Golden

It was Saito. And yet at the same time it wasn't. Besides the crimson eyes and the low growling like he was some feral animal, there was a wound on his neck that Tsukune had not noticed before. From it, dark lesions spread out to cover a good portion of his body and there was even some strange growth on his back, almost like poorly-developed wings. It looked like he had some kind of fungal infection covering his skin.

His hands looked bigger, with sharp claws instead of fingers. His broken leg looked like it had healed but not been properly set, making him limp with every step. He also leaned towards the right, right arm hanging a little looser than the left, perhaps because of the damage that had been done to it earlier, again most likely healing but not set properly.

As a whole, he also looked even more muscular than Tsukune remembered and he was not sure what had happened to him to make him that way, but he knew who was responsible - and she was lying dead on the gymnasium floor.

Sirens wailed from afar as the police backup got closer. Overhead, choppers from local news crews were being chased off by a dark blue helicopter with "POLICE" written in big white letters across its tail. It had only been at most five minutes since Saito had emerged from the school, five minutes of stunned and uneasy silence save for the low growls that came from Saito.

Tsukune got up, finally getting over his initial shock at seeing his friend not only alive, but turned into some kind of terrifying monster by Akua. It was a strange sight to behold, the dozen or so police officers with their guns pointed at the changed Saito while he stood, seemingly rooted to the spot, as the two sides waged a silent standoff.

The police were unsure of what to do, too bewildered and afraid by the sight of the creature Saito had become and what he had done to their fellow officers to come closer and apprehend him because he was unlike any other criminal they had seen, while also too hesitant to shoot because he was not doing anything threatening or violent anymore.

What Tsukune did know was that he had killed police officers, and undoubtedly some of the cops there would not mind at all shooting him down and calling it a day, in revenge for those who had fallen. Not wanting to see his friend shot down like some animal, he decided to take it upon himself to try and talk Saito into surrendering, or at least trying to communicate to whatever Saito had become in the hopes that somewhere, deep down under the bloody, fungi-like, and terrifying exterior there was still his childhood best friend.

"Saito!" he yelled all of a sudden, walking towards his childhood friend a little shakily at first, causing the monstrous version of him to turn to him.

"Tsukune! W-What the heck do you think you're doing?" Rocca hissed, still sitting on the ground, too afraid and stunned to move but getting over his stunned expression enough to at least speak.

"Saito!" Tsukune continued to get closer, ignoring Rocca and stopping only when, as he was walking by Ramsey, the British man grabbed his shoulder.

"Are you out of your mind? Look at him, Tsukune! He's some kind of monster now," he said, machine gun trained on the changed Saito. "He's not Saito anymore."

Tsukune shrugged off his hand, "No, Ramsey, he has to be somewhere in there. I can't just... write him off. I can't accept that he's gone without trying to save him from... well, whatever he's become." He kept walking.

"Fuck!" Ramsey muttered as he made sure to keep the thing down in his sights, although Tsukune was too close to his line of fear for comfort. If something were to happen, he would not hesitate to empty the full magazine in to that thing, and he only hoped that Tsukune would get out of the way before he pulled the trigger else a stray bullet happen to hit him. Not that he didn't trust his aim, but accidents did happen even to the most well-trained of soldiers.

Tires screeched as more police cars arrived, coming to a stop at the gate, a half dozen more officers moving around to position themselves for a firefight around the gates if necessary, their guns drawn. The officers who had been there first seemed relieved to see their backup.

Tsukune continued to get closer to Saito and several officers tried to yell at him to get back, but he ignored them too.

-xxxxxx-

Two beeps from the intercom on the desk echoed throughout the massive office, interrupting the conversation of the three people present.

"What is it? I said I was not to be disturbed," said the woman with light blonde hair who sat behind a large, modern-style desk of expensive dark wood and glass, her tone even but with an edge of irritation as she pressed on the intercom to activate it.

"Sorry Madame, urgent call from Wacher Alpha-Two. I have it on line 1," replied her assistant apologetically but steadily.

The woman sitting behind the desk pursed her lips, glancing at the phone with the blinking light, indicating a call was waiting, before returning her gaze to her guest. Her assistant was smart, able, and trusted, so if she interrupted an important meeting and said that this was urgent then it really must be.

"My apologies, Lord Cherkath. I'm afraid our meeting must be cut short," she said, standing to signal him to leave.

