DISCLAIMER: I'm really sorry this chapter has taken so long to post. This is partially due to my being horribly sick, but also because sometimes writing just takes a long time. -.- Again, I promise that even if I can't always update as quickly as I would like to, I want to finish writing this story more than anyone actually wants to finish reading it. ~^.^~ Also who did I mark down as the main character of this series again? People are gonna start accusing me of false advertizing. Also: I don't totally hate Reito, he just makes a really excellent jerk when you need one and I can't really help it if he's good at it can I?
Juliet's Poison
Mid-August, 2000; St. Peter's High School
Shizuru held her breath for a moment, only the greatest of self control keeping her from letting out a long suffering sigh and revealing her emotions to the other Student Council second years, most of whom would be quick to jump on what they would see as a show of weakness. With deliberate slowness she reached out and took the insulated paper cup with her long cooled mocha from the table littered with various forms, charts, and multicoloured brochures. Her lips quirked up in amusement, Reito's annoyed expression as he watched her sipping what he considered a gainjin's beverage always made her feel a little better.
He wasn't wrong really, as she had picked up her like of the delightfully bitter and sweet caffeinated substance from Natsuki. Being raised by Midori, who had lived most of her young adult life abroad working for the Watchers' Council, meant that the Slayer was hardly someone who thought much about tradition. It was also a small bit of rebellion on her part against her late mother's insistence on keeping up outward appearances at all costs. Certainly she kept that philosophy to a degree, hating to let others glimpse her true emotions. Still a large part of her wished her mother had been less worried about what others thought and more concerned about her own health. Shizuru would have given almost anything to have her mother still alive, gladly bearing any hurtful rumors of her mother being eccentric, or even mad, if they could have spent more time together the way they did when Shizuru was younger. Instead she was left with a constant flow of empty words, meaningless consolations from strangers telling her how much of a lovely and respectable woman her mother had been in life. Sharp, painful reminders each of them, however kindly spoken. Not that her mother didn't have more problems than a simple desire to hold the admiration of others despite the consequences. Indeed Shizuru herself shared the big one, their often disturbing visions, but she felt that anything her mother could have done to find some more happiness during her life would have been better than nothing.
Of course I'm certainly one qualified to pass such judgments. She almost laughed aloud at the thought. After all, was she not here in the Student Council room doing paperwork that she hated during the summer holiday? She had even turned down a rather awkward, yet somewhat adorable blushing invitation from Mai to go on a trip with her and Natsuki to visit her father's home, which was conveniently located rather near a lovely isolated beach, to instead stay here and fulfil her Student Council responsibilities. But it wasn't just her overdeveloped sense of duty, or the worry that she would feel out of place around Mai's family that kept her here in Tokyo. There was another reason, a vague but insistent feeling that it was important for her to stay at home.
There had not been any vivid and easily remembered visions since her rather amazing experience with Natsuki in the world between, but there were hints and almost warnings, the things that she had long relied on. She wished that her visions could remain clearer, as they weren't even specific enough of late to distinguish warnings of peril from heralds of coming good fortune. All she knew was there seemed to be an appointment with fate of sorts that she couldn't miss. Still, her dreams weren't quite as tormenting as they had been leading up to the battle to save Natsuki's little sister some months ago, so at this point she found herself more impatient and even curious than worried. She normally enjoyed a more sedate lifestyle than Natsuki could handle, but at the moment she was almost hoping for a demon attack to break the monotony of her week, the boring task set to them seeming no closer to completion than it had been days ago.
The second years always went on their nearly week long overnight school excursion in September, and the well paid Board of Directors in their infinite wisdom thought that it would be good management experience for the Student Council to handle the details of the planning. In Shizuru's opinion the only thing it really showed them was the benefit of being the person in charge so that one could delegate the more menial responsibilities to their underlings. At least they didn't have to actually make reservations with hotels or anything like that, the Board of Directors had to do that part of the planning years in advance. No, they simply had to work out which students would be staying in which rooms, riding which buses, or going on which tour at a specific time, and countless other details. They were a fairly small school compared to some so it wasn't quite the logistical nightmare that it could have been, but it was still dreadfully tedious. Especially since if they as incumbents wanted to get voted into the higher Student Council offices in their third year, they had to ensure that as many students as possible got to spend the majority of the trip with people they were actually friends with. This meant relying on their own memories as well as going through the rosters of all of the various school clubs to try and figure out the optimal placement, and there was also a whole stack of special request forms to go through where students had specifically stated who they wanted to room with. She suspected that the Board of Directors never would have allowed those special request forms if they were the ones organizing the trip, but the Student Council didn't get any say in the matter.
Across the table from her, Haruka let out a strangled growl of boredom, lightly bashing her forehead against the polished hardwood surface with a slight thump. Shizuru smiled inwardly, as always torn between amusement and admiration at how even here in a room full of backstabbing politicians, Haruka always wore her true emotions on her sleeve. Sitting in the chair next to Haruka, just a little too close for polite friends, was the true saint of the day, Yukino, who rested a sympathetic hand on her friend's large shoulder. The mousey haired girl wasn't on the Student Council or even a second year, but she had been helping out with their trip planning all week, obviously intending to spend every moment of her summer holiday with her friend no matter how boring their plans.
