No matter how prepared you are to jump, when your standing at the edge your body still screams for you to stop.

Ayame took a deep breath and squeezed the pillow tighter. "I'm sorry this might take a while. I'm not sure where to start."

"That's alright." Shinra smiled as gently as he could bracing himself and looked over at Shizuo who nodded.

"I guess the best place to start is the beginning, or at least what of it I remember. I was a sickly child and wasn't able to play well with my older brother. I would tire easy and never really regain my energy. Most days when children would be outside playing i was in bed with an Iv drip and a heatt monitor. Mother wouldn't let Father take me with Shinra to come here, she had other plans. I'm not sure what she told him but she must have convinced him that it was for the best, she may have even told him the truth.

Shortly after that I was entered into a research program, as I was then I wasn't expected to live for long, another year at most. They told us it was a new treatment that would help us get better but they still had a few things to work out. There were over 50 of us that I knew of who were in the test group, only three of us survived. They continued the treatment until we were all around the age of at least 13. Each one of us were effected a little differently by the treatments and would never be considered fully human from that point. I don't know if I would say it was a good thing but all of us were cured of our terminal illnesses from this treatment. There is a price to pay for everything and I can't help but wonder if it would have been better if we had died in the beginning.

It wasn't until I had escaped that I had learned that the reason we were changed is the fact that they had been injecting us with Celty's DNA, they wanted to see if a Doulahan could be man made. Each of the survivors reacted differently to the DNA that was now inside us. I gained the ability to heal, the only other girl survivor was able to control shadows, it was only the last survivor who was able to do both. He was the first to die when the experiments began. After a year or more, it was hard to judge time back then, of experimentation he was beheaded to see if he would be able to become a Doulahan but it seemed that once the head is removed we die like anyone else would.

The Girl who could control Shadows was the next to go. The test they ran on her was seeing to what extent could she use the shadows to protect and defend herself. It was during these tests that they discovered that when she was mortally wounded she would be able heal herself, but at a slower rate than myself. The scientists weren't satisfied with normal weapons. Once they got bored of testing regular ones they began using anything they could think of trying to see if they could find something to use against Celty. This is when they discovered that Purification salt and Silver could be used again us. She died about 6 months or so before my escape.

It was because I was able to heal they way I do I was often dissected, and unfortunately for me anesthesia didn't seem to work. I was awake the whole time they were digging around inside me. They wanted to see to what extent I could heal, if they took an organ would it regrow? What if they only cut off a portion of it? How much blood could I loose before my healing abilities couldn't keep up, these were a few of the many questions I heard them ask as I was strapped down to that table time and again. To my unfortunate luck they had to be careful with me because I was their last survivor and they didn't have the means to try and make more of us. Even though I was unable to control them at will they discovered that I had shadows wrapped around my heart and brain to help insure my survival.

Its wasnt just disection they did to me either. Many drugs were tested on me as well. They discovered i had a high metabolism that would break poisons down quickly. I was given large amounts at a time to see just how much they would need to give me before an antidote was needed. How long would it it take me to recover from organ damge done in that way.

During this time I had dared to become friends with one of the other test subjects to try and keep my sanity. That was the biggest mistake I could have made, and do this day i believe thats what cost him hid life.

The scientist soon discover our friendship and used it for their pleasure. They would take us into the opperating room and force us to watch while they other was being tested on. They wanted to see what would happen if a vampire completely lost control. They never seemed to be able to break Stevens will, and I did my best to help him with that. We knew that if he ever lashed out and broke his bonds they would kill him on the spot. I never could figure out why he fought so hard to survive when he knew day after day he would be subjected to the same torture. It was while I was trying to figure this out that he told me that as long as I smiled he would be able to hold out through anything.

Once I started smiling through the operations the doctors began to get nervous. There was still a lot they didn't know about me, a lot they were unsure of. They began to release me from my cage less and less, though that could have been because they found a new soul to torment. I never could tell with them.

They soon brought in the lead scientist to try and stop my bizarre behavior. To either my luck or my misfortune their leader seemed to be fascinated by me. He was a man with many possessions and thought someone who resembled a living doll would be a nice addition to his collections, or so he said. I was not fond of this but Steven reminded me that the closer I get to them the better chance I would get at killing him. For some reason the thought bothered me a little bit, but in the end he was the one responsible for all of us being there in the first place.

I was able to learn of their plans for me by being their leaders pet. They wanted to either train me in combat and use me as a weapon or use me to create more of us." Ayame hugged the pillow tighter.

"Once I relaid this to Steven he came up with a plan. It would be dangerous but we had to try something or else they would try to turn me into a weapon. If I wasn't able to learn how to fight then I would be forced to breed with someone of their choosing and used to make a new generation of soldiers. While I did what I could to get closer to the head scientist he concocted a plan. It only took a week for us to find the right opening.

The scientist made a mistake by thinking me incapable of doing anything against him. I never spoke to anyone. never disobeyed any order even when I was forced to walk by his side whenever he was in the lab and watch as he conducted his experiments. I wasn't given clothes either so there was no way to sneak a weapon. We had to play a waiting game. A game that consisted of me smiling at the doctors side and complying to his every command like the doll he believed me to be. Eventually it came to the point that he would come alone to my cage, release me, and make me release his next victim. He found some sort of sick joy watching them beg me not to unlock the door.

