Whoo, back again! Higurashi Month 2019, because it has become one of my lowkey life goals to keep perpetuating this until it becomes a proper tradition for all three-and-a-half people in this graveyard of a fandom. And then keep doing it anyways, because tradition. If you wish to check out the prompt list, its on my tumblr page under the same username.

June 26th, 2019

A churchbell tolled softly in the distance, the orange and red glow of flames lighting the clumsy glass windows of the village houses.

A woman strolled through the village, towering, imposing, clad in a black cloak dark as night, her unbound mint-green hair falling in a silky curtain over her back. A satchel was held in her hand, a silver wedding band on her finger.

She moved to the verge of the village, and then outside it, drifting near-silently through the forest along a small dirt road lined with a wooden, snow-dusted fence

The woman stopped dead. There were browning speckles of something red on the ground, something that she inhaled sharply through her pointed nose, and knew, and feared.

She left the road and cut through the forest, crows flapping up and sounding their croaking calls as her feet rustled briskly through the grass. She stopped in a clearing, and her bag slipped off her shoulder and onto the ground.

The remains of a house lay in the grassy cleared space, the shell of a stone cottage, with burned timber scattered all about, possessional shattered and smoldering. Smoke still floated from the ruins of what had once been a home –smoke, and nothing else. Everything was gone.

Footsteps sounded up the path to the road, an old, stooped woman, wrapped in a rose-colored shawl and holding a bouquet of white lilies. She stopped a meter or so behind the frozen, younger woman.

"Are you Ms. Sonozaki?" she asked in a reedy, surprised voice. "He talked about you."

The green-haired woman turned, her own voice tight, cold, controlled, with an undercurrent of smoldering, deadly anger. "What happened? Where is my husband?"

The older woman looked down, blinking quickly as though to clear away tears. "Oh…the bishop took him. Witchcraft, he said." Her wrinkled, gnarled fingers tightened on the lilies –the funeral lilies– as her thin voice nearly broke. "They're burning him at the stake."

Steps shaky, the crone moved forward, passing the immobile young woman and tottering into the remnants of the house. "He was good to me, your husband. A good doctor." She sniffled as she laid the flowers down on what may once have been a hearthstone. "Its not right, what happened."

The younger woman narrowed her emerald eyes above the upraised collar of her cloak, not having turned around to watch the crone place the flowers. "Where are they holding him?" Her eyes moved back. "The cathedral?"

"Oh…" The old woman's voice broke, well and truly, and she looked away, eyes glistening. "Oh, no, ma'am. H-he'll be dead by now."

The mint-haired woman's jaw went slack, a spasm crossing her face as though she had been run through with a sword. Her incisors were sharp –too sharp. "What?" she whispered.

The crone shook her head defiantly. "I couldn't be there. I don't care what they say, I won't take joy in that man being killed by the church." she croaked, voice quavering at the end. She looked down at the bouquet she had laid down. "I'm here remembering him, instead."

Behind the crone, a single thin trail of shining crimson ran down the younger woman's cheek, and she bowed her head, the wind kicking up as her hair floated before her face, hiding her grief. "He said to me, 'If you would love me as a mortal, then live as a mortal.'" She lifted her shaky hands before her chest, nails long and pointed. "'Travel as a mortal.'"

The old woman looked at her. "He said you were traveling."

"I was." Her voice lowered ominously. "The way mortals do." Her nails curled tightly into her palms as she clenched her slender fists, drawing thick drips of blood. "Slowly. No more."

The crone gasped as the young woman turned around: as her mint-green hair blew aside, it revealed two eyes shining like pinpoints of flame, whites a bloody red, pupils a shining point of yellow light. Two twin lines of blood trailed down the young woman's perfect, porcelain cheeks, dripping where tears would be as she slowly stalked towards the terrified old woman.

"I do this last kindness in his name, he who loved you humans and cared for your ills. Take your family and leave Wallachia tonight." the young woman growled, the crone stumbling away, whimpering in fear, as the glow of embers at their feet strengthened, revealing the pitiless, inhuman face in all its horror. "Pack, and go, and do not look back." the young woman hissed, the flames climbing her body and sprouting like wings from her devilish eyes as the crone cried out. "For no more do I travel as a mortal."

The crone screamed as the flames writhed and stretched and settled inside the Sonozaki wife's body, the young woman becoming a single, slender column of fire with blinding white eyes, a column that shot up into the sky and streaked through the night.

Towards the distant city.

