After Midnight

Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if we had met under different circumstances that day. What if you were the hunter and I was the prey? Would we still be chasing each other's tails, and pretending like the spark drawing us together that night wasn't fate?

What if I didn't have a choice but to stay? What if there was no way for me to go about my life the way it was without suffering severe consequences? Would it be selfish of you to keep me by your side at the cost of everything I'd ever known?

I wonder what King-sama would say.

I think that might be a fascinating story... don't you?

December 20th, 2011 12:14 am

"San-chan? You're falling behind again." Shōhei turned over his shoulder and watched his friend meander clumsily between shadowy buildings. His expression tapered nervously beneath his cap when he watched Saburōta knock his shoulder off store signage that was left out that night when most local businesses shut down for the evening. Angered by the inanimate offence, Shōhei examined his friend kicking out at the inconvenient placement of the banner with a bitter hiss, knocking it over in his fit of impatient rage.

Saburōta's hands were stuffed deep in his pockets, his complexion fairer than it typically was. Luckily, he was so shielded by his accessories that his comrade couldn't see the exhaustion weighing his expression as he fought to catch up. With mechanical movements, he lazily arched his shoulders into an indifferent shrug, joining where Shōhei considerately waited for him to pass through the hazy mist of exhaust steam hissing from one of the structures.

"You do this to yourself, you know," Shōhei half-heartedly scolded. He understood that his mate was in no condition for chastising, but Shōhei couldn't help but worry for Saburōta's well being. "You wouldn't have this problem if you drank more."

Saburōta choked out a weak noise halfway between a grunt and a scoff, throwing his head over his shoulder with as much energy as he could muster in his current condition. The effort nearly toppled him right over.

"When did you drink last?"

Saburōta wrinkled his nose and diverted his attention even if he concealed it behind his sunglasses. "I dunno, a week?" he fibbed. "It's whatever."

"Whatever?" Shōhei worriedly reprimanded. "Have you ever thought that's why you need to wear your sunglasses all the time? Even at night?"

"Idiot, don't you know better? The kōhai isn't supposed to lecture the senpai."

It caused Shōhei's chest to ache when he considered how mild his friend's argument sounded. It wasn't nearly as loud as he knew Saburōta was capable of being. "You're gonna burn yourself out," he murmured. "I'm tellin' you this as your friend."

A nervous flinch caused Saburōta to turn his head over his shoulder, checking the sincerity behind Shōhei's kind eyes before whirling away altogether. Tsk. Tired eyes quickly scoured the midnight streets around him in hopes of finding an escape. "What're you worryin' about me for all of a sudden? It's not like this is anything new. I'm not as good at it as the rest of you are."

Shōhei hated the sound of self-pity that weakened his best friend's tone. "But aren't you the one who told me that your friends-"

"I'm leaving."

A startled jolt caused Shōhei to recoil, wide eyes watching helplessly as his partner began to saunter down the adjacent break in infrastructure. "San-chan, I don't think it's a good idea to go wandering around alone when you're like this."

"So noisy..."

Shōhei's posture slackened with surrender when he heard the defiant mumble cut vaguely over the sounds of the city. It was a tad hypocritical for his cohort to be reprimanding anyone else for being loud, but it also warned Shōhei that his friend might not have been entirely truthful when he said he'd gone a week without drinking. The withdrawal of his near-delirious state made Shōhei's stomach churn.

Surrendering that there was nothing he could do when Saburōta put up walls to keep him out, he sighed a humid cloud of surrender and straightened. "Okay, well, just don't stay out too late. You know Kusanagi-san gets worried when we're gone for too long these days." When the bundled figure disappearing into the smog didn't acknowledge his cautionary warning, he groaned lightly and clenched his PDA tight in his hand. It looked like he was going to need some help to get his friend back on track. He would give the man a moment so he could get Izumo on the phone for a quick pep talk. By the looks of things, he could use the advice.

Saburōta could vaguely hear the muffled sound of his friend speaking over the hissing of heating ducts, but he could barely keep his eyes open, much less focus on comprehending the fading words. His mind was foggy enough that it was hard to concentrate on the dim lights flashing in front of his half-lidded gaze. Everything was too bright, too loud, too cold. Somewhere down the line, his vacant mind started picking up the sound of his shuffling footsteps instead of the downtown ruckus. They thumped percussively in his hollowed mind as he approached the mouth of the alley where the world exploded with colour.

