Maria and Soma were just getting ready to head out, slipping on their coats and shoes, when a knock came at their door. Stepping up to the door, Soma peered out the peephole. Whoever it was, sure put a grin on his face. Without delay, he pulled open the door, revealing that of a bronze-haired young woman, dressed in a bright pink sweater and white skirt.

"Mina! What are you doing here? I thought we were gonna meet up at the pizzeria," Soma greeted her.

"I happened to be in the area, so I thought I would walk with you," Mina explained. "If it's no bother, of course."

"Not at all! You could never be a bother to me."

Maria peeked her head around the corner of the wall between the apartment and it's entrance, watching the two of them in amusement while giving them a bit of privacy.

So, this was the famous Mina Hakuba that she had heard so much about? From what she could tell, Soma's words had managed to do her justice. She was a cute girl, with a kind face, and big brown eyes. It was clear to see that she had Soma wrapped around her little finger.

"Are you just going to stand there all night staring at each other, or are you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?" Maria asked, giggling as the two jumped at the sound of her voice.

"No, it's not like that at all!" They insisted, though the redness of their cheeks said otherwise.

Maria suppressed the urge to roll her eyes. Why were they so adamant in denying their feelings for one another? She knew that her cousin probably thought that he wasn't good enough for her, or that he was too dangerous to be with her, but she couldn't figure out what reason the girl could possibly have. Perhaps she was just shy, waiting for him to make the first move? If that was the case, she'd be lucky if he told her how he felt before they reached their forties.

"It's nice to finally meet you," Maria stepped forward and extended her hand to Mina. "As you probably already guessed, I'm Soma's cousin."

"It's nice to meet you too. I'm so glad you could make it out to visit. Soma was so excited when he found out."

This only increased Soma's embarrassment. "Yeah, well… Can you blame me? I haven't seen her in person for years."

"Don't worry about it. I was pretty excited myself." Maria gave him a quick shoulder hug before reaching down to slip on her trainers. "So, are we ready to go? I believe I was promised some pizza."

Soma nodded. "That you were."

Ushering the girls out of the apartment, he quickly locked the apartment door before heading down the stairs and down the sidewalk.

Mina and Maria took the chance to talk a bit more while they walked. Seeing as they had stopped trying to embarrass him, Soma was content to stay quiet and let them get to know each other. He would never admit it, but it warmed his heart to see his two favorite girls in the whole world getting along.

Soon enough, they arrived in front of Pizza Hut. Through the windows, they could see that the place was appropriately busy, but not too bad that there were no empty tables left. Deciding to act as a gentleman, he opened the door, letting the ladies go first before following after.

The heavenly smell of freshly baked pizza filled Maria's nostrils, making her mouth water. She wasn't usually one to go crazy over food, but Pizza was a weakness to her and Pizza Hut was her favorite place to get it. As you can imagine, she had been delighted to hear that Tokyo had several.

"Konnichi wa and welcome to Pizza Hut!" a cheerful waitress greeted them. "A table for three?"

Soma shook his head. "We're expecting a few more. There should be seven of us in total."

The waitress nodded her head. "Right this way." She motioned for them to follow her.

The group of three were led across the restaurant to one of the large, round booths running along the eastern wall. Setting down a pile of menus, the waitress then stepped off to the side to let them slide in. The waitress took her leave as soon as they were all seated and had ordered a few drinks.

"Should we just order a few different pizza's and hope that everyone likes at least one of them?" Soma asked.

"Hmm, I think we should wait for the others," Mina said. "It's only polite. Besides, we don't know what everyone likes and dislikes."

As much as Maria wanted to just order right away, she knew that Mina was right. It was the polite thing to do. It wasn't like she was going to die if she didn't get pizza within the next ten minutes.

With a bit of time to waste before their official meeting time, the three just sat and flipped through their menus, sipping on their drinks once they came. Maria got a Iced Green Tea, Mina got a bottle of Ramune and Soma got a canned coffee.

The first to arrive was an older gentleman, presumably in his early fifties, with red hair tied back in a ponytail and a goatee. He wasn't overly tall, but his broad-shouldered build gave the impression that he wasn't one to be messed with.

Shortly after him came a woman, a bit younger than the man, in her mid-thirties. She looked like the spitting image of a barbie doll with the classic blonde hair, blue eyes, and hot pink lips, with curves in all of the right places.

