Okay, chapter 12! I… don't really have much to say at the moment, so let's not waste any time, shall we?

"What are we even doing here?"

Laito sent his triplet one of his usual sly grins as they stood at front entrance of Mimasaki Hospital. "Why did you agree to come if you didn't even know what we were doing, Ayato-kun?"

"Anything's better than sitting around the mansion doing nothing. I swear, the church had better send us another bride soon; shit gets so dull without one of them around to play with." Ayato complained, shielding his vampiric eyes from the light of the setting sun. Night would fall in less than an hour, so he was not sure why Laito could not have waited until then to drag him to some human hospital.

"Oh, poor you. Well, I certainly don't have that problem right now~." The fedora-wearing vampire practically bragged, which made his brother's face curl up in irritation.

"Shut up, Laito. That weirdo you've been messing around with isn't anything worth getting excited over."

"That's where you're wrong, Ayato-kun," His fingertips lightly touched his shoulder, remembering it being stabbed by a large shard of glass. "She's actually very special."

Ayato rolled his eyes and scoffed. "C'mon, she didn't look all at that special to me. Had an attitude, though. Rolling her damn eyes at me… no one disrespects Yours Truly like that!"

Laito chuckled at his brother's irritation as they walked through the hospital's front doors, ignoring the curious stares of the patients and nurses around them. "I think her defiance is adorable. She's like a prickly little kitten that doesn't like to be petted."

"Yeah, whatever," Ayato replied flippantly. "Anyway, what are we doing here?" he asked again.

"Visiting a patient, of course. This is a hospital, Ayato-kun."

"Visiting? What do you care about some sick human?"

"He's not sick," Laito's green eyes suddenly lost all lightheartedness, becoming unsettlingly cold. "He was in critical condition after trying to run over my Darling with his car."

"Seriously?" Ayato questioned, curiosity beginning to show on his face.

"That's right. I got word from my familiars that he's out of surgery, so I thought I'd pay him a little visit and ask some questions." His tone was as cheery as usual, but Ayato could see the ice in Laito's eyes that never failed to put him a bit on edge.

"Why bother? The guy was probably just wasted or something."

"Oh, he was," Laito responded as they made their way to the front desk. "But that's not the reason he did it. The whole time she and I were in the shopping district, he was tailing us in his car. At first, I thought I was the one being stalked, but him trying to run down my poor Darling while I wasn't around evidently proved me wrong."

"So, the weirdo was the one he was after? Why the hell would he want to kill some random girl?"

"It wasn't a random attack, Ayato-kun. It was planned, and she was clearly the target. My guess is that he'd been following her for a while, waiting for the right time to strike. Her cutting class provided him with the perfect opportunity, thinking she would be alone and defenseless. I certainly threw a wrench into his plans, though~." He shared his theory, almost sounding rather pleased with himself at the end.

Ayato looked at his brother skeptically. "If you already know that much, then what's the point of coming here?"

"Oh, I just want to know why…" Suddenly, Laito's sunny smile dropped, his face hardening. "I want to know where he came from, I want to know why he had his sights set on my Darling, and I want to know why that worthless, pissant mortal thought he had the right to just come and try to take her away from me." Without another word, he turned toward the front desk to talk to the receptionist, his usual smile back on his face as though it had never left.

For a moment, Ayato did not even notice his that his mouth was slightly hanging open; he honestly had nothing to say to that. He had known his brother for his entire life and could count on just one hand the number of times he had seen him this upset over anything, let alone a mortal.

Come on, all this fuss over one human girl? He really didn't get Laito sometimes.

Soon, Laito walked away from the receptionist's desk and down the left corridor, beckoning Ayato to follow. "So, what'd you ask her?" he asked, looking back at the woman at the desk, who bowed respectfully in their direction as they walked away.

"I just asked where to find that man and she gave me his room number. Luckily for us, this is one of the hospitals that's owned by our esteemed father, so she wasn't exactly in a position to refuse." He replied offhandedly. Ayato scowled at the mention of Karlheinz, the very thought of his bastard father making him feel agitated. Still, at times like these, it paid to be Tougo Sakamaki's son, as much as he hated to admit it. Whenever they went to a place owned or managed by their father, the staff knew to just let them do whatever they wanted and not ask questions.

In his opinion, that is how all mortals should always act regardless, but whatever.

