Yuu felt a throbbing in the back of his head. He tried to move his arms and see what was making his head throb but he found his movement restricted. Wincing, he tried even harder, but he still couldn't move.
Then the smell hit him. It smelt like someone had left bodies out in the sun for forever, and concentrated that smell of rotting flesh and placed it right under his nostrils. He groaned and blinked open his eyes.
His first thought was that he was right about the bodies, the floor was covered in blood. And his second thought was that the floor was frickin' covered in blood. Then, he realized that there were other people in the room with him. He could hear their breathing, it was harsh and ragged.
"Ahhhh… Finally awake, are we, Yuu-chan?" Yuu recognized the voice immediately. It was Ferid. It was the man who had taken his family from him. The man who had ruined his life at the age of twelve.
Yuu struggled against what was holding him there, only to discover that he had been strung up. It felt like cords had been wrapped around his wrists, holding him against a pole of some sort. His feet were bound to each other, and then bound to a wider pole that seemed to support his whole body. He looked side to side, trying to confirm his thoughts and saw that he was right, he was strung up, and there were other people in the room with him. There was Shinya, who seemed to be awake, and there was Yoichi, who didn't seem to be awake.
No. This can't be happening. He thought, Why? Why did I think that those footsteps were friendly? Everyone values their sleep, the only one who would actually do that would be Yoichi, but he was exhausted. Look at this mess I've gotten us into. I can only see Shinya and Yoichi. Please tell me that the others aren't here. Please tell me that they abandoned the mission. Please. Please. Please.
"Hmmm… Ah Yuu-chan, what are you saying, I can't hear you all the way over here. Was that you begging?" Yuu stopped thinking, had he just said those things out loud? No. He could never let Ferid know that he would stoop so low as to beg for his life. "Well, Yuu-chan, that's not very nice of you to ignore me when I'm talking to you. Perhaps you need a little incentive?"
From his left, he heard a scream. It wasn't Yoichi, it was more feminine and he could see Yoichi. Was it Shinoa? He went through all of the possibilities, it could be Shinoa, or Mitsuba, or even a random human girl that they had brought in. He could hear the voice sobbing. He knew then that it was Mitsuba, her voice bled through the whimpers. "Go, screw yourself, vampire." Yep, that was Mitsuba for sure.
"Stop! What are you doing? Come here and speak to me yourself, blood-sucker. You coward, come here and hurt me yourself." Yuu shouted he could hear his voice echo in the room. It sounded powerful like he could be issuing orders, and people would actually listen to him.
Ferid chuckled, making his own wicked laughter echo through Yuu's voice, cutting it short. "Awe, you're so cute, aren't you? Calling me a coward?" Ferid appeared from behind him, his red eyes prodding into his very soul. "Do you really feel like you can talk, pot? I mean after you left that night four years ago. What did you do?" Ferid leaned up to whisper the last part in his ear, "You ran." He continued to chuckle.
"Who all is here? How many of us?" This voice came from Yuu's right, and he realized it was Shinya. "I know there's Yuu, Mitsuba, and I. Are the rest here, or are they safe?" Shinya seemed to be the calmest one here, despite their situation.
"Yoichi's here too, I' can't see anyone else, unless there's someone next to Mitsuba," Yuu replied, and Mitsuba confirmed that no one else was there.
"Okay, so there's four of us. With any luck, the rest of them abandoned the mission. We shouldn't expect any help from them, and no one else knew other than the higher-ups who issued this mission, and I don't think they'd spend extra manpower to try and get us out of this mess. We're on our own."
"So, basically, we're screwed. There's no way that we're gonna get out of this without any help. And when you think you've won against the vampires, it's always something that they were planning for you to do. It's just another game that they play."
"Well, Yuu-chan, I wouldn't say always. You shooting me wasn't part of my game, it was quite uncomfortable in reality." Ferid said, having listened in on their conversation. "But, we do like to play our games. And I have quite an interesting piece here to play with you, he'll be back momentarily after I finish setting the board."
Ferid walked around to Shinya and injected a clear liquid into a vein. He walked over to Yoichi and Mitsuba and did the same. "Now, all that's left to do it wait, and the board will be ready for its players." Ferid walked over to Yuu, strapped to the poles that kept him there. Reaching up, Ferid tore Yuu's jacket from his form.
