Ch. 11: Don't Touch Her

"What the hell are we doing here?!"

With the music blasting techno music and vampires either dancing on the stage, the tables, or the floors, socializing, or feeding, Taruto, Pai, and Kisshu sit at a table with a glass of blood in front of them. Taruto is the only one all up in arms while Pai is being his calm, stoic self and Kisshu is rather quiet while laying on the table, staring at the bottom of his glass.

"After what happened last night," Pai begins to answer, "I figured that we could all use some distraction." And this is one big distraction if you count the techno music blasting in your ears, the vampires kind of having sex on the dance floor, the weird piercings, and the smell of decaying bodies that are on some of the vampire's clothes.

"Which reminds me!" Taruto yells again, well there goes trying to calm him down. "What the hell were you two doing having some kind of last minute excitement with onii-sama's girl and some extra hunters! ONE of them you bite and got himself killed!"

Then Kisshu finally asks him, "So you're upset that he was killed and not that we were almost killed by a garlic gas bomb?"

"Of course I'm upset about that too!" he answers. "I'm also upset that you two had that little action because Onii-sama is on good terms with his girl." He said that part a little softer to avoid being heard, but they heard him and all Pai did was take a drink out of his glass and Kisshu looks at him with dead beat eyes.

He tells him, "Be lucky that your girl wasn't there. Mine was."

After hearing that, Taruto's eyes widen in realization as if someone just dropped a whole pile of books on his head. "Whoa, what?!" he asks, looking back at his older brother. "You mean…?" Kisshu only nods, now looking more depressed than ever.

"For all I know, they're all getting ready for another vampire massacre and are hunting us down to kill us all." Then his face faces the table and the gloomy shadow over his head gets gloomier. Pai lowers his drink and puts it down on the table. He's hoping that it isn't the case. Taruto sees that expression as well and his anger and shock just evaporated away. A face of pity replaces his face of disbelief.

"Wow," he says. He didn't know what else to say but ask, "Which one?"

Kisshu's voice became a muffle with his face against the table when he answered, "The red hair one."

Now he's surprised again. "Her?!" He whistles and comments, "She's a toughie."

"I know…"

Pai also adds, "You should have seen her when she found out."

Taruto had to ask, "Was it better or worse than when Pudding found out?"

"How's 'crazier'?"

"Oh…And I was supposed to worry about the gas bomb?"

While not too far from their table, Ichigo is with Lettuce and they're looking everywhere for any sign of Pai or his brothers. Lettuce mumbles to herself, "Where is he?"

"If he isn't here," Ichigo warns, "I swear I'm gonna fuckin kill every vampire in this club, go back to the Blue Knight and report that we actually took revenge on the ones who killed Masaya."

Lettuce turns to Ichigo and pleads, "Ms. Ichigo, please. I know that this is the fifth vampire club we've tried but I'm sure that Pai is in this one. I just need to check." She raises her hand when she said that and her index finger is bandaged up in a white handkerchief.

Ichigo quickly grasps her hand and says, "If you prick your god damn finger one more time, I'm not gonna control myself if I see some other piece of shit of a vampire besides Pai put his filthy hand on you."

Lettuce asks, "And how did I take care of the others?"

Ichigo let out a sigh and lets go of Lettuce's hand. She crosses her arms over her chest and answers, "You did your famous 'let's have sex somewhere private' and you come back three minutes later with that vampire in agonizing pain with either a really bad beating or several wooden bullets in their bodies."

"Or…"

"Or some of them lost their balls."

"Exactly." Then her voice gets tender as she tells Ichigo, "I'll be fine. Just stay here and watch. If Pai isn't here, then you can take care of that vampire. But don't kill him."

"Pfft. Just because I left Blue Knight doesn't mean I'm gonna be vampire friendly."

Lettuce lets out a sigh when she heard this. But she knows that she can't change Ichigo's 'way of living' that easily. She tells Ichigo, "Just please stay here and behave." After that, she walks away and Ichigo is left to just stand there and watch as Lettuce goes towards the tables, next to the wall and she unwraps her already stopped bleeding finger. She takes out one of her daggers and stabs it again so that her blood could come flowing out as she quickly puts the dagger away and allows the scent of her blood to do the rest.

The scent hit Pai's nose like a falling piano only minutes later, it was unexpected and a shocker that he could smell it. Moments later, Kisshu and Taruto smell that blood too.

"What is that delicious smell?" Kisshu wonders, lifting his head up and sitting up straight while he continues smelling it. Pai looks at his brother cautiously as Taruto takes a bigger sniff of it.