The corpse tied to the flaming post inside the chapel was barely recognizable as human, now: a charred and charcoaled grinning defected, hardly more than a burnt-out shell of a skeleton. Still the fire roared, and with a gradual clatter, like fired clay, the structure of the skeleton collapsed, crumpling at the base of the pyre in a sad, ashen heap. The clergy who stood before it nodded approval –the gathered villages shouted, clapped, and laughed to see a witch so stricken from the earth.

"Ah, there. Quite a show." the bulging mayor said pompously, stepping forward to the side of the stone-faced bishop watching the proceedings. He turned to him. "Drinks?"

The bishop yawned quietly. "I…should minister to the archbishop. I fear he's not long for this world, to be honest."

The mayor chuckled. "Off to Heaven with him, eh? I suppose that's the ultimate goal for you priests…serving God in His true house and all that."

"It holds little appeal for me, to be honest." The bishop murmured as he began walking down the stone steps, with the mayor a beat behind.

"Really?"

The bishop frowned, tilting his head down. "There's so much left to be done on earth." He raised a hand in exasperation, clenching it. "Wallachia could be God's own country had I but time to burn out all the evil that hides here." he groaned.

The fire behind them suddenly flared sharply, a shockwave of heated air slamming throughout the chapel as both men stumbled and turned, the mayor gasping. The flames rippled, coiled, writhed and billowed outwards like a field of wheat under the summer breeze, condensing into a spindle of fire that swiftly melted and blew out the stone tiles beneath it, the hollow orange spaces in the flames shifting and writhing to form a skeleton mouth that roared, spreading another gust of hot air through the chapel, like a dragon. This form swiftly shuddered into the shape of a skeletal face with round, glowing yellow-white eyes and a mouth full of sharp teeth.

"What have you done?"

"Satan!" the mayor gasped. As though responding to his cry, the skeletal face abruptly smoothed over, the flames flattening and stretching to form the elfin, sculpted face of an aristocratic-looking woman, her eyes still molted pools of white as the dark orange flames of her hair waved and danced, face glowing radiantly.

"What have you done to my husband?!" she demanded, louder, as the flames flared sharply, her voice the booming dissonance of church bells slightly out of tune, the dry roar of a fiery tornado.

"In nomine Patris et Filii…" the bishop began shakily, withdrawing a golden cross from his robes and holding it out defensively towards the figure.

"I am Shion Sonozaki no Oni, and you will tell me why this thing has happened to my husband." the inferno-clad face hissed ferally, flames swelling and looming closer.

"Oh no. Oh, God!" the mayor exclaimed, flinching away. "Shion Sonozaki! She was supposed to be myth –a story made up by heretics!"

"He…he's a witch!" the bishop began shakily, and the golden bars of Shion's eyebrows slammed together as her voice took on a deadly calm.

"Satoshi Hojo was a man of the sciences, and the one thing that justified humanity's stench upon this planet."

"You are not real." the bishop hissed back, recovering his courage. "You, are a fiction that justified the practice of black magic!"

The flames flared and spread outwards as the human-façade was stripped away, the pointed-toothed skull looming through. "A fiction?!" Shion roared. "You take my husband and deny I even exist?!"

There was an ominous pause as she slowly regained her human form.

"I give you one year, Wallachians." Shion snarled as her voice calmed again, addressing the terrified citizens. "You have one year to make your peace and remove any marks you have made upon the land. One year, and then I'll wipe all human life from the land of Wallachia. You took that which I love, so I will take from you everything you have and everything you have ever been. One year." The façade of humanity once again fell away, and the fire roared upwards into a roaring spindle as an unearthly howl split the air, shattering every window in the church.

There was silence inside the great building, as a hail of burning comets thundered

With a thought, Shion's mirror shattered, erasing the stony, tear-stricken visage staring back at her. The shards sang softly as they whirled through the air in an arabesque of sinuous shapes, her booted footsteps echoing off the walls as she strode towards a nearby desk.

With a furious cry, Shion swept the papers and instruments off, hearing them rustle and shatter as they hit the ground. She snarled and hit the table, palm down, splintering it in half, and stood panting slowly, as she glared down at the wreckage.

"One year!" the castle's master hissed, whipping out her arm as an electrical charge spiked through the hollow chamber where the mirror shards danced, whirling them faster. "It will take me one year to summon an army from the guts of hell itself!"

The study door opened as she spoke.