As they rode the elevator all the way up to the fifth floor and stepped out into the hallway, Ayato eyed his brother skeptically. While he was telling the truth about how bored he had been at home, that was not the only reason he decided to join his brother that night. He had never seen Laito act like this before, investing so much time and energy into one mortal plaything. Usually his human "bitch-chan's" would only last for a few days before he eventually got bored and kicked them to the curb, only occasionally calling them up again for a quickie. Ayato should know, as he and Laito had messed around with a girl together on more than one occasion (even though Laito tended to get a little too excited during, which totally killed the mood for Ayato).

But at this point, two entire weeks had gone by, and for some damn reason he was still into this girl. They had all noticed he was spending a lot less time at home, probably fooling around with her. Hell, Reiji was still pissed at him for ditching school the previous night to follow her into the city; not that Laito ever really gave a crap about what Reiji thought. But what confused Ayato more than anything was that he had no idea what he saw in her. She had a bad attitude, a smart mouth, and she wasn't even that hot. Sure, she might have a nice body, but the way she wore her uniform made it impossible to tell.

Well, at least he wasn't like Kanato, who refused to stop grumbling about her being an evil witch. Seriously, that hysteric crybaby needed to get over his stupid little grudge.

Eventually, the two Sakamaki brothers stopped at a numbered door.

"Here it is, room sixteen." Laito said, turning the knob and opening the door. The two of the stepped inside, and were greeted with the sight of a man lying asleep in a hospital bed, covered in bandages and two huge casts on his right arm and left leg. One of his eyes were covered up with medical gauze, and what little of his skin they could see was bruised black and blue.

"Damn, is this the guy? He looks like shit." Ayato observed, looking down uncaringly at the seriously injured mortal. 'All this damage from one little car wreck?' he thought, 'Mortals are so pathetic…'

"Well, darn," the younger triplet sighed in disappointment, reaching into his pants pocket. "I thought that he'd be awake by now. I can't get any information out of him like this; they probably have him on so many painkillers he wouldn't even feel anything…" He pulled out a large, black pocket knife, switching open the blade with an elegant flick of his wrist. He stood menacingly over the man that tried to kill what belonged to him, idly playing with the knife as the mortal lay on the bed, still and completely helpless. For a moment, he honestly considered killing him right then and there, but decided against it, knowing that it would not be any real fun to just off him while unconscious and unaware. It was like murdering a rabbit that was caught in someone else's trap; there was no satisfaction if the kill was just handed to you.

Meanwhile, as Laito loomed over the injured mortal, Ayato rolled his eyes and looked around the room, eyeing the hospital equipment and the large window directly adjacent to the bed, becoming increasingly bored. Well, this whole outing was proving to be a total bust, he thought. His fedora-wearing brother was right; what was the point in torturing a human that would not even feel any pain? Just as he was about to turn and tell Laito he was leaving, he spotted a chair next to the bed, seeing something poking out from underneath the pile of clothes resting atop it.

"Hey, what's this?" he wondered aloud as he haphazardly threw the clothes aside. Sitting there on the chair was a worn, brown leather briefcase, looking very banged up with fresh gash marks all over its surface.

Laito took notice of his brother curiously looking down at the case. "Good find, Ayato-kun!" Walking over and picking it up, he tried to open it, only to find that it would not budge. "Hmm, it's locked. Looks like it needs a three-digit combination."

"Ha! Give it here!" Ayato took the briefcase from his brother's hands with a cocky grin. "Who needs some stupid combination when you've got Yours Truly?" Gripping both sides tightly, he used the strength that no human could possess to force the case open, sending loose papers inside a manila folder scattering to the floor.

Laito looked at his elder brother amusedly and chuckled. "You never were very tidy, were you, Ayato-kun?"

"Hey, screw you! I got the damn thing open, didn't I? You should be thanking me!" Ayato argued back as Laito bent down to gather everything up in his hands. As he stood back up and began to study the contents of the papers, Ayato leaned in curiously.

Hey, he opened the stupid case, he had every right to know what was inside!

"So, what's all this?" he asked. Laito did not take his eyes off the first two documents as he answered. "Well, I was right about him following her. These mostly talk about her actions from over the last few days, where she went and what she was doing. It seems he's taken notice of me as well."

Ayato's expression grew severe. "Hey, does he know that you're-"

"No, he doesn't. His main focus is on her; he hasn't paid enough attention to me to notice anything significant." A big smile spread across his face. "He thinks I'm her boyfriend, how sweet~."

Ayato rolled his eyes at his brother before going in for a closer look. What he saw, however, may as well have been chicken scratch as far as he could understand.

