Disclaimer: I do not own Rurouni Kenshin or any of its characters. But Rangor and Davina are characters of my own creation and fully MINE. Thank you. Also, thanks everyone for your awesome reviews:)

Chapter Two

Preparations

Blood spewed from my hands. Trembling waterfalls of torrential crimson flowed from my fingertips and my palms. It soaked the sleeves of my nightgown, turning the wispy white material deep red. It dripped from my arms onto the grass whipping against my legs.

But suddenly, the grass had turned to a river of blood. It slithered past my ankles, warm and sticky. The world around me was swallowed up by the crimson flood. I tried to scream, but instead blood poured from my mouth. Choking, I fell backwards, landing in the pool of blood. Red tendrils crept at the edges of my vision, until I could see nothing except crimson.

A curtain of blood streamed down my face. My eyes swelled with it. It burned in my mouth, singed every pore of my skin.

And the screaming! Wails and cries of the dead were shrieking in my ears. My throat tightened and I felt a burst of white pain. But it wasn't from the blood.

It was me.

It was my screams echoing in the river of crimson. It was me crying in agony. And I couldn't stop. I was drowning and screaming in my own blood. Swallowed in darkness so black it was bottomless, I, the lone pinpoint of light, had finally been snuffed out.

"Kaoru! Lady Kaoru!"

Fighting my heaving stomach and the fingers of unconsciousness plucking at my mind, I swam toward the voice. But my legs and arms were growing heavier and the blood was drawing me further into the abyss, and I couldn't continue on.

Suddenly my eyes flew open, and I jerked upright in my bed, panting and covered in a cold sweat.

Shallow breathing reached my ears. My heart began to hammer erratically and red blossomed before my eyes. The blood was coming. It was raining on me, dragging me back into the crimson river.

But then strong arms circled around me, locking me against a firm chest. A voice whispered earnestly into my neck, "You have to fight it, Kaoru. You have to defeat it."

Fearful tears sprung in the corners of my eyes. I buried my face in the stranger's chest, silently sobbing into his shirt. My hands curled around the shirt's coarse material, clutching it to me as my last lifeline to reality.

The blood...oh, the blood! It was pouring around me, seeping through the cracks in the floor, spreading across the bed sheets. I began to scream as it swirled around my legs.

The stranger pressed my head down against him, muffling my cries. He was murmuring something inaudible into my hair as we rocked back in forth on the bed.

"Blood!" I shrieked, tasting the salt from my tears. "All the blood! It's pouring! It's all around me! I can't stop it! Don't you see it? Don't you see it?" I screamed and cried harder, pounding my fists against his chest relentlessly. "It's coming! Let me go! I have to get away from it! I can't stop it! I'm going to die!"

"Kaoru, there is no blood in this room," the stranger said firmly. "And you, by no means, are going to die."

"I can't stop! It's going to drown me! I can't stop it!" I was beyond hysterical now.

"Open your eyes and look at me, Kaoru. Look at me. Now."

I forced my eyes open.

Molten amber orbs speckled with violet stared back at me. Though my tears blurred my vision, those eyes blazed clear and true, piercing my heart like an assassin's dagger. I wanted to shrink away from those eyes.

"Now look around this room," the eyes commanded. "Do you see any blood?"

I scanned my disheveled bedroom. "N-no," I hiccuped. My throat and eyes still burned, but the tightness in my chest was fading. I continued to watch my room, looking for any signs of blood, but none appeared. Was it...had it been a dream?

I grabbed at my face and hair. They were damp with sweat, but nothing more. Not a trace of blood.

I went limp with relief and exhaustion. The stranger cradled my flaccid body against him, and he seemed to sigh with relief as well as he shifted my head from his chest to his shoulder.

"Sleep, Kaoru. Sleep," he ordered.

I was more than happy to oblige

As the world around me faded, I felt myself being lowered back into the pillows and a blanket was drawn over me. But still the stranger stayed, and before finally giving into sleep, I felt the faintest brush of his soft lips against my forehead.

"So it has begun."

"Yes, Lord Rangor. The dreams have finally come."

The mage eyed the shadows. "And the bloodlust?"

"It should follow quickly."

"How quickly?"

"Within three days. Maybe four."

"We must be prepared."

A sigh from the shadows.

"Is there something you would like to share, Megumi?"

"One can never be prepared," Megumi said wistfully, "for such things. No matter what her lineage, her body is still human. No human body can withstand such a transformation."

"But she survived the dreams."

"It would have been better if she had not. This will only prolong her suffering."

"She can defeat this, Megumi!" Rangor insisted fiercely. "She will live."

