Okay… I know that it's been over a year since I updated and I am sooo sorry about that! Life just kind of… got away from me. What with school, family drama, and a general lack of inspiration, there was not much time for writing. Please forgive me, and I hope that you like this chapter!

p.s. I'm also working the next chapter for Justine, so I hope you like that as well.

None of the Sakamaki brothers ever looked forward to the monthly dinners they were forced to attend. They could not stand to be in each other's presence most of the time, and so they were mainly content to sit and eat their meals in silence, past and recent grievances barring them from speaking to one another. Whenever a bride would be present, they would have to awkwardly sit there, stuck in the middle of what had to be the most tense and uninviting dinner in the world.

If Yui could feel the thick air of unease in the room, she was definitely not letting it bother her. She sat there, staring at the impressive feast laid out in front of her, seemingly oblivious to the brothers' presence. She was not actually eating her dinner; she simply stared down at it with her usual blank expression. She almost seemed unimpressed with the spread, something that agitated Reiji. He was a gracious enough host to feed her a delicious meal, and she was not even touching it. She did not even have the decency to dress nicely for dinner, still wearing her worn green dress and brown cardigan. But he would not voice his disgust with her at that moment, not at the dinner table. He was a gentleman, after all.

Laito could not help but notice Yui's lack of interest in her food. The poor little thing must have been so scared of them it was affecting her appetite. Well, he had better take care of her, shouldn't he?

Appearing behind her, he bent down and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, essentially trapping her in his embrace.

"Poor little Creepy-chan. You haven't even touched your food. You need to eat something or else you'll become anemic. Would you like me to feed you~?" he said to her, tightening his hold over her. As expected, she did not say anything in return, or even turn around to look at him. She did not even acknowledge his presence.

"Laito." Reiji's voice rang out, making the fedora wearing vampire look at him with an irritated expression on his face. Leave it to Reiji to always be there to spoil the mood.

"It's bad manners to get to your feet during a meal. Sit down." He commanded, leaving no room for argument.

"Yes, sir." Laito sighed in disappointment. His let go of Yui and left her side, but not before turning around to face her and say with a wink,

"Let's continue this another time, Creepy-chan." She did not respond. He hadn't expected her to, anyway.

To her left, Ayato sat and ate his food in silence, not really in the mood for conversation. The day before had to have been some of the worst sleep he had ever gotten in his life. He spent hours tossing and turning in his bed, too anxious to drift off. Even when sleep finally did manage to claim him, his dreams were swiftly turned into nightmares by the return of the ghoulish white hands, dragging him back down to the bottom of the lake. He had woken up in a cold sweat, like he had back at the pool with Yui. If his heart had even been capable of beating, it would have put a hummingbird to shame.

'Damn it…' he thought to himself, trying to focus on eating his meal. 'If this keeps up, I'll have bigger bags under my eyes than Kanato…'

He figured that he was just still on edge from what happened at the pool, and that it would pass soon. Though what Yui said to him, that she somehow knew what he had experienced, left him both confused and agitated.

It didn't matter, he reminded himself. Right now, all he had to think about was eating his meal as fast as possible in order to get out of this stupid dinner Reiji insisted they all go to every month. He cut his gold-plated knife into his fish, ready to take another bite…

… Only for him to see a festering mass of white, writhing maggots emerge from his fish filet. Ayato had no idea how he hadn't noticed them before, as the small, squirming insects now covered the entire plate. He almost vomited on the spot when he dared to look down at his hand, only to find three of the wriggling larvae on his fork, seemingly half eaten.

Acting in a panic, he smacked the plate away from him, narrowly missing hitting Subaru in the face as it flew past him and shattered against the wall. He also rose from his chair at lightning speed, causing it to fall backwards behind him. The others all turned to look at the redhaired vampire, some in annoyance, others in puzzlement.

In a split second, where the disgusting creatures had been, they were gone, leaving behind only broken porcelain and a ruined meal.