"Hey, I'm glad you two could make it," Soma waved them over. "I'd like you to meet my cousin, Maria."

The barbie doll quickly slid in next to Maria before her older companion had the chance. "I'm Yoko and this is Julius. We're pleased to have you with us."

Maria smiled. She had heard a bit more about Yoko than she had of Julius, mostly through Hammer. Now that she was seeing the woman with her own eyes, she could understand what he saw in her. Yoko was beautiful and seemed to be very outgoing and cheerful. Perhaps with her there, Hammer would pay less attention to Maria

"It's nice to meet you both. I'm happy to be here."

Julius didn't say much, nodding his head to her politely in reply as he slid in next to Yoko, ordering himself a beer to drink. Yoko ordered the same as Maria.

The two new additions had just got their drinks when Hammer showed up, a big smile breaking out across his face when he saw the two blondes. Maria stifled a giggle. As weird as it was to have the older man hitting on her, she had to admit that he was kinda cute, especially when he blushed. Perhaps if he was about fifteen years younger and had some hair on his head, then she might be willing to give him a chance.

"Hey, Yoko, good to see you. It's been a while," he smiled at her. "Julius, you too."

Yoko just shrugged. "The church has kept us busy, sending us on mission after mission. We return from one, just to turn around and be sent off on another one. Fortunately, we finally managed to get a bit of a break."

Hammer chuckled as he slid in beside Soma. "Come across any vampires in Romania?"

Julius shook his head. "Believe it or not, but there aren't as many vampires out there as you might think. All this hype about Dracula's supposed castle is just a hoax to lure in tourists."

By that, Maria assumed that he was talking about Bram Castle. It was a nice enough castle, having seen it once with her own eyes, but Julius was right. It wasn't the actual castle of legend. Nobody knew where that was… Well, almost nobody…

"I guess we can order now that everyone's here," Soma claimed, opening up the menu again. "We just need to pick out which pizzas we want."

Maria strained her head forward to look over at her cousin. "I thought you said there were seven of us coming. Soma, did you purposefully forget to invite that Arikado guy? I know you're not too fond of him, but still."

"I extended the invitation to him, but he didn't sound too thrilled about it."

"That's just the way Arikado is," Yoko piped in, looking over at the girl beside her. "I take it that Soma has told you a bit about him. He works for the government, so he's a busy man. He warned us that he might be a bit late, but he'll definitely come."

Maria nodded her head in understanding. It was nice to see that not everyone seemed to share Soma's opinion on the guy. She was certain that this Arikado would turn out to be a decent guy in the end. People like Yoko and Mina wouldn't be friends with him if he wasn't.

Eventually they settled on ordering three pizzas between the six of them. It seemed a bit much, but then again they did have a couple of big, strapping men in their company. She imagined that they both had a healthy enough appetite. Most men did.

While they waited, Hammer entertained them with stories about some of his customers and the things they were crazy enough to buy off of him. By the time the pizza finally came, everyone was laughing their heads off.

Biting into her pizza, Maria couldn't help but let out a moan of pleasure. There was something oddly satisfying about taking that first bite.

"Glad to know I'm not the only one who enjoys pizza," Yoko said.

Maria's cheeks flushed crimson as she shrunk back in her seat, noticing that everyone was looking at her in amusement. Soma reached over and patted her on the shoulder, silently reassuring her that it was okay before proceeding to stuff a piece into his mouth. Everyone else followed suit.

It just went to prove that, no matter what country people came from, you could always bond over pizza.

"Arikado, you made it!"

That certainly caught everyone's attention.

Maria had to hold her mouth shut in order to stop herself from gasping. The man walking towards them, presumably Arikado, was absolutely gorgeous. With long black hair, sparkling silver eyes and flawlessly pale skin, he looked like a male model straight out of a magazine. Then their eyes met and she felt as if she had momentarily lost the ability to breathe.

Arikado seemed to have a similar reaction, judging from how he stopped abruptly in his steps, eyes widening at her.

She wasn't sure, as it was too quiet to make out, but she thought she heard him say her name. How did he know her name? She hadn't introduced herself to him yet. Unless someone else had already told him. She supposed that was possible.

