part two: love, too, had to be learned.

or

Saya and the Sakamaki Brothers meet Yui.

"And how have you been sleeping?"

The questions about school, Saya fended off with disinterest in learning subjects such as mathematics, science and history. She followed along, read the notes, and tested decently enough to not draw notable attention. That was to say, she didn't fail.

Maybe she could apply herself some more, but Saya had no interest in putting any more effort than she had to into this charade.

But at that sudden swerve in topic, Saya clammed up. It was instinctive, done like a defense mechanism before she could even think about a different response. She was guarding, as if the question had poked at a tender area and sent pain shooting throughout her body.

"Fine," she answered, one second too late.

Karlheinz saw through the lie like she saw through his illusion. He did not speak, and that was worse.

To sleep meant to dream now, and while the nightmares were different from back when she was fixated on revenge, it was still draining, and robbed slumber of any restful qualities. Just like back when she had been tracking Fumito, she slept maybe an average of seven hours per week – not something that could be summed up under the word 'fine's for most people, and not for her either.

Yui's arrival had made it worse, and she couldn't lower the guard of consciousness because her entrance into the land of dreams was always a disaster, always a battle she could not win.

But what was this tiredness, compared to everything else? Just one more straw on a camel's back already broken.

Karlheinz pulled out the fountain pen in his breast pocket and uncapped it. With his other hand he reached for a pad of paper and began writing something on it. Upside down as it was from her viewpoint, his writing was elegant enough that she could still read it.

A note excusing Kisaragi Saya from the rest of class today for poor health.

"A legitimate excuse to skip class," he offered with a wink, as he let the ink dry. "Would you allow this humble admirer a chance to serve as white noise?"

The note he left for Saya to take later, and he sent word to her teachers via text. Saya weighed the options in her head silently and decided that not attempting to sleep while Karlheinz volunteered to be the white noise in her background was better than having to sit through class. There was no brainwashing to make her believe she was a regular high school student anymore, and it was so hard to try and pretend she fit in among humans when she didn't. What was more miserable and desolate than being alone in a crowd?

She didn't lie down in the bed, instead sitting so that her back was to the wall at the head of the bed.

"I don't know if you remember," Karlheinz began like the guarded position was completely natural. "But all those who are born in the darkness have only seven hair colors among them all."

Saya listened, as she went over the Sakamaki brothers in her head. Red, like Laito and Ayato. Silver, like Subaru and Karlheinz. Blond, like Shu. Dark grey, like Reiji. Purple, like Kanato.

That was five.

"Gold, silver, red, green, charcoal, purple and, of course, black." He made as if to bow towards her. "Each one from one of the original seven that came from you and became the progenitors of all demons."

Was that so? Saya's memories of Lilith were distant and not quite hers, not familiar. The most passionate memory of Lilith was that of fighting giants, and even that paled in comparison to her life as Saya. Even when she was at her lowest, a sword and shield for the sake of the humans that would betray her over and over again against the Elder Bairns, Saya was closer to her mind than Lilith was.

Saya listened, not feeling any stirring of emotion except the vague interest at new information.

"Every now and then, it becomes fashionable to determine personality traits by hair color. The arguments for such divinations are that we are given the appearances of the seven sins that make up the greatest part of us. Absolutely no evidence to support such a thing, but it always comes back somehow. I suppose it's like astrology, for humans."

His voice was even, tones soft and gentle but not monotone or bland. In a lull, Saya continued to listen without doing anything, feeling cocooned. It was almost comfortable.

"Were we to assess the personalities of my sons by such a test, it would go something like this. Shu would be Sloth. Reiji would be Greed. Kanato would be Lust. Ayato and Laito would be Gluttony. And Subaru and myself –"

Karheinz let his illusion drop, though not the dampening of his power – and his hair was silver again, a color that appeared pure and clean despite all he had done. All he planned inside that head of his.

"Would be Wrath," he finished softly. "Some seem quite accurate, though others are rather off the mark."

"And what would I be?" Saya didn't remember the original seven, not well enough to think about hair colors and personality traits and sins. But if she continued to listen, she would fall asleep.

So she forced herself to ask.