Shizuru found herself wishing for a moment Natsuki could have been just as insistent on the same. She giggled in her mind as she thought of how impossible it would be for the often extremely energetic Slayer to sit at this table for hours going over paperwork, and Shizuru suspected that after just half an hour Natsuki would have started entertaining herself by getting into a verbal fight with Reito, or embarrassing Yukino by asking Haruka leading questions about the exact nature of their relationship. She would never truly wish for Natsuki to be quite so needy of her anyway, no matter how much she missed her friend whenever they were apart. After all, one of the qualities about Natsuki that drew Shizuru to her in the first place was her essential wildness; the Slayer was no tame housecat. And it had been her own decision to stay here, even if she doubted that the rest of the second years in Student Council could have gotten through this paperwork without her. The Board of Directors would not really have allowed it to go unfinished to the point that the trip would be cancelled or something equally as dire.
For a moment she allowed her eyes studying the seemingly endless stack of special request forms to become unfocused, the lines on the page blurring as her mind drifted to the thoughts that were really concerning her. Natsuki... These last few months her interactions with Natsuki had been horribly inconsistent. She had found herself reluctant to bring up their shared dream, even though whenever they spent time together she could see the question lurking in expressive green eyes. To her credit Natsuki seemed to sense her oldest friend's discomfort and hadn't asked it aloud, but Shizuru suspected that one reason she hadn't was that Natsuki already knew the answer, that Shizuru remembered. And anyway, these days whenever they met up for their scheduled get together if they weren't in public, and sometimes even if they were, they would almost inevitably end up doing more kissing than talking. It didn't seem to much matter what their original plans had been either, watching movies or going on a walk in the park, it all ended up the same. Even their most recent sparring session with their naginata had devolved into a heated makeout session almost the moment that Midori left the training room to answer a phone call from an old colleague with the Watchers' Council. Only Natsuki's Slayer-hearing had prevented Midori from walking in on them in a rather compromising position, and even then she suspected from the knowing smirk on the older woman's face that she'd known exactly what the two of them were up to. But despite these changes in how they interacted, they hadn't discussed what exactly they were to each other now. Going steady? Friends with benefits? Just two teenagers experimenting with new feelings?
Shizuru had been the main one of them who was avoiding discussing the matter, artfully putting off Natsuki's questions, finding the intensity of her feelings for her childhood friend at best overwhelming and at worst terrifying. The problem was that no matter how often she reminded herself of this, that she was the one who had avoided bringing up the changing nature of her and Natsuki's relationship, there was this voice inside, constantly demanding that Natsuki should be hers with an absoluteness that was disturbing. Her refusal to join Natsuki and Mai on their vacation had probably been also about trying to get some distance from these intense feelings, wanting to at least understand them so that she was the one controlling them instead of vice versa.
"I hear that Kuga is on her honeymoon with that pity scholarship student." Reito commented idly, addressing his words to his new girlfriend sitting at his side, a first year that Shizuru hadn't really noticed until he started bringing her with him to their meetings a few weeks ago. It certainly showed her how preoccupied she had been with Natsuki this year, as the girl's hair was dyed a peculiar shade of teal and cut in a sharp, strangely uneven way that seemed designed to stand out. Shizuru found herself gritting her teeth, his understated honeyed tones grating loudly in her mind, but as he hadn't addressed her directly she held her tongue. He already knew that Natsuki meant everything to her, and if she dignified his comment with any reaction it would only give him the satisfaction of having power over her.
"I think it's a shame that Kuga would lower herself to that level when she was given a chance to be something more by the Fujinos. I guess it just goes to show that no amount of money can change what someone really is on the inside. Don't you agree Fujino-sama?" The younger girl inquired, looking at Shizuru in a way that made her feel like she wanted to just go home and take a shower. She wondered if Reito knew that his girlfriend was only dating him to get closer to her.
"What was that?" She asked calmly despite her anger at their presumption, slowly lifting her eyes from studying the paper in front of her to look at the girl more directly, pretending as though she hadn't been listening to their short conversation.
"Oh, just that we thought it was a shame that all the training and money in the world can't seem to make that Kuga anything more than the stray dog she's always been is all." The girl spoke casually, her words calculated as Shizuru's own always were, but her tone of voice and decidedly creepy smile meant that one would be immediately aware that there were other meanings behind her statement. The girl's rudely direct stare seemed to glint in an unhinged way that made the normally extremely confident Shizuru feel a shiver of intense discomfort, and she tried to cover her disgust by taking another leisurely sip of her drink, as though she were in no real hurry to reply.
Slowly she lowered her cup to the coaster protecting the table, lowering her eyes for a moment as she idly examined the cartoon puppies that decorated the plastic object. In her mind she thought of Natsuki's fierce and beautiful wolf form in the otherworld, allowing the powerful image to restore her sense of inner peace. When she looked back at the suddenly uncertain first year she knew that her eyes were narrowed dangerously, her intense anger flashing in them clearly in ways she would normally never allow, but she was helpless to restrain it. Where Natsuki was concerned it seemed impossible to hold back. "You and Kanzaki-san should not speak about things which you cannot understand." Shizuru replied in a deceptively soft tone of voice, making a point to rudely not even ask the girl's name.