Taruto comments, "It does have a certain…innocence to it."

"But who would allow their blood to spill everywhere?"

Both Taruto and Kisshu look at Pai curiously after he said that. Still acting like himself and trying to act like nothing is wrong, Pai tells them, "Allow me to check it out. If it's anything suspicious, I'll send the signal." Then before they could say anything, he gets up from the table and leaves.

Kisshu and Taruto look at each other curiously and Kisshu asks, "You know what's up his ass?"

Taruto raises his brows and shrugs his shoulders. "You got me and glad to see that you're back to your old self." Kisshu glared him for a moment on that part. Then they both look back at where Pai is heading, curious on his insisting behavior.

As Lettuce continues to be on the lookout, a vampire approaches her with hungry eyes and extended fangs. The problem is that he's the same vampire from last night.

"We meet again, sweet thing."

Lettuce jumps when she heard that familiar voice. She looks at him, alarmed that he's here and he's examining her with those silver eyes of his. Now she's in danger because last time she saw him, he saw her getting 'bitten' by Pai so that he could leave her alone.

"You know, vampires aren't meant to bleed and judging by your expression," he leans closer to her, close enough for his hand to lean against the wall she's up against, "you remember me. Newly turned vampires aren't meant to remember their once humans lives, no matter how long ago it was before they were bitten."

Ichigo sees that vampire and how close he is to Lettuce and how uncomfortable she is with this vampire near her. "Oh fuck." She starts walking towards them, pushing aside anyone in her way. Now for some stress reliever.

Swoosh

Stab

Ichigo stops walking and her eyes are wide with surprise, just as Lettuce's are when she lost the feel of her silver dagger from her back and she sees the blank eyes of the vampire before her. Without much attention from the other vampires, the vampire in front of her burns into ash and scatters away to reveal Pai holding her dagger.

He passes her the dagger and says, "The guy just doesn't learn, does he?" Then he grabs her bleeding hand, the one he didn't pass her dagger to, and brings the bloody finger to his mouth. He puts the finger in his mouth and licks the blood away. Ichigo watches carefully but she sees, as best as she could, Pai piercing his own mouth and then allowing his blood to drip over Lettuce's wound. When he licked it away, the wound healed without a single wound to show that it ever existed. When he removes her finger, he asks, "Are you alright?"

Lettuce looks like she's ready to cry, much to his confusion. Her eyes are glossy and her bottom lip is quivering. She nods and tries not to cry, but seeing his sweet face again pushes her over the edge. "Oh Pai." Then she suddenly goes up to him and gives him a passionate kiss, her arms rising up to circle around his neck so that she can pull him close to her. Now Pai is really confused, especially when the kiss feels desperate and deeply relieved. Seeing this, Ichigo couldn't help but a bit sorry for Lettuce. She almost lost Pai again. When Taruto and Kisshu see this, they were beyond shock and almost speechless.

Taruto leans up to Kisshu and asks, "Isn't that the girl who was with the vampire hunters from before?"

Still keeping his eyes on them, Kisshu answers, "Yeah."

"And isn't she supposed to be Onii-sama's lover?"

"Yeah."

Noticing that his answers sound the same, Taruto comments, since Kisshu is really too shock to think straight. "Doesn't look like the kind of girl who's an owner of innocent blood to me."

Kisshu slowly shakes his head this time as he's still watching. "Not at all."

After a moment to regain himself, Pai pushes Lettuce back and he asks, "Lettuce, what's wrong? Why are you here?"

But Lettuce's hands go to his face and she cups it before calling his name again. "Pai, I…" Then she starts crying, tears rolling down her eyes like crystal marbles.

"Lettuce?"

"We had to leave."

Pai looks up to the side and he sees Ichigo standing only a feet away, defiantly looking upset to be here and trying to be serious in this situation. It became a shocker to see her here as well, especially when Taruto and Kisshu saw her.

"Ichigo," Kisshu whispers, unable to believe it. He even stands up to walk over where his elder brother is and Taruto follows him.

"Leave?" Pai asks, still confused.

Ichigo answers, "Yes. The Blue Knight thought that Masaya, the hunter that was bitten, was a spy because we didn't tell him the real reason why we were out there. But he really suspects of Lettuce being the spy. So after telling us that we are to leave the country and stay low for a while, he wanted me to follow Lettuce and tell them where you are hiding and we could finish you all off once and for all, if she had left our base to go to you."