"No." a voice spoke from the shadows, firm and quiet. Shion did not move for a moment, then turned her head slightly, vision obscured by her curtain of long green hair.

"What do you mean, no?" she whispered ominously, slowly turning around as her emerald eyes gleamed red. "That man was the only reason on earth for me to tolerate, human, life!"

"Then find the one who did the deed." her mysterious counterpart responded flatly. "If you loose an army of the night on Wallachia, you cannot undo it, and many thousands of people just as innocent as her will suffer and die."

Shion gritted her teeth. "There are no innocents!" she thundered, voice ringing through the study as she took a single furious step forward, her glowing red eyes casting daggers at the one in the shadows. "Not anymore! Any one of them could have stood up and said 'No, we won't behave like animals anymore.'" the furious vampire snarled, clenching her slender fist as blood ran down her skin, long sharp nails piercing her palm once again.

"I won't let you do it." The mysterious woman's eyes narrowed. "I grieve with you, but I won't let you commit genocide."

Shion snarled and threw herself forward, claws raised and outstretched, as the other woman reached for a sword at her hip.

She was too late, and a spray of blood fountained up into the darkness.

One Year Later

The choir sang in practiced harmony before the repaired steps of the Targovishte cathedral, the citizens gathering eagerly to see the face of the archbishop as he was brought forth on a gilded litter, carried by his priests. They cheered as the cathedral doors opened, the wrinkled archbishop peering benevolently out at his people as his acolytes carried him down the steps, towards the landing where the choir sang. They placed the gilded chair, decorated with crosses and holy symbols at every corner, on the stand waiting there and withdrew respectfully as he raised his hand, both crowd and choir falling silent. The archbishop sighed, then drew breath to address them.

"For twenty years have I served you, and God, as the archbishop to Targovishte Cathedral." he began in a creaking, yet authoritative voice. "Yet never before, have I felt the love of God shine so upon this great city. A little more than one year ago, many of us suffered a vision, during the God-willed punishment of a witch in our midst. The devil himself came to us! and threatened us with doom in one year. And yet, here we are."

The halcyon sky began to darken, amber clouds rolling over the sun.

"The devil lied. Why should we be surprised?" He stretched out his hand as the cloud cover darkened, tinting the world crimson. "Do we not know the devil for a liar? Do we not know his works to be illusion?" He paused, and leaned forward, extending his arms in benediction. "Of course we do! Illusions and falsehoods hold no fear for us, for we are the righteous of Targovishte, living as if cradled in the love of God."

Plap.

The archbishop paused and looked down at his outstretched palms. There was a trickle of blood there, from a cut he did not have.

Plap. Plap plap plap.

More droplets of red rained down onto his hands, a soft rushing sound filling the crowded square as dark clouds shrouded the sky, the crowd murmuring, then beginning to cry out and raise their voices in dismay and disgust as the rain thickened, and its origin became more obvious as the rich red liquid soaked into cowls and hair and clothes.

It was raining blood.

Soft, squishy, visceral sounds suddenly echoed from the tiles and rooftops, and the mayor blinked as something solid hit his shoulder, then bounced off. He stared as the fleshy object lay twitching at his feet. It was…an inhuman, reptilian creature, a tiny curled embryo of darkness soiled in blood, shrilling feebly.

The pavement began to crack, as rivers and streams and waterfalls of blood poured over the cathedral roof and the people screamed. The repaired windows suddenly blew outwards, shards of glass failing like hail as they struck down the priests, one shard impaling the archbishop through his back and knocking him out of the chair to the ground. He struggled to rise, managing to get up on his knees and turn as fire roared up from the cathedral. The rain of blood ceased as the column of fire spiraled up into the sky, dislodging the masonry of the church, as a familiar face loomed through the blackening clouds.

"One year." Shion Sonozaki seethed quietly. "I gave you one year to make your peace with your God. And what do you do? Celebrate the day you killed my husband."

There was an ominous pause as all faces turned up to the sky, despairing when moments before they had been in joy.

"One year, I gave you, while I assembled my armies. And now, I bring…your…death. You had your chance…" Her voice faded away as the fiery visage faded into smoke, which returned to the boiling red clouds.

Not even a moment of shocked silence passed before an explosion ripped through the town, an impossible conglomerate of spires and towers and a castle keep rising from the inferno of what had once been the church. Doors and shutters in the impossible structure banged open, a hellish flock of winged, leathery creatures swarming out and laying waste to the town. They spat fire from their batlike jaws, clawed and flayed open townsfolk with their long talons: nothing could stem their tide.