The younger girl must have seen her anger, or at least been a bit unsettled by Shizuru's eyes that took on a more intense unnatural red colour when she truly allowed her harsher emotions some free reign, as her own eyes widened subtly and she backed away from the suddenly much more intimidating Student Council officer, shrinking into her chair like a scolded child. Shizuru also noticed with a mirthful smirk that the girl was also blushing and had to struggle to keep from shaking her head in amazement as she realized the twisted creature apparently liked being humiliated.
Reito seemed confused yet annoyed that Shizuru's few words had such a pronounced effect on his usually bold girlfriend as he placed an awkward comforting hand on her slim arm, wondering at how he never noticed how thin and fragile she was under the fabric of her school uniform before. "Hey Tomoe-chan, don't let her get to you. You just managed to find one of Shizuru-chan's weak points is all." He said quietly, though he was unable to keep the bit of anger at his old rival, and he hoped future love interest, out of his voice as he spoke, his pride stung by how she tried to put distance between them with her insincere formality.
Shizuru gritted her teeth, trying to keep the angered growl that Natsuki would have responded with from escaping her own throat. "Oh she ought not let me get to her Kanzaki-san?" Shizuru asked, her tone making it clear that her words weren't really a question, the long day's boredom and years of holding in her anger at the young man's constant insults to her Natsuki finally bubbling over, though she still kept her voice soft and measured in volume. "I tend not to enjoy others knowing my weaknesses, but my friendship with Natsuki is not a weakness. Not that Natsuki needs me to defend her to rich, ignoramus self-aggrandizers. No matter how it might anger and embarrass me to constantly associate with fools who speak of her so harshly, I know that your opinions mean less than nothing to her. As for Tokiha-san, she is a lovely, polite, and kind girl who I am also proud to count as one of my friends. A single kind word from her is worth a thousand of your platitudes, chiefly because I do not find myself looking for the cowardly poisoned dagger in my back the moment she speaks." Even as she spoke her words of anger, her tone of voice remained smooth and unshaken, narrowed eyes now focused on Reito's petulant darker ones. The rest of the Student Council members in the room, even including Yukino and Haruka, were staring at the two old rivals openly now, with many eyes bugged out and mouths hanging open wide enough to easily catch one of their country's infamous hornets. Shizuru couldn't blame them really, she never spoke much or even at all about her personal life when she was here, and certainly had never spoken to someone so harshly, despite the way her tone still maintained a thin veneer of civility.
In one move Shizuru pushed her heavy wooden chair back from the table and stood, never making a sound. Casually avoiding looking anyone in the eye she picked her now empty cup off of the table and tossed it into the wastebasket behind her without looking, slightly amused by the blinks of surprise for her little trick. None of them except Haruka had any idea that their normally calm and sedate colleague was also an accomplished athlete. She could even hold her own against Natsuki when they were both sparring with her chosen weapon, though she knew that the Slayer was constantly holding back the strength of her strikes, she had been pleased to notice that in recent years Natsuki took her much more seriously as an opponent whenever they sparred.
"Now, since I was here and working on these before any of you, if you do not mind I will be heading home." She said smoothly, even if she was in no particular hurry to return to her mostly empty too large home. At least her family's long-time chef, Jun-chan, would be there. Shizuru smiled inwardly as she remembered the times this summer and in the past when she and the quirky effeminate older man would have late night marathons of absurdly melodramatic movies, the two of them laughing freely as they gossiped shamelessly about her family's acquaintances while they did their nails in gaudy colours that Shizuru would never be seen wearing anywhere else. No matter how empty her house seemed without her father or Natsuki around, she would rather be there than here, surrounded by sycophants and plotting would-be conspirators. She did feel a moment of guilt leaving Haruka to deal with them, but her always brave friend at least had Yukino here to keep her sane, and somehow the forceful blonde had a unique ability to just let any of the petty verbal slights or insults roll off of her like water, her open enthusiasm for the noble ideals that Student Council stood for never waning. She gave the two kind girls who seemed her only true allies in this den of liars an apologetic nod before grabbing her plain, light tan messenger bag and walking calmly from the room, shutting the heavy door silently behind her.
Despite her still seething anger, Shizuru couldn't help the involuntary smile that came to her face when after only walking down a fourth of the long hallway, she heard the loud sound of the door behind her being slammed open. The clomping of quick moving, sneaker-clad feet pounding down the hall toward her was almost like a charging bull, before they clumsily slowed their pace just behind Shizuru. The intensity of her anger faded when she felt a large, overly careful hand resting lightly on her shoulder, as though the person reaching for her feared that she could break under a firmer touch. "Shizuru-chan?" Haruka asked in the softest tone she could manage, her voice thick with sincere concern for her old friend that would have been horribly ridiculous coming from anyone else.