Steven was in the experimentation rooms when the plan began. I don't remember what it was that I unleashed on them. Once I opened it's cage and faked putting cuffs of it I stabbed the one who had forced me to do so in the neck with the keys he had entrusted me. They had wanted me to become a weapon but they never thought that I would turn on them. Never thought i had a will of my own.

It was during this chaos that I ran to the room that I had seen them take Steven to. When I opened the doors I had to stop myself from crying out. He had tried to break free without my help. His punishment had been to be cut opened and burned from the inside with fire and a silver stake through his heart. Something that would ensure a vampire never came back. I had to force my feet to move to the room where they stored the documents of all the experiments they had done. To my luck it was all paper copies, they couldn't have anyone hacking into their systems and learning what they were doing. I fallowed the plan and caught the room on fire and there I was planning to stay. That was until Egor showed up out of nowhere and rescued me from that fate. I'm not sure where he came from or how he knew where to find me, but I wouldn't be here if he hadn't. He made me travel with him for a few years before dropping me off at Shinra's door step. He said I needed to be re-humanized before I was allowed into public alone." Ayame didn't register the tears on her face as she gazed down at the floor. She was afraid to look up, afraid to meet anyone's eyes. She felt numb and hallow and so very, very afraid.

She gasped as a hand was placed on her knee and kind brown eyes filled with rage appeared infront of her vision. "If you hadn't said they were dead I would hunt them down and kill them myself." Shizuo's voice was firm as he spoke.

Out of the corner of her eye Ayame registered Celty pulling Shinra out of the room, one hand over his mouth. All she wanted to do was sleep but she couldn't stop the tears from falling. She wasn't sure what drove her to do so, but she dropped the pillow she was clinging to and wrapped her arms around Shizuo. He was stiff under her arms as she hid her face in his neck and fisted her hands in the back of his shirt so hard that they cramped. All those years she had bottled up those emotions inside her, all those years she hadn't even dared show what she felt, and now that she had spoke it the dam finally broke.

After a few moments of being suddenly clung to Shizuo relaxed. He never would have thought that he would be the one comforting anyone, everyone was always afraid of him. Not this girl, she was so tiny and yet she didn't fear his strength at all. As gently as he could he hugged her back, afraid to break her. He wasn't sure what to say so he chose to say nothing. It was some time before her childlike wailin came to a stop and he realized that she had fallen asleep clinging to him. A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he pulled the girl off of the couch. He wasn't sure which room was hers but he figured it wouldn't be too hard to sort it out.

Thankfully there was only two other bedrooms in the apartment. The first one Shizuo came to was what appeared to be guest room. The second door he came to made the smile from before come back. On the bed there were stuffed animals thrown about. All of them were were fluffy and appeared to be soft, from what he could see in the closet there were clothes that didn't quiet meet the usual oversize hoodie that he was so used to seeing Ayame in. He couldn't tell much detail from the lighting of the room and wasn't particularly interesting in nosing around either.

The difficulty of the situation wasn't finding the girls room, the difficult part was trying to get her to let him go so he could lay her down in bed. When Shizuo couldn't get her hands to release he unbuttoned his shirt and took it off being careful not to drop her. Ayame made a small sound and hugged the shirt close to her chest never opening her eyes once. Shizuo knew he should go back to the couch and sleep but it had been a very long night and a part of him didn't want to leave her alone. His mind raced with her story and all that she had endured. The fact that she wasn't completely insane was a feat in itself, a normal.person would have broken after that.

Shizuo settled himself on the floor using a teddy beat as a pillow. It wasn't the most comfortable but he found himself dozing off none the less.

It wasn't long before a quiet rap on the door woke Shizuo up from his slumber. Before he could say anything the door was jerked open and an overly cheerful Shinra smiled down at Shizuo.

"Didn't do anything perverted to my little sister while she was sleeping did you?" While his voice was cheerful his eyes were a bit darker then usual.

"Like hell I would do that." He threw the nearest thing to him, a panda plushie, at Shinra as hard as he could. He hit his target knocking him down to the ground.

Before Shinra could say anything else annoying Celty enshrouded him in a shadow ball, her helmet shacking back and forth.

Sorry about that. She's going to be asleep for about a week or more. Would you like her to stay here or should we move her back into your place?

Shizuo sat up and rubbed his eyes as he read the text on Celty's phone.

"Where ever you think she will be safest. She's welcome to stay at my place as long as she likes." Shizuo glanced over to the sleeping girl, his eyes softening from the annoyance Shinra had caused.

We'll move her to your place later on. She paused for a moment as if thinking and then continued, despite his actions Shinra approves. And with that Celty left a very confused Shizuo with his thoughts. What they hell did she mean Shinra approves? Approves of what? He sighed and laid back down knowing sleep wouldn't come back to him.

It had to of been Izaya who had caused those people to attack her. She was in this state because of that flea and he would kill him for it!

In order to heal an infected wound must be reopened. Only once in infection is let out can it start to heal. But nobody said healing would be easy.