An enormous flock of bats swirled around the topmost spires of the sudden castle, and the creatures looked up to see their master as the black cloud of bats swirled and fluttered into a billowing face, ever-shifting, ever-eddying as the bats flew.

"Kill everything you see. Kill them all. And once Targovishte has been made into a graveyard for my love, go forth into the country. Go now. Go to all the cities of Wallachia –Arges, Severin, Gresit, Chilia, Enisara! Go now, and kill! Kill for my love."

Shion's voice became a thin whisper on the wind, heard only by those creatures that did her bidding, an echo of untold lament rolling unheard across the landscape as massacre followed close behind. "Kill…for the only true love I ever knew. Kill for the endless lifetime of hate before me."

The force holding the bats together wavered, and the ghostly face above Targovishte dissipated as horror was loosened upon Wallachia.

Several Weeks Later

In a squalid, small village not far outside Gresit, the lights of an inn glowed warmly, welcoming all to come and sample its…comforts.

Not overly good ones, to be sure. It was a toss-up or whether or not it would be better to dare the snow-crusted outdoors than the reeking, uncouth atmosphere of the bar. Several villagers were gathered near the bar itself, while another man, an outsider, sat at one of the tables and drank. He wore a huge, tattered fur cloak and had weary periwinkle eyes, seemingly more intent on getting sloshed than the…fascinating conversation…at the counter.

"So I says to him, 'Its my goat. I been tending goats since I was four years old.'"

"Right, right."

"'And I'd know if my goat was in love with you.'"

"For God's sake."

"He says to me, 'I know your goat's in love with me.'"

"So you said 'How?' Bosha." the lankier partner asked.

"So I says how!" his overweight companion agreed, jabbing up a finger. "And he says, 'Well, she fucks me, don't she?'"

"And that's when you hit him." the other man said, turning to the bar with the other as the stout man picked up his tankard.

"Right across the eyes with a shovel!" his companion agreed, staring into his partner's face…though with the height difference, his blurry eyes were focused on the other man's leather apron. "And now, the headman, he says I have to pay the bastard money because he went blind."

"Not fair." the other agreed amicably, sipping at his tankard.

This…enlightening conversation…continued for several moments, with the stout man demanding more ale for he and his cousin Kob, which started an argument about whether or not they were brothers by virtue of having the same father, or cousins because Kob had evidently been born from Bosha's aunt, ending with a threat to end the argument via shovel.

"Anyone else while I'm pouring?" the bartender asked.

The cloaked man in the corner waved a groggy arm. "One over here."

Before the bartender could oblige, however, another villager burst in, demanding ale to quench his desperate thirst. He was hollow-cheeked and looked frightened: terrified, even, for he had seen the Sonozaki's horde, traveling west towards Gresit.

The mood the bar took an abrupt turn for the worst, with all conversation turning towards whether or not the horde would miss their own little town, and who was to blame for it.

"No, it all comes down to the families and the houses, don't it?" Bosha demanded. "The great houses of Gresit…" He hawked and spat. "Shion Sonozaki? An old family. The capital? All run by the great houses. And they're not even the worst. The Maebaras?"

The man in the corner opened his eyes, which seemed sharper than before.

"We should have killed all the Maebaras."

"Shit." the cloaked brunet muttered emphatically to himself, subtly averting his face.

"Its all about these old families, like the Maebaras, who control all the power and go to war with each other. And who's caught in the middle?"

"We are." Kob said.

"We are!" his brother/cousin agreed vehemently. "Because we, don't, matter. Do you know why? Where'd you come from?"

"Well, out of your aunt, according to you." Kob said with a shrug.

"You came from shit." Bosha said with great conviction. "I came from shit! We all, came from shit! We just work for a living every day of our lives, we just keep those bastards in food and wool…slaves! That's what we are –slaves to the great old families and their games!"

The cloaked brunet suddenly heaved himself to his feet, staggering over to the bar. "Sorry, can I get my ale?" he slurred, leaning over the counter as he placed one elbow atop it. "It's, just…that I think I'm sobering up."

"Alright, alright, but I wanna see some coin from you now." the bartender said. The brunet began to rummage drunkenly in his clothing, and Bosha stiffened as the cloak slipped aside to reveal a surprisingly clean white shirt –and a crest emblazoned in gold on the left breast.

"Oi! What's that on your chest?"