"While it seems rather foolish to judge the first night by the seven that broke off from her," Karlheinz said, looking immensely pleased. "Yours, milady, would be the color of Pride."

Superbia. Saya vaguely remembered, from the memories of Lilith, a man with hair as black as hers, an arrogant smirk twisting his lips upwards. One brimming with confidence, who was proud until the day he died.

Not by requesting she take his life, like some of the others, but instead in battle. That, she could faintly remember.

She didn't say anything else, and he continued to speak about this test once being used during a festival, where prizes were determined based on these arbitrary results.

Somewhere, his voice turned into a buzz in her ears, and her eyes grew too heavy to hold up, even with all her incredible strength. Saya fell asleep.

Having only fed upon the rare Elder Bairn in the six months between the revelation and confronting Fumito for the last time, Saya was hungry.

For all that the Shrovetide was now destroyed, Elder Bairns still preferred to feed from their favoured habitats - that is to say, places where nature was predominant. Where the sudden explosion in the human population had not destroyed the strongholds of nature just yet. Places unconquered by industrialization or gentrification, human traces few and in between.

That was where Saya went. Cities were not her favored places in the first place, and she could not stay in Tokyo any longer. Not when Mana was in it. Not after she learned that it was her who killed Mana's father, and her blood that had perverted him from a regular human to a monster that could not tell his daughter who he was, even when he held her in his own arms. Not when the motive fueling Fumito's actions was the sake of her survival.

Saya left Japan, wandered up north in the distant Arctic. People were few and far in between, but monsters that fed on humans made it a suitable habitat for themselves.

She fed on her prey, wandering without a purpose. Alone, sword that she paid for in her hands.

Alive, just as Fumito had planned.

It was a very good place to start degenerating into something primal, animalistic. A time to spark the primal part of her. She lost track of many things, just moving as hunger dictated, days and nights blurring together.

Later Saya would try and fail to recall just when it was that she crossed boundaries between worlds, and returned to the world of her origin.

One thing was for certain. She did cross at some point, and then she met Sakamaki Shu.

At first she thought he was human. Elder Bairns tended to take forms of non-humans, their appearance making it clear just what they were. Those like Tadayoshi were rare if not impossible to see. That was why he had been so fond of her - so awed that there was another similar to him.

That was why she had been important to him. It was hard, after all, being alone.

He looked human, golden hair and blue eyes. In clothes too flimsy given their environment, but Saya was in ripped rags herself and could hardly critique anyone's fashion. He could have been a hallucination or a waking nightmare, but Saya did not find his face familiar in the haunting way the actors of her dreams were.

"Not the best place to be in."

Saya, where she was crouched under a makeshift "shelter" of a broken tree branch leaned against the trunk it used to be attached to, didn't respond.

There was a soft sigh like snow falling and then no more words.

A hand gripped her head, and the other her shoulder. A head of golden hair began to descend upon her neck.

And Saya -

"Who are you?"

Saya was not bound by her oath.

For all that he looked human, this being was not.

She used the arm on the side not about to be bitten to punch the non-human in his face, and sent him stumbling back, his grips on her released.

"What are you?" Another half-Elder Bairn like Tadayoshi? Could it be?

He stumbled, but to his credit dodged her when she reached for him again, this time attempting to grab him. He had fangs and were going for the blood vessels on her neck so Saya assumed he drank blood by nature.

A coincidence in their shared tastes, though there was a key difference.

Saya was born to hunt non-humans, had done so for as long as her incomplete memories could recall. She could not hunt humans, far weaker than her, and so she always fought monsters - and always, always won.

It was always the humans that defeated her. Never the monsters.

She bit into his arm - and it was a testament to his strength and speed that it was his arm because she had been going for his throat - and drank a mouthful of his blood before he hit her nose, and forced her to release out of reflex.

But that was about all that he could do. From then on, the fight was immensely one sided in Saya's favor.

It was not a fight that the golden-haired non-human could win. With the sound of something buzzing in her ears, her pulse throbbing loudly, demanding to be known, Saya attacked, the first taste of his blood filling her with an energy that exhilarated her. In a matter of minutes he was on the ground, bones broken, coughing up blood, and Saya stood over him, in a high like his blood had been a drug. Something had awakened within her, old memories long sealed away and forgotten beginning to stir at last.