"You bastard, what the hell's your problem?!" Subaru yelled in a rage, ready to tear his half-brother limb from limb. Ayato did not register that the white-haired vampire had even spoken, too focused on the fact that he had apparently swatted away maggots that were never really there.

Reiji, having gotten over his initial shock, was ready to tear into Ayato.

"I suppose you have a good reason for why you felt the need to ruin our monthly dinner, Ayato." He said in a less-than-pleased tone of voice.

The shell-shocked vampire did not respond to his angry older brother, he only continued to stare at what remained of his food in utter disbelief.

'They… they were right there! I saw them!' he thought, glancing around the room, looking for any sort of indication that his brothers had played some sort of elaborate prank on him. Next to him, Yui was acting as though nothing was wrong, looking at him with her usual indifference.

'Damn it...!' He thought to himself before grabbing her by the arm and wrenching her out of her chair before marching out of the dining room, the blank-faced human girl in tow. Those left at the table where left in an awkward silence before Reiji spoke up.

"Well, I suppose that dinner is over. You are all excused." Subaru wasted no time standing up and stomping out of the dining room, still fuming over the fact that Ayato almost hit him with his plate. The others filed out calmly, though there was a slight air of unease in the room. Kanato, who had remained mostly silent, looked down at his beloved stuffed companion with intrigue in his violet eyes.

"I think Ayato might be going insane. What do you think, Teddy..?" He said before exiting the dining hall.

After the others had left only Reiji remained, looking over at what had been his half-brother's food. Dinner had been an absolute disaster, he decided. Then again, it still was not worse than the time Subaru outright destroyed half of the dining hall in a rage after Laito said something unsavory to him about Christa.

"What a mess… Now I'll have to call the servants to clean it up…" he muttered to himself, adjusting his glasses in annoyance.

Barging into Yui's room, Ayato threw the human onto the large, pink canopy bed before quickly climbing on top of her, trapping her underneath him. He needed this; he needed to feel in control again.

"Let me suck your blood." He demanded, looking her square in the eye. From underneath him, Yui's eyes furrowed slightly, giving off a look of annoyance. She looked at him as though he were a stain on her shirt and not a vicious vampire who was demanding to feed from her. It really pissed him off.

He grabbed the neckline of her dull green dress and pulled it down, exposing the upper part of her chest and collar bone area. Just has he was lowering himself onto her to take a bite, her gravelly voice interrupted him.

"I'm taking a bath." It was not a request, it was a matter-of-fact statement. Ayato's eyebrow twitched in agitation. This was obviously another attempt to get under his skin. Before he could respond, she put her hands on his chest and, with surprising strength, pushed him off of her. She proceeded to get off the bed and walk towards the bathroom, turning her back on an enraged Ayato.

That smug little bitch, thinking she could just do whatever she wanted!

Fine, he'd allow her to take a bath, but he was going to get the last word in this time.

As Yui was about to open the door, Ayato roughly grabbed her forearm and pulled her back towards him, wrapping his arms around her to trap her in his viper-like grip. He wasted no time tugging her neckline down once again, only this time he had something different in mind. He began to painfully suck on the pale skin of her collarbone, not enough to draw blood but enough to hurt her and leave a mark. He could practically hear the hazel eyed girl wince, having been caught off guard by Ayato's bold move against her. He could feel her body tense in his. Still, though, she made no sound.

He pulled away to admire his handy work, looking at the angry red mark that formed on her skin.

"Now you've been marked by me. Just a small reminder of who you belong to." He said smugly, finally feeling like he had power over her. Looking down at her, he could see that she now had a prominent scowl on her face. Her lips were contorted into a deep frown, her eyes were looking at him with hatred. It had to be the most emotion Ayato had ever seen from her.

He was slightly unnerved, mostly because he was reminded of what she looked like in his hallucination back at the underground pool, but he currently felt so good from finally asserting his dominance over her that he didn't really care is she was pissed off at him. What matter was that he had won. Besides, what could one pathetic human do to him, anyway?

