pied piper's flute," D said softly, looking at the rabbits. "They are the tenth generation. The poison ingested by the first generation Alice finally took effect…"

"Poison?" Rhine repeated. She didn't recall anyone saying they'd tried to poison the rabbits. Had anyone even thought of that?

"Chocolate, candy, potato chips, jelly beans… the chemical composition of the snacks… it's toxic to the rabbits. They have no immune system," D explained, sounding wistful. Rhine wasn't surprised. He always grieved more for lost animals than their dearly departed human owners.

"What in the hell are you blabbering about, Count?" Leon growled.

"Alice ate the poison," Rhine mumbled.

D nodded somberly. "And passed it on to her young… and so, on to the tenth generation, where it finally took its toll."

Rhine looked sadly towards Mrs. Hayward, who had sunk to her knees in the street, surrounded by what were now the corpses of hundreds of rabbits. She wasn't crying anymore. She just looked… empty. Like all the life had gone from her. "Mrs. Hayward's love took its effect," Rhine sighed, chewing on her lip. "And now it's killed Alice all over again."

Leon stared, frozen, at the pair in front of him. The count was freaky enough by himself, but this girl… she was downright disturbing. She reminded him of the Count and didn't all at the same time. She was on D's wavelength, that was for sure, but she showed far too much emotion to truly compare. He got the feeling she wasn't in on everything the Count did, but she caught on eerily fast, and she was always on his side. He didn't like it. "D…" Leon asked slowly. "You knew this would happen, didn't you?"

D cast him a sideways glance and his thin lips stretched into a smile. Placing a hand on Rhine's shoulder, he asked, "Why don't we continue this discussion at the shop? It's about time for some tea."

Rhine let out a shuddery laugh as she and the Count turned to leave, falling into step together quickly. "We have that chocolate custard pie, too."

"Mmm… yes, time for some of that as well."

Leon could almost hear a purr in the Count's voice as he gave up and started following them, back to D's curious shop filled with horrors.


There you have it! I hope you enjoyed. It's a bit longer than some of the previous chapters. Review?

I promise, I will see you again in Chapter 10!

I love you all and thanks for reading!