"Hey, what the hell is all this? I can't read any of it!" he exclaimed.

"That's because it's written in French, Ayato-kun." Laito looked at his triplet curiously. "I thought the French language was a part of your studies?"

Ayato turned away as his cheeks began to flush. "Shaddup! I didn't learn it 'cause the tutor they hired was a dumbass! It's not my fault he couldn't teach me a damn thing! Besides…!" Ayato looked back down at the papers in Laito's hands. "Isn't your weird girl from France?"

"Yes, but she moved to Canada as a child, and here to Japan last year…" he remembered from the information he had gathered on her beforehand. "Hold on, this is strange…"

"What is?"

"Well, for two whole pages he doesn't refer to her by name even once. Instead, he keeps calling her 'The Spawn.'"

Ayato nonchalantly crossed his arms. "Yeah, so what? You don't call her by her name, either."

"Oh, come now, Ayato-kun. I just gave her an affectionate pet name, nothing like this. Besides, you're hardly one to talk."

"Tch. Whatever."

After he finished going over the first two papers, he turned his attention to the final documents, two pages stapled together. He was taken aback, however, when he saw a familiar face.

"Darling…?" he muttered, perplexed. The girl staring back at him from the sheet of paper was indeed Justine, when she was only a child for what seemed to be a school photo. Her black hair that he so loved to play with was done in two Dutch braids, and while she was smiling for the camera, it was clearly forced and disingenuous. Her somber, almost empty blue-gray eyes gave him the impression that this little girl didn't have much to smile about.

As he looked over the entire first page, he realized that it was some sort of profile on her. Next to her picture was her full name, Justine Camille Lenoir, along with her age, birthdate, hair and eye colour, and the names of her parents, Antoine and Sabina Lenoir. The profile was from quite a while ago as well, her age being listed as only nine years old. Scanning the page for any more information, he spotted a name on the upper left corner.

"Aide sociale à l'enfance…" he muttered, his eyes narrowing on the words in front of him.

"What'd you say?" Ayato questioned. Laito looked back at his brother.

"Aide sociale à l'enfance, Ayato-kun. It's French for child welfare, so-" he was interrupted by the sound of footsteps echoing from the hallway, rapidly coming their way.

"Someone's coming." Ayato announced quietly, his head darting towards the door. Laito wasted no time, quickly folding the two stapled papers in half and stowing them away inside his coat pocket.

"Let's go; I think I have what I came for." He said with a smirk, patting his pocket satisfactorily. Without another word between them, the brothers teleported from the hospital room to behind a hallway corner. They were firmly out of sight of whoever those footsteps had belonged to, with the elevator a short distance away.

"So, you got what you wanted, right?" Laito nodded as he peered out from behind the corner, staring intently down the hall. "Whatever; let's just get out of here already…" Ayato sighed exhaustedly, already making his way to the elevator. When he realized that Laito was not following him, however, he turned back to see his triplet still looking out into the hall.

Growling in annoyance, he was just about to yell at Laito that he was leaving without him when he saw a man standing in front of Room 16, wearing a white doctor's coat and a deep frown on his face. He looked around suspiciously, as if he were trying to see if he was being followed, before hastily opening the door to Room 16 and stepping inside, quietly closing it behind him as to not attract unnecessary attention.

Finally seeming to be satisfied, Laito turned around and casually walked back to the elevator where Ayato stood, who was at this point prepared to gnaw his own arm off if it meant getting the hell out of this hospital.

"You done?" Ayato huffed angrily. Laito was not fazed by his brother's aggression, merely shrugging as the elevator doors closed and they began their descent to the ground floor. "Yes, I suppose…" he murmured.

"Finally, let's go already. I wanna find a cute girl to have fun with…" the elder triplet leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, clearly no longer in the mood for conversation. In that moment, Laito was very tempted to tease him for how that pose made him look like Shuu, but decided against it.

As his brother continued to grumble to himself, Laito pulled out the folded documents from his coat pocket and resumed his reading. Having gleaned all that he could from the first page, he turned to the second, which was filled with several paragraphs of information on Justine, her parents, and her then-living situation. Well, as much information as a single visit from a social worker could yield.

From what he could gather, her parents were being investigated for neglect and possible abuse. Her schoolteacher had been noticing several red flags; her grades had dropped dramatically, there were quite a few unexplained absences, and she seemed to be constantly depressed and on edge. His report was enough for Child Welfare to send a social worker, who noted how hostile and uncooperative the parents were, particularly the father, Antoine. A hastily written add-on note claimed that the father had apparently called the teacher later that evening and angrily cursed him out over the phone.