Shizuru reached up to gently take Haruka's hand from her shoulder as she turned to face her loyal friend, her slender hand lightly holding the larger one comfortingly, offering Haruka one of her rare unguarded smiles. "I'm alright Haruka-chan, I just needed to get out of there." She said honestly, shrugging slightly because for once there wasn't really any deeper explanation of her actions.
Haruka nodded, her cheeks reddening as they always did when Shizuru expressed appreciation for her friendship. "I just wanted to make sure you knew that I don't agree at all with the things those two idiots were saying back there." For a few moments the husky blonde stumbled over her words before she could continue, "I don't know why I couldn't say anything. I wanted so badly to speak up and tell them to just shut up, but I guess my loud mouth finally learned how to not talk when I needed to the most."
Haruka smiled shyly as Shizuru let out a low chuckle, amused as she always was when Haruka showed how much self awareness she really had. Most people in the school tended to assume that the loud and often tactless girl was completely oblivious, but Shizuru knew the truth was that Haruka really just didn't care what anyone thought. Haruka was always ready to let friend and foe alike know her true feelings, boldly defending what others felt was a horribly naive view of justice, no matter how scandalous that might seem to the budding politicos that surrounded her. "I would never doubt the sincerity of Haruka-chan's friendship."
Haruka shrugged her large shoulders awkwardly, one of her sneakers scuffing against the floor as she again slowly thought about what she was trying to say. "Thanks... but what I meant was it made me angry to hear them talking about Natsuki-chan that way too, even though I know I used to give you a hard time about being friends with her. She's not a bad kid. She doesn't deserve to have people saying things like that about her."
Soft rusty eyes shone with suspicious moisture as Shizuru replied quietly, "Thank you Haruka-chan."
Haruka nodded her head in a firm businesslike manner, even as she raised a normally clumsy hand to carefully brush one of the tears from Shizuru's cheek. "Did you want me to walk you to the bus stop? I can go tell Yukino really quick." Haruka asked, remembering that Shizuru wasn't using her family's private driver so much now that the area close to her home was a bit more built up with high end boutiques and the like, as well as a new small art gallery dedicated to her late mother's work.
"No, that's alright Haruka-chan, I really just want some time to think I guess." Shizuru replied.
"Are you sure?" Haruka asked carefully searching her friend's face, looking for any subtle signs that her friend was leaving too much left unsaid, though she was aware that Shizuru always had secrets. "I don't want to let you head out there alone if you really need someone with you. Natsuki-chan made me promise to look out for you while she was out of town."
Shizuru gave Haruka a teasing smile at that revelation, "My Natsuki must think very highly of Haruka-chan to entrust her with such an important task." She giggled as Haruka just rolled her expressive eyes at the good-natured teasing, nearly immune to Shizuru's odd sense of humour after being her friend for so many years. "Really though, I'll be fine Haruka-chan. It's not far to the bus stop, and you know that I'm perfectly able to defend myself." Shizuru reassured her friend, glancing at a nearby darkened window as she raised her hand to absently touch the black and gold Auryn pendant, knowing that the powerful protective blessing on it made the gift from Natsuki as dangerous to a vampire as any religious symbol. She also had several vials of holy water and a few stakes in her bag, and unlike Haruka she had been on patrol with Natsuki a few times since her first real encounter with a vampire, the Slayer wanting to make sure that Shizuru at least new the basics of how to defend against the most common vampires.
Seeing that her friend was set on leaving alone Haruka finally nodded in agreement, taking a step back and gesturing absently toward the Student Council room. "Well if you're sure. I guess I'll just head back in there and see if I can't yell at those lazy losers in there enough so that we can finally finish all this paperwork tomorrow."
Shizuru giggled, bowing formally to Haruka, "I'm counting on you Haruka-chan."
Haruka watched for a moment as her friend headed the rest of the way down the hall to the large double doors leading to the main campus courtyard. She smiled at how much lighter Shizuru's steps seemed when she wasn't allowing herself to be weighed down by politics that were all pointless in the long run, and she wondered when her friend would stop living her life the way others thought she should and finally start doing the things that really made her happy. Haruka shook her head slightly, her heavy blonde curls falling around her face as she shrugged helplessly, realizing that Shizuru would likely always be a mystery to her. Effortlessly putting her confusing thoughts aside, Haruka turned and headed back to the Student Council room to see if she could get those selfish goons to stop thinking about themselves for ten seconds, and finally start making the changes the people had elected them for!
-MH-BtVS-
Nao let out a small happy squeak as she stretched out her body leisurely, just resting for a moment in the long dark shadow of the imposing white stone church, located on the edge of a quiet school campus. She always enjoyed these moments of watching the world slowly change from a harsh bright paradise that she was forbidden to enter and back into the endless dark playground where she was the strongest kid who owned all the toys. The soft grass felt good under her hands and since she felt no urge to move on, Nao decided to stay here, safe from the last waning sunlight as the dangerous burning orb finally sank below the western horizon, remnants of its glow lingering in the reddened sky. She rolled onto her back to get a little farther from the tiny window in the wall near the ground that she had just crawled out of, after making certain to close it securely so no one would ever notice it had been opened. Smiling contentedly she rested her head on her hands as she gazed up into the rapidly darkening deep blue of the twilight sky, the soft inky colour reminding her of her Sire's eyes.