The vampire lord followed suit and got to his feet, bowing his head though his eyes showed a slight irritation, "Of course, Lady Shuzen." Turning, he walked the long way to the door back straight and chin high, and let himself out of the office quietly.

Once he was gone, the woman glanced to her remaining companion who was off to the side before picking up the phone and activating the waiting line with a touch of a finger.

"Report," she said sternly, promising pain if the news her spy brought was not as important as indicated.

"Sorry for interrupting, Lady Shuzen, but it is Miss Akua. She has... gone too far," came the gruff voice at the other end. He proceeded to explain the situation to her, and as he explained her grip tightened on the phone. This was pretty serious.

"Very well. I shall send someone along to collect her." With that she hung up, turning to the remaining other person in the room.

She stood, dressed in a white dress with matching white gloves and boots, off to the side by the large floor-to-ceiling windows, silently admiring the spectacular view from atop one of the tallest buildings in Tokyo. Her light blonde hair falling in waves around her head to her shoulders, bangs framing her face and a tiara sparkling where it caught the sunlight.

By all accounts, the other woman was a spitting image of her, albeit her hair was much longer and her skin not as tanned. From their looks and youthfulness, they could undoubtedly pass as sisters.

"Kahlua," the woman by the desk called to the white-clad woman, causing her to turn away from her view and smile. "I need you to get your sister. Immediately."

"Yes mother."

-xxxxxx-

Tsukune came to a rest about ten feet away from Saito, stopping mostly because his changed friend started growling and crouching low as if rearing to strike when he got about that close. Not wanting to test him and die like the earlier officers, he thought it wise to halt his advance. He noticed now that he was close enough that Saito was breathing heavily, almost like every drawn breath was a labor.

Up close, the red eyes looked conflicted instead of simply frightening and angry. Tsukune could have been wrong, but there was even a hint of fear in there that he could see. Or at least he thought it was fear. Was that Saito in there?

"Hey Saito," said Tsukune loud enough to be heard but soft enough not to sound challenging or threatening. He was suddenly unsure of what to say. He hadn't really thought this through beyond getting close enough to be seen and to talk. "Uhhh, heh, well... look, I know that... I know that you must be in there, buddy. I know that you didn't mean to hurt anyone. That this was all just... a big accident. A mistake. You're not a monster, Saito."

Saito bared his teeth and growled, showing elongated, sharper canines than normal. His whole body, Tsukune realized, was shaking, but not from exhaustion. More like there was a contest of wills going on inside his head and the body was unsure of what to do, wanting to move and yet being told not to. The fact that he had not tried to hurt anyone else out here seemed to support that theory.

"We can fix it, Saito. We can help you. Just..." he took a tentative step forward, and then another. "Just stay calm and don't do anything... rash."

Saito didn't growl again, though his body was more visibly shaking now, muscles straining against each other. His claws curled in, like he was balling his fists, and Tsukun eyed them warily.

By the gates, another police car arrived and the precinct captain stepped out of his cruiser, grabbing a rifle from the trunk. He walked towards the nearest officer. "What the hell is going on? Why haven't we taken that thing down yet?" he asked incredulously.

The officer pointed to Tsukune, "That kid is trying to talk to the thing, sir. I think he's trying to get him to go quietly."

"The hell he is!" exclaimed the captain, "That thing took out three of our fellow officers, dammit! Shoot it down!"

"But, sir, what about the kid?" said the officer, hesitant to fire while there was a civilian so close to the target.

The captain shook his head, raising his rifle. "There's this thing called aiming," he replied angrily, aiming and squeezing the trigger a second later as the officers around him readied to fire as well.

BANG.

Tsukune instinctively ducked as he heard the crack of the gunshot, getting low to the ground and then looking up in horror as Saito growled in pain. The bullet had hit him straight in the chin, shattering the jawbone and exiting out through the back of the neck, blood spewing from both entry and exit wounds. He staggered back two steps from the impact but stayed on his feet.

Nobody moved, stunned both because of the sudden shot and the fact that the target was still standing after taking a bullet straight to the face.

Then, within a second or two, the wound rapidly healed itself. It was as if nothing had happened. Except something did change in Saito's demeanor, and Tsukune was suddenly very afraid as Saito let out a savage roar as he bared his teeth and clicked his claws together as if ready to eviscerate everyone. Gone were his crimson pupils, his eyes completely and terrifyingly white instead. Now he seemed truly like a monster possessed.