"Uh…" the brunet blinked groggily. "My shirt." He turned to the bartender and held up a slender pouch of coins that he had discovered in his rummaging. "Just one more tankard, eh? Sooomething to keep me warm, while I go find a tree to sleep under."

"That's a family crest. I know it." the stout peasant persisted, stepping forward.

"I don't." the cloaked man responded flatly. He turned to the bartender with an attempt at another winning smile. "Just one more drink and then I'll leave, alright?"

"That's a Maebara crest!" Bosha snapped, stepping forward and crowding the other man as he leaned back off the bar.

"Really?" the other man hummed almost teasingly, and glanced back at the stony bartender again, tossing the pouch down. "Look, here's the money."

"You're a Maebara, aren't you?" Bosha demanded as the other two closed ranks behind him. "House of Maebara! Family Maebara!"

"Never met them." the brunet, his slur becoming slightly more pronounced, before he wearily rubbed his forehead. "Listen, jus', forget it. I'll just go."

He made as if to leave the room, but the stout peasant shoved him back to where he stood.

"No! You're a Maebara! This is all your fault."

"I don't know what you're talking about." the cloaked man sighed.

"Yes you do." Kob said ominously, stepping up beside his cousin and clenching his fist.

"Everyone knows…the Maebaras dealt in black magic." Bosha sneered. "The Maebaras dealt with monsters!"

"The Maebaras fought monsters, son." the brunet snapped back, steel suddenly entering his voice and periwinkle eyes as his stance firmed. Then he blinked and looked aside sheepishly. "Er, so I'm told. This," He gestured to his chest. "-is just an old shirt."

"The Maebaras were excommunicated by the church: banished, disowned, their lands taken, because they were evil."

"Evil." Kob echoed.

"And now Sonozaki's hordes are abroad in the land." Bosha continued, fist clenching. "And whose fault is that?"

The other man gestured irritably. "Well, it ain't mine."

"The Maebaras traded in black magic, and now black magic is all over Wallachia." The stout peasant stated with irrefutable conviction. "I think you know exactly whose fault that is."

The brunet sighed and raised both hands, palm out. "I'm leaving, okay? I'm, leaving, now."

He turned aside, but Bosha grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him back around. "So you can lead your monster friends back here?!"

"So I can find somewhere to piss and somewhere else to sleep." the other man snapped.

"No, you can sleep right here." Bosha growled. The brunet grinned and slowly leaned forward until they were almost nose to nose.

"You haven't got your shovel."

Unsurprisingly, a bar fight ensued, in which it came out that the periwinkle-eyed brunet was Keiichi Maebara, House of Maebara, last son of the Maebara family.

It also came out that he wasn't that bad a fighter, even when stinking drunk.

A day later, in the city of Gresit, that same Keiichi Maebara was muttering sullenly to himself as he shuffled down the stone steps of the city catacombs, on the hunt for a lost Speaker.

As he got deeper and deeper in, however, his resentful mumbling trailed off, and he began frowning skeptically at the walls and the devices fixed to them. There were metal pipes that carried some unknown hot liquid, like the veins of some labyrinthine monster, and strange, glass-covered lanterns that glowed a sharp blue without fire or flickering.

At length, he found a place deep underground with those lanterns, scattered with, oddly enough, statues. Finely-wrought statues, each wrinkle and fold of fabric so real one could squint and imagine a person lay there –for some were laying, some were kneeling and crouching with crumbling knees and expressions of woe, and there was one that had a disturbingly realistic decapitated neck-stump, slumped against a pillar.

Near the center of the room was a life-sized figure in Speaker robes, hands upraised and cloak billowing back as though to ward off a blow. Keiichi stepped nearer and inspected it, tapping his unsheathed sword against the raised stone hood.

"Either someone left a statue of a Speaker down here, or…" he mused aloud, only to be cut off an inhuman groan and the rumble of heavy footsteps.

Keiichi turned quickly, seeing a colossal, misshapen, one-eyed figure lumbering towards him. Its lone eye was blue, but quickly began to distort and turn red.

"Cyclops." the brunet breathed in shock, and yelped and ducked aside as a beam of red light suddenly cut through the room, originating from the monster's shining eye. He dodged and weaved frantically as that beam cut across the room, grinding stone in its wake, finally ducking behind a thick pillar as sparks shattered around him. "Stone-Eye Cyclops!" he gasped, pressing his back against the comfortingly solid rock of the pillar. "Right out of the family bestiary." His periwinkle eyes turned to the looming monster somewhere unknown behind him. "God shits in my dinner once again."