Megumi observed him with mournful eyes. "No. She will not. I am sorry, friend."

"Battousai." The name was like acid in his mouth. "How could I have allowed him contact with her?" Rangor cradled his balding head in his hands. "I should've known...I should've known."

The shadows fell long across Megumi's face, concealing the tears on her cheeks. "No one, not even I could have predicted that Battousai would awaken her blood." She smiled ruefully. "Now her mother's wish will finally be granted, her wish for her to know her true heritage. An ending almost bittersweet."

"So there is no hope."

"There is always hope."

The last candle died out in the old stone church and the weary elderly priestess shuffled to bed, anxious to feel the soft sheets.

She was growing weaker by the day, thought the priestess as she changed out of her ceremonial robes. Each day her steps were growing slower, her eyes gradually dulling. Even her bones seemed to creak with weariness. She was no longer the spry young priestess she had been seventy-six years ago. Instead she was a tired, aching old woman. Indeed, her time was near.

Sinking into the warmth of her pillow, the priestess let her eyelids flutter closed. Then suddenly, she was yanked from her cot and dangled in the air by her throat. A single clawed hand twitched at her neck, clenching and unclenching.

Molten amber eyes glared out from the darkness. "You will tell me all you know about a woman named Lady Azalie," growled a husky voice. "And you will tell me now."

"Well I'll be…."

I glanced at my godfather over the rim of my bowl. His eyes flew across the page in his hand, and, as I watched, his grip on his mug tensed, knuckles bleaching white. His long, angular eyebrows met sharply, like a pair of crossed lightning bolts.

Something was obviously amiss, but I lacked not only the desire, but also the energy to inquire about it. Even if I had been curious enough to ask, the thunderous look on Rangor's face would have cowed me from pressing further.

But not my father.

Lord Kamiya's curiosity was both infallible and exasperating. Privately, I wondered if it would finally get him turned into a toad, possibly at Rangor's hand. Not that I hated my father, I simply disliked him, because over the last six years he had turned more into my lord and become less like my father.

So it was no surprise, when between bites of omelet and porridge, Lord Kamiya queried, "What news have you, Great Mage?"

I quickly became interested in my lumps of porridge. Maybe if I acted as listless and exhausted as I felt, they wouldn't include me in their inevitable argument.

Rangor shot his thunderous glare in my father's direction. His graying eyebrows practically met above his nose. For a minute I couldn't understand what my father had done to get "the look" other than question him, but then I realized, Uh-oh. He used the title.

My godfather absolutely detested the title bestowed upon him by our present king, King Garron. Once one of the king's most powerful counselor mages, Rangor had been given the title "Great Mage", then abruptly shunted from the king's court back to my father's castle because King Garron felt him too powerful.

Not that my father held him in high regard either. Lord Kamiya sneered upon Rangor as a failure for being so disgraced. So, though Rangor's title was no longer honorable and of no use, my father used it to scorn him.

It was almost comical in twisted way. My father was intelligent enough to create a successful plan to unite the diverse races of Saire and to arrange a perfect betrothal that would infallibly gain him eternal fame, riches, and honor, yet he was stupid enough to play with fire….fire that could reduce him to a pile of bone and ash with the flick of a wrist.

I sat imagining that sight in my mind, fascinated, until Rangor's low, calm reply drew me back to earth.

"An old acquaintance of mine, an elderly priestess at a small temple, suddenly passed away." Rangor frowned at my father again. "I visited her less than a month ago, and she was in good health."

Lord Kamiya shrugged nonchalantly. "You never know with those old religious hags. Maybe they somehow insulted their deity and it struck them dead on with a lightning bolt."

"Kamiya….." my godfather's voice was laced with cool anger. His brow was severely furrowed now.

"What, Great Mage?"

"What are your plans for the Annual Masquerade Ball?"

My father and I both dropped our spoons and shot Rangor matching blank looks. "What?" we asked in unison.

"Saire's Annual Masquerade Ball," repeated Rangor. "Surely you've…made plans for it?"

Lord Kamiya looked relieved. "Made plans? Oh, yes."

But I was still staring blankly at the both of them. Ball? Masquerade? "What do you mean, ball?" I tried to hide the fear in my tone. When had all this been decided?

"Gods, Kaoru," my father sighed. "You know about the Annual Masquerade Ball. We have it every year. You helped decorate last year. But this year," a grin played at the corners of his mouth, and his eyes glinted almost dangerously, "this year, because of your sixteenth birthday last month, you are now of age and you will be allowed to attend.

Gods no. Please have let me heard him wrong…First I become suddenly tormented by bloody nightmares, then I'm being forced to attend some ball. What is with my luck lately?