Yuu watched as the jacket he had worked so hard to obtain was ripped from him, and there was nothing that he could do about it. He couldn't stop it, he couldn't keep a single stitch of his hard work as it was torn from him.
"Now, the game board is set, and the players will face off in a battle of wits and wills." Beside him, Shinya shuddered, his breathing becoming increasingly labored and hoarse. His eyes slowly closing even as he struggled to keep them open, and finally, his body going limp, his breathing barely there, but Yuu could see his chest slowly rise and fall. The same happened to Yoichi, even though he wasn't awake, his breathing slowed and deepened. Even though he couldn't see her, he suspected the same had happened with Mitsuba.
Ferid walked out of the room, a spring in his step, "Now, enjoy the game, my dear, dear pawns."
The door was opened a few moments later by a vampire dressed in a different uniform than the standard white and black. It was pure white, there was no other color that stained the uniform. The boots were white, even as they walked through the red blood spilled on the floor. The figure was tall and lean, as it neared, Yuu could identify the gender to most likely be male, even though his blond hair reached to his shoulders. There was something else odd about this vampire though. And it only became evident as he became close enough to see the vampire's facial features.
His eyes were blue. These were eyes that he recognized instantly, he might not have recognized the blond hair that he had grown up with. He might not have recognized the unsmiling face, but he recognized the eyes. Only there was an anomaly in the eyes that he knew so well. They were unfocused, almost mechanical. The blue eyes that he had seen for the past eight years-either in waking hours, or in the hours of nightmares-were dull. They were devoid of any and all feelings.
"Mika!?" Yuu exclaimed as the vampire neared him. "No, there's no way that you're Mika. Mika's been dead for four years. He was killed by that last vampire. Mika would smile, he would come up to me laughing at the problems I always get myself into. He would get me out of here. He would help me and my friends."
Mika said nothing as he approached Yuu, he only stared at him, with the blue eyes that Yuu loved, the blue eyes that he had seen and loved from the first day that he had seen them. The blue eyes that now showed no glimmer of the life that had once been abundant in them.
"Well, Yuu-chan. If you'll tell me what I want to know I'll answer your question. If you haven't figured it out already, that is."
"Mi…ka?" No, this isn't Mika. There's no way this is Mika. Whatever it is, it stole Mika's body. It stole Mika's voice. It even stole Mika's eyes. But whatever was in front of me is not Mika.
"Awe, look at that, you're already shaking in your boots. We haven't even started this game yet."
Yuu was terrified. The thing that was Mika was advancing and twirling a knife. Now it was smiling, but the smile was filled with sadistic lust. It wasn't a smile to put you at ease, it was a smile that wanted to see you in pain and didn't mask in any way possible. The thing in Mika wanted to make it completely clear that he was going to hurt him and that there would be no help from him.
"What do you say, Yuu-chan?" It asked, the knife tracing lines on Yuu's exposed flesh. "Do you wanna have some fun? Let the game begin."
Mika had run out of the room. It was Yuu-chan. It was his Yuu-chan. He was here, in the city of the vampires. How? What was Ferid planning? That didn't matter right now, all that mattered was that Yuu-chan was alive and close to him. So close, he could go back in and touch him.
His head started to hurt again. He could feel the bloodlust creeping up on him. It was slow, but the pain was almost unbearable. The smell of blood wafted to his nose, causing his senses to go on high alert. Every pore on his body burst with sweat. It streamed down his face and breathing became harder and harder. His chest ached and he realized that he needed Krul's blood. He needed her blood, and he needed it now. He reached into the pouch of her blood that he kept at his hip and took out a single vial of the blood.
His hands were shaking. They were shaking so much that the vial of liquid slipped from his fingers. The glass shattering as it hit the polished floor. Mika watched as the vial shattered, he could see each and every individual shard of glass every which way. The sound reverberated inside his skull, the sharp sound ringing in his ears, lingering there for what seemed like hours.