It looked like a gateway to a different world, and he wasn't sure if that was comforting or not. His head dipped like he'd lost consciousness for a moment, causing him to bob back to attention, and when he did, he fixed his scrutiny on the sight of a shadow breaking the light. His lazy saunter ground to a halt as his brow furrowed in consideration of a heaving chest panting amid the protection the partitions offered.

When the heavy curtain of hair fanned around the figure, he caught hints of its hourglass shape, and the weighty chest bobbing with every rushed breath noted that the presence joining his solitude was a woman. His feet stopped moving entirely, his palms wringing deep in his pockets as he watched the glistening sheen of sweat coat her tan skin. Even from where he stood, she looked so warm. She hadn't noticed him yet. Her eyes seemed fixed on the sight of authorities clamouring through the bustling street in an uproar. He vaguely considered that they might have been after her, but he quickly dismissed the thought when she flattened against the wall by her shoulders, her lean fingers reaching to touch her racing pulse.

At that point, he had two options; swallow or drool. His tongue worked behind his teeth despite his molars grinding, and his heartrate synchronized with hers as he watched rushed breaths heave through full lips, echoing in his distracted mind. 'Not good,' he thought nervously. 'W-why are you here?'

Finally, his lips parted to allow an adequate fill of air to sustain his parched lungs, and his jaw began to ache. Suddenly, he wished that Shōhei was still by his side to pull him away from the tantalizing sight because, in his current state, he wasn't going to be capable of escaping the trance. 'I gotta get the hell out of here before I do something stupid.' Consciously, he tried to tear his eyes away, tried to bury the hunger and scan for escape. It would be as easy as walking back out the way he'd come. But the alarming reality was that he couldn't move. He had already lost the battle to his senses.

Wild sapphire eyes started to settle as Neirah caught her breath, watching as her pursuers vanished down the street. It would be nothing for her to step into the crowd and backtrack the way she'd come, but it worried her that straggling forces might pick her up if she tried. It was that warning that caused her to turn and slink into the alley behind her. 'I've got to get out of here,' she mused. 'Before they find me-'

Neirah's blood chilled when she turned to the sight of a man around her age lingering in the centre of her escape route. He looked pretty casual, aside from the breathless gawping of his jaws. His hands were in his pockets, and his posture was comfortably slack as he observed her through the fog of exhaust steam warming the cold night around them. Mainly, the disturbing observation was how awkward he looked standing in the dark with large black sunglasses on. Then, she noticed the immense light source behind her wasn't noting that anything stood before her at all. He looked like a still image that was copied-and-pasted into her eye's frame with no regard to scientific law.

She stilled, wondering why he wasn't moving either. She was almost sure that a boy was standing there, no matter how eerie the spectre. 'How long has he been back here?' Her once-settled heart rate began to race, with no inclination to how condemning the action was. 'Who is he? Is he working with them?'

'Bad. This is bad.' Saburōta's fingers clenched his phone in his pocket as his desperate eyes sized up the riled beauty fading into his reawakened sights. She was so close now. Two, maybe three steps forward and an arm's length would see her in his clutches. His body instinctively coiled with energy in preparation to pounce, no matter how consciously he fought it. He needed back-up. He needed someone to drag him away by his hood because his body wasn't cooperating. 'Shit, Shōhei… Where did he go?'

Then, he saw her tremor, her toes shuffling discretely against the asphalt with notes of retreat. 'Don't.' He wanted to beg her to stop, to give him one more moment of her remaining perfectly still for him to get his instincts under control. 'Please don't run.'

Neirah was fast. She had to be to escape various dangers that came with her profession, but not a millisecond after she turned her shoulder, condemning fingertips were sinking into the joint and tearing her into the backstreet. Despite it possibly alerting the threat of her pursuers, she couldn't lock the terrified scream in her chest. Luckily, or unfortunately, before the sound could provoke suspicion in the busy boulevard, icy fingers were stifling her humid breath against her lips. His hands were a level of cold that she couldn't comprehend when considering that he'd just pulled them out of his pockets where they should have been warm. That chill frosted her to the bone despite her blood's temperature rising to compensate for the wash of dread drowning her in terror. She couldn't believe she was so foolish as to let her guard down in the dark dead of night.

"D-don't scream, okay?"

Suddenly, she reclaimed her senses and began to focus on the situation unfolding. When she thought about it calmly, she picked up traces of apprehension in her captor's docile tone. She also comprehended the hand muting her cries trembled almost as fiercely as his breath against her nape. When she thought about it, he didn't look overly threatening, and with her experience, she considered the chances of her successfully wriggling free of his grasp. What she didn't know was if the mysterious man behind her was armed. If he was, struggling might be convicting.

