Hydra: a many sided problem that presents new obstacles as soon as one aspect appears solved.


Chapter 49

Yui sat on the floor looking at the man, a single pillow in her arms.

Last night she had dreamed of being back at the Sakamaki house. She'd nearly expected to awaken next to Ayato's green eyes but faced the paling face of a man.

He hadn't moved. He'd just slept. Maybe he wouldn't make it back to his family? She knew she needed to feed again but...

But to align to what Osamu had demanded... it felt wrong to oblige to his demands. This idea that she would live through the deaths of the Sakamaki brothers...into some kind of new demon world?

Frankly she'd rather die. Without her father or anyone else from her old life, without the brothers, nothing seemed worth that.

She looked to the door.

Perhaps...

She grabbed the door knob. Open...although she questioned that. Had he been that careless?

She quietly left the room. She'd thought to teleport but remembered what they'd said last time. With little blood, far distances would hurt her. Not to mention they knew where to find her if she returned to the Sakamaki's...bringing these men near the brothers might mean a fight and then they'd all get hurt. At least for now she could escape quietly and hide for a while...find out where she was...or something...

The halls were quiet.

She tiptoed down them as far as she could reach.

She peaked into one door ajar to find the cat masked geishas entertaining a man and a woman before one of them decided to... bite.

She heard their moaning stop quickly. No doubt the Nekomatas bite was different from the vampires...it took longer for hers to heal...perhaps that was why that man was still out cold...

She stepped away and moved fast before one of them sensed her. She needed to find a way to escape.

She went down another hall and found another larger door with a small amount of light streaming through. She heard voices. Them.

Inside Osamu, Ryota and Akatsuya were lounging around a set of red sofas, in the dull lighting of candles.

Osama slouched back onto a golden embroidered pillow and put his feet on the table in front of him.

"So, what is the play?" Ryota sat on the edge of his seat, his legs spread open and his elbows resting on his knees.

"We wait." Osama seemed unmoved.

"Why are we keeping her alive? Just kill her...she's the new race Karlhienz and his petty sons have set in motion! That man you claim to despise? Why do we keep her around like a common human or some off chance whore." Akatsuya paced a bit behind Osamu's sofa. Her leg peaked out of her kimono as she moved. At times her fox tail came less like a kimono and more of a method of female persuasion. Her eyes never left him.

Ryota raised a brow. Like Tekeshi, he always saw through Akatsuya. She was always looking for the most attention. Looking for the most blood. She was as clever as a fox but never quite enough when it came to the retributions of waging a war. "Jealous you are not the only female vampire in our abode now?" His eyes remained half-lidded as his chartreuse color looked over to her accusingly. She'd asked him where Osamu was, the previous night, when he'd left for this Yui girl's room. She hadn't liked the answer.

"No..." She crossed her arms. Her black kimono like dress went off the shoulders into long belled sleeves. The bodice was low, half maroon red-purple embroidery, folding over. At the hips three silver sheer panels came down over the rest of the slit black skirt. Her red eyes sat beneath her raven black hair, which on occasion she put up in a high ponytail. "I'm just concerned we're setting ourselves up for failure..."

He shrugged. Probably a lie. She was more self-servient than anything. Fox demon vampire. Sounded worse than they were. But they never showed off their cat or fox ears unless they had reason. No tails meant no suspicions. Playing their games meant lying low between human and demon realms.

Ryota's emergence at the vampire school was one risk they wanted to take. Of course, he'd not been keen on what he'd had to do, but he was the only one who would do it. One risk that, so far, had paid off. Nobody had found them. Nobody suspected them yet. Nekomatas who hadn't aligned with their plan perhaps would get blamed for a surprise visit from a cat demon in a vampire school, but that was their own loss.

"If we killed her, they'd all come. The whole vampire company would be enlisted to find us..." Osamu looked at his glass of wine as he spoke. Or perhaps not quite wine. "Not to mention, we'd have the Sakamaki and their father all waiting to put our heads on a platter. We will lure them out. I don't doubt they are looking for us now. At least if they come on our turf and we'll have her as leverage. We kill the brothers and then the old man should show. He'd have nothing left to try to get rid of us with, no son to succeed him, and then perhaps we can consider her death. Our chance to shine. Plus, if she survives... it might only help us to have that kind of blood power on our side. The Founders have died out, so she's truly is the next in line in one sense of it." He looked at the glint of glass that held blood in his cup. Blood nothing like hers. But like glass, she seemed so easily breakable.