"Saito! Don-" Tsukune was saying but Saito lunged forward and backhanded him, the blow hitting him with such force that it sent him flying into the side of the school, causing a cracks to appear in the cement. He hit the wall with a loud smack, falling to the ground in a crumpled heap as pain exploded all over his body. Surprisingly he stayed conscious, albeit painfully so.

Ramsey wanted to check on Tsukune but did not want to waste this opportunity. Now that Tsukune was out of the way, he pulled on the trigger just as the police captain yelled, "OPEN FIRE!" Immediately, there was an orchestra of gunfire as bullets rained on the angry Saito.

A few of the initial shots managed to hit Saito, but he was quickly on the move as he barreled into the nearest police cruiser with his shoulder, tossing it back and making it roll over fom the force of the impact, crushing the officers that had been using it as cover. He moved with astonishing speed, even with his limp, and his claws tore through several more officers who were unlucky enough to be within reach, their dying cries making the rest of the police to fire with increased urgency to try and take him down.

Officers in the chopper overhead began firing their machine guns down on Saito, causing him to grab the nearest cruiser, claws sinking surprisingly easily into the metal. With almost no effort, he flung the cruiser into the air, managing to catch the helicopter as it slowed to allow the shooters sitting on the edge of either side to aim. The ground vehicles collided with its aerial counterpart, exploding in a giant ball of fame and their fiery remains hurtling down into the street just outside the school with a tremendous crash.

The captain was firing his pistol, having run out of ammo for his rifle, when the explosion knocked him off of his feet. Unfortunately for him, at that moment Saito chose to lunge close to him. The captain yelled in fear and pain as giant claws wrapped around him, slicing deeply into his skin. Then Saito beared his teeth and bit into the man's neck hungrily, fresh blood spilling all over as gunshots continued to impact his torso with little effect.

Every hit healed almost as quickly as they appeared, and even the heavy booming shotguns did little but momentarily push Saito around. The remaining officers watched in horror as their captain was made a meal, unable to do anything but continue shooting with a quarter of the gathered force already dead or dying. Someone called for more backup.

Ramsey realized that shooting the torso was pointless and thinking quickly, taking the time to aim properly while Saito was standing still with his prey, he aimed for the thing's knees, letting loose with a short burst of bullets.

It let go of the captain and howled in pain, much to Ramsey's delight, falling to the ground as its knee exploded in a shower of blood and bone. The remaining police officers continued to open fire, but they mostly targeted the torso and that did little to slow it down as it struggled to get on its feet, knee beginning to repair itself. A few shots managed to hit Saito in the head, and that also served to incapacitate him for a few seconds before those hits frustratingly healed as well.

Tsukune struggled to move. It had happened so fast that he felt that he hit the wall about the same time that Saito had smacked him. Everything hurt. To him, everything felt broken. Hot liquid soaked the back of his head, accompanying the sting of an open wound where he had hit the wall hard with his head. He found himself asking for the second time that day why he was so weak, too weak to be of any use to anyone, though he was happy to be conscious and happier still to be alive.

Footsteps crunched nearby, barely audible over all the gunfire. "Tsukune! You o-okay man?" the familiar and concerned voice of Rocca asked, his friend kneeling beside him. He was clearly very frightened and completely out of his element, getting the courage to move only when he saw him get thrown into the wall. Then again he could not be blamed since it was not every day that a teenager faced monsters and gunfights.

All Tsukune could do was cough as he tried to respond and get up, clutching at his chest. There was pain with every breath he took, and he could have sworn he heard himself wheezing, but the adrenaline that was rushing into his veins was helping to dampen the pain and it was slowly ebbing away.

"I... hard to... breathe.." he replied finally, coughing.

"Easy now," Rocca said as he helped Tsukune gingerly get to his knees and then to his feet, gunfire continuing to erupt across the front of the school like a warzone.

Ramsey couldn't believe his eyes as the thing stood up again, roaring defiantly as he thinned the ranks of the police further. Half of them were dead already. He looked to the street and saw black vans with police lights flashing pull up, men clad in all black jumping out of the backs of the vans. On the sides of those vans were the letters 'SAT' in white, and the sight of them made him feel a little bit better.

It was about time the Special Assault Teams showed up; they were the Japanese equivalent of SWAT teams, responding to situations that the normal police couldn't handle, and they were often used for counter-terrorism operations. The SAT operatives were decked out in black combat armor complete with matching black kevlar helmets. They came packing with assault rifles, shotguns, grenades, and other heavier military equipment that the normal police didn't have access to.