Keiichi ducked and ran frantically out of the way as it rounded the pillar, beam of light raking across the ground. His eyes raked the chamber as he ran and it lumbered after him, potentially spotting a strategy, but then grunted as it grabbed him by the head in one enormous hand and bodily flung the young hunter against a pillar. Keiichi weaved between several more of the blessed, wonderful stone columns as the cyclops fired its beam again, flipping his sword and then flinging it in a perfect shot at the monster, as the blade sank nearly a foot deep in its heart.

The cyclops paused, and looked down. It did not seem to be overly inconvenienced.

"Come on." Keiichi muttered to himself. "Come on! You're dead!" He swallowed and began backing away as the cyclops looked up again. "Stop and notice you're dead…!"

He yelped and ducked away as it fired its beam at him again. As Keiichi dodged behind a pillar, he pulled out his whip and flung it at the beast, the tough leather cord wrapping tightly around the hilt as he jerked, withdrawing the sword. With an expert snap and twist of his wrist, and an underhand spin of his body, he knocked the sword upside the cyclops's chin, blood spurting out briefly as the sword spun free. Coiling his whip as he ran, he jumped onto the stone Speaker, using it as a launch point to rebound off the high point of a pillar, boot flashing out as he kicked the hilt of his sword and it spun forwards, ending in a perfect shot to the cyclops's face, the blade going hilt-deep in its enormous eye.

Keiichi landed as the monster began to collapse. The rumble of its impact shook the upright Speaker statue, which wobbled, falling over as he hastily moved to catch it, and it gleamed red, turning to cloth and flesh. The hood fell back as they collapsed into his arms, revealing a young woman with saw-straight auburn hair cut at an incline to her chin. She blinked open dazed blue eyes, and began to say something, before her eyes widened sharply and she rolled over, vomiting with great feeling onto the cold stone floor as her newly-corporeal stomach rebelled.

"I wished Speakers wouldn't do that." Keiichi commented as he retrieved his sword.

"What?" she asked groggily, weakly bringing her head up as the retching ceased.

"Dress the girls like boys." the brunet responded, not unkindly, wiping the blood clean before sheathing his sword again.

"Its…safer when we…travel." the young woman said blankly, standing up as puzzlement won over nausea in her expression. "What happened?"

Keiichi jabbed a thumb at the corpse.

"You walked into a cyclops. Turns you to stone with its eyeball and feeds on your terror while you're trapped in your own body."

"Did…" She blinked as her voice grew indignant. "Did you climb on me?"

Keiichi shrugged. "Eh, a bit." he admitted without shame.

She scowled and folded her arms. "That was rude."

"Excuse me?"

"Who are you anyway?"

"Keiichi Maebara. You?"

"Rena Ryugu."

Deeper into the catacombs they went, Rena bending Keiichi's ear nonstop about the importance of finding some Sleeping Solider and how it would help them to defeat Shion Sonozaki, and almost completely ignoring all the traps and strange devices he had to fish her out from the whole way there.

Her command of magic was impressive, though. Keiichi's opinion of Speaker-Magicians improved as she carelessly cast her fire and manipulated her ice to destroy traps, all without pausing for breath.

At length they came to an impressive, vaulted room, with a coffin on a dais near the back, more of those strange glass lanterns ringing the room, with an odd glass device filled with some red liquid standing behind the coffin. As the duo walked down the red carpet, there was a soft click, and the lid of the coffin began to rise, steam hissing as gears began to grind.

An ethereally pale young woman rose from the coffin, arms folded over her breast and long mint-green hair floating behind her. Her eyes were closed, and she wore only a pair of black trousers and a white chest-wrap binding her bosom. A long red weal of a scar stretched diagonally across her abdomen, and she floated without any assistance from the machines at all, until she was left hovering vertically a few feet above the floor, facing the slack-jawed duo.

Her head fell limply forward, long unbound hair covering her delicate, elfin face, and at last she spoke, her voice calm and commanding.

"Why are you here?"

"The story-" Rena gasped, excitement plain on her face. "-the Messiah sleeps under Gresit! The woman who will save us from The Demon."

"And you?" the floating woman asked, turning her head a little as her unseen eyes rested on Keiichi. Skepticism was colored thick in her elegant voice. "Are you in search of a mythical savior?"

"I fell down a hole." Keiichi replied, with his typical blasé sarcasm. Rena glared at him and turned to the woman again.

