a/n: hi~ please endure just one more oc-centric chapter, and we'll bring back the diahoes (a new one!) next time! thank u for your patience~!

Hoshio met with the determined expressions of at least a dozen Hunters, who had arranged themselves so that they surrounded the four vampires in the room. Chie and the boy servant stood in protective stances; their mouths shut, bodies alert, and feet ready to spring. Although they seemed to be guarding the two higher-ups behind them, Hoshio wondered if they really meant it—Kaeri was not the kindest to them, and neither had Hoshio acted so gracious; of course, on her part, she had spoken haughtily only in hopes of lulling Kaeri away.

But that didn't work, as they were afterwards interrupted with this.

And Hoshio's heart sunk at the sight of so many Hunters. She knew that they had to be; they wore the same gear and straps that her victim had been wearing—and she knew her victim must have been the reason why they were here. She let out a soft, wary sigh. So long as she stayed near Kaeri, she supposed she'd be alright. Hopefully? She hated relying on others, she hated being the submissive one, but she was powerless in her current situation. She couldn't control her strengths in the slightest.

"They're good," she heard one of the Hunters whisper. Her eyes flicked toward the figure of a young man, who was well-built and muscular, and whose leathery skin was battered with grime and grazes. Hoshio's ears were on alert, and she realized she could pick up anything in the room, no matter how subtle. She heard every swallow and sniff and rustle from the Hunters around her, and she was bothered by it.

The room became still for a moment. Both sides were waiting for the other to attack first, although it worried Hoshio to know how horribly outnumbered her own side was. And then Chie spoke up to her counterpart, with a confident flair that no one would expect from a plain scattered waitress.

"Our first priority are the guests. Ensure that Kaeri-sama and Hoshio-sama are safely returned to the ballroom," she instructed. The boy nodded, and slowly approached the two women behind him, keeping eye contact with the ensemble of Hunters the entire time. They did nothing but watch. Well, that same Hunter who had commented earlier turned once more to the person beside him, and whispered again.

"Dude, one of them's the princess," he said about Hoshio. His comrade elbowed him in the gut and hissed at him to keep quiet, and the others were trying to keep their eyerolls to a minimum. Hoshio was bewildered. That boy was not very good at holding his tongue! He reminded her of herself, in a way. Except, while she was held in high regard by most of the peers she had met thus far, that boy seemed to be the runt of the litter. However he was unfazed by his comrades' disapproving stares. And he remained that way even when Chie began to speak, this time addressing the Hunters crowd.

"If you're ready to speak with your words now," she started, lacing her sweet voice with an unexpected sarcasm, "I'd appreciate it if you told us why you're here." As she spoke, the boy servant grabbed onto both Kaeri and Hoshio's arms, murmuring a quick apology for his brashness.

One Hunter, a man, stepped forward. He was visibly aged and boasted an abundance of battle scars etched into every visible patch of his skin. He appeared to be the leader of this group.

"We're here to eliminate those involved in an illegal gathering of demon tribes," he declared. "An investigation on behalf of the numerous missing persons reports we've received around the area. And also..." His gaze trailed to each of the four vampires in the room, piercing his weighted brown eyes into their skulls. "...To find the one responsible for the death of my son."

Hoshio heard this, and felt her chest sink in. She knew it was her. It had to be her. It was karma—she knew that killing that one Hunter would one day come back to bite her, but a mere few hours seemed to be all it took for his comrades to seek her out. She felt a panic swell up within her, and at this point that feeling of hopelessness was very familiar. ...Not to say she was welcoming it, however. She turned to Kaeri with a look of sheer terror in her eyes.

"Let's go back to the ballroom, Hoshio-sama," Kaeri said, recognizing her unease. "Come on." And she, too, grasped onto Hoshio's other arm.

There was another familiar feeling that swept across the amnesiac then. She had felt this when Reiji had brought her down from upstairs, and when that Shiroda boy had brought her back upstairs, and every other time her body had undergone the tingling mysteria that came with teleportation. This time, however, this feeling did not cause her to disappear, and she was not brought back to the safety of the ballroom below. You'd think that she wanted to escape—for once it was found out that she was the one behind that Hunter's death, she would endure the wrath of a grieving father and his army of murder machines.

But she would not. Her body remained still, rejecting every effort that Kaeri and the boy servant put forth to bring them to safety. She didn't know why, but she did understand that she possessed a power that could drown the very air around them. It was only a matter of controlling it. And at this point in time, that power was defensive, preventing any sort of foreign energy from breaking through to Hoshio. Well, she thought she wanted nothing more but to leave. She knew she wanted the safety of down below. However she also supposed her body knew what it wanted most—after all, her power had manifested itself when she was parched, when she needed to unlock the predatory instinct inside her to dominate her prey; and when the lives of those she wanted answers from were at risk. It was how she devoured every last bit of resistance her victim had left in him, despite him being trained specifically to hunt creatures like her. How she broke down a door locked by spellwork with her bare hands.