As the elevator doors finally opened, Laito found himself stopping when he laid eyes on the name of Justine's teacher.

M. Akira Hojou.

"Well, you just keep showing up everywhere in her life, don't you, Hojou-san?" he murmured, the barest hint of contempt laced into his voice. Truthfully, Laito did not hate the man, not really; it was just the small fact that his Darling held that pathetic mortal man in such higher regard than himself that made his blood boil.

Still, he was curious to know how exactly this man had gone from being her schoolteacher to being her father.

Without another word, he put the papers back into his pocket as he and Ayato entered the lobby. The same receptionist was still sitting behind the front desk and bowed respectfully upon seeing them.

"Hello again, Sakamaki-sama. I hope your visit went well."

"Oh yes, it was very pleasant. Although you'll be needing to give that doctor who interrupted us a talking to. I believe I told you that I didn't want to be disturbed."

"Oh! Um…" the receptionist looked nervous for only a second before she looked at them both, perplexed. "S-Sakamaki-san, I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. I made sure that all hospital staff knew not to go near room sixteen on the fifth floor until you had left the premises, like you asked me."

"Yeah, well a guy showed up anyway, so I guess that dumbass didn't get the memo." Ayato piped up, glaring at the poor woman cowering behind the desk. She jumped a little at the sound of his voice, scared half to death of displeasing Tougo Sakamaki's sons.

"Now, now, Ayato-kun. You shouldn't scare her like that; it's terribly rude." Laito chuckled, unable to hide his amusement at watching the human before him squirm.

"Tch! Quit sounding like Reiji!" the elder triplet scoffed. The woman looked between the two brothers skittishly before continuing. "Um… what did this man look like, Sakamaki-sama?" she asked, looking to Laito for clarification.

"He was middle-aged, Caucasian, with short brown hair and a scar over his left eyebrow." Laito described the man he had seen. Nodding, the receptionist went to her computer and typed at her keyboard. After about a minute, she looked up at them, worried confusion plastered on her face.

"I'm sorry, Sakamaki-sama, but I just checked the employee database. Nobody of that description works for this hospital." She informed them.

"What are you talking about?" Ayato exclaimed, making her flinch again. "We saw the guy; he had a white coat and everything!"

"Again, I apologize, Sakamaki-sama, but whoever you saw was not an employee of this hospital." As soon as the words left her lips, her eyes grew large as a sudden realization seemed to dawn on her. Suddenly looking rather pale, she quickly grabbed hold of a nearby desktop telephone.

"I need security at room sixteen on the fifth floor immediately. There may be someone impersonating a medical professional on the premises. I need to inform the director right away!" After hanging up the phone, she hurriedly turned back to them. "I'm very sorry, Sakamaki-sama, but I need you and your brother to stay here in case we need to ask you some more questions. I'll be back soon!" before they even had a moment to respond, she ran out from behind her desk and down the opposite hallway, drawing the curious attention of several patients and staff members.

"Tch, that mortal thinks she can tell us what to do? What the hell's her problem, anyway?" Ayato growled in annoyance, ignoring the all of the confused stares directed at the both of them.

Laito shrugged nonchalantly. "It doesn't really matter to us; I'm done here, so let's just go."

"About damn time!" Ayato marched out the front door in a huff with Laito casually trailing behind him, watching in amusement as the older triplet aggressively pushed several people out of his way. Honestly, it was almost as easy to rile Ayato up as it was Subaru, much to Laito's unending glee.

Once they were outside, Ayato looked over his shoulder at his brother.

"Alright," he sighed, "This has been bugging the crap out of me..." This gained him Laito's attention. "What has, Ayato-kun?"

"Don't play dumb with me!" his face scrunched up. "Your weird girl! Why the hell are you so obsessed with her?"

Laito blinked in surprise at his brother's outburst. "I'm not obsessed, Ayato-kun. I'm just-" The elder triplet angrily rolled his eyes at his brother's bold-faced denial.

"Bullshit! You said you'd only fool around with her for a few days, but that was two weeks ago! You've been spending all your time at school with her, Reiji said you forced the headmaster to give you the desk next to her in class, you went to this goddamn hospital 'cause some guy tried to kill her, plus…" Ayato crossed his arms behind his head as he looked Laito directly in the eye. "When have you ever called a mortal girl anything other than 'Bitch-chan?'"

