Miku was still sitting in the throne room. She did not know what time it was; the passage of time seemed nonexistent and ageless in this room, with its lack of windows. The chandelier was still lit, bathing some light on the room. Miku had her back against the wall. A few seconds later, she heard the door open. Count Leon Magnus walked in, carrying a small tray of food. He put it in front of Miku before turning.

"Odd that a vampire would serve a human food," said Miku as she looked at her food. "Are you living alone?"

Leon grinned. "Not at all. Let us say that the other residents of my abode would only frighten you if they were to serve you food, and my humanoid servants are...out."

"Out?" Miku echoed.

Leon's grin grew even larger, if that was possible. "Just testing your friends." He left before Miku could say anything.

"Testing...my friends?" Miku said to the air, weakly. She stared down at the food - buttered bread and a sort of stew with dark pieces of meat and white things in it; probably onions. Not bad for a prisoner, actually; Miku had expected worse. She picked up the spoon and sipped a little of the stew before coughing it out - the taste was acrid and rotting on her tongue. She stared at the stew and noticed for the first time that it smelled terrible; Miku had been too hungry to notice. Also...Miku peered a little closer, feeling her heartbeat in her ears. Those white things were...

Miku almost choked and with a cry she threw the bowl of stew at the other end of the room. It broke against the wall and the rotten meat slid down the wall, along with the white, wriggling maggots. Miku stood up, nervously, against the wall, remembering how Lily mentioned bats and bugs following her around.

If Miku had swallowed that...who knows what would have happened to her? Miku took a few deep, swallowing breaths and she looked carefully at the water and bread before deciding that it was safer to not eat or drink at all, and then she took the tray, walked over to the maggots, and began to smash at them over and over, killing them, until they were nothing more than an indistinguishable white mass. Miku felt bile rise in her throat at the disgusting sight of it, and then she buried her head in her hands and backed away and banged at the door, trying to open it to no avail.

She slid down to her knees. It was hopeless. She was trapped. She had to wait for Lily to come and rescue her. Or Luka, but there was no way that Luka would come, not after what happened the last time they met.

"Damn it..." Miku swore softly to herself.

-o-o-o-

"Thank you," said Luka to the Manticore of Legion at the entrance to the castle. "Now, you may die." She waved her hand over the Manticore of Legion's head, and immediately the Manticore of Legion brought its deadly spined tail to its main mouth and skewered itself with it. There was no blood for the Manticore was a bloodless thrall, and the Manticore fell over and died.

Luka nodded at the dead body before opening the small sewer entrance door and walking in. She was in a spare corridor and she kept walking until she caught a whiff of an odd smell. Luka poked her head through the door and saw that she was in the bedroom of the Count - a half-buried coffin laid on the floor, its lid off. Candles lit the room. Over the coffin was a grand tombstone - 'COUNT LEON MAGNUS' written over an engraved coat of arms.

Luka looked at it for a few moments before looking up around the room. No tapestries. Only candles. Nothing of interest. Luka walked on in search of Miku, noting that the halls were infested with insects, creeping and crawling, making strange, alien noises. Luka paid them little heed as she looked into every room in search of Miku, and none of them contained her.

Luka was beginning to feel a little worried. She looked up at the clock to check the time and continued pressing on, opening this door and that door, all of them empty except for the insects.

"Come on, Miku," said Luka to herself, "where are you...?" Opening, closing, opening, closing.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

-o-o-o-

Meiko and Lily were approaching the castle to look at its defenses when suddenly they heard the sound of horses in the distance before a black carriage appeared before them, except that there were no horses carrying it. It was simply a black carriage that appeared from nowhere.

Meiko looked at it for a few seconds. Nothing moved, until there was a muffled, loud bump in the carriage, and silence for the longest while...and then the carriage fell apart, and inside were two youths, a boy and a girl. The boy, blonde, had a bandage over his right eye and a sailor cap on, his clothes a blue coat with gold stripes on the cuffs and trims. The girl stood in stark contrast, her hair black and body unbandaged, in a red jumper with a checkered tie.

"What ho!" cried the boy in a jaunty sort of way. "So these are the two the Count wants us to kill?"

"That's right!" said the girl on the left. "They don't look too tough, right? We can take them. Two against two."

"No fair, Yuki," said the boy with a smirk. "We're probably too strong for them. This one for instance! She probably doesn't even know how to use her powers." He gestured at Lily, but for once Lily was too dumbfounded to take offense.

