Cat, Mouse and Labyrinth

Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario Vampire or any part of its franchise. I would also like to thank lord of the land of fire for giving me permission to write this.

Chapter nineteen is up. One more and that's a wrap for The Unsealed Vampire: Tsukune's Redemption.

This is a sequel to The Unsealed Vampire story by lord of the land of fire and The Unsealed Vampire: Tsukune's Revenge by yours truly.

Now that I am done wasting your time with author's notes, let us move on to the main attraction.

Enjoy:

Miracle of miracles, Tsukune actually made it through! How did he make it? He would never guess, though he would venture that a guardian angel just happened to pass on by and take pity on the unfortunate soul playing dodge the bullet out on the field. After all, stranger things have taken place in this world filled with magic, monsters and mayhem.

The palace bunker interior changed a bit since his last visit. For starters, there weren't staked bodies lining up a clear and forward path deeper into the base. The metallic walls splashed with blood did very little to put him at ease, either. To top it all off, some among the corpses that had impaled were monsters while others looked to be HLF operatives. He recognized some of the faces he encountered as he walked along this grotesque museum of horrors, forever petrified with a look of dread in no doubt what was a realization of what was about to befall them.

Tsukune did his best to hold back a tear that was forming in his eye. These were the ones he had fought with at the Snow Village. These were the brave people who put their lives on the line so that the slaves in this Mountain could know that sweet feeling of freedom. They now stood as a monument to what the defenders of Humanity had become: Twisted mockeries of their former selves, exactly what he had once been.

Sato had gone to far this time. Executing countless innocents, all to suit her taste for blood. Never had he witnessed such acts of barbarism before. And the corridor went on, and on, and on... The more he moved forward, the more he felt the need to end her reign of terror. Whatever human survived until after Sato was defeated would go on to live a long happy life in the Human World, that he vowed. Too many of his brothers already met fates they didn't deserve, no one would be added to the ghastly count from this moment onwards.

Finally, he came upon the main entrance where once stood the throne of the Charmer. In it's place stood a statue that belittle any who would walk through the morbid gallery. And what he saw both shamed him and horrified him beyond what he could have believed possible. All he could do was observe in quiet wonder at how disgusting the scene in front of him looked.

The statue that stood proudly was a depiction of none other than himself as a ghoul. The hungry glare, the animal-like posture, the evil and toothy grin and pronounced ghoul markings were all reminiscent of many a visions he had had of himself. Seeing that same face every time he looked at Reaper, every time he got a good look at his own dark side. The beast on display was him, made to honor his commitment to the cause, no doubt. Yet it appeared more to be a stark reminder of what Ayano Sato expected her men to become.

Reaper was the model she held, so all under her command had to strive for that exact same goal. Any incapable of reaching for that objective would be made to hide from the gaze of the dead leader, impaled in a dark place with no attempt at a decent burial. Just one more piece of meat added to the pile, this was sickening.

He hadn't expected this to be a walk in the park, true. He expected adversity, a challenge that would give him all the more reason to end this madness immediately. However, never could he have imagined such a spectacle. If he had come only a few days earlier, he would have seen Reaper put on a pedestal for his criminal accomplishments. Today, all he saw in that statue was himself, consumed with hate, anger and madness.

And she was doing this on purpose, the whole choice of macabre interior decoration was a blatant invitation to meet her as quickly as was physically possible. She came down into the city in order to wave at him and make sure he knew she was was in charge around these parts, this was a message asking him to hurry and up.

For her crimes against Humanity and against Monster-kind, he would make sure she never made it out of this bunker to harm another living soul. Without another glance at the statue standing proudly inside the military grade base, he raced off to find the source of all these horrors. As he ran, more bodies and blood lined the halls he traveled down. Hundreds had been killed, simply as a welcome home present.

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Hundreds had died in the making of this presentation, and he hardly could be bothered to contemplate it for more than a few minutes before running off in search of the HLF leader. Did he have any idea how hard it was to track down some of those retired HLF soldiers to get them up on pikes? Granted, they were only a small percentage of the dead, most of the humans were humans who made the mistake of having morals. But still, bad manners were bad manners.

When someone works that hard on a work of art, you are supposed to take in the sight, thank the artist, and go about your merry day. She went so far as to build a twenty meter high effigy of him to complete the ensemble. Okay, she had to admit it was a labor of love so it didn't feel like it took all that much time.

