Mitsuba was more tired than she had ever felt. There was nothing that could have stopped her from falling into Shinoa's arms as soon as she felt her arms around her.

"Woah, are you alright? Gotten over your fit of coughing?" Shinoa asked as soon as she discovered that she could safely lower both of them to the floor. She smiled calmly as she rubbed Mitsuba's back, keeping her from coughing again hopefully.

Mitsuba wrapped her arms around Shinoa, burying her head in her neck. Everything that she had seen was pouring out, the red room, the crazy vampire, Yuu's sacrifice, and the sprouting of the wings as she called it.

As soon as everything with Yuu had happened, the blond vampire had convulsed. It was the most unnerving thing that she had seen, he let out a scream of blood-curdling anguish and-

She closed her eyes against the memory, it was far too graphic, and she knew that there was no way that she was ever going to forget it, but she wanted the memory to fade as quickly as possible so that it wouldn't be as vivid when she came around to confront it once more.

Of course nothing was fading, it was all there, whenever she closed her eyes, whenever she saw another vampire, and it was all there, every splatter of blood, every voice coming from that horrible mouth. Everything was there, right there in her mind, and she knew it would never disappear, it would never fade, because there were somethings that you try to remember, but there are somethings that you can never forget.

Shinoa was quietly rubbing at her back, not speaking or anything, but she was just there, because she knew that's all that she could do for her right now. She knew that when Mitsuba was ready, she would tell her.

After a minute, Mitsuba calmed down enough for her to form coherent words. She was quiet for a while, and then Shinoa quietly prompted her.

"Hey, Mitsu-chan, it's okay, I'm here. Do, you want to talk about it?" She made her voice so quiet, so that only Mitsuba would be able to hear her words, she wouldn't blame her if she hadn't heard her at all, but it was soon discredited at the small nod of her head.

Mitsuba pulled back from Shinoa slightly, leaving an imprint of warmth on her skin where she had been, and began her horrid recount.

"Well, so I guess that I fell asleep in the camp, and I just woke up in this room. It was a really big room, and it was all red. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, everything, it stunk. The entire room smelled of wet metal and bodily… fluids." Mitsuba was slowing down, trying to keep the images that she was going to describe next out of her vision. "And… In-in the corner, there were, umm, there were these bodies. Dead bodies. Like they had just been tossed out with the trash and like, they were just tossed out there like empty containers and the-the smell of decaying flesh was so powerful, and you could see their wounds, some of their flesh just-hung off of their bones."

Shinoa shushed her then, trying to keep her from hyperventilating, like she was going to do, and to calm her down after her rambling. Either something else had happened right then, or the memories further into the day were still present in her mind, it sounded like she had only started.

"So, when, when I came to the first time, there was this silver-haired guy, and he was thoroughly insane. He laughed and laughed and then he just put this liquid into my veins. It was really, really painful, like my skin was on fire and freezing at the same time. After what felt like hours, it finally stopped, and I was being semi-supported by Yoichi. But-" She swallowed thickly, "But, o-on the floor. On the floor there was-there was a figure in white, umm, and h-he was he was curled over, umm. H-he was curled over Yuu-san. But, no-no one seemed concerned, so, I-I just went with it.

"Th-then, the other one, the one with silver hair, the one that put whatever it was in me, he came in. And he said something-something about a game. And he just kicked Yuu-san. He just kicked him clear across the room. And, this isn't a small room, Shinoa, this is a huge room. But, after that. After that, something, something happened." Her eyes welled with tears and her lip began to pout slightly, "A-and Yuu-san, he-he said something-something about, a-a sacrifice. And-and then, I-I couldn't see all that well and-"

She stopped there, clearly what had happened was that Yuu had done something, something that cost him his life, and because of that, Shinya, Yoichi, and Mitsuba had been able to get away. It wasn't rocket science,but it had clearly shaken her up, to the point that she didn't want to talk about it, it was worse than when she got someone on her team killed because of her.

"And after-after that, the-the-the vampire, the one th-that was over-over Yuu. He-he changed and there were-were like, black wings. A-and these, these wings, there was like, a-a ripping sound the sound of flesh ripping. Then, then the bones started shifting and-and popping, you could hear them. And- the wings just got l-larger and l-larger, just growing.