It had been a month since the night that Nao and Dracula had gone their separate ways, their goodbye almost like a monster's version of a parent sending their hopefully grown child off to college for the first time. Dracula offered her a comforting hug on the rough remote northern shore, and Nao hurried to get out of his embrace so that she could get on her way, giving him a shrugging, half hearted 'see ya', like she didn't even care that she didn't know when she might see him again. She had barely walked a few miles down the beat up road to a small, one train-stop seaside village before she broke down in tears, leaning her back against the rough splintered wood of a rundown convenience store by the train tracks. She stayed that way for a long time, her knees drawn up against her chest and the supple dark leather of her long coat falling around her slim form. Time passed slowly as Nao waited for the last train that Dracula promised her would be leaving from this station in an hour, watching the nearly full moon hanging low in the sky, ignoring her tears drying slowly on her cheeks.
When the elderly shopkeeper stepped out onto the rickety porch to ask Nao if she was feeling alright, it had taken all the young vampire's self control instilled by Dracula to stop herself from ripping the old woman's throat out for seeing her display of near human weakness. Although it certainly helped that the shrivelled, toothless hag hardly looked like she would make much of a snack for the road. Over the next few days she had slowly made her way south through the country, taking whatever late night trains she could catch, her journey made more difficult than it could have been thanks to the short summer nights. During the day and evenings she took shelter from the sun wherever she could, never finding herself wanting for willing victims to drink from. She didn't linger in any one place long enough to draw attention to herself, remembering Dracula's lessons about the best way to deal with humans. Even being uneducated Nao at least knew how to recognize the written names of all the major cities, but she never bothered to check them as long as the train she was boarding was heading south, having no particular destination in mind. A week later she was prowling aimlessly through the brightly lit crowded night-time streets of Osaka and Kyoto.
Nao wasn't really certain what she had been expecting when she set out on her journey, but wandering through those cities overflowing with a sea of humanity like she had never seen made her feel as though she had once more been cast into exile. Hiding from the sunlight in narrow alleyways that were always in the shadows of towering skyscrapers, drinking her fill from lost and drunken looking pretty college students, or her full angry ridged demon form morphing her child's face into something otherworldly as she challenged small gangs of weak, directionless vampires for their territories; it didn't seem to matter. Through all those things the only emotion she could feel was her overpowering loneliness, as though she were the last creature of her kind on earth. The thrill of a hunt, the adrenaline from a good fight, the passion of warm blood willingly offered to her... the ecstasy of taking a life. It all seemed faint, like moonlight trying to filter through the vast depth of the ocean. Was this really all there was to her afterlife without Dracula there to help her find some meaning? An overwhelming sense of 'meh'.
But Nao had been in plenty of situations worse than this before, even if she was human at the time. When a week of scouring countless streets gave her nothing but boredom and a few meals of blood from young partiers coursing with drugs and alcohol that she could barely keep herself from vomiting up onto her victims' faces, Nao decided that she would just cut her losses and move on. Kyoto seemed to have better quality meals walking around than the backstreets of Osaka, but Nao couldn't help but feel that it really didn't seem like a good place to be a vampire with all the temples and stuff, and maybe it was just her but there seemed to be a lot of old tourists around. There were other things in those cities too of course, but the constant aching burn of this emptiness inside that no amount of blood could truly quench seemed to know that it wouldn't find what it yearned for here. She hadn't second guessed her demon's instinct. Nao always went for whatever made her feel good at the time. That same night she was once more on the crowded last train to leave the main station, this time heading northeast to Tokyo.
She almost clawed one of her fellow passengers in celebration when she finally stepped off of the train a few hours before dawn. It was a relief to be away from all those humans crushing in too close to her without any respect, the crowded car making her best glare only marginally effective as she was surrounded by countless meals, each smelling even more unappetizing than the last to her still upset stomach. Hesitantly she stepped out of the station, ducking out of the crowd so she could look out over the large paved entrance area, taking in the bright lights of the steel and concrete jungle rising just a short distance away from the older style brick building. It felt different here. Even if it looked pretty much the same as any other city she'd been to on her journey, with lots of tall buildings, plenty of humans, and the annoying faint feeling of power from a few weaker vampires lurking about... there was something about this place that made it seem different to her. Better than different even.