At this rate, she didn't qualify as an artist anymore, she was an artiste! The heights of fine arts, the paragon of beauty, the best of good taste, all wasted on a guy who couldn't even kill a fly without feeling a little remorse anymore. Oh well, she would have to get a better grasp on her craft for her next project. Reaper could keep his gags and punchline, boy did she miss him, she had her own signature style now. It really was fun to be her.

She took a break from watching him running down the endless halls and stairs in the base. Seriously, that wasn't all that exciting. Besides, she had a little bit of time before he would make his way to the control room. So she could step away and finish up what she had to do here and go back to patiently waiting for him like a good little lackey is supposed to.

She went back to carving up the face of one of her officers with her trusty knife she happily dubbed Mister Stingy. Mister Stingy had been working ever since she got back from her little trip outside the base. Stabbing, carving, and tearing apart members of Scythe was what he did best so why halt the fun now?

Why commit such a random thing against your own people? Especially people who kept the very organization you directed afloat? While she sat around for him to show up, she had an epiphany: The HLF wasn't any fun anymore. It got stale. Why? Maybe because it got too big for her tastes. She missed the anticipation of creating something new, fresh and interesting. Sure, she wasn't there for the creation of the HLF but she would be around for it's next incarnation, she was certain of that much.

Hence, the plan changed a little. She would defeat Tsukune, capture him, strap him down to her torture chair, work him over a little bit, get Reaper back into the game, run away with him, create a new HLF with him back as the head honcho and watch the world burn as she took a few sips from a chocolate smoothie. Damn did she want a smoothie right now... No, bad girl. Smoothies were for after ripping people apart. Not before and not during. Honestly, she could be such a hand full for herself sometimes. Acting like a child at the drop of a hat was such a bother. Luckily, she was around to discipline herself, what would she do without her? Hopefully, she would never have to find out.

A small whimper could be heard in the engineer chair behind, the latest victim of her killing spree, no doubt. She swirled around to face the tied up Scythe operative and waved her finger disapprovingly at him. Silly man, dead people don't feel pain. As punishment, she plunged Mister Stingy into his leg and sat on his undamaged other in order to get a front row seat to the agony he was going through.

The pain that flashed across his face, the beads of sweat that came trickling down his bloodied face as his mind struggled to cope with the it was subjected to: Marvelous. At that, she let out a soft smile as she wiggled the knife around in his wound. Dumb officer couldn't even tell when he was dead, huh? She could work with that.

Without warning, she violently yanked the knife out of his leg and used it to pierce his heart. She saw this in a movie a few years back, time to see if there was any truth to it. She left the knife rest in his chest as she wrapped her arms around his his neck and leaned in to whisper a few of her thoughts in an effort to scare him a little more before he died.

"Did you know that when pushed to the limit, the human body could go on functioning for seven minutes without a heart? That gives us seven more minutes of playtime, just one and me." She giggled at the prospect. She had no idea if that was an actual fact or not but it sounded enticing, she wanted to try it out.

Regardless of the veracity of her claims, it seemed the officer took what she said as being the truth. In response, he let out a loud scream which Sato did nothing to silence. Screams like that were music to her ears, far be it from her to oppose the art that was musical expression. Seldom did she have the opportunity to hear something like this outside of her own head.

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There was good news and bad news for Tsukune. The good news was that the exposition of dead people had ended a few minutes earlier. Also, he encountered absolutely no opposition after entering the base. Coincidentally, that was also the bad news. Things were quiet, too quiet. It either meant they were all killed off by their psychotic boss, which was a saddening outcome for them, or they were laying in wait, ready to ambush him in which case it would be a saddening outcome for his own self.

The interior of the base was completely soundproof. Therefore, he had the advantage. The insulated padding would help him pick out any suspicious sounds and thus prevent him being caught with his guard down. So far, nothing to be heard apart from his own footsteps and loud breathing. His bullet wound in his shoulder still hurt, but the pain wasn't about to have him scream out in agony anytime soon.

Despite not hearing anything suspicious, the silence still made him feel uneasy about the situation. Great, he was wary of any noise out of the ordinary and he didn't like the awkward silence that signaled to him that nobody was waiting at the next corner to rip his throat out... Being a veteran really didn't do anything for his nerves, that much was a guarantee.

Also, he forgot how long this bunker stretched on. In his experience, he was inclined to think that the underground part of the bunker, where most of the base was, spanned a few city blocks. So, instead of running around from one point to another in the hopes of finding a crazy maniac who barricaded herself somewhere here after sprinting through a no-man's land as bullets chased after his rear end, he could have simply picked a spot and blown it up.