But the thirst was first, the primal, instinctual hunger that could not be ignored.

Saya moved to deliver the final strike when the king of vampires finally appeared to stop her.

Sakamaki Shu, as she would later learn his name, was the son of Karlheinz. His father was powerful, to the point where fellow demons called him a god, and that power was present in the blood of his sons. It was not the birth order of his sons that decided their status as heir - after all, to those of the unending night, what were a few years, or decades?

Sakamaki Shu was, for all that he lacked motivation, full of potential and power, and by drinking his blood Saya finally awakened inside her the partial memories of Lilith.

It was incomplete, of course. Even the heir to the vampire king was nothing when compared against the first night. Saya recalled the memories of Lilith like someone who had just read a book. Or maybe that metaphor wasn't apt enough – books let people grow attached and see through the eyes of characters, which was not the case with her. It was distant, not personal, and she could not fully feel herself as Lilith, who was vastly different from Saya. She was Saya now, and just as Saya has changed for good, she could not return to being Lilith.

But for all that she could not associate herself as Lilith, not completely, it was still a weight onto her shoulders. Far too heavy to be called a straw, but it nevertheless broke the camel's back and pushed her over the precipice she had been teetering on.

Fumito did everything for the sake of her survival, but she had been left with nothing to live for. A way to survive with no reason to continue living, and now –

Now Saya knew the truth of her origins, was in a world where all the things Fumito did meant nothing. It did not matter here, the Shrovetide he spilt so much blood to destroy for her survival.

Full of pain, no reason to continue living, Saya grabbed the hand that the vampire king offered her and struck a deal with him, two demons wanting to burn themselves down to their ashes.

Even if it meant the world had to become their site of cremation. Anything to forget the pain.

When Saya announced at dinner that Komori Yui had made her decision, Shu didn't think anything of it.

It couldn't stay that way, because the human girl chose him.

Idiot, he thought to himself, as the human averted her eyes from his gaze nervously. Foolish human, lacking any and all survival instincts, choosing the one that damned everything he touched.

But then again, she did have that woman as her protector. Shu slid his eyes over to Saya, who was ignoring Laito's taunts, face laden with the ennui of someone who could not give anything any value more than a fly buzzing at her ear.

Did he think it was a coincidence that on the day after he stepped in to help the human at her command, the girl chose him? Not really, no.

The man that was his father was one who was hard, if not impossible, to surpass, no matter what his three wives might have wanted from his sons.

Saya was different from Karlheinz, that Shu would not deny, but he still remembered how the most powerful man in the demon world had looked at her. A mess, in rags and covered with dirt and grime as if she wasn't familiar with the concept of baths –

And Karlheinz had been in awe, as if he witnessed the glory that inspired so many human artists to create music that struck at even his heart. Shu hadn't known his father could ever look like that, towards another person.

The thing that both had in common was the sense of undeniable, unfathomable power. Karlheinz was the wall that none could surpass, for as long as Shu could remember, and Saya was the first to ever make him know what it was like to fear a predator.

But when had anything in his life ever truly been under his control?

Shu didn't give up so much as he did not even start. The girl still had Saya as her protector, and so long as Shu didn't get involved with her, she wouldn't be destroyed like Edgar and everything else he touched.

So it's fine, he thought to himself, and closed his eyes. By turning his attention towards Rachmaninoff, he could drown out the rest of the world and maintain his sanctuary.

Other than her school bag and books and her uniform, the only thing Saya picked up was her sword. Not the spares Karlheinz had provided – he assured her that there would be a few sent to the Mukami mansion for her use – but the one that she purchased from the wish-granting shop.

Everything else, she left behind.

Yui fidgeted, and Saya spoke before she could find the words.

"I'll still be coming to school."

It would be more annoying, especially since Karlheinz would no longer be there. Matters in the demon world called for the vampire king, and he could no longer be absent to play the part of a human doctor.

Monitoring the plan for the new Adam and Eve, he left to Saya and the Mukami.