In the face of Ayato's questioning, Laito's expression hardened as he gave his brother a cold smirk. "She's special, Ayato-kun. I don't know how else you want me to answer that question."

"Special? There's nothing special about mortals, Laito! What about her would ever make you think that?" Ayato scoffed.

Laito sighed deeply, walking over to Ayato and placing a hand on his shoulder. "Ayato-kun, my Darling is unlike any mortal I've ever met in a few ways," Ayato kissed his teeth and batted away his brother's hand. Unbothered, Laito continued. "She's unusually stubborn, her train of thought doesn't always make sense to me, she's not afraid to get rough~…" his cheeks flushed ever so slightly at the memory. "But above all, she's pragmatic, in her own way. She handled learning the truth about me much better than I would have expected."

Ayato's jaw almost fell open in shock. "She- what? She knows about us?" In an instant, Ayato's eyes were burning as he grabbed the front of Laito's shirt. "You fucking idiot! Why the hell did you tell her?! We're all screwed because of you!" Laito's grin dropped, his gaze turning grave as he looked right at his brother. With a grimace, he took hold of Ayato's hands and forced him to let go.

"If you would let me finish, Ayato-kun," he said as he brushed away the wrinkles in his shirt, "She hasn't told anyone, and I know that she never will."

"How can you be sure?"

"Like I told you, she's pragmatic. She knows that no one would believe her if she told, so she doesn't see any point in doing so. She has a bit more sense than the average mortal, I'll give her that." Laito explained, unable to mask the small amount of pride in his voice. This did not go unnoticed by Ayato, who frowned at his brother, unconvinced. "And so, since she's decided to keep my secret, I feel as though it's only fair to guard hers." He finished with a smirk.

"Secret? What've you got on her?"

Laito chuckled. "I did just say that I'd keep her secret, didn't I? If you want to know, you'll just have to ask her yourself~."

"Tch! Whatever." Ayato scoffed, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets. He looked back up at the hospital, narrowing his eyes at the window to the room they had just been in. "Look, does whatever she's hiding have something to do with that guy trying to off her?" he asked.

Laito followed his brother's line of sight up to the window, his gaze as hard as stone. "I'm beginning to think so, Ayato-kun…" he answered.

Just as he was about to suggest to Ayato that they leave, the window suddenly burst wide open, momentarily startling the brothers. As the curtains billowed wildly in the night air, a figure sluggishly approached the window. Before the two vampires could get a better look at the figure, they threw themselves right out the window, plummeting five storied before loudly crashing on the hood of a parked car. The sound of shattering glass, bones breaking, and the blaring car alarm immediately caught the attention of all those nearby, who erupted into screams and cries for help. It was useless, though; the man was already in bad shape from the collision, and falling five stories directly on top of a car almost certainly killed him instantly, as the pungent smell of his blood all but confirmed.

As Ayato watched the unfolding chaos in bewilderment, Laito's cat-like eyes were still glue to the window, where another figure stood, as though to make sure the man below was truly dead. While a human's eyes would only be able to see the faint outline of a person, his superior vampire vision could clearly make out the person's face, allowing him to clearly see the man in the doctor's coat from earlier, glaring down at the dead man below. Then, just as soon as he appeared, he quickly moved away from the window, out of sight.

"Hey…" Ayato whispered, "Wasn't that the same guy…?"

Laito nodded, his eyes still on the open window. "Yes, it is."

The brothers watched all the nearby people either run away or back into the hospital, with several doctors and nurses, police, and even a news van showing up to the front of the building. Knowing that the place would be swarming with cops place soon enough, the two vampires teleported themselves to a safe distance, out of sight from any bystanders that could bring them unwanted attention.

"Laito," Ayato observed doctors and paramedics removed the man's corpse from the roof of the car and place him in a body bag, hurriedly carting him back into the hospital, "… What the hell's going on?"

The fedora-wearing vampire had already taken the child welfare documents out from his pockets again, a nine-year-old Justine staring back at him with her large, sad eyes.

"I… don't know…"

The plot thickens!

I'm decently happy with how it turned out, and I hope that I kept Ayato in character for the most part. I always got the impression that out of all the brothers, Laito and Ayato were the closest, though that's admittedly not saying much, so I felt that Ayato would probably be a little bit worried about Laito's sudden change in behaviour, though he would be waaay to proud to ever admit it.

Anyway, I hope you're all safe and healthy, and I'll be back with the next chapter!

MA