Her heart was beating fast, and he could feel her pulse race beneath unsteady fingers as his index finger clawed her hair from her shoulder. He heard her muffle some pleas against his palm, steaming dampness from his fingers, but he couldn't comprehend them. All he could do was focus on how warm her skin was beneath his frozen fingertips.

Saburōta choked down another hard swallow as his salivating jaws wept with eager delight. It had been longer than a week, and he felt the weight of his deception the moment he wrapped his fingers around the collar of her jacket. Regardless of her worrisome whimpers, he tugged her shirt and coat combined over her shoulder, exposing her sultry skin to the cold December air.

Fear and frustration forced the artery in her neck to swell with anxiety as her thundering heartbeat circulated her blood through her body. When he felt her racing pulse thump beneath his lips, his body shuddered alertly in anticipation. 'Shōhei's right.' But he'd let it go too far for too long, and he couldn't resist the temptation tossed so boldly onto his plate. "Kusanagi-san's gonna kill me…"

Neirah made a startling whimpering noise that implied she piqued curiously by his random inane statement, but when she craned her head to the side to try and glimpse her captor, she wasn't comforted. The only thing she could see in his expression was the way a mild smirk curled his lips around an altering jawline.

When she flexed like she was going to struggle, his hand on her face tightened instinctively cruelly to keep her compliant with his orders. It was too late for her to contemplate escape. He'd already made his decision. "Sorry." His words hissed past extended canines like ventilating pressure, but the breath to meet her bare skin was cold. "I tried to fight it." He released the clothes he smoothed over her neckline and slowly traced his fingers to the frames of his sunglasses, peeling them from his temple with what sounded like relief. That animalistic desire to be engrossed in his hunt made him anxious to see her unobstructed beauty tremble beneath his touch, but it served another purpose as well. As far as he was concerned, it was unavoidable.

His unexpected surge in strength made her whimper fretfully, and she felt the hot sting of worried tears in her eyes. Still, she locked her gaze on the sight of his lashes delicately shadowing dark eyes. He looked exhausted, but somewhere between coal irises and dilating pupils, she could see a flicker of crimson lively brightening his weighted gaze with bloodlust. When he slowly rolled his peripherals towards her snooping, she felt the electricity cripple her scorching nerves, rendering her body limp beneath his palm.

After losing the flight in her numb muscles, Neirah watched the hope of her escape fade into the street as her captor backed himself against the wall, letting her collapse into his heaving chest. She could only assume that it was to minimize the suspicion of the stray passerby who might peek their squabble in passing. The way he portrayed it was surprisingly tactful. Her craned neck would hide his study, and all anyone would suspect was that two regular enamoured adolescents were sneaking around in each other's arms.

But they weren't regular adolescents. She had her own story and her doubts that the man at her back was even human. She couldn't grasp the sight of him watching her skin crawl with such a focussed intensity. Her face was starting to ache beneath his pressure as it increased, causing her weighed eyes to observe him in her peripherals as her thoughts began to betray her.

At first, she thought she saw things by the way he was acting, but now, heavy eyes could see the full extension of carnivorous canines reflecting what little moonlight spilled around them. His expression had intensified, less with triumph and more with concentration as his upper lip curled to one side like he wanted her to see what her mind rejected as reality. But he didn't care what she saw or thought. He was somewhere else entirely as he reclaimed his handful of her hair and guided it from her exposed shoulder.

'Is this… how I die?'

It was Shōhei's fault for leaving him alone when he knew that it had been far too long since he'd succumbed to his thirst, so he was entirely prepared to blame his friend for the fate of the woman finding herself in the wrong place at the wrong time. His mind was still fuzzy from his fast, which was likely why he was having such a hard time controlling himself. Then again, the rush of fear and adrenaline racing through a victim's veins was the hardest lust to deny…

for a vampire.

Saburōta locked his fingers around the woman's agonized squeal as his teeth punctured her velvety skin. Once he'd made the incision, he slowly retracted his fangs and let her racing heart bead her blood from the discrete lesions. He could feel her mortification when his tongue slipped over her fresh wound, but that only added to the thrill. It wasn't how they typically fed. To be sure, when Izumo figured out what he'd done, there would be hell to pay. But despite the rarity, it was the most pleasurable way. Izumo was constantly reprimanding Yō for doing something similar, something that Saburōta had never had to privilege of trying. Now, he could understand why his clanmate was a repeat offender. It was exhilarating.

