*Walks back in a year late with Starbucks*

Oh… Hey. O_O

*Takes sip of Starbucks* Ugh, why did I get this? I don't even like coffee! *Yeets cup into the surface of the sun*

Listen, before I'm strapped to the hobbling wheel, I just want to say that I'm sorry this chapter took so long. It's been kind of a crazy year, we had to put down my childhood pet in October, I got a new job, and am still going to school. Again, I would like to say that I am sorry, and that I hope the chapter was worth the wait.

Let's begin!

Ayato was beginning to become rather irritated with how long it was taking Oddball to take her stupid bath. Here he was, sitting on her bed waiting for her to get out of the bathroom like an idiot when he had been generous enough to allow her some time to herself. Although he was admittedly still feeling pretty good about himself after his small "victory" over his dear prey, he wanted to have some fun with her already!

"Shit, what's taking her so long? I should just go in there myself and drag her out myself. Hell, she might actually have a nice body under those baggy clothes of hers, anyway." He thought out loud to himself. Even with the nice thought, he was still growing rather antsy.

After another minute of waiting around, his patience had dried up completely. Sitting up from the bed, he aggressively made his way over to the door that lead to the bathroom. Just as he was about to grab hold of the knob and wrench the door open, a very familiar voice rang out across the room.

"It's not fair…"

Turning his head around in shock, Ayato scanned the room in search of the source of the voice. Finding the room to be completely empty, he could almost feel his non-beating heart drop into his stomach when he realized who the voice belonged to.

"Oddball? Hey, where are you?" he said, the tough edge in his voice masking his growing sense of dread.

"It's not fair…"

He almost jumped out of his skin at the sound of the voice again. Yes, while it was definitely Oddball's voice he was hearing, there was something very different about it. She sounded much less deep and gravelly, and it was rife with a strong sense of pain and grief. It was by far the most emotion he had ever heard from her, and he would have no doubt enjoyed hearing her in such undeniable misery if not for the fact that her voice seemed to be coming from out of nowhere.

"Those bastards…!"

Her voice rang out again, now taking on a sense of rising anger. Having enough, Ayato turned back to the bathroom door and grabbed on to the doorknob tightly.

"Dammit, Oddball! Don't screw with me, or I'm gonna make you regret it!" he called out before swinging the door wide open.

Stepping foot inside, instead of feeling the tile floor beneath him, he felt… grass?

He looked down at his feel, indeed finding soft, green grass underneath his shoe. Looking back up, instead of a luxurious, lavishly decorated bathroom, he found himself standing at the edge of a large, dense forest. He could feel the grass underneath him, the wind blowing through his red hair, the earthy smell of the woods looming ominously in front of him filling his nostrils.

"Wha… What the hell is this?" he said to himself in a panic, feeling utterly confused and disoriented. Turning completely around, he found that the doorway leading back into the bedroom was now gone. He realized that he was standing in the middle of a small clearing, the tall, looming trees surrounding him at all sides.

Subconsciously taking a few steps back, Ayato's brain was trying its absolute best to process how on earth he ended up in… where ever the hell he was. In doing so, he almost did not hear a familiar voice, wracked with grief, say,

"She died for nothing…!"

This time, Ayato could clearly hear the direction Yui's voice was coming from; directly in front of him, deep in the forest.

Most people, of course, would follow their basic survival instinct and not follow the eerie disembodied voice into the forest that literally appeared out of nowhere.

Ayato Sakamaki, however, was not most people.

Being the fearless (reckless) vampire he was, he knew that there was nothing in that forest that could possibly be more dangerous than himself. Besides, if Oddball really was in those woods, he would be able to teach her a lesson for messing with him like this. Then again, there was a small part of that was admittedly sort of pleased that she had put so much effort into this little prank of hers, just for him.

After taking a short breath, he broke into a sprint and darted towards the woods, running past the trees and thick bushes in his way. In his haste, however, Ayato unfortunately did not realize just how dense and hazardous the forest truly was. Despite his supernaturally enhanced sense of coordination, he almost run into a tree or tripped over the thick roots poking up from underground several times. He decided that, despite his eagerness to find Yui, he should probably slow down as to avoid falling flat on his face.

Reducing his speed to more of a light jog, Ayato was really able to take in his surroundings. The tall trees loomed almost ominously over him, their long branches and thick leaves doing a good job of blocking out the sun. Not that there was much sunlight to begin with, what with the dense clouds overhead turning the sky a dark gray. The trees, along with the stormy gray clouds, engulfed the entire forest in a dark shadow, making the area feel cold, isolated, and yet… alive. Alive and always watching.