The two weeks she had spent here so far weren't all that different from the ones that came before, at least not in the events that happened. Certainly the scenery was different, and even if all humans were somewhat edible no two were ever really the same, but until last night the real difference was more subtle than that. There was a constant low pleasant hum just below her hearing keeping her company on her lonely hunts, its warmth lightly touching parts of the demon that even her insatiable hunger never reached. The strange unseen companion of sorts wasn't in any hurry, slowly stringing the normally impatient demon along through small parks dark green with summer, the buzz of insect wings singing around the streetlights. Walking through residential neighbourhoods after dark, silently watching from the shadows as some young children frolicked in the playground as though they had no cause to fear the night. Other nights she went down endless labyrinths of lesser travelled brick-lined side streets packed with the storefronts of countless human businesses selling their wares, though most were not open as she stalked by late at night. Even though she tried to keep her tough vampire streetcred, clad in tight dark leather from modest cleavage to toe, Nao still found her eyes drifting with childlike wonder as she travelled unnoticed among these peaceful and colourful communities within the living beast that was the city. For the first time that she could remember, she was finally able to look at all of this objectively, without the constant ache of the hunger and poverty that drove her during her human life. Familiar less forgiving demons from before her Sire gifted her this new one, that had long made her feel weak, filling her with bitterness and anger in a way her demon's thirst never did.
For a while her wanderings never seemed to lead her in any particular direction, taking her from one corner of the city to another, crossing her own path many times on a strange journey without any discernable pattern. Nao however was somewhat surprised to find that she wasn't in any particular hurry either, after all she had all the time in the world didn't she? And it wasn't like she could starve here, there were plenty enough meals in this place to last as long as this would take.
Then it was as if her act of just letting go, instead of constantly trying to force things to happen her way and at her demand meant that she'd finally passed a test of sorts. She couldn't tell if it was her demon's uncanny instincts or the strangely warm presence guiding her next move, but when she awoke from her daytime slumber yesterday at sunset there was a vague call inside leading her out of the main city for the first time since she arrived and into one of the nicer small communities on the outskirts. She travelled there on the bus with a bunch of tired looking sallarymen, the human driver taking one look at her tight leather, dangerous stare and too glinting teeth didn't bother to question her about her lack of a paid bus pass. She was pleasantly surprised when despite her young and attractive good looks, all of the passengers on this bus stayed as far away from the vampire as space in the bus would allow. Really she'd been impressed by how well behaved the humans were, and found herself wanting to stay in this charming upscale town a bit longer, but had realized as soon as they arrived that it was much too small to keep a vampire well fed if she wasn't ready to make a name for herself.
Almost immediately after arriving she'd followed the strong urge, ending up on a deserted but lovely school campus. This was where it wanted to be, though she could only see a few people hurrying about the picturesque campus, and there weren't even lights on in every building despite it hardly being that late. She did remember vaguely that schools mostly shut down sometimes during the year for various holidays. The vampire's eyes had been immediately drawn to the white church on the edge of the campus, the feeling urged her within. There was a human inside that it wished her to dispose of. Nao had been perfectly willing, even though most vampires were too superstitious to enter any human religious buildings, it wasn't all that dangerous if you watched what you touched and the people you were dealing with weren't the paranoid sort who doused everything in holy water or something similar. Even then she wore leather gloves when hunting to protect herself from the less seriously pointy ways that humans used to defend against vampires.
Nao didn't need to use the thieving skills she'd honed as a human to get into the place; none of the doors were locked. All she had to do was walk in and follow the increasingly strong scent of alcohol down into the basement. Her target turned out to be a tall and skinny old priest, his shoulder length grey hair unwashed and stringy as it laid against his face, and his black robes a wrinkled mess as he chugged what looked like a bathtub's worth of that cheap communion wine that they handed out at these places to try and get people to sit through their services. She stood there in the doorway for a full minute before the man looked up from his wine as though sensing her presence, his bloodshot grey eyes seeming to have a great deal of difficulty focusing on even her general location.
"So you decided to come back for me after all eh Miyu?" The man asked, obviously mistaking Nao for someone else. He didn't seem concerned when she didn't answer his question. "It doesn't matter what you do to me. I'm done for now, even if you just walked away." He added bitterly taking another long swallow of wine, some of the watery dark red liquid dripping down his heavily stubbled chin, making Nao smirk openly at the way he looked like a lame parody of a vampire.
She didn't know how to explain it, but in situations like this the demon inside always seemed to know just what to say. "I don't care that they're after you. I want you to suffer for what you did to her." There was something she needed to know, something she needed him to tell her as she stalked closer, "How do they know already? Are they after her?"
He shook his head unsteadily, "No, she's no use to them now anyway. They want the other one. There was a spy for them here the whole time. I can't believe I didn't notice. Standing in front of me as obvious as a damn ninety foot Jesus scaling Tokyo Tower. They'll be coming for me soon."
Nao barely kept her amused laughter inside despite his obvious distress. This guy was supposed to be a priest, seriously? "I can make it easier than they would." Nao offered reasonably as she moved silently toward the bitter man, "No matter how you treated us before... you still let us go in the end."
He shrugged, "Don't think it's because I cared. It just wouldn't have mattered."
Finally she was close enough to touch her victim, and suddenly she saw the startled expression in his eyes that indicated he just recognized she wasn't who he thought she was. "Ssh," She whispered, easily drawing the intoxicated man back into the minor mild control magick of her vampire's thrall, "It's okay. None of it matters anymore." Her promise was less heavy with the seductive undertones that it normally held when she took a victim. This kill wasn't about her own pleasure, this was something new and different.