Neirah stared up at the black sky, her voice growing hoarse from the night's terrors and tired of falling on deaf ears, but even as she weakened, she couldn't consciously recall screaming. Everything was beginning to blur. Nervous tears bubbled to the surface, unsuccessful in swaying the hand muffling her terror as they rolled over the fixed claw. Her thoughts faded into the euphoria of blood loss, but she could have sworn that his fingers felt warmer against her than they did before; much, much, warmer.

She didn't have the strength to fight when his second hand snaked around her hips, clutching the denim of her jean waistband tightly to topple her weak body into his. She'd heard stories, vague rumours around Shizume City that whispered of a clan of destructive beasts terrorizing the underground populace, but she rarely took hearsay as gospel. Now she understood how they managed to lurk beneath the radar. The man currently gorging on her flesh looked innocent enough, even timid, at the beginning.

Then again, as her eyelids grew heavy, she felt like there was something strangely endearing about the way his skin was gratefully warming against her. Even the sensation of his tongue against her neck felt different. What she could only describe as kisses, for the meantime, felt far less saturated with hunger. He'd seemed to banish his anxious salivation, leaving a far less carnal feel to his careful attention. In a strange twist of events, the predator faded and began to present himself in an almost human manner.

And his blissful sigh against her collar made her toes curl as it hissed past flared nostrils. She concentrated so profoundly on his possession that she hadn't noticed that he was letting his hand slide away from her face. She could scream if she wanted to. She could bite, kick, fight back, escape, so it was frustrating when she was unable to act on her defensive impulses. Once his fingertips lowered to her chin, he carefully guided her head to face the mouth of the passage they'd claimed, forcing her to look into the bright lights that seemed blinding once she revisited them.

"I didn't mean to scare you."

If Neirah had more energy, she might have startled to the sound of his satisfied voice murmuring tender words against her lengthened neck. What irritated her was that something was charming about his smooth tone that she wanted to reject, and she was welcoming his insistence more by the minute.

"That was pretty dumb," he murmured. "Usually, I don't let it get this bad."

Neirah lingered where he'd positioned her, trying to figure out why she wasn't able to form the scream that wanted to burst from her chest. Instead, she only dropped her eyes, realizing that he'd relaxed quite a bit behind her, long legs framing her hips as he clutched her to his front. The awareness made her paling cheeks flush to consider that someone may have seen them, maybe even, in part, comprehended intervening. But the way he held her was entirely deceiving.

His manner was so casual that it made Neirah's throat burn, and she tried to muster as much of her focus as she could on comprehending his words. If he intended to kill her, it didn't make much sense for him to apologize. On top of that, his touch was deceitfully gentle. It wasn't trembling anymore, but it also didn't threaten to act against her defiance. Unfortunately, she couldn't offer any such thing. Her body was completely unresponsive, and it was enough of a struggle just to keep her wits about her.

"W-who… are you?"

Mm? Saburōta's starry gaze flickered alertly from where he was continuing to clean the life from the goosebumps on her chilling skin. "Like my name?" He wasn't used to his victims asking who. By the time people like him finished with their marks, it was generally a question of what. Without thinking of what caused her to pry the information out of him, he clumsily indulged her. "It's Bandō."

Neirah's stomach churned as she comprehended his even response. 'Is he answering me so willingly because he knows that I won't survive the night?' She tried to shift her leg and take her first retreating step, but her knee barely buckled before she was right back in his arms. 'He's so warm now...' Her thoughts began to slip further into his comfort, her eyelids tapering thinner each passing moment. 'Is that why I can't fight him?' She startled when she felt his phone begin to rumble in his pocket, causing a bitter hiss to exasperate his curses as he removed his touch from her collapsed hips.

Saburōta dug out his PDA and answered the call without checking the ID. He took a fleeting moment to reach out to her again, casually retracting her wobbly figure by the rear belt loop of her jeans to keep her complacent. "I'm busy now. I'll call you back." He snorted tersely and stuffed the device back into his jacket pocket. In the single second that he'd removed his consideration from her wound, her blood flow had begun to stream in tiny channels over her back.