Lettuce lowers her hand and tries to say, "I didn't want to leave you again. I just got you back and I don't know if you'll believe me this time if I left and told you through a letter."

"We went through four other vampire clubs and don't get me started on how many vampires pinched or slapped my ass!"

"You really don't like vampires," Pai says, almost sounding like a question.

Ichigo huffs before saying, "I hate vampires. Every single one of them."

"Ichigo."

Hearing her name, Ichigo looks up, pass Pai, and she sees Kisshu standing there with Taruto by his side, staring at her with apologetic, nervous eyes. "Ichigo, I…"

He doesn't know what to say. She can see that and all she does is stand there.

"Hello, Kisshu," she greets. He still didn't know what to say. He only stood there, staring at her. But yet again, what could you say if you just found out that the person you wanted to kill is your childhood friend that you haven't seen in over eleven years and she hates what you are.

After a moment, Ichigo looks back at Pai and asks, "Do you have any place private we can talk? Someplace secretive where if someone tried to follow us, they would get lost."

Now they're all looking at her in confusion. Pai answers, "Yes, why?"

"Because someone's been following us since we left our base."

Their eyes widen in shock to hear this. Ichigo adds, "I don't know who or what it is since I've been distracted but I know that he or she's been following us for a while now. It's not here now but I know it's still here."

"Then follow us, this way," Kisshu tells her. He even approaches her and his hand was going to grasp her arm and lead her the way, but she pulls her arm away from him. He was startled when she did that, but she doesn't say anything, nor does she look at him. There was silence for a moment, until Pai grasps Lettuce's hand and pulls her from the wall.

"This way."

They both lead the way and Ichigo follows behind them, not once looking up at Kisshu. He follows her and Taruto follows him. As they were walking through the crowd, Lettuce wraps her arm around his and he looks down at her from the hug. She had on that really sad, after shock face on. She was really upset and all he could do at the moment was squeeze her hand back to reassure her.

Also on the way out of the club, one vampire sees Ichigo and instantly started examining her body. When she passes him, he took that chance to slap her butt. She stopped when she felt that and she growls in frustration before going to the side of her hip and takes out a gun. She just about to fire the gun as soon as the socket was at the vampire's head when she sees Kisshu pushing the guy on the floor, his foot pressing down on the center of the vampire's back and his hand gripping the vampire's arm that's pulled behind him. Noticing that they stopped, Pai and Lettuce stop walking and they turn around to see this as Taruto is a bit surprise that Kisshu is doing this, Ichigo sharing his surprise.

The vampire yells, "Ow! What the fuck, man?!"

"Don't give me that, you dumb shit!" he calls, his voice full of poison and his eyes really angry and very dangerous. "If you ever do that to her again, you're not gonna leave with just this." Then he pushes his arm all the way to the floor, breaking it in the process.

"AAH!" the vampire screams from the massive pain. Then Kisshu walks to his broken arm and stomps on the fingers, loud cracks being heard in the process. "AAAHHH!"

"You'll be dead next time, but not until after I break every bone in your body." Then Kisshu spits at him and looks up at Ichigo. She looks at him then but she only keeps his gaze for a moment.

She puts the gun away and says, "I can take care of myself. I don't need your help." Then she looks back at Pai and Lettuce and asks, "Are we going or not?"

Without saying anything, they start walking again and Ichigo follows them. Kisshu got his hand in a tight ball but he controls himself before he decides to break the in-pain vampire's neck. He follows them shortly after and Taruto does the same, except he decides to walk a little faster so that he could go up to Ichigo.

"Hey!" he calls. She looks down at him from the corner of her eyes and he says, "I know that this whole truce thing is new and we were just trying to kill each other yesterday, but there is something I want to ask and I would like an honest answer."

Ichigo tells him, "Go on."

Taruto then prepares himself and he tries to use the right words so that he can ask, "Is Pudding…okay?"

She should have known that he would ask about her but her experiences of vampire behavior clouded her judgment. Still she answers honestly, "She's fine. Angry and upset and I suspect that she's actually really hurt, but she's trying to be strong. Before, she only wanted to kill Deep Blue for having his fangs in your neck and then kill herself so that she can meet you in the afterlife. But now knowing that you're still here, she added you to her 'will kill before I kill myself' list. She wants to save your soul and then follow you. Is that honest enough for you?"

During the whole answer, Taruto was shock to hear the words coming out of Ichigo's mouth. But after being asked that, he looks away in both guilt and shame. "Yes, it's enough."