This did not go unnoticed by Ayato as he trudged his way through the woods as his breath began to quicken and palms started to sweat. If his heart actually was capable of beating, he knew it would be going a mile a minute.

He was a vampire, he desperately tried to remind himself. He had no reason to feel so anxious (anxious, not scared), there was nothing in these woods that could hurt him!

And yet… what if the danger was not from something in the forest…?

"I want them to suffer!"

Ayato nearly jumped out of his skin when Yui's voice rang in what he could only describe as pure rage. She sounded so full of anger and hatred, as though she wanted the whole world to burn. He had never heard her sound like that, and even though he did not want to admit it to himself, it shook him to his very core.

But the worst part, by far, was the fact that her voice was no longer coming from a distance. It was coming from right behind him.

Releasing a breath that he did not even realize he was holding in, Ayato quickly turned around, hoping to catch her off guard.

There she was, just as he had thought, standing a few meters away with her back turned, so he still could not see her face. Her long, brown hair hung limply down her back in a tight braid. She was wearing a somewhat tattered, faded, long brown skirt and white shirt, all being held together with a leather corset vest. The outfit appeared to be, from Ayato's knowledge, at least several hundred years out of date, making her look like some sort of medieval peasant.

She was standing completely still, aside from the hand that hung at her side, curled tightly into a fist that was trembling with what seemed to be barely contained anger.

"Oi, Oddball! What the hell is going on?! Why are you dressed like that?" Ayato loudly exclaimed, very much tired of whatever silly game she was playing. She gave him no reply, continuing to stand there facing away from him. This, of course, only served to make the red-haired vampire all the more furious.

Enough was enough, he thought to himself, and he began to march over to Yui, intent on teaching her a lesson.

In an instant, she spun around to face him, and what he saw made him stop dead in his tacks.

Those eyes. Those completely black eyes, somehow even more horrible than the last time he saw them, stared back at him, her face contorted into a furious scowl that made Ayato's blood run cold.

"I… I…" he stammered, no longer even able to form a complete sentence with her deep, black eyes staring through into his very being.

After a few moments of silence between them, Yui slowly began to walk towards Ayato, her black eyes not leaving his green for even a second. Without even thinking, Ayato took several steps back before he felt something grab hold of his ankles. He felt a chill run up his spine at the contact, his mind flashing back to the white hands that dragged him deep underwater. Despite this, he still dared to look down at his feet to see what had gotten hold of him.

Thick, dirt covered roots that seemed to spring forth from the earth had wrapped themselves around his ankles and were slowly making their way up to his legs. Deeply unnerved, Ayato tried to bend down and use his hands to free himself only for two more roots to burst out of the ground and wrap themselves around his wrists. Panic began to truly set in as he began to struggle against the roots in a desperate attempt to get loose. Unfortunately for him, they did not budge, and after a few moments, they forcefully tugged down towards the ground, sending the red-haired vampire crashing down with them.

Ayato's head and back hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of him. As he desperately tried to catch his breath, he could feel even more roots emerge from the earth and wrap around his waist, chest area, and upper legs, all the while tightening their hold over his ankles and wrists. By the time Ayato could breath at a normal rate again, he was rendered completely immobile.

Finally, he was overcome by an overwhelming sense of panic. He was trapped, completely helpless! He swore to himself a very long time ago that he would never be at someone else's mercy ever again!

"Oddball! Get these fucking things off me right now before I rip you apart! Oddball!" he screamed, louder than most likely ever had in his entire life.

"You deserve this." He heard her say, her voice now coming from directly beside his head.

Against his will, his head instinctively turned towards the source of the voice, only to see her awful black eyes staring directly into his, her face a mere few centimeters away from his. In the few seconds he had taken his eyes off of her, she had managed to get over to where he was being restrained and had laid down right next to him on the grass. She was so close to his face that he swore he could almost feel her breath.

He was about to say something protest, but her black eyes staring directly into his killed the words before they could leave his throat.

A wide, sinister grin formed on her face, as if amused by his utter terror. If Ayato had been a weak, pathetic human as opposed to a vampire, he might have actually started crying.

Suddenly, she moved from her position, slowly maneuvering her body on top of his in a way the red-haired vampire could only describe as 'spider-like.' Her limbs moved almost independently from her torso, ever so slowly creeping over his body until she was finally on top of him and straddling his waist, her wide grin never once leaving her face.

