5. Subspecies

"Damn these reports."

Being a queen was hard. Being a vampire queen? Even moreso. Everything a human queen had to deal with, a vampire had to as well on top of the supernatural elements of the world. Double the idiots, double the work.

"You alright, Milla-chan? You've been muttering to yourself again."

Had she? She hadn't noticed. The thought only made her frown deepen.

"No. I'll be fine." She waved aside Naruto's concern even as he stood up and moved to stand behind her. "Just the rigors of running a nation, I'm afraid."

"I getcha." She moaned shamelessly as calloused hands dug into the muscles of her shoulders and neck. "Hmmm. Vampires? Werewolves?"

"Subspecies," Carmilla sighed, leaning back into his touch. "Not as advanced as we are and have shown no aptitude for magic, but they are more than enough of a threat to human forces."

"Want me to take Lenore-chan and go see them?"

"Tempting, but no." Carmilla shook her head. "Their influence remains confined to the Ottomans. As of yet, there are no reports of them breaching the Bosnian border."

At some point during their discussion, Naruto's fingers had found their way into her hair. Strands of white slipped between his digits as his nails massaged her scalp.

"Mm. Keep doing that and I will be demanding more of your attention." Naruto laughed in response, still massaging her neck and shoulders. "How has that solar shield of yours been coming along?"

"It works!" The smile turned into an apologetic shrug afterwards. "I mean, it'll keep you from getting turned to dust, but you won't be at your full power."

"Oh?"

"Yea, something or other having to do with your power coming from darkness and daylight being the opposite of that. I can't do anything about the sun so…"

"Better a little weak than being immolated," Carmilla laughed. "Thank you, Naruto."

"Maa~." She could see in her mind's eye him scratching the back of his head and blushing. "Anything for my friends, ya know?"

They settled back into comfortable silence once again. Only the sound of her quill on paper filled her office. She shivered as she felt the familiar tingle of the solar shield formula taking shape on her skin.

"There ya go."

"Mmm."

"..."

"..."

"Can I-"

"Don't you dare stop."

x-x-x-x-x

"Haven't breached Bosnia my ass," Naruto muttered. "Someone's getting spanked when I get back to the castle."

Even at a distance, he could hear the screams. By the time he'd arrived, it was already too late. Whatever poor family had been living there had been torn to shreds. It didn't even look like a feeding; it looked like a pack of wolves went on a rampage.

The sound of sniffling drew his attention away from the slaughtered twins on the porch. He opened the barn doors, barely reacting to the pungent smell of iron. Blood covered several of the horse stalls, still steaming from the animals' residual body heat.

"Hello?" The sniffling quieted, but the shuffling hay gave away their position. "It's okay! I came running when I heard the screams. I'm sorry I couldn't reach your family sooner."

Peeking his head around a stall, he gave a sad smile at what he saw. A tiny girl, crouched next to the corpse of one of the horses, had curled into herself. Fearful brown eyes stared at him.

"Hey. Are you okay?" Seeing her curl into herself, he held up his hands. "It's okay! It's okay!" Hooked index fingers pulled his lips apart, showing off his canines. "See? I'm not a monster."

Before he could even get his fingers out of his mouth, the girl slammed herself into his chest. Tearful sniffles filled the barn, still too afraid to cry out loud.

"There, there. It'll be alright." He gently pulled her away so he could look into her eyes. His thumbs brushed away the falling tears. "Would you like to come with me?" She nodded, still too shaken to say anything. "Do you… do you want to see them one last time?"

The mention of her family brought out a fresh wave of tears, yet she still nodded. He took her hand and led her to the farm house, showing her the bodies of her family. A pair of twins, very much still children by every definition of the word. A pair of adults, her mother and father, no doubt.

He assumed the poor girl had slipped her way out of the bedroom window and ran to the barn after whatever had killed their horses had started slamming against the house's door. Poor thing must've heard everything.

"Do you have anything else you want to take with you?" She shook her head, holding tightly onto a little brown horse plushie. "Let's go, sweetie."

x-x-x-x-x

Lenore didn't know what to make of the situation when she saw Naruto walking back into the castle with a little girl in his arms. It was, quite possibly, the cutest thing she'd ever seen in her life.

"Naruto?"

He held up a finger to his lips, a mournful smile directed at the little tyke. She followed him without another word. She, along with a dozen draculinas who were a part of the castle's staff, cooed quietly among themselves as they watched him tuck the little girl into bed. He even left a clone behind to watch over her.

There was an air of disappointment around the gathered vampires as Naruto closed his door behind him. They all wanted to keep watching over the little girl.

"Come on, Lenore." There was an edge to Naruto's voice, one she hadn't heard since the day they'd run into him. "Let's go talk to Carmilla."

Had there been a picture in the dictionary for "warpath," it would've been of Naruto at that moment. Those tender blue eyes that looked at them with so much mischief and affection were colder than ice and deadlier than steel.

"Carmilla."

"Yes, Naruto?"

"You need to update your information; I just came across the aftermath of one of those subspecies you mentioned earlier this week."

"'Aftermath?'"

"He brought back a little girl," Lenore explained. "Probably orphaned because of these… subspecies?"

Naruto nodded. "It looked like a pack of wolves tore through the family. I'll be away for a few days. Help my clone look after her for me."