"Shion Sonozaki is abroad in the land. She has an army of monsters, she's determined to wipe out all human life wherever she finds it."

"Is that what you believe?" the mint-haired woman asked after a slight pause.

"That The Demon's released her horde in Wallachia?" Keiichi asked, raising a brow. "That's fact. There's no "belief" involved…but that's not what you're asking."

"No."

Keiichi narrowed his eyes. "You're asking if I believe you're some…sleeping messiah who'll save us, and no, I don't."

"Maebara!" Rena hissed.

He continued without acknowledging her. "I know what you are."

A subtle smirk curled what little of the woman's face they could see through her long curtain of hair. "And what am I?"

A thin trickle of sweat ran down Keiichi's brow. "You're a vampire."

At last the woman raised her head, at last her hair fell back, revealing deep, blazing emerald-green eyes set within a pale, noble face. Her lips were parted slightly, revealing long, snakelike fangs. Rena gasped and jerked back.

"So, I have to ask myself," Keiichi began, eyes narrowed. "-have we come down here to wake up the woman to kill Shion Sonozaki, or did we come here…to wake Shion Sonozaki?"

"You call me Shion Sonozaki." the woman asked quietly, floating down the steps to hover above the carpet.

"I'll call you anything you like if you're gonna show me your teeth." Keiichi tossed back, hand going to his whip.

"She called you Maebara." the woman began, extending one hand to the side. "House of Maebara?"

"Keiichi, Maebara." the brunet replied tersely. "Last son of the House of Maebara."

"The Maebaras fought creatures of the night, did they not?" the woman asked, raising an elegant brow. "For generations."

Keiichi's breath hissed through his teeth, starting to stalk in a circle around the vampire. "Say what you mean."

"The Maebaras killed vampires."

"Until the good people decided they didn't want us around." Keiichi sneered bitterly, gesturing with one hand.

"And now Shion no Oni is carrying out an execution order on the human race." the woman raised her hand to Keiichi. "Do you care, Maebara?"

Keiichi stopped, standing parallel to the vampire, near the dais. He glanced away. "Honestly, I didn't, no. But now…yes. It's time to stop it."

Rena smiled in grateful approval. The vampire was unmoved.

"Do you think you can?" she asked coldly.

"What I think…is I'm going to have to kill you." Keiichi sighed, putting a hand on his whip again.

"Maebara, no!" Rena protested, throwing out her hands. "She's the one we've been waiting for."

"No, she's not." Keiichi argued, beginning to pace in the opposite direction again. "She's a vampire."

"I don't like your tone, Maebara." The woman's eyes narrowed. "I asked you a question –do you care?"

Keiichi gritted his teeth. "I care about doing my family's work. I care about saving human lives. Am I going to have to kill you?"

"Do you think you can?" the woman asked sharply, the first instance of true emotion coloring her voice, disdain and haughty offense mixed in her tone. "If you're really a Maebara and not some runt running around with the family crest, you might be able to."

Her index finger twitched just barely, and a huge claymore sword flew up out of the coffin, spinning towards her hand as she caught it flawlessly and brandished the ridiculously long blade. "Let's find out."

"Maebara, you can't do this!" Rena cried, stepping forward.

"Tell it to your floating vampire Jesus here." Keiichi sneered, drawing his whip.

"You've got nothing but insults, have you? A tired little-" The woman began, floating forward, and grunted as there was a thundershock of impact, Keiichi's whip striking hard and true against her abdomen as she was sent flying backwards. She landed soundlessly on the polished stone floor, sliding backwards with the true grace of a predator as her long curtain of hair hung down over her face again. She gave a low growl as Keiichi withdrew his whip, coiling it back up, and looked up again, baring her teeth in a vampiric hiss as blood trickled down from the rent in her stomach.

Keiichi was unimpressed. "Stone the fuck up." he grunted, sending his whip flying out again.

"You can't do this. Maebara!" Rena begged him as the two combatants circled each other, whip and sword clashing thick and fast.

"She's not your messiah." Despite the rapid movement of both the vampire and his whip, Keiichi's breathing was barely labored. "The Sonozaki castle can appear anywhere, Rena. And the inside looks just like this."

"And do you know what Shion looks like?" the woman demanded, bouncing off his blows and warding them off with quick, efficient swats of her long sword.

"Nobody knows what Shion really looks like." Keiichi panted, increasing his rhythm. "You've got fangs, green hair, and you sleep in a coffin. That's more than close enough for me."