The liquid splattered across the tile floor, leaving red streaks across it. The color so close to the color of his family members that Ferid had spilled. He was enthralled by the stark contrast of the deep red color against the polished white, the liquid seemed to bubble towards the middle of the splatter, tiny particles of air trapped in the sticky substance that was his life-line. Now he had a reason to live. A reason that he could see. A reason that he could touch.
Panic settled in, the gravity of the situation finally set in. Yuu had been captured by the vampires. Mika was a vampire. Yuu was in that room that was covered in the blood of past victims, there is no way for him to get out on his own. Yuu's friends were there as well. No, they were just using him. Mika needed to get Yuu out.
"So you are as shaken as I had expected." Ferid's voice said, snapping him back to reality, away from the spilled blood. "Krul told me to give you this as soon as you came out of that room. Don't worry, it's her blood. However, it does have a calming agent in it to reduce your attacks." Ferid tossed a vial of blood to him, Mika could tell it was her blood by the smell and he could also tell that it was fresh.
Uncorking it, he tipped the vial back, drinking its contents. Immediately, he felt his bloodlust receding, he regained control of his own body, the pain in his chest dissipating and his head clearing. As much as it pained him to realize, Ferid had probably saved him from hurting the last member of his family, he almost felt the need to thank him, but then remembered the fact that he hated his guts.
But then something different happened, he became dizzy, the world started spinning. Mika put out a hand out to steady himself against the wall but found nothing there. He tried to steady himself by widening his stance, but as soon as he lifted a leg, the world spun even more. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, the world spun and his reaction time was severely impacted.
He registered an impact on his right side, but it was more of noticing something happen to someone else. It just felt like pressure, something that caused him discomfort, but not pain. The light from the ceiling caused Ferid's silhouette to appear sinister and brooding, his voice was layered and the pitches changed, it was like he was hearing thousands of different voices all saying the exact same thing, all saying it the exact same way, it gave him a headache.
"Ahhh, so that little drug does work, well the first part at least. We might have to wait a bit to test the second bit. Well, if it doesn't kill you first. If this all works, then I could be a spectator to a very, very interesting game. What do you say, Mika-kun. Up for a game?"
Yoichi grimaced, he felt a pain in his neck, it was a sharp pain that didn't seem to stop, in fact, it seemed to grow. It spread throughout his entire body, and it was always growing. His blood felt like fire but his skin felt like it was ice and his blood was trying to break through it. The pain was worse than he could imagine, he had never felt anything like it before, and he certainly never wanted anything like this.
He tried to arch his back, he needed to get away from the pain, anything to make it stop. He could hear someone screaming in the distance. As soon as I can get whatever this is to stop, I'll go help them. He thought to himself as the pain seemed to grip his heart, making every beat of blood that pumped through his body ache and burn.
The scream stopped for an instant of a second, and Yoichi felt his lungs freeze as he breathed in, causing a new type of pain in his body. As the scream resumed, he felt like the ice in his chest instantly boiled. Is that me? Am I the one screaming? I wouldn't be surprised, with whatever is happening to me. It all continued for hours, a vicious cycle of pain.
Finally, it dissipated. Yoichi was breathing heavily, he had long discerned that it had been him who was screaming, and his throat burned and he knew that he wouldn't be able to talk for a few days at least.
Finally, he was able to blink open his eyes, even though it was a little fuzzy at first, he could see the red floor and his sweat that was falling from his nose. The bright light shone in his eyes, but he kept them open in an effort to adjust his eyes quickly. He needed to take note of his surroundings, make sure that he knew where he was.
He started with the floor. It was the only thing he could look at without craning his neck and causing more pain to shoot through him. The floor was quite interesting in its design, some areas it was a deep, dark red, and in others, it seemed almost white.
Its blood. A voice in his mind said, you know it, you just don't want to recognize it. In that instant, Yoichi knew it to be true, there was nothing else that could cause this design on a floor. The splatters were varied but seemed to be concentrated around where he was. He tried to make his eyes wander further than the floor, but something caught his eye, a large grouping of black.
His neck hurt, but he still raised his head to try and get a better view of the odd grouping. It was an odd mound because it seemed to have different objects sticking out from the mound at various angles and lengths. When his vision partially returned, he realized what they actually were. They were the bodies of humans. Their faces were pale from blood loss and their eyes all stared off in the distance.
