Guten Tag readers! Wie gehts? (How is it going?) Sorry about the German, I'm listening to Rammstein as I write this. Jine's part is finally over, and let me tell you, I did not expect it to take ten chapters. This little chapter hump will, hopefully, be smaller.

Anyway, let's get on with the story!


Dead; everyone around him was dead. The acrid stench of many bodies threatened to pull him over into the dark abyss lying in wait. If he listened hard enough, he could hear their screams, some long and piercing, others choked by a hand or knife, and the rest virtually silent, taken before they had ever had a chance to raise an alarm. Too many of the latter number surrounded him. A sad fate carried to the gateway of the other world, killed before you ever saw your murderer's face. In front of him, laying outstretched like a sacrifice lay the body of a young man, silent from here on out. His closed eyes and lips revealed no secrets as the soul was permanently out to lunch. He sighed as he stared down at the corpse.

There were days Sanosuke really hated being at the county morgue.

So far, he had been standing in the autopsy room, beside a fresh corpse, waiting for the medical examiner to return for about ten minutes now. Normally ten minutes would seem like the blink of an eye to the laid back young man, but being surrounded by dead people was starting to creep him out. Seriously, how did Nakamura manage it? Furthermore, who would choose this as a profession? What kind of kid ran up to his parents, telling either mommy or daddy in the giddy childlike manner that they wanted to cut open and cross examine bodies? 'But I have to say, Sanosuke thought as he took a glance around the room, 'Autopsies do make things a little smoother.'

On the other side of the room the door opened, and in stepped medical examiner for the county morgue, Juto Nakamura. The man strode into the room, shutting the door behind him. Light from overhead glinted off his glasses, masking his eyes for a brief moment. When he turned to face the hunter, the man was all smiles. Why shouldn't he have been? After twenty tireless years of working with the dead, he had come to know nearly every vampire hunter inside the Hunter's Council; if he had to make a rough estimate, Nakamura would have said at least five or six out of every ten bodies he had were victims of Level E attacks. Nakamura clasped Sanosuke's hand in a firm shake.

"Good afternoon Sagara. I assume by you showing up here, that it means you received my call?"

Sano nodded. The minute after he'd listened to the voice mail left on his phone, he'd dropped everything (which for poor Yahiko meant having to wait until his brother got back to get some help with math homework), and ran out the door. When the words 'something interesting' came from the mouth of a medical examiner, one didn't think twice about heading off. This was big. Both men stood on either side of the long metal table that held the body of the young man Sano had taken note of earlier. Aside from the marble pallor of death, there were no puncture wounds, no gash marks that he could see, hell even the semi-clear cloth that covered the body was free of stain. If he had just happened to glance, Sanosuke would have thought that the man may have died in his sleep, which was rather odd if one was to consider the age factor, but not unlikely. However, it was all on the interesting thing discovered by Nakamura that had prompted his arrival. The sheet was pulled back to reveal the pale, naked corpse complete with the standard Y-incision. Gloved hands hovered over the body as Nakamura began talking.

"Now, you notice here, that there are no bruises, no cuts, no puncture wounds, and no abrasions anywhere either. Looks pretty perfect doesn't it?"

Sanosuke nodded. Indeed it was odd. If this was a vampire attack victim, there would have been some sort of wound on the body, be it small or large. Nakamura continued, pointing to the Y-incision.

"The real show is on the inside."

The man sounded as if he was advertising for some sort of show. Sanosuke watched as the M.E. peeled back the folds of the incision. Bright reds, soft pinks, and the creamy orange of the intestines jumped out in a stark contrast to the subtle white of the skin. Sano chuckled as he watched Nakamura peel back another flap of skin.

"I feel like we're opening a pop-up book."

Nakamura answered this with a small laugh.

"Well, sometimes things do pop out; literally."

The medical examiner had the satisfaction of the hunter opposite him turning a different color, somewhere between a gray and a green. The thirty-nine year old married man laughed.

"Trust me Sagara, when you spend every working hour with dead people, it's nice to have a sense of humor handy. My wife says she's caught me talking to the corpses once or twice."

"Your wife works here?"

"Occasionally she'll bring me lunch. Aha! Here we go! Take a gander at this."