Lily found her voice. "Who are these two?"

Meiko bit her lip. "The Dapplebacks."

"The…Dapplebacks?" Lily echoed. "What are they?"

Meiko frowned as she drew her silver sword from its scabbard. "They're supernaturals...fae of Court Carnival."

"Indeed we are, ma'am!" cried Yuki with an exaggerated curtsy.

"You're a smart one, aintcha?" said the boy, and he took a bow. "Jolly nice to meet you two. I'm Oliver, and my esteemed friend here is Yuki. We're the Dapplebacks."

"Now hang on, Oliver," protested Yuki. "That's my speech! I always do the introductions!"

"And don't I know it," said Oliver with a scoff. "You always say it, might as well give me a crack at it."

Yuki scowled. "You're such a sneak, going around and…and breaking your promises. Why, if these two weren't here-"

"I'd love to see you do that, you silly josser," Oliver laughed. "You know I'd best you in any scrap."

"Wait!" said Yuki. "Aren't we being rude to our two opponents here? My apologies," she smiled lopsidedly at Lily and Meiko. "We get a bit too carried away sometimes."

"How about this then, Yuki?" Oliver said. "Whoever deals the finishin' blow to these two's the stronger."

"Wizard idea, Oliver," said Yuki, and she hunched over as an evil, demonic grin spread on her face and Oliver's at the same time.

"Get ready," Meiko said to Lily, and Lily nodded and gulped and fumbled with her weapon, a sword. It was only when she grabbed onto the blade that she realized that she had no idea how to use it.

Oliver and Yuki noticed this and so they seemed to have both decided at the same time to attack her. Oliver stuck a hand into his mouth and ripped out, to Lily's horror and disgust, his own spinal cord. He fell to the ground and immediately his skin began to morph and warp. Lily couldn't spend much time looking at what Oliver was doing, though - Yuki swiped at her with a hand that seemed to be a bit too claw-like to be normal. Lily panted and swung her sword at Oliver's transforming body, but her sword became stuck in his goo and she could not pull it out.

"Forget about the sword!" Meiko yelled as she practically jumped on the advancing Yuki and drove a stake into her back. Yuki showed no signs of pain and only turned and looked at Meiko and smiled in a friendly way as she lashed out with his clawed hands. Oliver had finished transforming - Lily only realized this once she saw that he was no longer a humanoid anymore - instead he was a human-sized lump of viscous goo. He had a tiny baby hand that wielded his spinal cord, which was now far spikier than it was before. He whirled it in circles as he advanced on Lily, his gaping maw opening wide into abyssal nothingness.

Lily panicked. She stabbed into his mouth with the sword that she picked back up after Oliver finished transforming and felt only nothing. Yuki had diverted her attention to Lily instead, but Lily saw to her disgust that she had turned his head 180 degrees around, and that her elbows and knees could bend backwards.

"Wh-what?" Lily stammered.

"They're fae of Court Carnival," Meiko grunted as she threw the stakes at Oliver and took several leaps backward to escape his blow. "They are endowed with the power of Circus."

"Right you are," said Oliver jauntily, giving no indication that he was even remotely winded. "Us fae can perform feats that no human can do! Have you ever been a carnival?"

"No," Lily said as she struck at Oliver's neck with her sword, but Oliver easily dodged it, still talking.

"Shame, shame! You must've had a deprived childhood," he said as he stretched his arms to grab onto Yuki. He lifted Yuki above his head and threw her at Lily and Meiko. Yuki landed with a loud thump, and Lily just barely escaped from impact. Meiko had already rolled out of the way and was searching through her coat for something.

"You two are no fun," Oliver complained. "I was expectin' a harder fight than this!"

Lily was spurred by this taunt and started attacking again, each of her blows easily blocked by Oliver. Attack after attack after attack, ending in nothing but failure. Lily felt a small burst of frustration inside her. Why weren't her blows hitting? Oliver and Yuki were apparently getting bored, for they had begun their meaningless banter again.

"Cor, for a dhampir, she sure is weak," Oliver chortled. "Well Yuki, I'm gettin' a mite bit tired of this bandying about. Think we should get on with it?"

"I don't see why not," said Yuki with a shrug. "Better now than never, right?"

The two of them slowly advanced towards Meiko and Lily as the sun slowly began to rise. Lily cursed to herself. They were running out of time. They still had to go through to the sewers...

-o-o-o-

Luka kicked open another door, too impatient to open it with her hands. This room was bigger than most, a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a throne sitting in the center of the room...Luka drew her gaze around and saw Miku sitting against the right side of the room.