He let out a strangled gasp in realization, those were the bodies of humans. They had once been alive. They all looked like they had been dead for a while, the skin was hanging from their bones in different stages of decay. Some of them had empty eye sockets that seemed to jump out at him, trying to ensnare him in the consuming blackness. The limbs had been bent at painful angles, in some cases the bone was sticking out, revealing jagged white edges.
He tried to scream, to move, to get out of there, but all that came out of his mouth was a mangled cry, and his arms were tied to something. There was no escape. Forgetting about the pain in his neck, he frantically searched the room, the walls were red, the ceiling was red. He swung his head from side to side searching for something, seeing his wrists bound by a thin rope several times, his feet similarly bound. But as he stung his head to the left, he saw something that made his heart hurt even more.
Mitsuba was unconscious, her head hanging between her shoulders, in a rag-doll fashion. There was blood that streamed down from her thigh from a horizontal cut, and it disappeared into her boot. It had already started to scab over, a puckered mass forming over the wound.
"Mitsuba! Mitsuba, can you hear me?" Yoichi's voice was hoarse and it hurt to talk, but as much force as he put into it, his voice was barely a whisper that was lost in the room. "Mitsuba! You need to wake up! We need to get out of here!" He struggled against his bonds, trying to reach out to her, trying to help her.
I need to get help, I need to help her, get her out of whatever mess we're in. He tried to remember if there was anything in his pockets or the little pouch that was sewn into the wrist of his jacket, anything that he might still have access to. He needed to look at everything, he turned his head to the right to see the ropes that bound him, but his own well-being was forgotten at what he saw instead.
Yuu's torso had been stripped of clothing, showing his bare flesh, but that wasn't what concerned him. There were shallow cuts all over his chest and torso, they connected in beautiful and intricate patterns. Someone had put a lot of thought and time into this work, whoever it was, he enjoyed doing this. Yuu's blood slowly dripped to the floor, off of his arm, and his chest. The amount of blood that streaked down his skin was impressive. The wounds were fresh, there was no scarring or anything and every wound still oozed. Yoichi could feel his eyes widen at every drop of liquid that fell from his friend.
"Yuu-kun! Yuu-kun, are you awake?" Yoichi hissed, his throat was so raw, and his voice so weak that he was continually reprimanding himself for screaming so much. No one would be able to hear him when he could barely hear himself. "Yuu-kun, you need to stay awake do you hear me? Please, please don't die."
"Aw, now you see, why would I let him die if he gave me so much enjoyment? It's quite counter-intuitive if you ask me." A voice said from behind Yoichi, it was a hard voice, an unforgiving voice.
A vampire dressed in all white rounded the corner. His boots were stained red from walking in the blood on the floor, and his uniform was stained red from the blood most likely earned tormenting Yuu. There were slight droplets of red that littered his face and hair. There was something that held his interest for a while, though, and he couldn't figure it out first but when it finally came to him, it puzzled him. This vampire had blue eyes. They were a startling blue, so similar to the sky, but they were dull.
The vampire smiled, a smile that demonstrated the things that he had done to Yuu already, and the things he was most likely to do to him. "You know, something interesting, Yoichi-kun? As I was carving the pretty pictures in Yuu-chan's skin, he said something lovely. 'Please, please don't hurt them, they've done nothing wrong, I don't want them to get hurt because of a stupid mistake I made, so, please. Please, I beg of you, don't hurt them.' It was so cute! Just adorable. So, do you want to know what I did? I carved a little deeper, and he can hear every. Single. Word. That we're saying, but he can't do a thing about it! He will hear every scream of pain that I inflict on you, he has heard everything you've already said, but he can't do a thing about it!"
Yoichi could hear the insanity that dripped from his voice. This guy was way too far gone, there was no helping him now.
"So, now what do you say?" The vampire asked as he ripped off Yoichi's jacket. "Do you want to have a little bit of fun?"
The knife dug into Yoichi's flesh, causing the blood to escape his body. But Yoichi held in his scream. He couldn't let Yuu hear this, even if what the vampire had said was all wrong, he had to stay strong, he couldn't break because of the promises that he had made to Kimizuki. He would stay strong and he would give Kimizuki a place to fall back on when he needed it. He would not break.