"What are you going to do?" It was a stupid question. They all knew what he was going to do.

"Pest control."

x-x-x-x-x

It wasn't hard to find the disgusting animals. How the hell Carmilla's scouts and patrols managed to miss them was beyond him. They were out in the open, doing nothing to hide themselves. When he gets back to the castle, someone's getting a crash course in tracking.

"Look at this human, walking into our camp! What does he think a sword is gonna do?"

He paid their laughter no mind. Though the camp reeked of blood and body odor, his nose could still pick out the scents he was searching for. After all, only a single one of them smelled like the little girl's family.

One of the armored vampires tried to accost him. It would be his first and final mistake of the night. The rest hissed and bared their fangs, brilliant blue eyes glowing in the darkness when their brains finally caught up to what they were seeing.

"Now," Naruto addressed them coldly, holding the decapitated head of their comrade up for them to see, "would you like to try that again?"

Some smug looking bitch in the back shot a bolt at him. He dropped the vampire's head, snatched the bolt straight out of the air and tossed it right back to her, tearing through the steel and her shoulder before embedding itself into a tree somewhere in the distance.

"Which one of you raided a farmhouse two days ago?" He knew. He was just feeling vindictive. "A pair of twins. A little girl. Two parents. Tell me who it is and I'll make it painless."

Another vampire lunged for him. A sidestep and swipe turned his claws into stumps. The next one who tried lost his arms. Upon realizing that he could keep up with them, even with their supernatural speed, the rest drew their blades.

"I asked nicely." Glacial blue shifted to hypnotic swirling red.

"You'll suffer for a damn long time before you die, human."

The brave idiot who spoke felt the weight of the entire world press down on his shoulders as those crimson eyes locked onto him.

"I already have."

Throughout the entire ordeal, he made no sound of exertion. No sound of effort, surprise, pain. Nothing. Angry red eyes glared at every vampire who approached him. No other vampire died, he'd made sure of it. Only when every underling had fallen, their arms and legs reduced to stumps, did the one responsible step forward.

"A coward," Naruto hissed. "You would slaughter an entire family without remorse, but can't bring yourself to step forward to protect your own."

"My name is-"

"I didn't ask."

A fist caved in the vampire's metal helmet. A palm strike dented the chest plate. A kick shattered the vampire's greaves and knee cap. A quick swipe of his blade severed the other leg at the knee. Naruto held up the crippled vampire by his head, glaring into his eyes and allowing the full weight of his presence to be felt.

"You're on borrowed time, vampire, so make peace with whatever god you believe in. Or don't. You'll be seeing him soon enough."

x-x-x-x-x

"Damn. Didn't know he had it in him," Striga commented.

"Me neither," Lenore admitted.

Of the twenty or so vampires Naruto had brought back, only one remained. The rest had been damned to the worst fate a vampire could experience.

"Fascinating," Morana whispered. "Their corpses, look at them!" It was a detail none of them had noticed before, too shocked by Naruto's actions to do so. "Their bones and flesh are just charred, but none of them faded to dust!"

With Naruto's seal on them, the Queens of Styria had ventured out to the courtyard to see what the commotion from their staff had been about. The last thing they expected to see was Naruto using the very seal he'd designed for them to torture every single vampire he'd captured.

Nailed to the ground by a single sword through their stomachs, Naruto had branded each and every one of them with his seal. Every last one of them was forced to watch beneath as their comrades died, one by one, immolated beneath the midday sun.

"W-Why are you doing this?!" the remaining vampires cried. "Why are you punishing us for what we must do to survive?! They're just cattle!"

"I wouldn't have given a damn if you did it without making them suffer." Naruto glared at the one who'd dared to open his mouth. "You left a little girl to suffer, orphaned and alone, fearing everything that goes bump in the night. People are judged and tried." He approached the one who'd dared to speak. "Rabid dogs are put down."

"N-No! Please!"

His screams echoed throughout the entire castle.

x-x-x-x-x

"Have you had your fill, Little One?"

She nodded, though still, she wouldn't say anything. There was nothing physically wrong with her, but she just wouldn't talk. It's been a month since he'd adopted her as his own, yet they still couldn't figure out her name, so they'd settled for "Little One" instead.

"Damn you, Viktor. Damn you to hell."

He needed the bastard alive, so he'd trapped the bastard in an eternal illusion, a hell of his own making, forced to watch as every mistake he'd ever made be repeated, every regret he had rubbed in his face. He'd taken a peek in the man's illusions once; the piece of shit deserved the worst for everything he'd done.

"Come on, sweetie. Time for bed." As his luck would have it, the little girl was a night owl. It was probably what saved her.

He scooped her up, tucking her into his arms. Smiling as the girls around him cooed and waved at her, he couldn't help but smile. At least vampires in the castle have been receptive to the girl. Then again, they knew better than to pick on someone he'd taken under his wing.

Climbing into bed with her in his arms, he couldn't help but be proud of how strong she'd been. She'd kept herself busy and done her best to keep it together. Still, sometimes, he could hear her crying to herself at night. It was heartbreaking, but there wasn't much he could do except to hold her and let her mourn the family that was taken from her so suddenly.

"Good night, Little-."

Suddenly, she thrusted the little horse she'd taken from her old home up to his face. Stitched onto the bottom of the horse was a name.

First place he should've checked, honestly.

"Selene."