In hindsight, that would have been the best course of action. Stop off somewhere near the Palace that wouldn't make the Huang agents into bullet magnets, put down a few tons of explosives his army picked up while they were getting ready back at the compound and fire in the hole. However, that probably wouldn't have helped, what with the reinforced steel and concrete in between. One could always dream, though.

He needed to focus right now. Going off on these weird thought tangents were starting to become a habit, one he did not much care for. Generally, he would have to morph into his evil self to let his mind wander in such a way. Even though others would be worried about such a shift on their own behavior, Tsukune wasn't alarmed in the least.

He knew exactly what was happening, he could feel the grip of his insanity loosening. His alter-ego was disappearing. Slowly but surely, his other consciousness was losing itself as it was being assimilated by his lighter counterpart. How could he tell? The very fact that he felt it occur was a good indicator. Previously, he would have referred to Reaper as being a separate entity, a being with an actual soul. Now, he saw him for what he really was: a shell created by his brain in order to cope with the horrendous acts he committed in the past.

Perhaps he wasn't able to formulate it that clearly yet, but he instinctively knew that Reaper wasn't real. That meant his asylum-grade insanity was vanishing and his mind was healing. There was also something else that he knew: After today, if the mission was a success, he would be permanently free of his mental illness. This was fixing him... And the Dark Lords knew it would.

He was well-aware that he had been manipulated more than once by those three, Akasha was easy to read when her own guilt weighed on her. He resented them for being so secretive about matters that concerned him directly. He understood their actions but he would make sure he would not let them tug at his strings like they did during the delegation ceremony.

Akasha and Touhou Fuhai weren't the real culprits, they were mostly minding their own business. The one who was to blame for all the manipulations and secrecy was Mikogami. He was the real schemer among them. The others followed along for the ride so he held no real grudge against them. The Headmaster was a different story.

He had noble goals, no one disputed that. But his methods were unethical and that was what bothered him most. Coexistence was an excellent goal, but achieving it meant nothing if the process was built upon lies. The foundation for any trustworthy relationship, such as the one he had developed with Moka and Yukari back at school, relied a great deal on that very basis: trust.

Was that why the Exorcist was so adamant about throwing Tsukune on to the chessboard? Could it be that the genius tactician that he was foresaw that concealment was a losing proposition? Did he anticipate his every thought and move? Was he behind them? No, he might be able to predict how someone would react but his manipulations skills weren't that good. If it were the case, he would never question himself in the first place.

He could see the HLF was not going to be the end. If anything, it was to be the beginning of a whole new war. One, not waged on the field like he had done so far. But rather, a war of diplomatic prowess aimed at maintaining good relations between the various monster species and humans.

A battle of words. Mikogami wasn't forming a grunt to fight in the trenches, he was forming a diplomat capable of realizing how to keep things from spilling out into a conflict. He had planned on Tsukune understanding that he was a pawn. It was all just another trick he invented to get Tsukune to stay alert when dealing with others. He was loathed to admit it, but the Chairman schooled him by both making him carry out the sentence on the HLF comprehend that he would be getting into inter-species politics.

So be it, he would go along with it. He wanted Tsukune to wise up, he would wise up. He would wise up enough to know how to avoid being manipulated while at the same time promoting Coexistence his own way. No more being kept in the dark. Once this was over, he would be free of all constraints that he didn't impose upon himself willingly.

Yeah right...

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The Mokas finally subdued the last dragon that was valiant enough to stand in a sea of his own dead, dying or unconscious comrades. It put up a good fight before it went down, it took a few minutes to get rid of him. Now, it was over. After countless hours of non-stop kicking, punching and the occasional headbutting, the dragons were defeated.

It was quite the workout, Omote's heavy breathing was proof of that. Endurance wasn't something she lacked since training with her mother. Nevertheless, fighting for hours on end against an army was bound to tire anyone out. She just needed to catch her breath and she'd be ready to go for another round, this time, versus the HLF.

Ura was a little tired herself. For the sake of appearances, however, she stood proudly and never let on that it had been a challenge. Behind her stoic posture was an exhausted warrior who wouldn't mind a small break right about that moment. Unfortunately, resting was not an option yet. She wanted to check in and see how Tsukune was faring in a real war.

"Come on, we don't have anytime to waste." She urged her Outer self who was mainly preoccupied with holding herself up by using her legs as support for her hands. By the time she got up to respond affirmatively to her Inner persona, said persona was already well on her way to the Mountain. To add insult to injury, she was doing the very last thing Outer Moka wanted to do: running.