A rubber covered finger pointed to the stomach. There, imposed upon the pink, was a bright smear of scarlet, dotted here and there with holes. Ulcers maybe? No, it didn't look like it. Ulcers were fairly small, they didn't encompass a third of the stomach like that. But maybe this was an advanced case? It could have been, in which case the guy would have had to have been extremely poor, or numb to not go into the doctor the minute the symptoms started. Nakamura looked at Sanosuke.

"Now, I know what you're thinking. I thought the same thing, but take a closer look. As you can see, the…let's just call them ulcers for now, the ulcers encompass a good third of the stomach wall. Not only that, I checked for blood by scraping his colon. There was no blood in the fecal matter when I checked the microscope. Not only that, red and white counts were normal-"

"How?"

"Hospital records. Apparently this guy was in and out for multiple health problems before he died, but I'll get to all that later. Anyway this is what I found when I cut into the stomach."

With the ease of hands given only to artists and medical practitioners , Nakamura excised the stomach from the body, lifted it up, undid his stitch work, and peeled back a piece of the outer wall. Inside the stomach it was chaos. If this man did die from ulcers, then he must have been in quite a great deal of pain. Nakamura's voice derailed Sanosuke's train of thought.

"As you've no doubt noticed, almost all of the mucus lining of the stomach has been completely worn away, hence the extreme redness, and the Swiss cheese appearance of the organ. However, if this had been a multitude of ulcers, I don't think it would look like this. It appears as if a large portion of the lining was worn away very quickly, and all at once."

"Something the guy ate?"

A smile pulled up the corners of Nakamura's mouth. With the same gentle ease he had used to remove the stomach from the body, he put it back, and went about reworking the stitching.

"Exactly Sagara. I have a couple microscopes placed on the back table behind you. I'd like you to take a look at both of them and after reading the labels, come tell me your assumptions."

Sanosuke did as he was bade, and strode around to peer through the first microscope that he came to. Illuminated by the light from under the glass slide was… Sano glanced away for a brief moment to read the label so precisely placed to the left of the microscope. 'Blood taken from Nagai, Kiito'. Brown eyes flicked back to the tiny drop of blood being scrutinized under light and magnifying lens. At first glance, it looked simply like a slide of blood. Individual red cells making up the tiny drop, sat under the slip cover, staring back at him with unblinking red eyes. Upon closer inspection he noticed that a few of the cells were mutated. At first glance, it looked like sickle cell disease, however once Sanosuke took a closer look, some of the blood cells looked as if the had been ravaged. Holes had appeared on some, making tiny white eyes in the center of the dark circles. Others were riddled through with tiny specks of black that had spread to the membrane.

Good God in heaven, what the hell had happened to this guy? Sanosuke took his eye away from the first microscope and peeked at the slide on the second one. The blood sample was exactly the same as the first. Written on the label next to the microscope were the words "Blood sample found under the nails of a Level E victim".

So this guy was a Level E? No, he couldn't have been. Were that the case, he would have been put on the list and exterminated, not lying in the county morgue. He stepped back and looked at Nakamura.

"Okay, I'm confused."

"Let me explain by backing up a few years in history: When pureblood vampires first began turning humans into their kind, in order to delay the insanity for as long as possible, the vampire would give the infected human some of its blood. If the pureblood was unwilling to do so, then an aristocrat's blood was offered. The effect on the previously human body, as far as blood cells are concerned is identical. However, when it comes to the body itself, there are striking differences between vampire and human bodily functions, such as digestion. Take humans for example: Our diet is widely varied, meats vegetables, and various liquids. In order to dissolve the solids, we have a buildup of hydrochloric acid in our stomachs, and to counteract this, we have a protective lining of mucus. Most liquids, such as alcohol are absorbed into the body directly through the stomach wall. Vampires subsist mainly upon human blood. The digestion of liquids requires no hydrochloric acid, so-"

Sanosuke cut him off.

"So that explains the ulcer like appearance of the stomach. The vampire blood was eating away at the mucus lining as it was passing through the stomach, leaving the acid to erode the organ; because vampires don't have a mucus lining in their stomachs."

"Well done Sagara."

Sanosuke smiled. The two men had moved away from the tables containing body and microscopes, and now stood near the front of the room. A stack of papers was exchanged from Medical Examiner to vampire hunter.

"Here are the hospital records for our new resident over here. You should be able to find everything you need, name, home address, relatives, etc."