After she took the old priest's life, she'd locked the both of them in his office for the day, making sure to leave plenty of his blood on the floor and set up his body near his bloodied letter opener so that it looked like the suicide everyone had likely been expecting from the old drunk anyway. The demon, the strange new presence, and Nao herself were all pleased with the results. Now here she was, lying here in the grass like a schoolgirl so close to her most recent kill, with a strange feeling of anticipation fluttering in her stomach, waiting for... something.
Movement out of the corner of her eye had her shifting her head resting against her arms so that she could get a better look. The sight of a young, slender brunette woman in her tailored business casual walking out of one of the few buildings that had lights on seemed to fill Nao's vision. She wasn't sure at first why the woman caught her attention, as she was much too classy to be compared to Nao's usual victims. She hardly noticed when she'd risen to her feet, quickly putting her gloves back on her hands as she started slowly following after the intriguing human. After a few more long moments of curiously studying the stranger Nao realized what it was about her. The confident, almost regal way that the young woman moved reminded her of Dracula. Who is this goddess? For the first time Nao found herself completely unable to simply approach a human, and so the predator settled for merely following and watching, taking in every subtle movement, the play of the harsh night time lighting on pale skin and the faint scent of her that the vampire could practically taste on the evening breeze.
Nao bristled when she felt the distinct grating of another lesser vampire encroaching on her territory, her eyes widening at the punk's nerve when she saw him stalking onto the path in front of her. Under his breath the pathetic minion was mumbling something about 'this was his chance' because someone was 'finally out of town' but Nao was too pissed off by the blatant show of disrespect to wait to see if the loser's words might have meant anything.
For once the familiar feeling of her face morphing into its fearsome demon form with the pronounced forehead ridges, extra elongated fangs and otherworldly eyes came over her like an old friend instead of the show of impatient weakness that her Sire told her the display was. Her demon's excitement surged through her as she finally allowed it full reign, running on silent feet toward the other vampire. She stopped him cold with a firm hand around his thick neck that instantly brought him down to his knees in a submissive posture, still facing away from her, his own demon instinctively knowing that hers was stronger.
"What the hell?" He sputtered in confusion, his wide golden eyes glancing up into hers hesitantly before quickly looking back at the sidewalk in front of him, unwilling to risk angering the powerful vampire further.
"Are you retarded?" She asked rhetorically, tightening her grip on his neck and watching in boredom as the sharp tips of her black leather gloves began cutting into his skin, causing his cold dead blood to leak lazily down his too pale skin. "That one is mine. Can't you smell her? That blood is too good to waste on one meal, and certainly too powerful for you." She kicked him hard in the soft tissue of his lower back, the hard tip of her boot causing the pathetic undead to let out an involuntary groan of pain even as he nodded soundlessly that he understood. "Say it."
"Alright! She's yours alright? I don't want any trouble." He said defensively, his face contorted in a mask of discomfort even though he too was still in his true demon guise.
"You tell anyone else in your little pathetic gang or whatever you want to call yourselves that she's mine too. Anyone who defies me will be wishing they were dust."
"Hey, you can't just come in here and tell all of us what to do!" He whined until he felt the sharp tip of one of her gloves actually slide effortlessly into one of the slick veins on his neck still liberally streaming blood, the curling appendage feeling suddenly like spiders crawling under his skin. And he might have been an unholy demon, but spiders still creeped him out. The high pitched noise of panic that escaped his throat would have embarrassed a little girl as he quickly recanted his bold words of defiance, "Aah! I promise, I'll let them know not to mess with you or what's yours."
Red lips curved into a cruel smile, "See... was that so hard?" She asked, releasing him gently with an obviously false show of tenderness, walking around in front of him and kneeling down to look him in the eyes, her own expression tempting and seductive. "I mean it though little newbie, I don't want to see you again." She punctuated her gently spoken words by lashing out at him without warning, her palm open as her hand now crushed against his windpipe. He screamed silently at the sudden excruciating burn of holy magicks against his skin, and when her hand pulled away his angrily red and swollen throat was branded with a large spider, the mark put there by one of the special containers of holy water that the vampire kept up her sleeve, ever the prepared illusionist. Again she gave him her cruel smile, standing and reaching out to ruffle his now sweaty dark hair affectionately, "There, that should do the trick. If any of your friends want one too I'd be happy to oblige."
Without another glance at the suffering vampire Nao turned and saw with relief that the one who interested her was still within sight, to her surprise the young woman was waiting at the otherwise deserted campus bus stop. Even though the brunette seemed to be preoccupied with troubling thoughts, it was difficult for Nao to follow her home unseen. She had to rely on all of the skills in stealth that she had learned over the years, but while she lurked in the shadows watching it took more willpower than skill to stop herself from trying to get closer. Dracula had warned that vampires were demons particularly prone to forming obsessions, but she hadn't realized how sudden and overpowering it could be. She couldn't imagine what else this might be.