"You're no fun, come on. I need to hear you scream." The knife cut deeper into his skin, tracing a line along his rib. A whimper escaped Yoichi's mouth, and tears escaped his eyes. He could feel the coolness of the knife as it cut into his abdomen, and felt the hot blood pour out of his body.
Yoichi clenched his teeth, he would not scream. Whatever this monster wanted, it wasn't information it seemed like, he was simply doing this for pleasure. There was no way that he would break down in front of him, there was no way that he would let Kimizuki down.
"Now, now, Yoichi-kun. All of my hard work will go to waste if you don't supply me with one measly little scream." The vampire moved to his hands, playing with the different fingers, bending them, but not breaking them. Suddenly, he gripped the nail of his index finger and pulled it free of its bed.
Tears sprung from his eyes, streaming down his face and he panted in pain and hung his head.
"Hmmm, well, I'm quite glad you didn't scream there because symmetry is beautiful, don't you think? But, here I do want a scream because I'll be honest, your little life is only worth the information I can glean from my dear, dear Yuu-chan. So, if I have to kill you to make him spit out that information, I will. So, here's my deal to you. You scream and Yuu-chan tells me exactly what I want to know, or I kill you and let him watch, breaking his will and having him give me the information I want to know. Because right now, he's lying to me. So, it is in your best interest if you scream."
The vampire tore out his other nail, and Yoichi couldn't help it. He screamed. The scream caused his voice to crack and his throat to split. It echoed throughout the entire room, leaving a consuming silence in its wake. He swallowed heavily, trying to moisturize the back of his throat.
The exact second after the scream broke from his throat, the vampire in front of him began to convulse vigorously. His blue eyes rolling back in his head, and his body jerking in every possible way. He collapsed on the floor shuddering and choking on his saliva. The red floor stained his white cape and his blonde hair, soaking it thoroughly. After what felt like hours of watching the tall man convulse on the floor, he laid still.
Yoichi watched the man carefully before cautiously asking, "A-are you okay…?"
His voice was a whisper but he could tell that it reached the man, who immediately started to shake once more. Only this time, it was more controlled and gentle. It didn't consume his entire body but instead, it remained concentrated on his shoulders and chest. After a few seconds of watching him shake, Yoichi heard small sounds of sobbing coming from his form. The sobbing abated quickly and the vampire tried to prop himself up on his shoulders, but his limbs shook under his weight and instead, he simply rolled over to try and see Yoichi.
There was life in his blue eyes now, the eyes that widened in shock or sorrow. And his face was red on his left side, which he tried to use his cape to wipe off. It looked like he was trying to form words. he tried to prop himself up again, and he failed once more. He looked so weak. Is this really the same person that was torturing me a moment ago? He looks so sad and almost innocent.
"No." The vampire uttered, it was all he could manage at the time. "No, no, no, no, no." He gripped his head in his hands, pressing against his temples and staring at the ceiling. He turned back over to look at Yoichi. "I'm so, sorry. I-I didn't want to do it-it was me, but it wasn't me. I-I didn't want to do any of this. I couldn't control my body, I could only try and speak. But all that got me was to convey a thought that I wanted and that-that thing that was inside me or had control of me and it spit it out. I-I'm so so sorry." The vampire broke down in tears again, the drops of liquid falling from his eyes and into the floor.
The vampire struggled to sit up once more, and finally succeeded, stabilizing himself by crossing his legs and leaning forward. His blue eyes wandered from Yoichi to Mitsuba, and then back to Yoichi. Then he looked to Yuu's ragged and bloody form suspended above the ground. Yoichi could see the terror fill his eyes, and the vampire desperately, desperately trying to reach him, falling over as he struggled to move, closer to him, falling over and dragging himself closer to him. The vampire was panting with the exertion that it took to drag himself across the blood-stained floor.
Yoichi watched as the vampire took out the knife that he had used to open new wounds in its victims and precariously raised it to cut the ropes that held Yuu's legs to the pole. The vampire's arm shook with the effort to raise his arm above his head, and even when the knife slipped from his fingers and slit a line on his cheek, the vampire still struggled to cut the ropes that held Yuu there.