He was careful to watch her, making sure she had lost all the defiance of her fight before he returned his touch to her upper arm. He curled his fingers around the balling material of her clothing, easing her snugly against him as he dipped to clean her shoulder blade. The sudden pressure on her limb pressured her wound to flood, leaving a tantalizing trail of blood to stain her skin. He was fond of the breathless wheeze that chased from her lips but on a mortal level. That stimulation had nothing to do with his vampiric instincts. He supposed that was why she felt so nice pressed against him, something deceivingly intimate about their circumstance. It made it difficult to regret his actions that night.

When the fog of exhaustion finally began to lift from his mind, he returned to nursing her lesions, thoughtfully nibbling her neck with careful consideration. He was going to be in a whole lot of trouble when his king found out what he'd done, and unfortunately, he didn't have a lot of reaction time. In a matter of hours, she would die, and a part of him felt guilty for bringing such a critical fate upon her. Her untimely end would have nothing to do with her moderate blood loss, but the rejection of his taint. As it stood, the only way for her to survive that particular curse would be the mercy of their king accepting her as one of them.

Saburōta's guilty gaze skittered over the musty alley around them and contemplated which one of them would need to beg for his king's forgiveness. They couldn't welcome every person they fed on into their lives, which was why members tended to hunt faceless criminals that no one would miss when they succumbed to the intense side-effects. In a couple of hours, her temperature would drop exponentially, and by some time the next morning, she would be suffering from a severe case of hypothermia. The same thing would happen to him or his fellow clansmen if it weren't for their king's flame, the bright and surging aura that helped them moderate their temperatures between feedings. Without that warmth, she would undoubtedly freeze to death.

"Do you kill people often?"

Saburōta raised his gentle nibbling from her skin and peeked at her sincerity. It wounded him, partially, to consider how quickly she surrendered to a cruel fate. When she turned to face him with a hopeless look in her glassy eyes, his heart sank. "Hah? It's kind of hard to explain," he murmured sheepishly. The feeling of heat rushing to his face was welcome after he'd spent so long being cold. "It's not like I wanted to hurt you, but…"

"I don't think anyone really ever wants to take someone else's life," she whispered weakly into the still night. "But we do it anyway."

It was his turn to recoil to the sound of her breathy and somewhat ominous admittance. "Wait, what was that?" Suddenly, he could hear the thundering of footsteps in the street, and raised voices began to clamour nearby. He wasn't sure why he instinctively tightened his hold on the woman in his arms, whether it was to keep her safe or from attracting attention.

"San-chan! Where are you?!"

Saburōta tore his gaze back down the alley towards where he heard his friend's voice echo. "Shōhei?"

"Please stand aside! These matters fall under the jurisdiction of Tokyo's Legal Affairs Bureau, Civil Registry Department, Annex 4."

"We've received reports of an attack in the area. Evacuate the civilians immediately."

Saburōta folded both arms around the woman stirring hopefully against him, his retracted teeth grinding with apprehension. "S-shit. That must've been what that call was about."

Shōhei darted down the intricate webbing of passages known best to members of HOMRA and creatures of the night. When he'd called Saburōta, the vague and rushed response he received before the line disconnected made his insides bind. He couldn't help but feel like Saburōta had managed to find his fill of blood that night, but if he got caught off-guard by SCEPTRE4, things could quickly turn sour.

To their particular breed of vampirism, not much bothered them. Between feedings, sunlight could be annoying, but nothing a hat or some sunglasses couldn't ease. A unique trait countered most of their weaknesses that they all shared and gave them the ability to survive what society would widely consider a disease; the fire of their Red King. Typically, one could view flames as a weakness to those who didn't cast a shadow, but hosting the aura of their king's blaze made them resilient. It also stabilized their internal temperature after succumbing. Without that heat, they wouldn't be able to survive more than a few hours between feedings. Luckily, that made life pretty typical for the members of HOMRA. Some of them, namely his best friend, were a little stubborn when it came to self-care, but it was nothing lethal.

That was until SCEPTRE4 got involved. Under the leadership of the Blue King, members of the tactical force possessed a unique ability as well, one capable of countering the red clan's aura. Their resistance was something manageable when HOMRA members carried stable conditions. Still, his biggest fear that night was that the Blue King was going to stumble across his weakened colleague when he was at his lowest. If Saburōta put up much in the way of confrontation, the Special Forces Division might just forgo arrest and move straight for the kill.