This power rivalled her brothers and other nobles like Kaeri at a fair range, but completely overwhelmed common servant boys. And when such a strength swept over her entirety like it did, an attempt at a force-removal from the lobby proved wholly futile. She couldn't even respond to Kaeri and the waiter, and remained completely awestruck watching the engagement between Chie and the lead Hunter.

"...Hoshio-sama?" Queried the boy servant.

"Please, this is dangerous. Let's go," Kaeri urged.

But Hoshio would not.

Chie continued speaking.

"You dumbasses are meddling with the nobles of the Demon Realm. Who sent you?" She had heightened herself up considerably, giving off menacing vibes with every word that dripped off her tongue. Meanwhile, Hoshio couldn't understand why she was frozen in place, and the two vampires beside her couldn't figure out how to move her. She had become stone! Neither Kaeri nor the servant boy boasted much brute strength, but not even with the natural power of noble Shiroda blood could they lift Hoshio out.

"We are here to eliminate those involved," the lead Hunter repeated. "Beginning with you. However," as he paused, two Hunters approached the other three vampires. Because of Hoshio's unwillingness to move, Kaeri and the servant boy had to remain planted there as well. They both rose their hands to ward the two Hunters off, but the humans were slicker and in the blink of an eye they had restrained the two protectors.

Hoshio snapped out of her stupor the second her two companions were ripped off of her, and immediately jumped to assist them. Of course, she ran to Kaeri's aid first, but was easily stopped once one of the Hunters drew a longsword from her sheath. She pointed the blade straight at Hoshio's throat, and Hoshio froze up again. She turned to the servant boy, but felt that if she tried to approach him, the same threat from his captors would only halt her again.

"Oi...!" Kaeri hissed. Without Hoshio's assistance, she tried tugging her arms free herself, but any chances of her escape were promptly crushed when a pair of handcuffs were clapped over her wrists—the same happened with the servant boy. She continued to thrash through those as well, but within an instant any sort of movement came to a still. Her face twisted up into a pained grimace.

"Anti-vampire cuffs," one Hunter explained. "These will be our hostages."

It dawned on Hoshio after that, that the situation she was trapped in relied mostly on her for its success. Chie was keeping still to ensure that none of the other Hunters attempted a surprise attack, which left Hoshio the only unbound one. She wasn't entirely sure why they spared her the handcuffs (perhaps they only had two pairs), but it still was a fact that this was all up to her. She felt a rush of adrenaline kick through her veins. ...Another two lives in danger. She was the protector, and she had to succeed one last time. Hopefully, the last for the night.

"...So you've got two hostages," she spoke up, smoothly. "What do you want us to do?"

"Don't you even dare try to listen to them, Hoshio-sama," Kaeri quickly intervened. "These guys are stronger than ordinary Hunters. I don't want you to save us. Do you hear me? Go back to the ballroom, and stay there! You can inform the servants, but I swear if I see you come back up here—" As she spoke, the Hunter who had threatened Hoshio shifted her sword so that it instead aimed at Kaeri. Kaeri came to silence herself. The so-called Sakamaki princess didn't respond to her, as she wasn't sure how to explain that she couldn't get back down to the ballroom.

One of the guarding Hunters did grow concerned, however, after Kaeri had spoken.

"...'Hoshio-sama'..? Wait—" His voice dripped away as he looked to their leader, who let out a heavy, irritated sigh. The Hunters were not so familiar with the facial appearances of vampire nobility, much less vampire royalty, and had assumed they had restrained Hoshio and the servant based solely on the auras they gave off. For Kaeri's was mighty, a powerful, certain, and dignified type of air which surely had to belong to a prospective leader of the vampire clan... At least, that was in comparison to Hoshio—who was a mess of many different feelings rolled into one. She was not grounded.

The Hunters hadn't meant to seize Kaeri. Hoshio would have been a far more useful hostage; not a single vampire in their right mind would dare defy the daughter of the Vampire King—at least, that's what the Hunters thought. And they were only half-wrong—if the Mukamis and the other Sakamakis counted as exceptions.

"Whatever—it works out all the same," the lead Hunter decided. "Proceed as planned."

So the Hunters obliged that command without a second thought. Hoshio had no idea what their plans were, but that soon came to light. For in the seconds that followed, the only thing that filled Hoshio's ears was the high, paralyzing ring of a fired bullet; it felt like it was rattling her own skull. She thought she would experience more chaos of bouncing shells and charging firearms—but there was only one, one shot, and then she saw the red drizzle out of the servant boy's forehead. Soon after, his body collapsed forward. Hoshio compulsively shot her arms out to catch him. The hard of his teeth knocked against her shoulder as his weight caved into her embrace, and then they were still.