She was going to feel the sting when she sealed her powers away after the battle, that was for sure. It would be days of muscle aches and spams for her. Strenuous activities always had a gruesome side effect for her. Despite her apprehension, she did the best to follow her twin's steps as quickly as was manageable. Alas, it didn't seem to please Ura one bit.

Omote raised her eyes and was met with Ura's disapproving gaze. That slow poke was lagging behind too much for her tastes. "Hurry up, for all we know, Tsukune might need us, lazy." Her encouragement seemed to do the job because she was quick to pick up the pace and move towards the Mountain. See, mention Tsukune and all problems magically melted away.

To boot, she even received an apology on behalf of Omote for being so slow to get to Tsukune's position. "I'm sorry, I didn't even think about that. You're right, we need to hurry." And with that, she sped up a little more. She sure could move fast when she had incentive to do so, so much so that Ura was now the one left in the dust. The fight took a bigger bite out of her than she had expected it to. Good, this was training for when she would be facing Tsukune in the Bounding Fight. The harder it was now, the more prepared she would be for their encounter.

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Wandering around an empty base for the better part of the last few hours, that was all he's been doing lately. The communications center was empty, the war room was vacant, no one to be found inside the ammunition depot. He even checked the panic room and his searches yielded no results. Where did she go?

And more importantly, had she sent out all her forces to fight in the city? She was either a horrible strategist or his earlier prediction that she was rolling out the red carpet for him were more than idle thoughts he was entertaining. For her to have gone on this long as head of the HLF was proof enough that his second guess was the correct answer.

Now that we got that settled, there was still one small detail left to settle: Where was she planning to have the showdown? Let's see: Any open space would be out of the question, close quarter combat was the best terrain for a human carrying a gun, less opportunities for the enemy to dodge. She would be laying an ambush for him, no doubt. Hence, logic dictated that she would have to be somewhere where she would receive an early enough warning to get ready. In essence, she was waiting in a room with little space to move around and some place she could see him coming.

The teen ghoul suddenly felt the unprecedented urge to bang his head against the wall. The answer was so obvious, why didn't he think of it beforehand? She was at the security checkpoint. Since that was the case, she's been observing him from the very moment he set foot inside the bunker. In other words, a surprise attack was not in the cards.

Very well then, he would announce his arrival nice and proper. If she wanted a one on one showdown, he was going to give it to her. He then turned to face the camera in the upper corner of the cramped room he stopped to plot his next course of action in. He raised his hand, took aim, and fired off a single shot that disintegrated the only means for Sato to keep an eye on him. He then moved on to fight her in person.

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Ayano began clapping enthusiastically in front of the blacked out screen. He got it! He finally got it. Now it would only be a matter of a few moments before an enraged Tsukune came crashing through that door and tried to kill her. Just in time too, she was tired of carving up dead flesh like the guy who was still tied up in the engineer's chair.

What was his name? Yoshiharo? Yoshitsune? Yoshi? Something that started with a Y... It wasn't important. For now, she would call him Joe, he didn't look too Japanese to her to begin with. Anyways, Joe lasted four minutes, only four minutes. How could she be expected to have fun if she was surrounded with defective toys?

Enough crying over spilled blood. She had very little time left to enact the last part of her plan so she would need to get it over with quickly. She picked up a cellphone and a roll of duct tap laying in front of her and moved over to the corpse to make the necessary modifications on poor dead Joe's body. Lucky him, he got to serve the HLF even in death.

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The door went flying off it's hinges, blown away by another blood bullet that left a sizable dent in the metallic door now knocked on the floor. He entered with his right arm at the ready, supported by his left arm to make sure the kickback wouldn't impede his precision. In the far corner, he could see a number of screens, all broadcasting images of the base save for the one he blew up. A quick look revealed that there was nothing out of the ordinary apart from a chair placed in front of the screens.

He couldn't quite make out the small form that was present above the chair due to the fact that the room was mostly plunged in darkness and that it had it's back turned to him. Nonetheless, he could make it out as being the shape of a human head. She was still sitting in her chair? Something didn't feel right about this.

"Hiya boss. Took your sweet time getting here." Her tone was conversational. If not for the war raging on outside and the door that was just blown off it's hinges, it would almost have seemed as nothing more than two old friends exchanging pleasantries after meeting up. Clearly, she was not at all offset by the aggressive behavior her former boss was displaying.