Shōhei dropped his centre low as he darted around the corner, dragging his fingers against the empty street before dashing down a new stretch. "Just where did he disappear to?" he rushed out through panting breaths. "He knew he was in no condition to be wandering around on his own." Bursts of unfiltered aura sizzled against his heels as he sprinted through the maze laid out before him. He hated pressuring his friend to do something he didn't want to, but he was seriously regretting not paying closer attention to his fading condition. He'd evidently gone longer than a week without a taste, and that made Shōhei's heart palpitate. He needed to find Saburōta before the blue clan, or risk never recovering him at all. "San-chan! Can you hear me!?"

When Saburōta apprehended what was happening, he pushed off the wall, grateful for the delicate woman's reluctant assistance when he comprehended that SCEPTRE4 had caught on to his prowl. He helped steady the dizzy creature as she wobbled on rubbery limbs, her mind still reeling with mild comprehension of her surroundings. Once he'd straightened, Saburōta steadied her by her shoulders and tried to connect their gazes as hers fought to stay parted. "Hey, do you think you can walk?"

Neirah could barely stand, which made a cynical smile catch behind her disapproval. She didn't answer, though.

Her silence caused Saburōta to groan with impatience as he kept his gaze darting between structures. "Okay, okay, I get it. I did a bad thing, but right now, I'm kinda in a spot here." When she raised defeated eyes to the way he rattled out his clumsy explanation, his heart sank. He couldn't leave her behind. It was his fault that her tan skin was starting to turn insipid, and it wouldn't be long before she caught a fever. "Look, if you don't come with me, you're not gonna make it!"

Neirah's lashes mildly fluttered as she returned her attention to where he insisted. The look in his eyes fascinated her in her time of distraction. As dusky as they were that night, something else was flickering behind the reflective surface. In her deliria, all she could think of was how estranged reality had become. 'What a strange night,' she thought.

"There you are!" Shōhei rushed towards the sight of his friend's hunched shoulders, immediately grinding to a stop when Saburōta straightened to reveal the view of a young woman standing between his hands. Shōhei's worried eyes flashed when he darted his attention from the woman to where Saburōta's expression flooded with guilt. "What did you do?" Shōhei didn't know why he bothered asking the question as he watched Saburōta urgently try to stuff her clothing back over her shoulder to cover the traces of blood left behind from the wound he'd inflicted. "Don't tell me-"

"I can't just leave her like this." There was a disturbing twist in Saburōta's face that begged Shōhei's aid to help him save the life he condemned. Even as Shōhei rushed to his side, he didn't take his eyes off where the woman lingered, waiting to accept the outcome of her fate. All he could do was pray that she had more fight left in her than that.

"That's why I told you not to let it get that bad!" Shōhei clamoured worrisomely. "Oh man, Kusanagi-san's gonna flip. He just gave Chitose hell for this kind of thing last week."

"Idiot! I know that already!" Saburōta cursed as he beat his friend in the shoulder with his returning strength.

As relieved as Shōhei was that his comrade was in a more stable condition, he couldn't help but worry that SCEPTRE4 was nearing a delicate situation. He straightened by Saburōta's side, watching the woman absently touch the swollen skin that had been punctured by his friend. If Saburōta had made the incision with a knife or some other means other than his teeth, it wouldn't be a problem. It was cruel, but it avoided their current predicament. Of course, his nearly delusional clanmate wasn't thinking carefully that night, and it made Shōhei curse under his breath for giving him his space to mope. "You really did it," he murmured. "So, you want to bring her back to HOMRA with us then?"

"Obviously," Saburōta rushed on impulse. She was still dazed, which wasn't surprising when he considered that he was finally returning his glasses to his face. No matter how anyone viewed the situation, he had knowingly captured and sentenced the woman fighting her racing heart for stability. "We can't just leave her here to die."

When Shōhei watched Saburōta take the girl's hand and try to encourage her forward, his tone flattened to the way she fumbled. "You charmed her, didn't you?"

Saburōta's posture tightened, causing his limbs to jar as he turned mechanically to face his partner's instigation. "Of course, I did! You think any random girl would let herself get dragged into a dark alleyway with a stranger?!" His ire impatiently festered when he watched Shōhei begin to roll his eyes. "Oi! I wouldn't've had to if you had just kicked my ass into doing it the right way!"

"Kusanagi-san is going to kill you."

"I know!" When Shōhei flinched to the sound of his passion, Saburōta humbly lowered his voice and relaxed his grip on the arm of his subdued victim. "I-I know that, okay?" he murmured despondently. "But… I have to try. It's my fault she's like this."

Shōhei scoffed through his relaxed smile. "Yeah, it is."

"Oi! I'm serious!"