Looking over his shoulder to where Tsukune had been thrown to, he noticed that the teen in question was thankfully on his feet, although clearly in pain. Ramsey ran over, taking out the empty clip from his machine gun and replacing it with another one as he arrived next to the teens.

"I'm on my last magazine, and that bloody thing is still moving after all the fucking lead we pumped into it," he said bitterly, "We're going to have to get to a safe place and let the authorities handle this now." He couldn't help but think that they should've left the place when they had the chance before that thing came out of the school.

Rocca looked around at the carnage, shaking his head, "I don't think the authorities c-can handle this!"

Ramsey grunted. "It doesn't matter. Either way, we need to get out of here."

No sooner had he said that, the SAT teams opened fire after settling into their positions along the fence and around the gate. The sounds of automatic weapons rang through the air, accompanied by loud roars of pain and anger from their target.

-xxxxxx-

Akua watched the carnage unfold with a giddy smile. Tsukune's gun-wielding friend had caught her by surprise earlier, hitting her while in her human form when she was at her weakest. When she woke up, livid as hell, she knew the perfect way to retaliate for being shot like that.

Turning Saito into a ghoul had always been her plan, since she was hoping to keep him as a pet and trophy for her success at making sure Moka and Tsukune were never going to get back together. But in her anger after recovering from the close-quarters gunshots, she unleashed him. Now her pet ghoul carpeted the front grounds of the school with blood.

While she felt she may have gone too far, she could not help but be entertained with the violent show she was seeing. Humans were so weak. The Saito ghoul wasn't even that strong of a ghoul, and yet they were hard-pressed to fight it.

She noted however that since the new arrivals of the SAT her new pet ghoul's Yoki energy was getting much too low and frowned at that. The ghoul was burning up a lot of energy recovering from the dozens and dozens of gunshot wounds it was sustaining every second from the SAT squads and their machine guns and shotguns.

Saving the ghoul was out of the question; he was expendable. Off to the side, trying to move around the edges of the firefight, she noticed that Tsukune and his friends were still alive. Smiling, she decided it was time to finally finish what she had started. She emerged from her hiding place on the roof and jumped into the air, the full extent of her vampire powers exploded outward in a wave of Yoki energy as she released her true form.

-xxxxxx-

Without warning, the sky darkened considerably as if a great shadow had fallen over the area even though the skies were clear and the sun still above the horizon, though begging to dip already The gunfire stopped as the soldiers paused, fear gripping tightly as they looked up at the sky and noted the unnatural shadow all around that seemed to taint the very air. They felt a strange presence as well, an aura of darkness that shook them to their core, making them feel like children before the bogey man.

Tsukune, Rocca, and Ramsey felt it too, a chill creeping down their spines.

"He did a decent job," said an all-too-familiar voice from somewhere behind them, one that Tsukune and Ramsey did not expect to hear anymore. Her remark came off so casually it was like someone commenting on the performance of a player in a sports game, instead of the chaos and carnage brought about by an enraged monster. "He fought against the change, I saw that you noticed that, Tsukune. But unfortunately, he was not strong enough to resist it in the end..."

Ramsey, upon hearing the voice, immediately tracked it by concentrating on his hearing, and then whirled around, opening fire. She was not there however, and he instantly felt a presence next to him, making him gulp.

"Nice try, but you won't have the pleasure of shooting me twice. Not that your bullets would have any effect on me now," she whispered, her hot breath tickling his ear.

He pushed against her with his shoulder and rammed the butt of his gun into her face, or at least he tried to. She ducked, grabbed his arm in a crushing grip forceful enough to make him instantly drop his gun, moved around a little, and then using her free hand she punched into his forcefully extended arm. There was a sickening crunch as the arm bent forward, followed by Ramsey's cry of pain at his right arm being broken.

"And just in case you get any ideas," she added while moving to break his other arm. Again the crunch, and again the cry of pain. Tears streamed down Ramseys face and he looked to be in agony. He fell to his knees, going into shock from his grave injuries, his breaths quick and panicked.

Rocca had fallen to the ground, shake and in terror, his pants wet because he had pissed himself.

"Should I, or should I not break your legs too? Decisions, decisions..." she asked Ramsey's kneeling figure aloud in an amused tone.