Hoshio's fingers began to tremble. But that was the only movement coming from her; she could hear the blood roiling through her ears, and the pitters of her heart as she halted as much of her body as she could. The light inside the servant boy had burnt out right before her eyes. Murdered. Hoshio was terrified—for her own safety, for Kaeri's... She wished she had chosen to go with the Mukami brothers! If she stayed with Reiji, if she insisted on staying home from this cursed soirée—!

But she could not even muster the strength to scream. Instead she looked to Kaeri and Chie, who wore expressions just as taken off-guard as she. None of them could say a word. They were frozen in place, the servant boy was frozen in slumber; Hoshio was stricken and through and still.

The Hunters took it upon themselves to advance the conversation. Signalled when one of Kaeri's captors cocked another gun against her head, the lead Hunter came forward. Chie was far too softened up to protect anything now, and so they approached the remaining vampires with ease.

"Two days till the eclipse. You can't beat us, vampires. So do as we say and we'll spare this one." And by 'this one,' he meant Kaeri.

"...No.." Chie muttered. Her voice sounded so hopeless, so broken, and Hoshio's heart felt like it was crumbling in despair at the sound. But Chie did not look in pain—her eyes remained in slits, glued to her companion's lifeless body. And they were fierce.

"No..?" The Hunter took another step forward. At that, Hoshio rose a hand over Chie's chest, only to stop her from saying anything more. It would take just one more word to trigger that gun. She knew this well, she felt it so.

"What do you want us to do?" so Hoshio asked. Unlike Chie, she kept her own voice stable, and her face remained stoic, but a stream of thin tears had already begun to seep down her cheeks. She wasn't so heartless that this wouldn't affect her at all—but she dedicated as much energy as she could into ensuring that none of her muscles would flinch. It was an odd sight to witness; an expression so stiff certainly did not look as though it could warrant such an onslaught of tears. She wore the face of a doll crying out of place.

The lead Hunter, staring straight into her welling eyes, recalled his demands by holding up a single finger.

"Access," he said. "Take us to the other floors."

Hoshio swallowed any and every emotion she felt in that moment, so that she could hold a conversation with the Hunters, one that was clear to the both of them. Of course he would need the one thing she was incapable of doing! But Kaeri's life was in danger, and Chie's own feelings were making her unreadable. Hoshio had to do the talking here.

"You want me to... teleport you?" She clarified, and as she spoke, a male Hunter approached her. He bent toward the servant boy, whose body still remained in Hoshio's hold, and removed the handcuffs from his hands. He then tossed the pair to his comrade.

"Yes," said the leader. "We will spare all three of you if you do." And as he spoke, the handcuff-wielding Hunter engaged with Chie. She fought, but the Hunter proved to be stronger, and the end result was that her arms were twisted up behind her back, wrists locked inside rings of anti-vampire metal. Hoshio was growing more insecure by the second. "As you can see, Princess, we are no ordinary Hunters. You let us in, we let your friends go. Simple as that."

Hoshio wondered. If she could teleport, she would have been out of there in an instant, and these Hunters would have had no one to use. If she had gone with Kaeri and the servant boy earlier, they'd have never set foot in this mess. Or what if she didn't care at all for Kaeri? Or Chie? She would have abandoned them by now. ...Did the Hunters consider that? It was as if they knew she wouldn't leave them behind—but she couldn't help her own side either!

Hoshio was feeling doubtful. Another rush of tears came streaming down her face, and this time her brows caved in. She was overstimulated by all of this. Kaeri and Chie were bound, she was expected to save them; she was expected to betray everyone at this soirée to help those Hunters do who-knew-what. She met Kaeri in the eye, but the noblewoman's state was declining at a rapid rate. Her onyx eyes were barely open, and her hair hung over her sweat-stained head in messy coils. Chie was trying her hardest to resist, but could only feel the power of anti-vampire metal restrict every bit of her strength. Neither were in a condition to give Hoshio any advice at all.

She swallowed again. She wrapped her arms tighter around the corpse in her hold, and looked between the abundance of Hunters shrouding her vision. Her heart began to patter even harder than before, and she swore she was going to have a heart attack from how many times she had panicked this evening. What to do? Her mind was in shambles.

Slowly, though, she rested the servant boy's body on the floor, and straightened his legs and shut his eyes, and then smoothed out her own skirt. Her shoulder had a warm spot from where his wound had leaked out, but the color was not visible on her black and crimson ball gown. She could keep her arms from trembling, at least, and looked up at the Hunters with sheer ferocity in her weeping eyes.

"Fine," she said. "I'll help you."

"...Don't, Hos—" Kaeri began, but immediately cut herself off when her captor jabbed her gun against her head once more. The lead Hunter was satisfied.