The hunter's right hand clasped firmly around the documents, while the left shook Nakamura's hand in a firm grip. Sanosuke smiled at Nakamura. The man was always a pleasure to work with, and always got right down to business. Of course after joking around for a few minutes, but hey, it lightened the mood.

"Thanks Nakamura. I'll let you know if something comes up."

"Likewise Sagara."

With that, Sanosuke turned and walked out of the room, and five minutes later, he stepped into late afternoon sunlight. Shielding his eyes from the sudden stab at his retinas, he checked his watch. 4:15. Let's see here. I've got my teeth in a juicy new development, and possibly the largest beginning break anyone's been granted with; maybe Kenshin and Yagari would be up for an impromptu meeting down at the local bar. Kenshin, he knew would be up to it. If there was one thing that Sanosuke knew about the redhead, it was that he didn't mind spur of the moment. Yagari may have been a different story. He shrugged. Ah what the hell, it couldn't hurt to give that chain smoker a quick buzz. Fingers delved into the left pocket, and produced a cell phone. As he flipped it open, Sanosuke had high hopes that both of them would definitely be answering.


"Dr. Takani. Excuse me, Dr, Takani."

She turned away from what would have been her third cup of coffee that day. Boy, she really needed to cut down on the caffeine intake. It was a wonder she wasn't bouncing off the walls of her office. Her green eyes looked up the see an orderly standing in the doorway, a registration clipboard held in her hands.

"Yes Masai?"

"One of your patients is here to see you. Shall I send him in, or are you on break right now?"

Masai asked, her eyes trailing down to the coffee cup. Poor Dr. Takani. It seemed as each day went by the amount of coffee consumed within one hour kept rising. Within the past week it had steadily gone from a half cup, to one, and now today it had jumped all the way up to three. Masai hoped Dr. Takani would be okay, and that it was merely stress from her workload. Megumi Takani, head physiologist, smiled at the orderly.

"No, I'm alright. Please, send the patient in."

Masai nodded, and stepped out of the doorway. Two minutes later, a mousy haired twenty-nine year old man wearing large rimmed glasses strode quietly into the room. Megumi greeted him with the reserved and kind smile used mainly on her patients.

"Ah Mr. Kawashi. Please, have a seat."

Kawashi silently sat in the chair opposite Megumi. He folded his hands in his lap as he faced the woman who helped keep him healthy to the best of her ability. He hadn't wanted to come in today; the appointment for him had been scheduled for next week, but he hadn't able to wait. The gradually increasing pain of his Chronic Pancreatitis was making it hard to function throughout the day. Sure, he'd completely lain off the alcohol when Megumi had ordered him to, but it turned out he had been moving just two steps behind. Now, numbed by the powerful pain killers prescribed from his last visit, he began to speak to Megumi, filling her in on his current health.

"The pain killers you gave me last week are working marvelously Dr. Takani, and I do thank you for that. However, when they wear off the pain comes back immediately. I'm up to taking two every two hours just to ease it, and you know as well as I do, after all you're the one who told me, that I must follow dosing instructions. Do you now how many times I've contemplated taking four or five? Please Dr. Takani, help me. I can't bear the pain any longer. I've missed two weeks of work. I need a stronger prescription."

"Mr. Kawashi, the pills I prescribed to you were Oxycodone; a powerful painkiller in itself. The next step would be Oxicotton, but that promotes a dangerous addiction, not to mention there's the cost to cover. You told me that you've missed two weeks worth of work. Take one or two Oxicotton, and that will most certainly put you out for an hour or two. Besides, with what you've told me, I think it will be only a matter of time before you're going to have to be moved into the hospital and be administered morphine. The only course of action at this point would probably be surgery-"

"No! No surgery, please I beg of you Dr. Takani!"

No surgery? Was this man insane? Okay, yes he could keep going on pills, but that would severely hurt his pocket book. Besides, if this problem wasn't fixed soon, he would eventually end up dead, or addicted. After all, the hospital couldn't afford, nor would they willingly keep Kawashi on morphine or other high strength medications forever. Then the idea formed in her head. Billowing out like a cloud, radiating dangerous lightning, accompanied with the thunder of Kanryu's voice.

"You remember our deal, don't you Megumi? You trade your freedom, and in exchange, after a bit of working for me, you get your family back."