Yui nodded, but the human girl still looked mournful. Shu was behind her, leaning against the doorway like standing took too much effort, but his eyes were on Saya. Unreadable, assessing.

Saya ignored him and picked up the light load of things. "I'll come over."

It was a promise made in the spur of the moment, but Saya would keep it. It was hardly anything, but if it made Yui relieved, then she could spare it.

They went downstairs, and Saya was surprised to find that the brothers were all gathered in the main hall. Mostly out of curiosity, clearly, but still.

Saya met all of their eyes, one by one.

"Remember," she warned them. "Yui chose the person who can drink her blood. No one else."

At dinner, Saya had already told the brothers that anyone other than Shu who drank from her was going to be her next meal. She wondered who was going to end up being devoured.

The most likely candidate leaned close, and draped an arm around Yui, who flinched. Saya's fingers twitched.

"And what if she offers?" asked Laito.

"Then you've offered to be a snack for me." No offering blood, no coercion, no blackmail, no 'gifts', no 'making up for something'.

Yui had chosen. If necessary, she was willing to decrease the number of brothers down to a more manageable five before she left for the Mukami mansion. Saya didn't break eye contact with Laito until he gave first.

"Bitch-san is no fun," he hummed, but he released Yui. Shu hadn't moved at all – or, Saya recalled, even once drank from Yui.

A long way to go.

"I'll see you at school, Yui-san," Saya said, and turned to step into the limousine waiting for her.

Inside the darkened car, Saya tossed the bag and sword onto the seat next to the one she took for herself.

"Let's go," ordered Ruki, to the familiar driving. Unlike last time, he was the only Mukami here.

Saya leaned back into the seat, felt the cool leather sap at her warmth, and thought about love with the passion of a pile of ashes.

If she was to be honest, Saya did not fully understand love.

The kind of thing Karlheinz described, the progenitors to a new race that would take the strengths of the two imperfect beings descended from the women that stole from the garden of God, that sounded similar to the kind of plan on the same scale of Fumito's plots.

The 'love' that she learned, Saya thought, was something that hurt.

The affection Tomofusa Itsuki gave her was a form of love. He loved something he saw within a girl – a monster – that didn't have her own memories, and loved it enough to jump in defense of her and die.

The love Tadayoshi gave her was love, for all that everything else was false. The man who went with the name 'Kisaragi Tadayoshi' loved her, despite all the falseness surrounding them, a love that came from a deep, mutual understanding of the bitter, tiring loneliness of not having someone like them, and too much time. It ended as all things in their life would be, bloodily.

The affection Mana gave her was love, and maybe one of the purest that Saya would ever receive from someone. It was just Saya that was the problem, in that. Distrusting, seeing herself reflected in Mana's shape, killing her only family in front of her eyes. It ended with crippling guilt that made Saya flee, unable to face the revelations with her own two eyes.

Love, to Saya, was like everything else in her life. Fraught with blood, destruction and death, and inevitably left her alone, in pain. It was not love, not a normal kind, but Saya didn't know what 'normal' love was.

She just hoped that the love Komori Yui would bring and receive would not be so painful. That her new life and love, to be raised on Saya's ashes, would be bright and glorious.

AN: The hair colors reflecting the seven sins is just a thing of Lilith. It was mentioned that Ira had silver hair. the other hair colors I got from different 'pureblood' demon characters. Hence, Mukami colors (Yuma) not being included.

Green comes from Richter. Reiji's hair seems more dark charcoal than black, so I made that a separate thing from Saya's black.

Just for those who don't want to go back to figure out which original sin/seven had what hair color, as well as example characters.

Acedia (Sloth) – blond woman (Shu, Shin, Beatrice)

Avaritia (Greed) – dark grey-haired man (Reiji)

Invidia (Envy) – green haired woman (Richter)

Luxuria (Lust) – purple haired woman (Kanato, Cordelia)

Ira (Wrath) – silver haired man (Subaru, Christa, Karlheinz, Carla)

Superbia (Pride) – black haired man (Saya)

Gula (Gluttony)– red haired man (Ayato, Laito)