"It's funny, is it not? Human, vampire, or whatever else, it never truly matters in the end. You reap what you sow, especially with someone like you…" She said in a somewhat mocking tone of voice. She leaned her body down so that her face was directly over his, her long brown braid falling over her shoulder and lightly touching his cheek.

Without warning, Ayato's head began to pound like never before, his vision blurring at the sudden assault of blinding pain. He let out a cry of agony, which was only made worse by his immobility.

"You are not ready, not quite yet… Soon, though. Soon…" He heard her say.

She raised her arm, her veins as pitch black as her eyes, and began to lower her hand over his face. Before the intense migraine made him lose consciousness, he heard her speak once again, still wearing her menacing grin,

"Sweet dreams, Ayato…"

If he had a hundred yen for every time he had wandered aimlessly through the mansion's endless hallways, Subaru would probably be set for the rest of his immortal life. Tonight was no different, as angry and melancholic as usual. He knew that he would probably wander the halls and the gardens the next night as well, and the next night, and the next night, and the next night…

If Subaru was being honest, there were many times he had seriously thought about running away from this horrible place.

He knew, of course, that this was a foolish idea. He did not have any of his own money or a place to stay that was not controlled by that bastard. He did not have a driver's license, though since he had been taken where he needed to go by familiars his whole life, he had never needed to learn how to drive. And even if he did have the nerve to run away, he did not really have a long-term plan about what to do and where to go. Besides, why did he really even want to leave in the first place?

Yes, he lived in the regal splendor befitting a vampire of royal birth with all of his needs being catered to. He wore the finest clothes, ate on the finest china, and had servants and familiars so that he never had to lift a finger for himself. People would kill to have the kind of life he had.

So why wasn't it enough? Why was he still so miserable?

Subaru could not for the life of him remember a time on his life where he was ever truly happy. Some of his earliest memories consisted of his mother's wild mood swings, when she would go from being loving and kind to hysterical and cruel at the drop of a hat. While Subaru's feelings about his mother were rather complicated, he definitely still loved her, and he believed that deep down, somewhere underneath her madness, she might love him too, but he always felt like he was walking on eggshells around her, never knowing what would set her off. He knew that by being born, he had ruined both her life and her mind, and during her moments of insanity she did not hesitate to remind him of that. He was a filthy, hideous monster, that much he knew for certain, but it still hurt quite a bit to hear her actually say it.

Even so, living with his mentally unstable mother who would sometimes ask him to kill her was still preferable to living with these miserable bastards he was forced to call his brothers.

Reiji was a sick, sadistic control freak who liked to think he was flawless and perfect. Ayato had his head so far up his own ass that he unironically called himself "Yours Truly." Kanato… he tried not to think about Kanato too much; less headaches that way. Laito was a perverted creep who made Subaru's skin crawl whenever he so much as spoke. Shuu… was honestly not so bad. Subaru could perhaps call him his favourite brother, as in the one he disliked the least. Still, why did he have to be goddamn lazy all the time? If he actually bothered to take his responsibilities as the eldest son seriously, he would not have to deal with Reiji nearly as much as he did.

Hearing movement from the outside brought Subaru back to reality. Turning his head to look out the window, he spotted Yui outside, seemingly wandering the mansion grounds. She was no longer wearing her long green dress, now donning an apricot coloured one that was much shorter, stopping only a few centimeters below her knees. She was still barefoot and wearing her brown cardigan, though due to the fact that her new dress was much shorter than the previous one, it extended down past the hem of the dress and her knees, making her look a bit silly to him.

"What the hell is she doing now?" he whispered to himself, walking towards the window to get a better look. She was taking a confident stroll towards the gardens, giving off an air of self-assurance as though she owned the place. Observing her ever since she had arrived in the mansion, he was not sure if this girl was the bravest or the stupidest mortal he had ever met. After seeing her interactions with Reiji and Kanato, though, he was starting to lean towards the latter.

He took his eyes off of her for just a few seconds to look around the hallway, just to make sure one of his irritating brothers was not around. He then looked back out the window, only to find that Yui was now nowhere in sight, though her scent lingered.

Great. Knowing her, she was probably going to do something weird and get herself killed. And that is if she didn't end up running into one of his brothers. He was unsure about Shuu and Laito, but he definitely knew that Reiji and Kanato did not like her, and he had no idea what the hell was up with Ayato lately.

They would probably tear her apart as she begged for her life.

Completely alone.

Utterly defenseless.