"W-wait. Cut my ropes. Cut my ropes and then I can help get Yuu-kun down, and I can help Mitsuba down as well. Then I can help you and you can save your strength." Yoichi whispered through his broken throat. The blond complied, pushing himself over to Yoichi's post. The ropes frayed and loosened around his feet and he was able to tear his legs free of them. "Now, I'm gonna ask you to do something really really weird, but please do it because it will be ingenious if it actually works. Can you take off my shoes?"
Looking at him oddly, the vampire removed his shoes as he had been instructed. Having his shoes removed, the shorter man removed his socks on his own, tossing them off to the side into a red puddle of viscous liquid. "Okay, now can you put the blade handle- the handle make sure- in my foot, so I can grip it." The man obeyed and Yoichi curled his toes around the handle of the blade. "Now comes the tricky part." Yoichi lifted the lower part of his body high enough to reach his wrists. Gently, ever so gently, he sawed away at the ropes that bound his arms to the pole, he missed and made a small cut on his wrist, wincing and almost dropping the knife, but catching it at the last second, he let out a sigh of relief. He frayed the ropes more and more, weakening them until they finally snapped, and his body swung down, and yanked on his wrist, shooting pain through his arm and making him cry out. He quickly transferred the knife from his foot to his hand and cut the rope holding his other wrist, falling to the floor, knees buckling under the sudden weight. He looked at his left wrist, which was limp and seemed to curve. It was broken or at least dislocated, he couldn't use his cursed gear.
He made his way to Yuu, who seemed to be unconscious, but on closer inspection, even though his body hung limply on the structure, his eyes were half open. He stared at the floor with such a look in his eyes that Yoichi could have mistaken them for eyes belonging to one of the bodies piled in the corner. Moving as quickly as he could, he cut the ropes on his left and right wrist, making sure that he didn't break Yuu's wrist as he had probably done for himself. He cut the ropes on his feet and remembered to do it the other way around on Mitsuba and Shinya who he had spotted while getting Yuu down.
With Yuu safely disconnected, he half-carried half-dragged Yuu across the floor to the vampire who took him and hugged his limp form, muttering things too quiet for Yoichi to hear. He moved on to Mitsuba and cut the ropes attached to her legs first, then her wrists. She seemed to regain some sort of cognitive control and was able to mildly support herself on their way back. Shinya was a different story, his body hung limp and Yoichi knew there was no way that he was ever going to get him down without severely hurting the silver-haired man.
"Hey, hey Shinya! Shinya are you awake? You need to wake up, otherwise, I can't get you down." After poking and prodding for a minute or two, he gave up and simply cut the ropes binding his feet.
He made his way back to Yuu and the vampire who were still in the same position as earlier. Yuu was limp and the vampire clung to the form in his arms, touching their foreheads together and mouthing words that only he could hear. Tears fell from his eyes and onto Yuu's, and even though his chest rose and fell in time with his breathing and his eyes remained open, he showed no recognition that anything had happened. His chest was a mosaic of cuts and slashes, connecting to each other in intricate designs. The vampire didn't mind and pulled him closer still, staining his clothes red with blood, the design transferring people.
As Yoichi approached he could hear the vampire whispering to Yuu. "I'm so so sorry, Yuu-chan. I did this to you. I never wanted to hurt you, ever. Please, Yuu-chan just wake up, I don't even care if you hate me for the rest of my life. I don't care if you try and kill me because I deserve it. I don't care. Just please please wake up. I need you to wake up. I need to know that you're okay and that I didn't kill you. Please, Yuu-chan, please wake up. Akane wants to know if you're okay. All of the kids want to make sure that you're okay. Just please, if only for their sake, be okay."
Yuu's eyes remained half closed, and non-focused, with a dulled look. Even as Yoichi watched, his breathing became increasingly shallow and labored, his breath rasping slightly as he inhaled. The vampire seemed to gain the life that Yuu was rapidly losing, his face taking on more color as Yuu's become dull.
"Please, please Yuu-chan! Please stay with me! I beg of you." The vampire lowered his face to place his lips on Yuu's forehead, "Please Yuu-chan. Please, I can't live without you. I would never forgive myself, please Yuu-chan. I love you." The last sentence was barely audible in the chamber, almost lost to all ears except for Yoichi's. The vampire curled protectively over Yuu's flimsy form, wailing in anguish, his tears streaming down his face and littering the other's.