The woman lashed out with her sword and caught his whip, pulling hard. Keiichi couldn't sustain a contest against her vampiric strength, and willingly let her pull him forward, dropping the whip as he went and drawing his short sword. The two went at it, fiercer than ever, for several moments, sparks flying from the speed of their clashing swords.

The woman suddenly blurred red, and though Keiichi lifted his sword and deflected the blow, striking an equal and opposite line of crimson across the scar on her chest, his sword broke and he was sent flying backwards. He groaned and tried to rise, but she was upon him before he could even sit up, grasping the back of his tousled brown hair and wrenching his head back, fangs poised above his face as she hovered over him and hissed.

"Do you have a god to put a last prayer to, Maebara?" she asked in a calm, deadly voice.

He grunted in pain, then grinned shakily. "Yeah. Dear God, please don't let the vampire's guts ruin my good tunic."

Her balefully shining emerald eyes widened. "What-"

The woman grunted as there was a stabbing sound, glancing down her body to see a small throwing knife embedded in her sternum, angled towards her heart. "I can still rip your throat out." she hissed, her smooth voice briefly laden with strain.

"You can." Keiichi agreed, breathing ragged. "But it won't stop me staking you!"

"But you will still die."

He turned his face up to hers more voluntarily, smirking. "But I don't care." Keiichi breathed back. "Killing you…was the point. Living through it was just a luxury."

The woman blinked, then began to chuckle quietly to herself, her teeth still bared.

The light around the two suddenly brightened, turning orange, and there was a soft rush of flame. Rena stood directly behind the vampire, her right arm outstretched and a tiny ball of fire held between her upraised pinkie and index fingers. "I will incinerate you before your fangs touch that man's throat." she warned, as the vampire's chuckling stopped.

The woman turned her head slightly, her neutrally grave expression unchanged. "I thought I was your legendary savior."

Rena's blue eyes narrowed. "So did I. But he saved my life."

The woman raised an eyebrow. "You're a Speaker-Magician."

Rena lifted her chin proudly. "Yes, and his goal is mine –to stand up for the people."

The vampire's eyes turned to the prone Keiichi beneath her once more, and she smirked. "Good. Very good." Her luminescent emerald eyes closed. "A vampire hunter and a magician. You'll do."

The wounds covering her body slowly began to close as she released Keiichi's hair and rose, making the brunet blink. The mint-haired woman stood tall and proud as her eyes opened and surveyed the two humans, the ball of flame between Rena's fingers still defensively shimmering and present.

"I am Mion Sonozaki. Once known as Shion Sonozaki no Oni…" She bowed her head. "Though that title has been passed to my younger sister for many years now. I've been asleep here in my private keep under Gresit for a year," Her slender hand came up, cupping the angry red scar slicing across her torso. "-to heal the wounds dealt by my twin…when I attempted to stop her unleashing her demon armies."

The ball of fire went out as Rena lowered her hand, eyes wide. "You are the Sleeping Soldier."

Mion turned to her slightly. "I'm aware of the stories. I'm also aware that the Speakers consider the story to be information from the future" She quirked a brow. "Do you know the whole story?"

Rena blinked, and then flushed. "Yes."

"The sleeping soldier will be met by a hunter, and a scholar." the vampire quoted, walking to her coffin and withdrawing a vibrant red robe, covered in a print of dark peonies.

"So what happens now?" Rena asked as they watched her fold the robe around herself and tie it with a wide cloth belt.

"I need a hunter, and a scholar." Mion said, retrieving the sheathe for her sword and sliding it into her belt. "I need help to save Wallachia. Perhaps the world." Her blade sang as it spun up from the floor, sliding seamlessly into the leather sheathe without even a tiny hitch in movement from the vampire as she walked towards the humans at the bottom of the dais. "And defeat my sister."

Keiichi narrowed his eyes and looked at the vampire. "Why?"

Mion bowed her head as she came to a halt at the bottom of the steps, her emerald eyes growing sad and haunted as they stared at the ground. "Because it is what my brother-in-law would have wanted." she whispered.

AN: I was gonna do a whole lot more, cover all my favorite bits and turn Rika and Satoko into the sassmasters Isaac and Hector respectively, but then I realized that eh, I don't have the time, and there's already one obnoxiously long snippet for this month. Probably two, since there's another really long one that I haven't finished yet. Ugh.

8.01 AM, USA Central Time