When they reached their stop, a tiny little village that looked like the middle of nowhere if Nao had ever been there, the vampire was surprised when instead of heading toward one of the many buildings here, the human instead continued farther up the road. They walked silently, guided only by a few faint lights shining through the thick trees and the human's own sense of direction, the human never giving any indication that she was aware of being followed. The vampire's eyes widened when they finally reached their destination, a mansion that suddenly made her think that her maybe Sire's castle was rather modest. She stopped just out of the halo of lights surrounding the mansion, now only following the human with her eyes as her slender form entered the palace through one of the rear doors.
The vampire looked around the place, the lush gardens filling her with another wave of homesickness for her Sire's castle, wondering idly for the first time in days what exactly he was doing right now. Her curiosity was again teased when she noticed a much smaller house nestled against the forest at the edge of one of the large gardens, it seemed dark and abandoned but Nao still approached it, once more indulging her instincts when they were drawn to something. The comparatively tiny house was like one of those paintings of what an old traditional style Japanese house looked like. She'd never really seen one up close before, but it wasn't the appearance that drew her in. Unlike the church, the tiny house was locked up, but she easily found a back entrance that was simple enough for her to coax open without leaving any telltale signs of forced entry.
Her demon was suddenly assaulted with the unpleasant queasy sensation that came with crossing the mystical hearth protection that surrounded occupied private residences, surprised that it was still active when the house looked abandoned. She wondered with confusion why she had been allowed in when no one was here to invite her. The demon's uncomfortable golden eyes shifted to a religious charm that hung above the sliding door, recognizing it as something that welcomed in the souls of lost loved ones, causing a quiver of fear to run through the demon at the thought. The house was quiet inside, most of the rooms empty of any but the most basic furniture and the walls bare of any decorations. Still though, the little house was obviously well cared for as there was no dust on any of the surfaces, and to the more otherworldly part of the vampire the small home was alive in the way that only humans living here could make it.
Hours passed by as the vampire simply stayed, sitting unmoving in one of the small house's darkest shadows, her eyes nearly closed in simple pleasure as she enjoyed the unusual sense of peace and calm, as though there was a god who watched over this place who cared for the feelings of one of the mongrel demons. The soft sound of a door closing in the distance brought the vampire out of her uncharacteristic indulgence in metaphysical musings, useless thoughts based on those more confusing things that her Sire read to her when they spent time together. She blinked in surprise when she noticed the young woman heading from the large mansion down the garden path in this direction, even though she knew a human would never be able to see her here. The pale brunette had changed out of her dress clothes and was wearing simple tattered denims and a faded powder blue t-shirt, her delicate bare feet as quiet as Nao's were while hunting. The way she moved, even dressed so modestly would have made her stand out in a crowd the vampire thought, unable to take her eyes away from this creature who suddenly seemed as though she couldn't be human at all. Although she certainly wasn't anything like a demon as Nao was.
The human unlocked the front door to the tiny house and stepped in confidently as if she owned the place, certainly not an unreasonable notion to the awestruck vampire. Nao found herself withdrawing almost defensively further into the shadows even when the human made no move to turn on any lights, obviously familiar enough with the tiny house to navigate through it in the dark. Then by chance... on purpose? The human looked across the room to the place where Nao was lurking, and for the first time the vampire was able to clearly see her new obsession's face. She felt the phantom sensation of her dead heart lurching strangely in her chest when she looked into eyes dark red as the blood that allowed her to survive. Full lips quirked into the ghost of a smile as the human turned away from her, and without another glance continued to walk down a short hall, sliding open the door of a small room at the end of it.
The human left the door to her room open as she set up her futon on the floor, as though inviting daring her unacknowledged guest to watch. Still Nao felt the strange sensation of shyness that she had never been innocent enough to feel when she saw the woman reaching into a drawer in her closet to pull out more comfortable clothes to sleep in. The vampire couldn't imagine what strange modesty had overtaken her that she actually averted her eyes to give her precious stranger some privacy as she changed. A few minutes later the brunette was situating herself on her well worn bedding on the floor, laying on her back with her head resting on a tattered old pillow and a strange lavender stuffed animal held securely in her arms.
Nao watched; that strange nervousness still a powerful sensation as she hesitantly approached the apparently sleeping human, her steps slower and much more cautious than the demon thought they needed to be. Silently she knelt down on the floor next to the sleeping brunette, the predator's eyes drawn to the tempting smoothness of her long neck, the soft cotton of her unbuttoned pastel pyjama top allowing the vampire a lovely view. Her eyes drifted up over the elegant yet strong angles of the sleeping woman's face. Even in sleep, and even though she was obviously so young, Nao could see small lines of worry around the young woman's eyes, and hints of tears recently cried on her cheeks. Why are you sleeping in the servant's quarters when you're so obviously someone's princess? Nao wondered silently, finding her now gloveless hand nearly touching the temptingly warm and soft looking skin before she finally used her iron willpower to clamp down on her urges, lowering her hand back to her side. Why am I still here? She wondered as she stayed there motionless in the dark watching the play of the silver moonlight over her precious stranger's face, heedless of the hours passing or the insistent thirst burning in her throat. That night was the first since she met Dracula two years ago that Nao went hungry.
"Angels with silver wings, shouldn't know suffering
I wish I could take the pain for you."