Shōhei was relieved to see colour flushing Saburōta's face, noting that his friend was back to a healthy norm. "I know," he kindly reassured him. "That's why I'm going to help you get her back to Mikoto-san. But after that, it's out of our hands."

Saburōta rolled his gaze across his arm to where it connected with her wrist. Then he raised his eyes to where her vacant stare continued to wonder. They wouldn't have long until she came to her senses, and once that happened, her complacency with them would likely vanish. It was something they couldn't risk with SCEPTRE4 so close.

A gentle laugh startled Saburōta to attention when Shōhei made light of their circumstance. "Wow, San-chan is pretty brave to bring a woman back with him. Yata-chan's gonna flip."

There were many obstacles that Saburōta was going to face because of his careless actions, but he couldn't let them sway him. "Tell me about it."

"I would love to, but we just don't. have. the time."

Sharpening expressions launched towards the mouth of the alley when Shōhei and Saburōta prepared for conflict to the sound of silver gilding singing upon its release from the sheath containing it.

"Well, what do we have here?" Saruhiko's tone was flat and filled with disgust as he glowered at his ex-clanmates with a condemning flash of intensity in his deep sapphire eyes. "Let me take a guess. You two were thirsty, so you lured this poor unsuspecting girl into this dark alley to drink your fill, is that it?"

"It's Fushimi," Saburōta hissed intolerantly. "Hey! Don't you feel even a little bad for hunting your own kind now?"

Tsk. Infuriating the skilled swordsman standing between them and escape probably wasn't a good idea, but it seemed like Saburōta was struggling with life choices that evening. "Not even a little," Saruhiko hissed callously. The truth was, nobody was even sure how Saruhiko survived his defect, but since he'd taken up the cause of hunting them with the rest of SCEPTRE4, there hadn't been much of an opportunity to ask him.

"San-chan, take her and leave," Shōhei instructed under his breath. "I'll hold him off."

"Eh?! I'm not just gonna leave you here with that creep!"

"How noble," Saruhiko sneered as he steadied his sword in preparation to strike. "Then I'll kill you both right here!"

In the next moment, the alley ignited, a sudden pillar of flames erupting towards the sky. The sheer force caused a recoiling Saruhiko to shield his face from the heat, his grip trembling on his sword as he waited for the intensity to subside. When it did, Saruhiko's teeth were grinding to the sight of the Red King himself standing between him and the stray red clansmen. "It's you…" he murmured apprehensively.

Mikoto's sharp amber leer pierced the sight of Saruhiko's resistance, but the lethal glint in the man's eyes was purely protective. Besides, he was fascinated that a defected vampire was still strong enough to hold a sword even after deserting. It made Mikoto wonder if the youth was getting enough to drink because it was clear that his flame was still very much a part of him.

There was a dangerous glint in the collected king's eyes as Mikoto flashed fully extended fangs around his calm demand. "Where is your king?"

When Mikoto's low rumble uttered the command, Saruhiko felt icy chills race down his spine that were startling enough to cause his grip to falter on his blade. "Wouldn't you like to know…" he quietly rebelled.

"Mikoto-san! What was that blast for-?!" When Misaki rounded the corner that his king had just smoked out with a cautionary display of force, the youth's teeth snapped into a bared grimace to the sight of his old friend standing against the Red King. "Fushimi!?" he roared. "What the fuck's he doin' here!?"

"Yata-chan?" Shōhei sighed his relief as reinforcements started to funnel into the gap between buildings. "What a relief. I didn't know if you guys would make it in time."

Nearby, Izumo stepped forward and casually tapped the ashes from his cigarette. "How's our boy? Did you manage to track him down?"

Shōhei couldn't help but moan his guilt and divert his sheepish smile. "E-eh, San-chan…? Well, he's fine, I guess."

After Izumo returned his smoke to his lips, he stared down at the dazed beauty Saburōta currently latched onto, considering the desolate look in her eyes before reaching out and beating his subordinate over the head. At that point, Saburōta was feeling so responsible that he didn't bother to retaliate. He knew he deserved it.

"Oh wow, San-chan did a really good job on this one." Tatara circled the woman with a friendly smile, waving his hand by her face to try and snap her from her thoughts. "How long has she been like this? I don't even think Chitose-kun has charms this strong."

Mikoto quietly turned over his shoulder, watching Tatara tease Saburōta into a sheepish frenzy in the alleyway at his back. "Did he bite her?"