"So we're going to keep her here? Act like a hotel service?" Akatsuya was irritated. Osamu's actions seemed a bit one sided. Her plan seemed better. If they killed her first, then they could lure out all the Sakamaki with the prospect of her survival. A lie of course. A trick would work best! Kill the petty girl and then pretend she's still alive to ensnare! Why play a passive game? They had power on their side.

Osamu looked to Akatsuya. "Tsuya, please, try to understand. You too have a bone to pick with the vampire kind do you not? So, let's not play into their hands. It's no fun playing a burn out rebel when you can prepare and have the underhanded win."
He finally consumed the rest of the crimson drink in his glass.

"I suppose your right."

Ryota nearly rolled his eyes. She'd only agreed because it was their dear leader Kohakota Osamu who persisted. If he, himself, had chosen to speak instead, she would have continued her persistence. Tekeshi was also correct, that nickname for her, Tsuya, she found oh so endearing and what not... was all she was. A moonlight that hovered Osamu, a shiny female mixed breed like they were. That velvet nickname seemed to null her obsession with her dead mother, and draw her to lustre over Osamu.

Ryota turned away and focused on his own drink. Perhaps he should prepare instead. Osamu had gotten them this far. He had a bone to pick anyway with the red headed lover and that four eyed one that stabbed him in the back. He wanted to be ready to destroy them.

Tsuya looked at Osamu as he rested his head as if sleeping.

Perhaps he had a point. Perhaps he'd come to adore her? Perhaps he saw this vampire girl as an interbreed...a mix of things that didn't go together. A human vampire mix? Was she suddenly adopted like them? No! She was no mix but a founder hearted vampire. Ex-human. Not a vampire demon mutt like them. This Yui girl was above them. They were below. And so were the damn haughty brothers that would chase her.

Tsuya looked to her cup. Osamu had let her in, but she was not going to let him go. Her dead Kitsune mother and her vampire father murderer were nothing now but a reason to kill Vampires. Osamu was hers. She would watch over her mother's grave as a marker of her hatred for vampire elitism. The obtuse need for vampires to condemn inter demon relations? Games of Low and high prestige? She was like Osamu. This girl Yui was not.

And yet those Sakamakis were converting their prey into eternal blood banks. Humans should be lowest. Pure blood Vampires needed to pay for their hierarchy switch. They could shift hierarchies all they wanted, but when mixed demons like her tried to exist?

She drank her glass. Blood would be spilt.

...

Yui had heard enough. She needed to leave. She needed to-

"Ah what have we here?"

She knew someone was behind her. She looked to see Tekeshi. His rebellious red hair and silver eyes looked down on her. He appeared a bit of an icy man, a rebel, and noticed he had an earring in one ear now too upon closer look. The silver pelt reminded her of something but she couldn't quite place it.

"Ah...my door was open...I-"

"You were intending to escape?" His eyes looked through her.

"I-I just...I can't look at him anymore." It was true. The man was a tempting blood bank but still, full of a breadth of humanity was remaining in his comatose state.

Tekeshi's brow nearly always looked cross. But he seemed to find a bit of a smile on his face.

"Then let us see how your dinner is holding out." He took her arm and teleported them back to her room.

"Ah, Osamu did tell me he'd left you dinner. And here you are leaving spoils. I could invite Akatsuya to finish it up but I'd hate to do her the favor..." She noticed his voice taunted her, an icy cruel tease that was like a bitter Laito.

"Oh please...I just-" Yui had already sensed Akatsuya disliked her. Plus, if she was half fox demon weren't they a bit tricky at times?

"The most pathetic is your knowledge of our kind. Bites from a Nekomata do not end well. We often will take pieces of the human's soul with us. This man is half-souled. He will never wake up. It is the tradeoff we have created with the Nekomata who are not half vampires like us. With the promise for a new life where lowly demons as ourselves will be equal to or above the rather pompous vampires you know so well."

"So he'll never wake up?" She looked to him.

"No. He'll rot. And good luck with that. But frankly a vampire who empathizes with one lost human out of the millions that fester on this world surprises me." Tekeshi's reaction was like Osamu's.