"My family? My family is dead."

"It doesn't have to be so Megumi. There is a man I work for. He…'specializes' in the more macabre fields. Why currently, he's studying a way to effectively impact and improve our world."

"By reanimating the dead?"

"Think about it: They won't be lost to you forever. In fact, they'll never be lost to you ever again."

"You're insane!"

"Believe in my words. It's not like you have much of a choice anyway. After all, who do you owe your life to?"

She hadn't needed to answer, and he knew that. Kanryu held her life in his hands; it was because if him that she was alive. A genetic disease had taken her immediate family, the only family she had. Vainly, she had sought for some way to either cure or at least curb the devastating effects, but to no avail. They had all passed right before her very eyes. Desperate to know the reason why she alone had survived, she delved deep into her family's genes. Apparently, it had been passed down through recessive genes. Lucky her, she'd been skipped over in the recessive department. Sure, really lucky… After having a seat in the front row for what seemed to be a constantly unfolding tragedy, she had sunk into a pit of depression. Every day she had swallowed one anti-depressant after another, simply to try and kill the emotional pain. The fog of medication had caused her to mentally and physically deteriorate; she had been so obsessed with stopping the pain in her heart, she had failed to notice the toll on her body. Until that fateful winter day, when she had collapsed in the park. If it had not been for the strolling vampire, she would have died from exposure as the snow had piled up around her. It was that day, after she had woken up in his warm and comfortable abode, that he had proposed to her his venomous plan. And she, laden with grief and guilt had agreed.

Megumi looked into the frightened eyes of her patient. She could try to convince him to take the surgery, but one glance at his face told her it would be null to even try. Sadly, as part of the Hippocratic Oath, she could not force a patient to do what they didn't wish. Looking first left then right, she leaned forward to speak with Kawashi in a more private manner.

"Alright, now I need you to listen. I can prescribe you a certain type of drug. It's very effective and will get rid of the pain without any added lethargy. If you come by here at exactly eight o' clock, I will have it here ready to be administered to you."

"Don't you mean prescribed?"

"No, no prescription. This drug is rather…underground."

Kawashi's eyes seemed to burst out of their sockets.

"You mean it's illegal?"

"What? Oh no, of course not. It's just that a local lab has created a medicinal enzyme, and rather than make its effects on animals public, they'd rather try it out on a few human subjects before committing it to the market."

The well crafted lie spun off her lips just as elegantly as thread was spun off a loom. In all reality, if one wanted to get technical it wasn't a complete lie. There were instances where people had been asked to participate in a study where the effects of a newly developed medicine was being tested on humans. It was simply the meat of the story that was utter bull. However, Kawashi seemed to be buying it. He sat there, contemplating his odds. The idea of being an overgrown lab rat did not appeal to him in the slightest, but a possibly effective end to the pain he was in right now interested him a great deal. By now, he was willing to swallow nails if that was what it took.

"I'll go through with it. Tomorrow at eight o' clock you said?"

"Yes."

He stood to leave, Megumi stood as well. They met at the door, where patient shook the hand of the doctor.

"Thank you Dr. Takani. I knew you'd help me."

Lead was filling up her heart, weighing it down to the pit of her stomach as she replied accordingly and watched him leave. The weight caused her to shut her door, sinking to the floor as she leaned against it. Sunlight filtered itself through the blinds and cast a striped pattern of light and shadow on the left wall. The rest of the room was enveloped in a slight medium just between light and shadow. Damn Kanryu and most of all damn herself for getting so far into this!


A small click temporarily broke the thick stillness as the white knight piece was positioned on the chessboard by a long fingered hand. Kaname took his hand away from the piece to examine the layout of the board. On the table behind him was a discarded newspaper. The six o' clock sunlight snuck between the curtains, accenting the article title, written in bold at the top of the periodical.

Ominous Silence Cast over the Town: The Dracula Copycat Has Disappeared Along with Any Evidence.

It seemed that as suddenly as they began, the murders had stopped. Only four people had died, all of them teenagers. He had followed the murders from the moment he heard his classmates gossiping about it, and had immersed himself deeper when he had seen Battousai the other night. Had the man been at Cross Academy because the Hunter's Society suspected that the culprit may have been a student of the Night Class? It was possible, and something of the sort had happened at Cross Academy before, but he doubted it had anything to do with the vampire of the Night Class this time.