…

…

…

Damn it.

She was not going to die before he had the chance to taste her blood, he told himself.

With that, he flung the window open and leapt out into the night air, landing on the grass below with ease. While Yui was no longer in his line of sight, he could still smell her very distinctive scent. Following it, he began to pick up traces of her deep, gravelly voice with his supernatural hearing.

"… I'm so sorry… you poor things… You will find peace, I promise…"

Her whispers ceased as soon as Subaru found her. She had made her way back into the rose garden, sitting with her arms holding her legs against her chest and her eyes pointed upwards. She turned her head to look at him, her dull hazel eyes staring straight into his red.

"Who were you talking to?" Subaru demanded to know. Her lips curled into a sly little grin.

"You really shouldn't ask questions you already know the answer to… It's not polite."

Subaru scoffed, irritation bubbling in his chest. Knowing her, she was probably talking to herself. Ayato had decided to call her "Oddball" for a reason. Plus, what she just said made her sound way too much like Reiji for his taste.

"Whatever. I didn't really care anyway." Her grin widened slightly, causing Subaru to raise his brow.

"What? What is it?"

"You… Reacted differently then I would have expected. Back then, when they thought I was talking to no one, they would…" Her sentence trailed off as her grin fell, replaced with her usual emotionless expression. She turned her head away from him, her hazel eyes (finally) leaving his face.

They? Who were they? The Church?

'Oh, forget it,' Subaru thought to himself, 'Nothing she says or does ever makes any sense…'

She stood up from the ground, not turning her head back to face him.

"If you must know, I was coming here to check on a friend when I heard their voices, so I stayed to listen to them. No one ever listens to them anymore… Such sad, terrible stories they had to tell…" She said, her voice carrying the slightest hint of melancholy. Subaru could only stand there for a few moments, trying to make sense of what she had said. Thankfully, this made him come to a realization. An epiphany, one could call it.

All this time, he had been trying to figure out whether she was incredibly brave or stupid. It was all clear now. As it turned out, she was neither.

She was completely and utterly insane.

And he was going to let her know that. Who knew, maybe telling her that she was crazy would somehow make her slightly less crazy? Before he could say anything, though, she suddenly burst into strange, wispy laugh that began to sound more like cackling the longer it went on. She turned to face him, a crooked grin wide on her face.

"It's alright if you think I'm out of my mind, you know. Most people feel the same way. I know that the one with the glasses certainly does." She told him, as if she had read his mind.

"The one with the glasses? You mean Reiji?" Subaru asked.

"Oh yes, that's what he is called. There are so many of you here, it can be a bit difficult to remember all of your names…"

What.

What.

"Seriously? You're being held here by six vampires, and yet you seem think so little of us that you can't even be bothered to remember our names? You… You're crazy! Completely batshit!" Subaru raised his voice, equal parts incredulous and furious at her blatant disregard for the danger that surrounded her. She simply shrugged her shoulders in response. This only caused his building anger and frustration to finally boil over. With an angry growl, he marched over to her and roughly took hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look up at him.

"God damn it, you still don't fucking get it! You're gonna die here! Don't you know that? Don't you even care at all?" he began to raise his voice, not giving a shit about who heard him at this point. If his stupid brothers wanted to tease him later, they could go right on ahead.

Her smile dropped again, just like he had excepted, but he was caught off guard when he also saw the look in her eyes soften. She stared up at him with a faint expression he could not quite name. There was no anger, or sadness, or fear. Her eyes were… calm and... sympathetic?

Whatever it was, it was making him feel very confused and rather uncomfortable.

"I'm not afraid because I am not going to die. It's as simple as that." She replied, her voice as cool and collected as the look in her eyes. Subaru could only look down at her as his emotional state went from intense rage to a sense of wary resignation.

"You're kidding yourself. We're going to kill you. It's… It's what we do. It's who we are." That was the bitter, ugly truth. They were not good people, not at all. Subaru and his brothers were creatures that needed to feed of off the blood of others in order to sustain themselves. They were parasites. Monsters.

And he, who had been draining the life and sanity of his own mother from the moment he was born, was the worst monster of them all.

Neither of them said anything for almost a full minute. They just stood there, Subaru's grip on her shoulders not wavering and Yui staring up at him with that strange look in her usually soulless eyes. Finally, she spoke.

"Do you truly believe that? About yourself, at least?"

Subaru honestly was taken aback by her question. What was she…? No! What he said had nothing to do with "belief." It was fact; the absolute truth. What was there to believe?