She looked to the man. Perhaps she should feel less guilty consuming him...it might keep her alive longer...

Tekeshi stepped closer. "Do yourself a favor and don't leave. The moment you do we'll find you again. Osamu wants to keep you alive for now but tempt that and I'm not quite sure you'll make it."

"I wont..."

"And we're to trust those words?"

She blinked. "But I-"

"Don't ever trust a vampire... you're no pure blood but you seem to act like it." He grabbed onto the lapel of her kimono near her neck. His silver eyes looked keenly at her.

He was devious.

"I only know that the brothers...they'll come...and I won't let them..."

"What? What can you do?" He said blankly. "They killed the Founders and did us a favour but do not think they are the only kind who has spilled Founder blood..."

Yui suddenly knew why his pelt looked familiar.

He noticed her stare. "You know If you kill a Founder when they take on demon form they stay in that form in death? How do you think I got my scar?"

His voice was so indifferent, she struggled to move back. To remove his grasp from her kimono and step away.

She finally fumbled away and had to pull up her sleeve. She stumbled back and fell on the floor tripping over the man's body.

"You should be thankful we don't roam around here as the monsters we really are... how do you think you would manage if all our bite marks were like the ones Ryota left on you..." He stood up straight and fixed his hair, pushing it all off to one side as it already was.

She recalled the deep gash she still had, scars left on her shoulder.

"You think they are better? That you were in better hands because your brothers have proven themselves to be head of the kingdom of vampires..." He crossed his arms defiantly.

"No... I just...I didn't know about all this."

The smell of his blood. Her stomach was empty. Her body craved blood. But Tekeshi wasn't leaving.

"So tell me, why does your blood taste so good?"

"I-" She looked to the side. "My founder heart perhaps...the brothers think it was my humanity left behind in the change."

He raised a brow. "Humanity? Perhaps you are more hybrid than we are."

"Why do they not like you?"

"Demon hierarchy. Surely humans are the same." His silver eyes, moons, looked down at her.

"But what is so bad about a cat demon?"

"Other than our charm of stealing souls, a history of killing humans for food... haunting those to cross our paths and possessing the dead?" He smiled wickedly. "Nothing much. But us? We can steal a soul, we can steal blood, we can grow twice as large as any regular Nekomata, and our parents are forever condemned for inter-species affairs. So thus we are cursed creatures."

Yui finally found her feet on the floor again. "But...so were vampires... when I was human I thought that..."

"Oh so you can sympathize for us? Tell me is it easy being a vampire now?" His voice returned cold.

"No but-"

"Then you couldn't possibly understand."

She found the room silent. He seemed to be gone.

She fell to her knees. It was too much. Perhaps she didn't understand but how could she if-

"Uhmph-"

She felt herself being tackled. A grey large cat with the same dark grey pelt, white-silver eyes and three red markings on its forehead had pinned her down. It's two tails reminded her dreadfully of what the other had done...of what Ryota had left of her.

Somehow when it stared in her eyes, she saw it.

Tekeshi.

She tried to stop him but saw him bear his fangs. At the moment she expected the excruciating pain of the demon's bite, she felt the bite of a vampire. Her shoulder bared. Her kimono half off.

"That was cruel..." She winced. The surprise was a cruel twist, he was playing with her.

"I gave you the better of two options." He wiped his mouth and stood over her. His face cold. Amuzed. "Perhaps if we're lucky you can replace the local fox. I doubt Osamu will let a fine wine like you sit on the shelf for too long."

She tried to get up onto her feet, after the rush of his sudden action. She felt light headed.

She collapsed. She needed blood. She hazily looked to the man and swallowed. She had no other choice.

Tekeshi left her. He entered the room with Osamu and the others.

"Where have you been?" Ryota asked.

Tekeshi just looked straight on to Osamu and sat down on the adjacent red sofa. "I am in favour."

"Of what?" Tsuya asked.

"Preserving her. For now."

"I'm happy to see we all agree." Osamu rose. He put his jacket over his shoulder, only his white open shirt covered his tan body.

"How about I join-" Tsuya crawled over the couch and went to grab his hand.

He swatted it away slightly. "Not tonight."

Tekeshi's face grew a bit more amused, the faint hint of a smile.

Perhaps they should advance once more on the Sakamaki's to start the chase.