That being said, there was a vampire who happened to be interesting him at the present moment: Kaoru Kamiya. When he had sent Kaoru on a Level E hunt before the murders had begun, she had come back and asked him about Battousai. That had been surprising. Kaname had thought the man dead; to find that he was alive and well, working as a vampire hunter had come as a pleasant surprise. It provided a challenge, one of the best games of cat and mouse he would play yet. Kaname had no doubt the murders had been committed by an upper ranking vampire; he had no doubt there was corruption within the Senate. He desperately wanted to make a move, desperately wanted to intervene in the petty human investigations, but as a pureblood, his movements were surprisingly limited. The chess pieces began to shift on the board as they switched places with each other, moved up or down, and captured the opposing side. At last, when all movement on the board had ceased, the knight sat beside the white pawn. Coming up from behind was a black pawn, ready to take the knight, while in the back sat the king, observing everything.


Yes, this is how he would play the hunter and the girl, and in the meantime, get the hunter to drop a few of his secrets and he would watch the black pawn ghost silently up to the white pawn.

"So this guy was drinking vampire blood?"

Sanosuke nodded as Kenshin handed the Nakamura's report over to Yagari, who began flipping through it. Kenshin folded his hands on the table in front of him. Once again, the three of them were sitting at the table in the far back, away from most of the bar-goers. At a table close to the entrance, a toast was raised, followed by cheers and an order for another pint.

"I thought the selling of vampire blood was illegal."

"It would be if the existence of vampires was ever made public; and within the ranks of the vampire Senate, profiting from selling the blood of a pureblood to humans is indeed illegal, but it's virtually impossible to touch a pureblood let alone obtain blood from one."

The rustling of papers was added to the noise common to a bar around six thirty as Yagari continued reading Nakamura's writing. According to the information Kiito Nagai was in his late twenties when he died. Estimated time of death was between two and three a.m. last night. The autopsy had revealed, along with the complete deterioration of the mucus lining of the stomach, that Nagai's spleen had been removed. Further down it read that Nagai had had his spleen removed due to inflammation five months before he died. The abnormal thing was the high amount of white blood cells found in Nagai's blood.

"Hey, Sagara. Did Nakamura tell you anything about this?"

Yagari asked, pointing to the papers in his hands. Sanosuke veered his attention to the man sitting across from him.

"Tell me about what?"

"Five months before his death, Kiito Nagai had his spleen removed due to inflammation. Oddly enough, his white count seemed to have been elevated after the surgery."

"What? Let me see that."

Sanosuke took the papers from his friend, and sure enough, near the bottom of the page was what Yagari had been talking about.

Spleen has been removed from the body, most likely due to some sort of inflammation. Upon reviewing the blood samples, there is an abnormally high white count. The cell count was approximately around 5,000.

Sanosuke had been told that both red and white counts had been normal; he'd even looked at the blood through a microscope. Then again, it could be possible that Nakamura had simply forgotten to inform him. Not surprising when the two of them had been busy discussing the similarity of Nagai's blood to that of a Level E rather than the disappearance of the spleen. The elevated white count was peculiar though. True the body's ability to fight off various infections was lowered slightly, but it wasn't like the man had died of some serious viral infection. Yagari scanned down and noticed another glaring sign: Kiito Nagai had an autoimmune disorder.

"Maybe the vampire blood mixed with his own and the body recognized the vampire blood as a foreign object?"

Kenshin had a point. But didn't the ingesting of a vampire's blood benefit a human body rather than harm it? There had been a couple undocumented cases in the past where a human had ingested the blood of a pureblood or aristocrat, and had been cured of an ailment, or had lived well on into an unbelievably old age.

"Well yeah, but isn't vampire blood sort of like a magic elixir for any human who drinks it?"

Sanosuke's thoughts were echoed by Yagari. The three of them sat and mulled over their evidence. Vampire blood had the lovely consistency to act like water, and mix with the blood of another organism. Yagari took a cigarette out, and bit down on the filter.

"Let's try looking at it his way: Vampires have superb immune systems, they never get sick. They are immune to nearly every disease contracted by man. So let's hypothesize that vampires have an abnormally high white count. That being the case, it would make sense that their blood when administered to humans is able to cure whatever the human is afflicted with. This may also explain the high white count found within Kiito Nagai, as the vampire blood may have been mixing with his own."