Deciding to save the rest for later, he pressed his mouth to her ear and whispered,

"We'll get to the good part later. Go ahead and take your bath, but you'd better be quick. I don't like to be kept waiting…" he then teleported out of Yui's room, feeling better than he had in days.

When "Yui" walked into the bathroom, one could practically feel the air turn tense and malicious. The girl went up to the mirror and looked at the mark that Ayato had left, glaring down at it with hatred in her eyes.

She was sure that Ayato found his little game to be very fun, but she was not amused.

Placing her hand over the mark Ayato had left her, she muttered something under her breath before the veins in her hand began to turn black, pulsating as she closed her eyes to focus. When her veins went back to normal and she once again fell silent, she lifted her hand from over her skin to reveal that the mark had completely disappeared, as though it had never even been there in the first place. She felt a bit better, now that the evidence of his stupid little game was gone.

As she turned towards the bathtub, Yui saw that it was already occupied. Shuu, the eldest Sakamaki son, was lying in the tub, eyes closed and clothing still on. He seemed to be in a deep sleep, apparently thinking that a bathtub filled with water was an ideal spot for a nap.

The hazel eyed girl walked over to the edge of the tub and stood there, staring down at him with hints of both curiosity and annoyance.

Shuu could feel her eyes on him, silently wondering what he was doing. At least she wasn't loud, he thought to himself. The thing that irritated the eldest Sakamaki about his brothers the most was the fact that they never knew when to shut up. Well, except for Reiji, but that was a whole other can of worms…

Deciding to break the ice, Shuu spoke.

"You don't have to look at me like that. I'm just having a bath, that's all."

"In your clothes?" Yui responded without hesitation, slightly surprising Shuu. He knew that she was more of the silent type, and she had almost never responded when his brothers tried to talk to her. Maybe she just liked him more, he wondered.

"Fine then, why don't you undress me?" he teased.

She did not answer him, just like he had expected. What he did not expect, however, was feeling the water shift. He opened his eyes in surprise, only to see her sitting across from him in the bathtub, her own clothing still on and now soaking wet.

"What did you do that for?" he asked. She did not respond, only looking at him with her usual dull expression.

Shuu's eyebrows furrowed slightly. Whatever. She could do what she wanted, just as long as she did not disrupt his nap.

"You're so weird." He said, closing his eyes with intent to fall back asleep. There they both sat in complete silence, hazel eyes focused directly on the blond vampire. After a few minutes, Yui's voice brought Shuu back from his state of half-sleep.

"Do you fear death?" she asked out of the blue, looking at him with intensity. The sound of her speaking was enough for him to open his eyes and look at her in confusion. To his surprise, despite the morbidity of her question, she did not actually sound fearful herself. She simply wanted to know what he thought. When the nature of her question finally registered, he actually found himself pondering over it.

Being a pureblooded vampire meant that he was, of course, essentially immortal. He could not perish from illness or old age like humans. Indeed, the only way for him to truly die would be for him to be killed by someone else. Also, given the fact that he was the son of the most powerful being in the Demon World, there were not many that could even do so. Now that he thought about it, he would most likely meet his end by being killed by Reiji, when he finally decided he was sick of looking at his older brother. He would probably hire a vampire hunter to kill him, just like had had done with their mother, Beatrix.

Not that he would bother to try and stop him, anyway.

"No, I don't." Shu told her, closing his eyes again.

"Why?" Yui asked, not satisfied with his answer. The blond vampire did not bother to open his eyes again to speak to her.

"What's the point? Besides, being alive is usually trouble than its worth. If I was dead, at least I wouldn't have to put up with everyone's crap." He said, hoping to end the conversation with that. But Yui was not done quite yet.

"Why do you find being alive troublesome?" Shuu began to frown.

"What does any of it really matter? All anyone does is annoy and pester you, and those that don't…" Before he knew it, memories of another time began to come back to him.

A kind smile.

A ruby red apple.

A happy dog.

A burning village.

"… Eventually leave you…" he finished, banishing his memories and the pain that came with them from his mind. Yui focused on his face.