Saburōta's chest ached as Tatara peeled back the woman's clothes to the sight of her wounds beginning to clot. "Ah, sorry, King," Tatara hummed brightly in apology. "He really did."

Mikoto ignored Saburōta's apprehensive squeaking behind him as he closed his eyes and returned his attention towards Saruhiko with an exhausted sigh. "Go home," he commanded. When Mikoto slowly opened his eyes to lock his gaze on their lone resistance, his tension slackened moderately to set the youth at ease. "That is, unless you want the girl to die."

Despite his best effort to keep them from lengthening, Saruhiko's teeth ground as he glowered at the multiple sets of familiar eyes training on him from within the narrow passage. "You say that like she's in the clear," he scowled. "But you know as well as I do that if she can't pass the test, she'll just die anyway." Despite his obvious distaste, Saruhiko sheathed his sword with apprehensive surrender. "I will report this to the Captain. You people can't just go around doing as you please, sentencing innocent civilians to death. What gives you the right?"

"Y' sure are fuckin' full of yourself tonight, Monkey," Misaki snarled. The young vanguard took a demanding step forward, teeth flashing on a full extension in the light of his king's flames. "Mikoto-san! Let's take him out once and for all!"

"Yata put your teeth away," Izumo commanded. "Now's not the time."

"But Kusanagi-san-!" Suddenly, Misaki turned to the sudden sound of shuffling and then he heard something that sounded like Tatara's worrisome clamour. Huh?

"She's already feverish, King," Tatara quietly explained. "And she's really cold."

"What? Already?" Izumo muttered curiously. "Seriously, how long has she been like this?"

Mikoto sighed and locked his eyes on Saruhiko's defiance. "Well? What's it gonna be, kid?"

With a bitter snort, Saruhiko stifled his need for revenge, knowing that if his superiors had seen him act out so rashly, his loyalties could come into question. There was nothing more he could do on his own.

After watching Saruhiko depart, Mikoto let his aura settle before turning to face the shivering woman in a cold sweat against Tatara's lap. He observed her for a moment before turning his command towards his subordinate. "How long ago did you bite her?"

Saburōta recoiled ruefully to the pressure of all eyes turning on him. "A-ah… maybe thirty minutes ago? I-I don't think it's been that long."

Shōhei seemed enlightened suddenly as he drew his PDA. "Wait! I called San-chan when I noticed that SCEPTRE4 was patrolling the area." He dipped to check the time he sent the call out. "That was forty-two minutes ago. Did you bite her before or after that?"

Saburōta pre-emptively flinched before answering in a small voice. "B-before."

Regardless of Saburōta's guilt, Izumo struck him a second time, firmer as the night progressed.

"W-what the hell, Bandō?!" Misaki rattled. "Y-you can't just go around bitin' random chicks! 'Cause then… t-that means-"

"It's already been about an hour. Let's get her back to the bar," Izumo murmured soundly. "It's not going to mean anything if she can't beat this fever. If we're not quick, she might be too weak to receive Mikoto's flame anyways."

Saburōta's heart sank, and when he watched Tatara try to support the woman, he rushed to her side. "H-here, I'll take her," he muttered bleakly. "It's my fault she's like this, right?"

Tatara smiled soundly and helped the woman onto Saburōta's shoulders so he could carry her back to their home base. "It's fine," he kindly reassured him. "It'll all work out, somehow."

But Saburōta wasn't sure. What he'd done was beyond irresponsible, and he comprehended that more when he felt her icy cheek rest against his nape. If she didn't survive, it would be an innocent life on his conscience. He could see the same weight on everyone's face as they quietly prowled the streets that night. He supposed that was what made Saruhiko's betrayal so frustrating.

Despite the power members of HOMRA received from their king, it was no more than a means of survival. What burned deep inside them was a blessing to moderate a curse, and in the end, they just wanted to live their lives to the best of their abilities. People didn't tend to see that part though, and he supposed that was why he was so startled to hear the woman in his arms ask him who he was before she had completely lost herself.

Tsk. Saburōta's teeth ground as he recalled her taste to his tongue. As sweet as it was, he didn't know if her fate would be worth his indulgence. His brow creased with disdain as he tightened his grip on her thighs around his hips. "I'm sorry…" His whisper was soft and apologetic, something only Shōhei could hear him utter as his comrade walked close to his side, but the truth was, none of them felt like heroes that day as the first couple snowflakes began to fall in the street.

Her life from that moment forward, if it bloomed in flame, wasn't going to be easy.