Kenshin looked slightly confused.

"Yes, but wouldn't his immune system recognize the blood as a foreign invader?"

"True, but instead of direct injections, Nagai received the dosage orally. Caffeine and alcohol are absorbed into the body through the stomach wall. Let's say for right now that vampire blood does too."

Sanosuke took a moment to interject.

"I'm pretty sure it does. Not only does that report talk of the mucus lining in the stomach being destroyed by the blood passing through, the stomach looked as if a whole sea of ulcers had washed up in there."

Yagari shot Sanosuke a mildly peeved look.

"You had your moment when you gave us the report. Now kindly let me have mine."

A chuckle was the only response. Rolling his eyes, Yagari went back to speaking.

"Like caffeine and alcohol, the vampire blood is sent directly into the stream of Kiito's human blood, blending with his own."

"The effect is bound to wear off though."

Damn! Kenshin had put a chink in Yagari's finely sculpted hypothesis. It was true, if Yagari was correct then the effect of the blood would run out; and if that was the case…

"You think he had multiple doses of this stuff Kenshin?"

Kenshin nodded. It made sense if one happened to, of course look at the stomach, or take in mind the fact of Nagai's autoimmune disorder

"Of course, if we go with what Yagari's saying, which is probably true based on the evidence Nakamura found, we can assume he consumed the blood more than once. That would attribute to the appearance of the stomach."

"What about the white count? We can't assume that all the white blood cells in the blood were transferred perfectly every time. Could it be possible that the acid in the stomach may have eaten away at the blood somewhat?"

Kenshin shrugged.

"It's possible, but we're only going on assumptions here. We may have to wait for some harder evidence to be found."

More assumptions than evidence, more questions than answers. Just great!

"What's the story for the public?"

"No idea yet. The police around here keep a tight lid on anything vampire related. At least five of the detectives on the police force are vampire hunters as well. We don't have to worry about any information being leaked."

"Besides,"

Yagari added.

"They'll provide some kind of cover story. The police or the press, either one, they always do."

In the meantime, the only thing they could do was wait.


Smoky yellow lights situated in the cement ceiling above her cast a hazy glow within the parking garage. The pavement below her feet seemed to radiate the cold temperature of the night to come. Megumi shivered, and pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders. It looked like she'd be turning on the heater when she got into her car. The surrounding area was void of sound as the night tried to invade the cement cage of light. Up ahead, she saw her car, and leaning against the driver's side door was Takeda Kanryu.

What did he want? Why now? Why here? She bit back an annoyed snarl, and approached car and vampire.

"What is it Kanryu?"

While she avoided the snarl, she couldn't mask the venom in her voice. Kanryu smirked.

"My dear Megumi what ever is the matter. You seem displeased about something. I hope it is not my presence you find offensive."

'Displeased'? 'Find his presence offensive'? That was putting it mildly!

"If it pleases you I need five vials of vampire blood by eight o' clock tomorrow. You have another human guinea pig to add to your collection."

Low laughter met her ears. Kanryu's shoulders bounced up and down as the laughter shook his frame. Megumi glowered at him. Jackass! He probably knew that she needed the vials, that was why he'd come here. Leave it to that aristocrat bastard to be probing her mind when she was unaware.

"Megumi, Megumi, Megumi. Do you realize that I am not the only one with soiled hands here? You are the one who makes the decision to provide them with the medicinal agent that will eventually kill them. You are the one they come to looking for succor*, not I. Their deaths are weighed upon your shoulders, not mine."

"Liar! If it wasn't me, you would be using someone else to complete your petty plan!"

"Ah yes, but you were the one who happened to be in my path that day. Fate turned a blind eye on you that day Megumi, and now you must guide its hands, for it can no longer see you because you just keep falling deeper and deeper into the shadows."

A metaphorical knife sliced her heart, piercing her to the soul. She stood there in silence, not able to form neither words, nor thoughts in the blind face of the truth. Fangs reflected the dim light around the as Kanryu smiled.

"I will have what you need by eight o' clock tomorrow. Good night Megumi."

Then she was alone in the semi-dark; alone with nothing but her bitter conscious.


Finally! I am finally done! Sorry about the lack of action, this chapter was mainly building plot. On a side note, succor means help or aid.