"I see. So then, you do not fear your death… because you do not care about your life?" she clarified, her hazel eyes more intense than before. This definitely made Shuu open his eyes and focus them on her.

The room was filled with a deafening silence, the tension so thick one could cut it with a knife. Shuu stared directly into her hazel eyes before saying,

"You ask way too many questions." With that, he quickly pulled her body towards him, forcing her to fall onto his chest. The water in the tub splashed onto the floor due to the sudden movement, no doubt making a mess. Now that she was right in front of him, he grabbed her long brown hair and pulled it back, exposing her neck to him, ready to have his fill of the bride's blood. His eyes widened slightly, however at what he saw. Or rather, what he did not see.

Before dinner had started and they were all gathered around the table, Ayato would not shut up about the fact that he had been the first one of them to taste the new bride's blood. While Shuu had not cared in the slightest at the time, he was now wondering if his redhaired half-brother had been lying to them, since there was not the slightest trace of a bite wound anywhere on her neck. While Ayato could have just bitten her somewhere else, that was not his style.

Shuu did not like Ayato at all, but he knew him well enough to know that he would definitely leave his bites in a place that was very noticeable, like her neck. It was his way of marking his territory, letting the rest of them know that she belonged to him and him alone. But looking at her now, there was nothing there. Despite this, the elder Sakamaki son also felt that Ayato had been telling the truth about sucking her blood, since he could smell her lingering scent on him. No normal human could heal that fast, and yet she somehow managed to do it. Unless… she was not a normal human?

Now that he thought about it, when Ayato had first claimed to have fed from the bride was also around the same time when his strange behaviour had started. His outburst at dinner, the tense aura that surrounded him, the obvious bags under his eyes. Not to mention the girl's own oddities, how she never showed the slightest hint of being afraid of them…

Shuu was as lazy as a narcoleptic sloth, he could freely admit that to himself, but he was not an idiot. With everything that had been going on with Yui and Ayato… was drinking this girl's blood the reason behind the change in Ayato?

Looking down at her face, he could see her looking at him, a sinister grin on her lips and a knowing glint in her eyes.

Finally, it was as if she were saying, one of you managed to figure it out.

Letting go of her hair, he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her off of his chest, making sure she was facing him. For several minutes, they both at in the tub in absolute silence, daring each other to move or say something. Having enough of her creepy smile, Shuu sat up and climbed out of the tub, his clothes and shoes absolutely soaked with water. As he made his way to the door, he looked back at Yui. She was still sitting in the tub in the, her eyes looking directly at him, grin still on her face.

Something was wrong with her, that much was certain.

Shuu looked away and opened the bathroom door, finally leaving that bizarre situation behind. For now, he would go back to his room and decide whether or not he cared enough to actually go and find out more about the girl calling herself Yui Komori.

Seoul, South Korea

Sitting down in the waiting area of the hospital was unbelievably nerve-wracking for Seiji Komori. It had been hell getting him and Yui into Seoul, having to constantly look over his shoulder in case the Church had caught wind of what had happened and sent people after his daughter. He would never let them get their hands on her; he would be dead before that happened.

Aside from becoming a man of God, being a father was the most wonderful, most rewarding thing Seiji had ever done with his life. The fact that Yui was not his biological daughter meant nothing to him; he loved her with every fibre of his being and there was nothing he would not do for her.

When he'd heard from a fellow priest that his precious daughter had been offered up as the new sacrificial bride to the Vampire King's sons, all without his knowledge, he was absolutely devastated. He had dedicated his life to the Church and they betrayed him in the worst way possible.

He would have done anything, anything at all to spare his dear child the fate of becoming the plaything of those wretched monsters.

He would even do something… that he later may not forgive himself of.

"Seiji." A friendly, familiar voice called out to him.

Snapped out of his musings, he turned to see a man with short black hair wearing a white doctor's coat, staring at him with sympathy and understanding. He calmed slightly, knowing why he was there.

"Sung-min." he greeted his old friend with a weary smile. The doctor smiled back at him, knowing that how tired he had to have been, noting the heavy bags under his eyes. He'd come all the way from Japan, after all.