"No conditions at all? Perfect. Take us upstairs, then."

Hoshio's brows quivered again. "You could have easily broken in upstairs," she pointed out. The leader forced out a half-hearted chuckle.

"Brute strength is useless on spellbound windows and walls," he said. "But surely you knew that already, Princess? Stop wasting my time." It was true; the private rooms upstairs and the ballroom down below were the only areas of this building that ran on spellwork. It would explain why Yuma couldn't break down the door, why an opening had suddenly appeared in the wall during the feasts. The only thing that Hoshio still did not understand was where Rumi's bouquet had sprouted up from, but now was not a very appropriate time (nor place) to ask that. So she swallowed again and sighed heavily, wiping at one eye. She had no idea what she was to do. She couldn't bring the Hunters upstairs even if she wanted to. She couldn't save Kaeri or Chie. She couldn't save the servant boy.

...But she could run.

Hoshio stood still for a few more moments, always keeping her gaze lowered. She breathed in once through her nose, a despairing sniffle which she felt slightly embarrassed for seconds afterwards; and exhaled, and then burst through the restaurant's exit. Hoshio's legs were not accustomed to projecting her body forward with so much force, but she ran and ran, ignoring every scream and beg her body sent for her to stop.

The Hunters were not just about to let her escape, however. Quite a few of them ploughed into the night after her. Hoshio couldn't imagine what would happen if they caught her. She half expected to hear those guns go off again, taking the lives of both Kaeri and Chie within an instant, but fortunately there was not a single crack of gunfire, and so she was able to focus solely on sprinting as far away as she could.

She wove between alleys, sprinting through dark passages and up crumbling stairs, but realized she would probably have a better chance of escaping if she went somewhere crowded. Although, that was a silly thought—where would she find a crowd of people outside at three in the morning? She couldn't comprehend where she was running to, or if she was going in circles, but she cursed the loud echoes of her stilettos with every dash she took. They'd give her away if she tried to hide! ...Though, Hunters could smell—they were sniffer dogs trained to locate vampires. Hiding would never work out.

At one point Hoshio turned into another random alley, but immediately skidded to a halt. Somehow, a few of her pursuers had guessed she'd turn that way and had already come in to barricade her exit. She nearly tripped over her own feet in an attempt to whirl around the other way. However even that way, another set of Hunters had filed in, and she was blocked on both ends.

"Don't come any closer..!" she hissed out at them, and backed up against the wall. The Hunters advanced regardless.

"We're not going to hurt you," one tried to reassure her, and it was the truth; laying a finger on the royals of the vampire clan would land them in war with a colony—not just the nobles who hosted that soirée. But Hoshio was not acting as a royal would, and had led them on this far; if she had the mindset of a true demon monarch their lives would have perished long before.

"I don't care," Hoshio growled. "Stay back!"

But they crowded further and further around her, and at this point Hoshio was tired of keeping her muscles still. Her entire body was shaking. Her core was roiling about in fear and unease; her knees felt like buckling, and her heels hurt in those awful shoes. However when the Hunters still insisted on closing in on her, Hoshio couldn't handle it. She rose her hands against them, and cried out one last time, before she felt something spark from within her palms.

Unlike that frosty feeling, this ignited her skin, and it was hot, unbearably hot—but she lost her focus on the heat the moment she heard agonizing shrieks trilling out from the humans beside her. Her eyes need only blink, and her nose was suddenly filled with the odors of smoke and burning skin. They were on fire. She had somehow set the Hunters all ablaze! It took only seconds to completely mar their beings into ash, and she watched it all as they melted like witches and swept across the concrete below.

This time, it was her turn to shriek, and for the first time since her awakening, a shrill, much-needed scream bellowed out from the top of her lungs. Hoshio could hardly breathe. She brought her shaky hands up to her face, examining them. They were white and cold and did not seem as though they had just sent sparks flying. Still, her emotions were not cooling in the slightest. There was nothing left in front of her; not a single bone or cloth, but the stench was prominent. She almost toppled over right there to faint.

However, her body kept strong; her eyes kept blurring but she could still think nonetheless. And at least, she thought, I have nothing to hide. She wiped at her nose and gathered her skirt in one hand, and began to run again. Like before, she had no clear destination in mind, but she ran anyway. She'd run until she left the city, she decided.

She'd keep running...

...That was, of course, unless she ran into someone else before she made it out.

a/n

hii!

I kinda enjoyed this chapter, even though it was srsly lacking of diakids uwu

Hopefully you read this far, because there'll be some exciting-fulnessness in the next couple chapters! (Ik I promised that last time and I didn't give ya any Yuma or Reiji BUT this time I promise we'll see at least one of 'em next time!)

...There's also a new character (who's canon) appearing next chapter!

stay tuned~!