But the wings, they-they looked t-torn, and broken. If they had ever been meant to fly, they weren't going to do it now, and they expanded and flapped, but then the-the blond guy, when he looked up, it was like it wasn't him anymore, his face was expressionless, actually, it might have been a little pained. But-but his eyes. Shinoa, he had black eyes."

Shinoa calmed her down as best she could, she had been going too fast at the end, and her rambling had turned into something that she could barely follow. Mitsuba was back to a crying mess at the memory, and Shinoa felt awful at what she had made her do by recounting the memory, what she had stirred.

The screech shook the walls, every bit of it a ballad to agony, a solemn swear that had been broken, and a boy who was beat every day until his spirit broke. Shinoa could hear each and every one of those feelings and experiences as it shook through her bones and Mitsuba pushed herself deeper into the embrace.

This must have been the thing that Mitsuba had talked about, it must have been something else, something different. A true monster, some vampires could still feel, some could show emotion or disinterest, this thing would never be considered human again. Whatever it was, it was far beyond the realms of a monster, Shinoa could tell in the depths of its voice.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Guren rise, there was something missing in his eyes, something that was there usually. And then she saw Kimizuki rise, his hand still in Yoichi's as he knelt back down to console him before leaving again.

Then, she saw what they had seen before her, a monster. A monster carrying the body of one of her family. She had trained Yuu. She had taught him. She had grown to care for him, and enjoy his company. She had grown and watched him grow, and now he was gone. She would continue to grow without him. There would be times in the future where she would turn back to laugh at her proficiency, but he wouldn't be there. He would be decaying, in the ground somewhere. Cold, he would never be warm again.

She had never felt anger before. She had never felt fury or rage. But what she felt then, in that moment, with the realization that Yuu was gone she knew immediately as anger. She could feel it writhe in her chest, a hot bubble that wanted to burst and loose everything that she had ever felt onto this monster that had taken a member of her family from her.

This thing, this monster had taken Yuu from her. So, what would she do?

What she was trained to do. Kill the monsters that plagued this world.

Kimizuki couldn't stop, he knew he was probably crushing Yoichi, but somehow, that didn't matter to him. He wanted to pull Yoichi closer to him, he wanted to make sure that he was really there, but soon, Yoichi seemed to collapse like he had run ten miles and only now had the time to rest.

Kimizuki could see the same thing happen to Mitsuba and Shinya, but the only one who mattered at the moment was Yoichi. Kimizuki pulled him away for a few seconds and what he saw crushed his heart.

It looked like Yoichi had been through Hell. His uniform was torn open, and deep scars littered his chest, it didn't even look like they had stopped bleeding yet. He had bruises around his wrists and it looked like one of them was broken, or at least dislocated. Yoichi's face was littered with tears that streamed from his eyes. Kimizuki looked at the eyes that stared at him, they weren't the eyes he knew.

The eyes he knew were always full of joy and happiness, they always made him want to smile. The eyes that looked at him now seemed to be broken, like they had seen too much. The eyes that he saw now looked helpless. There was no little glint in Yoichi's eyes, it was like they had lost some of their life. Kimizuki hated seeing eyes like that, because he knew what someone had to go through to get like that.

"What the Hell did they put you through, Yoichi?" Kimizuki asked the smaller man, pain audible on his voice, he could even feel a small lump forming in his throat, and fury heating in his chest. No one, no one was going to hurt Yoichi and get away with it. Yoichi turned to look at him, there was a certain reluctance in his eyes, like Yoichi was too pained by the memory, or maybe it was something so horrible, that he wouldn't even tell Kimizuki.

Yoichi's head fell, bringing his eyes to a spot on his hands that he suddenly found incredibly interesting. "Kimizuki-" His voice sounded hoarse, and forced, like it wasn't comfortable for him to speak. "Kimizuki, I'm fine." He raised his head, and forced a little bit of life into his eyes once more. He smiled which usually calmed Kimizuki down, but not this time. What had happened?

"Like Hell you are. Yoichi. What did they do to you? I will get them back, I will get them back for every scratch they put on you. Tell me, Yoichi." Kimizuki could feel his fury rising up out of his chest, he could feel it, it was like a ticking time bomb, it would explode. He wanted to be around the monster that did this to Yoichi when it did.

"They-they didn't do anything to me. Well, at least-at least not compared to-" His voice failed him then, cutting him off in the middle of his sentence, and he had lowered his head, so Kimizuki couldn't read his lips.