"STOP IT!" yelled Tsukune, his chest hurting but he didn't care anymore. He wanted to put an end to it all. "Just stop."

Akua smirked at him, red eyes bright and eager. "Oh? But I've only started!" She pointed a pale finger at the cowering Rocca by his feet. "I was going to move on to your other friend next."

"I'm the one you want to hurt, right? Stop hurting them and hurt me instead. Please," Tsukune pleaded, trying desperately to spare his friends.

A loud roar echoed around, coming from Saito, followed by the resumption of heavy gunfire.

The vampire pushed Ramsey to the side, the man falling hard and with a grunt of pain as he rolled onto his back, breathing heavily and pretty much incapacitated. She closed the gap between her and Tsukune with two steps of her long, slender legs.

"Hmmm..." she mockingly pretended to consider his words, "How about, no?" With that she lifted a leg and her boot stomped down on Rocca's leg, crushing his right shin bone and calf under her boots with a sickening crunch. Blood and flesh burst through the skin.

Rocca cried out in pure agony, his cry so strong and full of pain that Tsukune flinched more from hearing it than he did from hearing and seeing the crushing of the actual leg.

Ramsey saw what she did to Rocca and yelled, "Rocca! Oh you fucking bitch! Fuck! I bloody fucking killed you, I'll kill you again. I'll fucking kill you again!" He tried to get to his feet, but only succeeded in rolling onto his side, painfully.

Akua laughed, turning to face the man who was lying on his back with two broken arms. "Tell me, mister foreigner... mister tough guy... how are you going to kill me, when you're already dead?" She didn't even give him a chance to respond as she slammed her fist into his face. Blood splattered everywhere as her lethal punch caved in half of Ramsey's face.

At that point, Rocca passed out and fell backwards, what he had just seen and what had happened to his leg too much for him to handle.

"NOOOOO!" Tsukune yelled, tears in his eyes, witnessing Ramsey's death up close as well as the attack on his defenseless friend and not being able to do anything about it pushing him over the edge. His legs buckled but he remained standing through sheer force of will.

Akua retracted her fist, licking the blood, and smiled as she straightened herself. She faced the enraged Tsukune, with his fists clenched, body tense, face scrunched up in anger and eyes closed.

She repeated her earlier offer to him before they were rudely interrupted by the man she had just killed, raising her arms to either side with palms facing Tsukune.

"One shot, Tsukune Aono. I offer it to you again. One chance to hit me, wherever you want." Her red eyes watched him carefully, noting that there was something different about him now. A change that happened in the span of only the last few seconds. Something she could not quite identify, not that it changed her tone. He was still a weak human after all, and no matter his anger he could not possibly hurt her.

"So, what's it going to be, Tsukune? Do I have to kill your other friend too in order to motivate you?"

This time it was Tsukune's turn to smirk, which came as a surprise to Akua who hesitated for a microsecond, her eyes narrowing. The smirk came when he felt a strange power surge through him, giving him a strength and calm that he had never known before. Welcoming it. Embracing it. Channeling it. He allowed it to fill him from the tips of his toes to even the ends of his hair. Coursing through him, the energy was a hurricane of power brewing. And, for whatever reason, he knew that thanks to this strange power he was no longer the helpless teen that he was only moments ago. His right fist tightened anxiously.

"Well. Tsukune? Are you going to hit me or-" Akua didn't finish as Tsukune, in the blink of an eye, stepped forward and slammed his fist into her chest with such ferocity that she was sent hurtling backwards. Her body tore through the high fence and ended up crashing into a thicket of trees in the park across the street, making three particularly thick ones fall with heavy groans and thuds when she broke their trunks hitting them.

Tsukune still had his right fist extended through the space Akua had previously occupied, right leg forward and left leg facing to the side as he had used it to pivot, his left hand tensed ready to deliver another blow though he did not need it. He opened his eyes, each one glowing with a golden light. In fact, his entire body now seemed to be aglow. The energy kept surging through him, not stopping and he actually felt overwhelmed for a moment to the point that it finally burst forth, sending out a shockwave of golden and white energy as he yelled towards the sky at its release.

-xxxxxx-

Tetsuo Aono looked to his wife, who had stopped midway through cutting up vegetables for dinner and was staring at her husband with a stunned expression.

"Did you...? he asked, hesitantly, hoping that he had simply imagined it.

She slowly nodded.

Tetsuo stood abruptly, the chair he was sitting on tipping back and falling from the sudden movement.