It didn't really matter how she reacted at this point to be honest, he had a job to do and no amount of lighthearted banter was going to change that. "You know why I'm here. This madness ends now." Her only rebuttal was to start giggling madly at what she found to be a very funny joke. His intuition was telling him that something was wrong here.

She still didn't bother to turn around and face him, preferring to keep an eye on the surveillance footage in front of her, it seemed. He took a step forward with his arm directed at the form sitting in the chair. He still couldn't make out any more than the shape of the body sitting comfortably only a few feet away but he knew for a fact that that was her voice. He had her cornered, so why was she so calm? Again, his senses were screaming at him that something was amiss.

Finally, the laughter died down. Apparently, the supposed hilarity of his statement finally wore off, leaving her free to respond a bit more eloquently this time around. "Oh, silly Tsukune. We both know that this is just the beginning of a whole lot more of chaos. Now, would you mind letting Reaper talk for a bit? The grown ups need to chat for a little while."

The arrogance she demonstrated was infuriating. Belittling him in such a fashion was only a means to goad him into doing something rash. She wanted him to drop his guard. But what could she do? He had her in his sights and could end her at any moment he chose. How could she continue being this cocky in the face of certain doom?

Replying in kind was the only option that could give him a few more seconds to examine the situation. "That's not going to happen, he doesn't exist anymore. The HLF is on the run and the Palace is surrounded, surrender and I promise your life will be spared." It was a complete bluff on his part, but the few imagines being shown on the screens that belonged to cameras placed strategically all around the city showed the Huang had the upper hand and that the HLF forces weren't faring too well. This was his chance to get an ultimatum across.

Naturally, she didn't bother to respond to her ex-leader's plea for a peaceful outcome. In lieu of that, she began to softly hum a lullaby from her childhood. This was starting to get vaguely eerie. Should he use this opportunity to rush her and and force her to cooperate? In any case, he would have to move up sooner or later to apprehend her. Bloodshed had to be avoided if possible.

He tentatively took a step a forward. Noticing no answer, he took another one. The lack of a response was sounding alarms inside his brain. She was tricking him somehow, she was probably waiting for him to get in close and and blow a few shotgun shells into his stomach. Should he instead simply shoot through the chair?

Tsukune stepped back and fired off a warning shot into the wall right in front of his target, the impact was impossible to ignore as most of the electronic devices in the vicinity blew up and caught on fire. The added light wasn't enough to give him a clear view of the form that was persisting in humming her lullaby.

He had warned her time and time again. He fired off a warning shot and she brushed it all off. There was no other alternative now, he had to injure her to get it through to her that she was at a disadvantage. Insane or not, being injured tended to enlighten one as to how much one was in trouble. He took aim once more and fired at the chair.

The body and chair went flying forward, hitting the table in front of them. This was all wrong, he heard no pain induced yell, no grunt that signaled that she had felt the hit. He knew for a fact that a stunt like that wouldn't have killed a hardened soldier, or even a human civilian for that matter. To add insult to injury, she was still humming as though nothing had transpired.

What's more was that the chair had gone at a weird angle after being struck, it stayed stuck to the body. A chair wasn't supposed to do something like that. It was then that he caught a glimpse of something glistening due to the light of the fire in front of the bizarre scene, he saw duct tape encircling the visible part of the armrests.

He rushed over to get a better look at what he just shot at. After putting the damaged chair back in it's original position and getting a good look at the inert from laying in it, he knew he had been played for an idiot.

He didn't find the feminine shape of his once second-in-command. Rather, he saw the corpse of an officer who served under her. From the looks of it, he had been dead for a few hours now. Whereas the bodies displayed on pikes in the higher levels of the complex had been treated to resist decomposition, this one was starting to show some wear and tear that had been accentuated by the blast it just withstood.

Tape had been keeping the body stabilized within the chair, no doubt to make sure the dead person sitting in it wouldn't fall off by accident. He also spotted what was broadcasting Ayano's voice so clearly: A phone had been taped to the corpses midsection. Thanks to it's location, it was shielded from the blast and the impact with the desk that the dead officer's chest withstood, his stomach and the phone attached to it was safe from harm.

Once he properly assessed that he'd been duped, the humming had stopped, replaced by a most unwelcome phrase. "I'm not hearing you too well. Let me call you back." And with that, she hung up. Leaving Tsukune to trying and figure out her madness.

Then it dawned on him. Alas, before he could move away from the body, the phone bomb rang and blew up with Tsukune barely a few inches away. The explosion sent him to the ground with a decent amount of shrapnel stuck in his chest and stomach. He would be feeling this in the morning, that was a given.