It didn't matter. It was obvious, the only one who wasn't there right then was Yuu. Something had happened to Yuu. Something bad enough for the light in Yoichi's eyes to fade like they had.

If something had happened to Yuu, then that meant that he was in such a bad shape that they couldn't have gotten him out like they were, with them weakened and wounded as they were.

If something were to happen to Yuu, then it might be the end of their team. Yuu was like the center pole, he was Yoichi's close friend, his first friend really. Mitsuba and him were like oil and water, but it was because of their similarities. Shinoa clearly looked at him with affection, and admiration. Guren treated him like the son he never had. Shinya liked him because Guren wanted to protect him.

Kimizuki, well, he himself really liked the guy secretly, they looked like they got along worse than Mitsuba and him. He thought Yuu was a great guy, even if he got on his nerves more often than not, and even if he never shut up. He protected the family that he had because that was all he had left. That was more than Kimizuki could do most of the time.

"Yoichi, Yoichi, what happened to Yuu?"

Yoichi's eyes widened and the tears started again. HIs body started to shake again and he threw himself around Kimizuki. "He's-he's gone! Kimizuki, Yuu-kun is gone! He's gone! We- I- I couldn't- I couldn't save him. I tried, I tried, I tried! But I still couldn't save him! I keep going through everything in my mind, trying to figure out what I could have done. There's nothing I could have done, Kimizuki! Why is there nothing I could have done?" His voice had started off violent and loud, but it soon subsided to soft shaking, and whispering.

Kimizuki held him close, rubbing small circles on his back and running his fingers through his hair. He rocked him back and forth, trying to do anything he could to calm the smaller man. He closed his eyes and started humming an old song that he knew from before. It was something he remembered from his mother, and it was the same tune that he hummed to Mirai when she was having trouble sleeping. He had long forgotten the words, but the melody was still there.

Yoichi's shudders slowed and stopped eventually, his breathing becoming regular once more. The tears soaked through his uniform, but Kimizuki didn't mind, he just kept rocking and humming, even after the tears and shudders had stopped.

Yoichi pulled back to look at Kimizuki, a little more life in his eyes, and this time it wasn't forced. He opened his mouth to say thank you when a horrendous shriek echoed through the city. The voices piled on top of each other, each expressing a new form of agony and despair. Yoichi's head snapped to the direction that it had come from, his eyes widening in terror so much that KImizuki worried for his vision.

Yoichi's arm tightened around Kimizuki and his shaking resumed, this time in horror and anticipation. He connected the dots, this must be what had hurt him and what had killed Yuu. He hated that word, killed it made it all the more real. Yuu was gone, dead, deceased, departed, gone, whichever word you picked, it still didn't bring him back.

Whatever this thing was, it was going to pay and pay dearly for making Yoichi suffer like this. He saw Guren walking toward the sound, Mahiru already drawn, and Shinya begging him to come back. There was confidence in his eyes, there was no way that he was backing down, so Kimizuki saw no harm in assisting him in his vendetta, it was his vendetta as well.

He could feel Yoichi trying to hold him back when he rose from his place next to him. He couldn't bear the thought of trying to wrench himself away from Yoichi, he wouldn't be able to handle that, instead, he gave him his arm and then his hand, slowly releasing him to ease himself away.

"No, Kimizuki, this is something even you can't handle. It's a real, honest-to-God monster. Please don't go, I don't know if I could take it if something were to happen to you. Please, I've already lost two members of my family, please, please just don't leave me." Yoichi begged him, he had held onto the tips of his fingers in desperation, begging the only thing that was keeping him grounded to stay with him. Begging the first person that had helped him to come back. Begging anything and everything to just go back to normal. He wanted Tomoe back. He wanted his parents back. He wanted Yuu back. He just wanted everything that had gone wrong in his life to go back to before his life was so messed up, then maybe, he would be happy.

Kimizuki squatted down so that he was again eye-level with him. "Hey, look at me. I promise, I swear on my life. I swear on my life that Guren and I are going to kill that honest-to-God monster. I swear on every breath I take that I will come back. I swear on my future, that I will avenge Yuu. I swear. You just need to trust me, and wait for me here now, and I promise I will come back."

Kimizuki's voice was soft and genuine. A voice to put you at ease.

The perfect voice to mask a lie with.