He seemed to recover quickly though, schooling his expression to seem as neutral as possible. "Yes, I managed to cut my meeting a bit short," he said, sitting down at the end of the booth. "And you must be the young woman we came to meet. Soma's cousin, if I recall correctly."

"Yes, I'm Maria Cruz. It's nice to finally meet you," she nodded, reaching out across the table to shake his hand.

Something odd happened. When their hands touched, Maria felt … something … She wasn't quite sure what it was. It felt almost like something had sparked inside of her. It was weird. Arikado clearly felt it too, as he swiftly pulled his hand away.

"You as well, Miss Cruz," he replied in a rather cold tone.

Maria felt her heart drop. Had she said something that upset him? If so, she certainly hadn't meant to. She was about to open her mouth to ask him about it, but never got the chance.

"How's the murder investigation coming along?" Julius asked. "Have you managed to track down the culprits?"

Arikado shook his head, focusing his gaze on the man directly across from him. "Not yet, though I believe I might have a lead."

"Murder investigation?"

"Mr. Arikado is something of a secret agent, He's in charge of the non-human cases," Mina explained, lowering her voice a bit.

"Mina!" Julius scolded. "You can't just go around giving out information like that."

Maria was confused as to what they were talking about at first, but then it dawned on her.

"Oh, you mean like vampires and demons and stuff?" Everyone turned to stare at her as if she had just grown a second head. "It's okay. No need to be all secretive with me. I know all about it. Soma doesn't really keep secrets from me."

They glared over at Soma briefly before returning their gaze to Maria.

"So, you know about Soma's situation then?" Yoko asked. "It doesn't bother you?"

"Why would it? Just because he's the reincarnation of Dracula doesn't mean he's automatically a bad person. We all have good and bad inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on, and I know that Soma is doing his best to fight against the darkness."

Silence washed over the group as they let her words sink in. Every now and then, Arikado would glance over at Maria then look away a moment later. He was a difficult person to read, so she had no idea as to what he might be thinking.

Hammer, on the other hand, was not so hard. He just smiled at her, giving her a thumbs up. He clearly agreed with what she had said.

"You're so sweet," Yoko said, taking Maria by surprise as she wrapped her arms around her and hugged her tightly. "Soma's so lucky to have you!"

"Don't I know it."

The conversation returned to much lighter topics after that. Hammer started telling some hilariously pitiful jokes to liven things up. The only one not laughing in the end was Arikado, who Maria noticed didn't say much else for the rest of the evening.

A part of her felt kinda bad for him. He didn't seem to be enjoying himself much. It was almost as if he was sitting on the sidelines as a mere spectator, rather than being part of the group itself. No one else seemed to notice this, or if they did, they certainly didn't show it. She was kind of annoyed at them for not making more of an effort to include him, but she didn't want to make a scene about it, so she just kept it to herself.

Night had fallen by the time they left the restaurant. They stuck around outside for a few minutes to finish up their conversations. With everyone else busy saying their goodbyes, promising to meet up again sometime soon, Maria saw it as a perfect opportunity and moved away from the group.

Arikado was standing over by his car, which she had to admit was quite nice, scrolling through his phone, oblivious to the fact that she was standing ten feet away.

"I'm sorry if I said something that upset you earlier, Mr. Arikado," she started to apologize.

His head shot straight up, his phone slipping out of his fingers.

"And I'm sorry if you felt left out," she continued. "It was really nice to meet you, and I'd like it very much if I could get to know you a bit better. Perhaps with less people around next time."

Seeing that he didn't seem to notice his phone's absence, Maria bent down to pick it up and held it out to him.

Arikado made no reply. He just stood there and stared at her. After a moment, he lowered his gaze to that of her hand, and as if only then realizing what it was, reached out to retrieve it, careful to avoid contact.

"Anyway, that's all I wanted to say," she finished off, feeling rather awkward all of a sudden. "Have a good night."

When she turned, she found the rest of the group staring at her much like Arikado just had. She couldn't understand it. What was so wrong with wanting to be nice to him? She just shook her head. There were some things she just couldn't understand.

"Don't just stand there with your mouth gaping open like a fish, Soma," she scolded her cousin. "Come on, let's go home."

Grabbing him by the arm, she started to pull him back the way they had come, turning back only momentarily to wave goodbye to everyone. They were still just standing there, watching her go.