"Of course! What else would you expect from a creature like me? All I'm capable of is killing and destroying! I'm nothing but a powerless, hideous…" He could have continued his tirade of self-loathing, had it not been for the sudden feeling of Yui's warm fingers on his cheek. She had raised her right hand to lightly touch his face, a bizarre gesture that Subaru did not quite know how to react to.

"An evil, merciless beast, do you honestly believe that this is your true self? The others in this house, perhaps, but you? Is a vicious killer truly all that you were ever meant to be? If you actually think so, then…" She spoke again, looking away from him to stare at his chest.

"… Out of all the sad stories I have listened to tonight, I think that yours might be the most tragic of them all…"

For the first time in quite a while, Subaru had no idea what to say or even how to feel. There was anger, of course, from her refusal to face the grave reality of her situation. There was indignation, as the last goddamn thing he wanted or needed was for her to pity him. There was confusion, for what reason did she have to doubt that he was anything more than the monster he knew he was? Then there was an unfamiliar emotion that he could not name at all, one that made his throat feel tight, his chest hurt, and his eyes sting. He was pretty sure that he hated this one the most out of all of them.

Eventually, his feelings of anger won out (anger always won in the end, even when he did not want it to).

"Shut the hell up! Don't you dare fucking pity me! Who the fuck do you think you are?" he roared, letting go of one of her shoulders to smack her hand away from his face. He then let go of the other in order to grab and hold her tightly to his chest, one arm wrapped around her waist to lock her into place, while the other took hold of her long hair in order to painfully wrench her head backwards, exposing her neck to him. He brought his face close to her throat.

"All I have to do is sink my fangs into you and drink until there was no more blood in your body. Or maybe I should just bite out your windpipe so that there would be no chance of you surviving." He hissed at her, pinkish red eyes blazing as he tightened his grip on her.

"Do you finally get it? This is what we're capable of. At any time, we could end your life and not care in the slightest. The life of a mortal isn't worth shit to a vampire! This is who we are!" he said, hoping that this would finally make her realize that her that none of this was a joke, as she seemed to think it was.

At that point, he really should have expected her to not do as expected.

"You say that as if humans value the lives of their fellow man any more than vampires do." she replied tersely, her voice now holding a sharp edge that surprised Subaru, given how calm she had sounded just a few seconds ago.

Before he even knew it, Yui had swiftly removed his hands from her hair and waist and held them between the two of them. She made sure look directly at him, her normally dull hazel eyes burning and intense.

"You obviously don't know mortals as well as you think you do, because otherwise you would understand that humans are more than capable of being just as cruel, spiteful, evil, and depraved as your kind." She tightened her grip on his wrists.

"In this world, there exist humans that are far more twisted and monstrous than you could ever be, I can promise you that."

Subaru stiffened at the venom emanating from her tone of voice before considering her words. Even if what she said was true (it wasn't, it couldn't be), the way she spoke almost made it sound like she was speaking from… experience.

No, that wasn't possible. She was just some sheltered church girl, raised to be as innocent and oblivious to the cruel realities of the world as possible.

Wasn't she?

Yui released Subaru's wrists before she took a few steps back, her eyes softening once again. She was still looking directly up at him, her face baring an almost somber expression. They simply stood where they were for almost a minute, neither one having anything more to say. In silent agreement that their conversation was over, she turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction, her back turned to Subaru as the space between them grew wider and wider. Subaru was fine with this; he did not even really feel like drinking her blood anymore. Just as he was about to leave the garden himself, Yui seemed to want to get one last word in.

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, you know. You're definitely not the worst person I have ever met, or even in this house. Besides, they all told me that you were the nicest. Or at least the one left them alone, for the most part."

He stared back at her in confusion, wanting to ask who the hell she was talking about when she said "they," or even inquire about this "friend" she was "checking up on," but decided to drop it; he'd had enough of her nonsense for one night.

"… How did you go from never talking to never shutting up?" he grumbled. Yui merely chuckled at this, turning her head back to look at him with a funny little grin adorning her face.

With that, Subaru turned away from the strangest, craziest sacrificial bride he had ever met, and walked back towards the mansion, human and vampire parting ways for the night.

Well, that was the chapter, and I hope you all liked it! I tried my best to keep Subaru in character as much as possible, I didn't want to make him too much of a jerk, but also not too nice, you know? I mean, I'm laying down the groundwork for he and "Yui" to be friends, I guess? Or at least be on decent terms.