-xxxxxx-

Akua got to her feet slower than she would have liked to admit, furious at herself for apparently not being able to handle a punch from Tsukune, a lowly human. Absently rubbing her chest where she had been hit, the broken bones had already repaired themselves. That punch was beyond anything she expected Tsukune to be capable of.

Her mind was trying to comprehend what had just happened. How on earth did a weakling like him manage to throw a punch like that? There had to be some kind of trick, or was this something that Tsukune had been successfully hiding all this time? Was he actually a monster too?

She eventually came to the conclusion that he must be a monster, one that could mask his Yoki energy perfectly so as to be undetectable, allowing him to pass as a human. Otherwise she should have been able to detect his Yoki energy. There was no other possible explanation that she could think of.

Gritting her teeth, her own fists tightening in rage, her red eyes glowed brightly. Now that she knew he had some power, she had no reason to hold back any longer. She was going to tear his limbs off one by one, with the head last, though not before toying with him a little. Liking the thought, she moved to return to the school when someone appeared in front of her, blocking her path.

Her eyes went wide. "Kahlua..?"

Her younger step-sister by only a few years, Kahlua stood in her usual elegant white dress, with matching snow white gloves and boots. Her skin was tanned, unlike the pale skin that the rest of the Shuzen clan had, a trait that she got from her mother Gyokuro Shuzen. And the white dress accentuated that tan. Her light blonde hair, wavy and going past her shoulders, was held in place by a tiara, although she allowed for some bangs over her forehead. She was beautiful, as all the Shuzen children were.

"Hi, Akua!" greeted Kahlua with a big smile, genuinely happy to see her.

Akua had an inkling as to why she was there, but asked anyway, "Kahlua. Why are you here?"

"Mother has asked me to put an end whatever this is and to come get you. You've gone too far this time, she says," came the honest reply, conveyed in a light and happy tone as if the message wasn't serious at all, even though it was.

"Okay, I'll come with you. But I need to take care of something really quickly first." Akua tried moving around Kahlua, only to have the blonde grab her arm with a firm grip.

Kahlua's red eyes stared unflinchingly into her own. "No, Akua. You must come with me now. Mother's orders."

-xxxxxx-

The strange shadow covering the area lifted and Tsukune found himself still glowing, although not as brightly as earlier when he had yelled at the sky at the release of the pent up energy. He was breathing easy, he noticed, the pain in his chest having gone away. He attributed it to the energy that had surged through him, that still surged through him.

His eyes flicked down at Ramsey's corpse, his heart and stomach lurching at the grisly sight before he turned to look at Rocca, passed out on the ground with his flattened lower right leg looking absolutely horrible. Blood was still spurting out from the traumatic wound as bits of flesh and muscle were spread out around the leg.

"Freeze!" yelled several SAT operatives at the same time, heavy boots thudding against the ground, machine guns pointed at him menacingly. Their barrels were still smoking from all the rounds they had fired at Saito, who was eventually taken down when his regenerative capabilities failed thanks to his depleted Yoki.

Tsukune held his hands high, gulping and realizing that they were considering him a threat because of the fact that he was glowing. He was thankful that whatever energy that he somehow managed to call forth hadn't transformed him into some beast, otherwise he was sure they would have fired first and asked questions later.

"Don't move, or we will shoot you," warned another SAT squad member. That same SAT operative talked into a microphone built into his helmet, saying, "We've got a potential suspect, sir. A teenage boy. What do you want me to do with him?" He nodded, obviously hearing the response through speakers in his helmet although Tsukune couldn't hear anything other than his side of the conversation. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir. I'll bring him in personally."

"Alright, cuff him. We're bringing him to Central," said one of the operatives, gun still trained on him with trigger finger at the ready. They really weren't taking any chances.

Sirens wailed loudly as more emergency response personnel started to arrive, given clearance to enter the crime scene. A lot more ambulances than anything else.

Right before one of the SAT members approached with handcuffs, Tsukune tensed as he sensed something coming with great speed. He suddenly disappeared in a rush of wind, much to the bewilderment of the SAT squad that had surrounded him.

"Fuck! Where the hell did he go?" one of them said in dismay, each one scanning the area and gripping their guns tightly.

Author's notes: Things are getting a lot more interesting, I'd say. I hope you know that you're in for a ride. :)

FYI: Tsukune will be strong, but he won't be invincible.