"Allowed to attend?" I squeaked.

"Yes."

Damn him.

"Don't swear, Kaoru."

Great. Now my godfather was reading my mind and scolding my thoughts.

"What Rangor?"

"Nothing milord."

Lord Kamiya grinned. "Thank you, Rangor. Now Kaoru, you will of course need a costume. The seamstress will be here this afternoon and you and some of the ladies will attend to that. And don't forget, Rangor."

"Forget what?"

"As tradition and protocol call for, my daughter will be in need of an escort." Now my father was giving me the strange, knowing smile Rangor wore when reading an unsuspecting mind. But I could only wonder where this conversation was headed. An escort? So what. I could recruit Eon. He'd happily go to the ball and wouldn't even hang all over me the entire night.

Rangor's lips drew into a thin line. "We both know Prince Aoshi will be unavailable, Kamiya. Who do you suggest?"

Every sensible thought flew from my head at my father's answer.

"I believe the young vampire Battousai would be the perfect escort for Kaoru."

"Gods! Is he frickin' blind? Sending me, a human, off unprotected at the hands of an unpredictable blood-crazy vampire? I swear, sometimes I wonder if he's got any brains at all! And what about me? What if I get all the blood sucked out of my body? What if he kills me? And that stupid dress! I have to wear a stupid dress to this stupid ball! ARRRRRRRRRGHHH!"

I proceeded to swear so vulgarly that the seamstress taking my measurements gasped, "Lady Kaoru!"

"Sorry, Davina." Muttering under my breath I crossly folded my arms and stood in my shift, waiting for her to finish.

Now that I was done ranting, the silence became almost unbearable. The only sounds were the snap Davina's tape measure as she measured my waist and arms and the rustle of material when she held different fabrics up to me, trying to find a "complimentary" color or print.

Finally, Davina spoke again. "Milady, maybe…maybe you are overreacting," she said tentatively, as if she were afraid of getting her head bitten off. "Maybe just a bit. Because I am sure Battousai would never think of attacking you, especially when surrounded by so many people."

Sure, I thought, rather sarcastically. Oh, he's never been intimidated by the idea of witnesses before.

"Why?" I moaned. "Why me?"

"Because the vampire clan in the north is becoming restless and Lord Kamiya is trying to prevent a rebellion by forming strong ties with them."

"Wait. What?"

Davina only smiled and went back to her measuring tape.

I felt my eyebrow twitching in annoyance. "Davina….."

"Yes, milady?" she said sweetly.

"How do you know that?"

"Know what, milady?"

Now both eyebrows were twitching. So my father was using me as a pawn again. Gods knew I didn't need this right now too. First those nightmares and this stupid ball……

The nightmares.

Memories flashed behind my eyes like pulses of white light. The blood. It had been everywhere, raining down on everything, gushing from my hands.

Amber eyes burned in my mind, and I could almost feel my hands still clutching the silk shirt. I could almost feel the stranger's body envelop me. And the press of his strangely cool lips against my forehead….

For a terrifying second I actually thought it had been Battousai. The amber eyes, the cold lips, it all fit.

Then I remembered: Rangor had placed a spell on all the bedchambers so that no one could enter unless invited in by the occupants. It helped with safety and privacy. Those magically powerful and advanced could, of course, break the spell and enter at will, but the only people capable would be teachers and beings like Megumi.

But Battousai was far from Megumi's level and though he was skilled in magic, he was no match for Rangor either. So that flatly erased him from suspicion.

The dreams had been disturbing enough, but now that I knew someone as powerful as Rangor had forced their way into my bedchambers and touched me, I was slightly agitated.

I needed to tell someone. I definitely wasn't going to tell my father after the incident at breakfast, and Rangor had left the castle to visit the remains of the dead priestess. That left Megumi. But I wasn't too keen about telling her, either. I didn't want to interrupt her "reaping" and face the wrath of God and Satan.

Maybe….

Maybe I didn't need to tell anyone at all. Maybe for once I could do something on my own. It could be my secret.

Besides, the stranger hadn't actually harmed me. Quite the opposite in fact.

I raised a hand up to my forehead, touching the place were his lips had touched my skin, and smiling a little as Davina stared at me blankly.

AN: This chap was shorter, sry...but I found this to be a good place to wrap it up. In this chap I wanted to let everyone see Kaoru's relationship with her father. No, she doesn't hate him exactly, she just doesn't have a lot of respect for him because he uses her as his pawn in politics. The next chap will hopefully be a bit longer tho...

Thank you everyone for reviewing my fic! sniffs I feel so loved!