He rocked their bodies back and forth on the ground, begging Yuu to wake up. Begging and screaming at his inability to do anything at all. The screams echoed throughout the room, layering on top of each other until there was a cacophony of the blond's misery that stirred Mitsuba and Shinya both. The vampire stopped suddenly and whirled around, fixing his eyes on a point seemingly out of nowhere.
Yoichi moved quickly to Shinya, making sure that he was responsive enough to safely get down and cut the ropes on his wrists. He gave him support by letting Shinya lean heavily on him and walking him over to the three people on the floor. He tried to ask what had happened but stopped after sensing the mood and seeing Yuu's bloody chest.
The vampire clung to him harder than Yoichi had ever clung to anything in his entire life. His grip lessened suddenly and he placed his ear next to Yuu's lips. The vampire sat back on his heels, the corners of his mouth slightly raised in a smile. "Thank God. Oh, thank you, whatever supernatural force is out there." His body relaxing and his joints flooding with relief. It was at that moment that Yoichi heard a dreaded sound.
It was the sound of slow, theatrical clapping. Every conscious person's head swerved to the source, a vampire with long silver hair and red eyes. He walked with an ostentatious sway in his hips and a pompous gait. This caused the blood on the floor to splash in some places and chip away in others. When he spoke, his voice sounded almost congratulatory.
"Very nice. Very nice, I do have to say that this is the fastest people have ever escaped from this, less than a day. Very nice. However, I do have to say that I'm disappointed, I really expected to see more pain out of all of you, I wanted to see the look of despair in your eyes as all hope was ripped from you. You're all out, aren't you? So, now it's time to take that little piece of hope from you and watch you despair."
Faster than Yoichi could follow, the silver-haired man ran at the blond, but instead of punishing his fellow vampire, he kicked Yuu's broken body halfway across the room, and he heard a gasp of pain from him. The blond haired vampire tried to jump up in defense of Yuu, but his limbs were still too weak and all he succeeded in doing was falling over. The silver-haired one laughed as he pulled the other up off the floor with one hand on the collar of his shirt.
"Now, now Mika-kun, don't you think to make it a better game you need to play with your competitor. So, you want to know something interesting? All of the blood that is contaminated with a harmful virus of any kind is tossed in here. How's your hunger, Mika-kun? It should be returning with more of a need. So I'll give you a choice, you can either kill your precious princess now and let his little friends run free. Or, you can do exactly as I say and you two play the same game together, and his friends may or may not run free, that depends on who wins the game. So kill him now, or watch him die later. It should be quite an easy decision, look at him now! He's helpless and would crumble beneath your power, just a simple little cut and all he's ever cared about will be safe. You have thirty seconds, choose."
Yoichi couldn't believe what he was hearing. If Yuu died by this vampire's hands right now, then they would all run free. Or they would have to play a game. His life was hanging on the thread of a string. And it was up to Mika. He wouldn't let Yuu just die, he ran as fast as he could, grimacing in pain from his wrist and chest. After what felt like an eternity, which actually lasted ten seconds, he stood over Yuu and spread his arms in defiant protection of his friend. There was no way that he was going to stay under the bed with this one. He was going to protect his family.
"D-don't wor-ry about m-me, Yoichi. I'm fine. A-Asura- he's help-ing me. J-just run." Yoichi turned to see Yuu staring at him, and smiling. "I'll stay here at the cost of my life. You at least have to escape, try and get Mika and Shinya out as well. Mitsuba too I guess. I'm so sorry I let this happen, and you need to listen right now. Don't say 'stop' or 'don't do that'. Please, just remember, Yoichi. We're all part of the same family."
The next thing that happened would haunt Yoichi for the rest of his life. Yuu took the knife that Yoichi had forgotten about when he ran over here and stupidly dropped on the floor. Taking a deep breath and smiling, he thrust the blade into his stomach. "I finally found another family, don't let my sacrifice be in vain. Stop staring at me with that look in your eye. HURRY UP AND GO, IDIOTS!"