"Come on, Seiji. When we're here, you've gotta to call me Dr. Park." He chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. While this did get the tiniest smile out of the now ex-priest, it did not bring any light to his eyes.

"Right, sorry about that. I'm just a bit… out of sorts at the moment." He said, looking up at the doctor, who in turn frowned at Seiji's discomfort. Sung-min was a bit confused when his old friend had called him out of the blue and asked him for a huge favour, but he was happy to help.

That being said, what he'd asked the doctor to do was a very… odd task.

"So, how is Yui? Does she need me?" the ex-priest asked, voice laced with concern. Sung-min on the bench next to his friend.

"Don't worry, she's being prepped for surgery, and we have the donor heart ready for transplant. Everything should go smoothly." Seiji sighed in relief and gave the doctor a grateful smile.

"Of course, Dr. Park. With you operating, I know she's in good hands." Sung-min smiled back at Seiji and patted him on the back.

"Thanks. I'm the Head of Cardiology for a reason, you know." The two old friends shared a small laugh, the air around them becoming jovial.

"It's kind of amazing, isn't it? The last time I saw Yui, she had just started middle school. Now she's seventeen; she's almost all grown up." Sung-min fondly reminisced. Seiji looked away from Sung-min and down at his clasped hands, becoming engrossed in his own memories.

"You're right. She grew up in a blink of my eye." His eyes grew sad and his smile fell.

"Really… where did the time go...?" he murmured, his shoulders slumping as though they were weighed down. All Seiji had ever wanted was for Yui to have a happy, normal life. That was the very reason he ended up retiring as a vampire hunter. He did not want to constantly risk his life when he had someone who depended on him. If it was not for him and his continued ties to the Church, Yui would have never been selected as the sacrificial bride. It was his fault she had been put in such horrible danger, and he knew that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Seeing his friend so upset caused Sung-min's face to fall as well.

"Listen Seiji… I know you're going through a lot right now, and I'm here for you, but I need to know something." He said. Seiji nodded, but did not raise his head. The doctor continued,

"During Yui's examinations, I didn't find a single thing actually wrong with her heart. If she's perfectly healthy, why does she need a transplant so badly? I don't under-"

"Sung-min, if I don't get that heart out of Yui as soon as possible, it will kill her!" Seiji cut his friend off, his voice having a panicked edge to it. Sung-min's words died in his throat at the sound of the ex-priest's voice. After a few moments had passed, Seiji looked at the doctor with remorse in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have snapped at you like that. I… I know that you're taking a big risk, operating on someone healthy. You could lose your medical license for that, right?" Sung-min gave a mirthless chuckle.

"Don't worry about stuff like that, this whole thing is under wraps. I know that you'd give your own life for Yui's sake and you've never lied to me before, so if you say that her heart's bad, then I believe you. And… even if that weren't true…" Sung-min looked directly into Seiji's eyes.

"I'd do anything for you, Seiji… I owe you my life, after all…" Seiji's smile returned to his face, touched by Sung-min's words.

A young nurse appeared from around corner.

"Dr. Park? The patient is ready now. We can begin the procedure." She said. Sung-min looked up to her and nodded.

"Thank you, Mi-young. I'll be right there." Sung-min got up from his seat and looked at Seiji reassuringly.

"Don't worry, Seiji. She's going to be just fine." He said before he turned away and left with the nurse, leaving Seiji alone.

As he waited while his daughter was having her operation, his thoughts drifted to the one who, in desperation, he went to for help. He remembered seeing her sitting in the middle of her cell with her back turned to him, with only the steel bars and magic-blocking wards separating them. As soon as he got her attention, she slowly turned to face him with those horrible, doll-like eyes of hers. A chill ran down his spine just thinking about it.

She had been his only option, and she had kept up her end of the bargain, but a part of him still felt as though he had made a deal with the Devil…

But for Yui's sake, he gladly do it all over again.

Just a quick note: I want to make something clear. Shuu is NOT suicidal. He doesn't want to die, just doesn't really care if he does.