Luka gasped and ran over immediately. "Miku!"

Miku looked up. Her eyes registered nothing but pure shock, and her mouth dropped open. "Luka?"

"Thank god you're alright," Luka dropped to one knee and began to look at Miku's wrists for any signs of mistreatment. "Are you hurt?"

"Why are you here?" Miku asked, her voice dazed.

"Wh-why am I here?" Out of all the questions Luka expected, she did not expect this one. "Why...wouldn't I be here...?"

"You're a vampire," Miku's brow furrowed. "You...have no reason to be helping me."

Luka felt that familiar feeling of hurt at those words. Why couldn't Miku understand? Luka gritted her teeth together in frustration. "That's just what you think. Miku, I..."

-o-o-o-

Lily felt fatigue shake her bones with each blow. She was tired, so tired. Her legs felt as though they were made of iron, and moved sluggishly; her arms were heavy. Meiko was beginning to look fatigued as well, her steps staggering and her movements slower.

Only Oliver and Yuki were anywhere near energetic. Oliver, who had transformed himself back into human form, was wielding a ridiculously large, almost comically sized knife. A vicious slap with the side of the blade sent Lily sprawling on the ground.

"Too easy!" Oliver chuckled.

Lily could only stare at Oliver as he approached her with the knife. She was going to die right here...Lily felt so tired. Maybe death would be a release. She let her eyes slowly close shut as her conscious mind let go.

-o-o-o-

Oliver was fully expecting to kill Lily and be done with it. In fact, he had the knife over her neck, about to decapitate her.

So it was understandable that he would be shocked when Lily's eyes shot open a little more than a second later, except her eyes were different, no longer the rational eyes she had when fighting earlier; no, these were eyes of all whole different type altogether, savage and bestial.

Lily leapt to her feet and rolled back and snarled, actually snarled, at Oliver, before her arms began to transform into long, metallic-looking claws.

"What's she doing, Yuki?" Oliver asked as he warily hefted his blade.

"I don't know," said Yuki, who had been ready to kill Meiko.

Lily stopped moving after her claws transformed. The three of them stayed like that for a very, very long while, before Oliver decided that well, if Lily wasn't going to move, he should, and as he took a step forward he was surprised to see that he could not move because he no longer had legs. Yuki seemed to have lost her arms.

Lily was still there, unmoving. Oliver blinked and squinted and then he realized that it was only an afterimage; Lily had somehow managed to move so fast...

"H-how?" Oliver stammered.

He never got to hear the answer, because Yuki was dead, and in a second, so was he.

-o-o-o-

Miku didn't know what to think.

Luka was here to rescue her. Luka. But Luka was a vampire, right? No way would she expend the time and energy to try to rescue a lowly human like Miku...

Miku couldn't deny, however, that she felt positively ecstatic when Luka kicked open the door. Luka had looked heroic, strong, practically invincible. However, reason rushed back into Miku's mind once more. Why was Luka even here to rescue her? She was a vampire. A vampire!

"You...have no reason to be helping me," Miku said in complete confusion.

Luka's eyebrows drew together, and for a moment she looked angry. "That's just what you think. I..."

But Miku never got to hear Luka finish her sentence, for Leon walked into the moment after Luka said 'I'.

"I am impressed you managed to make your way all the way here," said Leon.

Luka put her cold hand on Miku's shoulder, as if telling her to stay still, before she stood up. "Oh?"

"Indeed," Leon smiled. He snapped his fingers and all at once the tapestries fell away from the walls to reveal portraits, all darkened so Miku could not see their features very well. "You know who these are, correct?"

"The great ancestors of vampirism," said Luka, mechanically. "Obviously. I don't see how this has to do with you kidnapping Miku."

"Oh," Leon smiled. "This has nothing to do with me kidnapping Miku. No, instead this has to do with you. For a fledgling, you are very powerful. I am proposing that you join me and forget about that stripling of a human girl. Remember our ancestor, Sateriajis Venomania," Leon snapped his fingers again and a light shone on one of the portraits, which illustrated a grim-looking man who stared out from the portrait, fangs obviously visible. "He died precisely because he sought a woman named Gumina. At the peak of his power, he fell due to this detestable weakness. The lesson to be learnt from this is unmistakable. Other vampires too have died from this same thing; many of our great ancestors had fallen to the human weakness of 'love', and died. What say you? It is truly a shame to destroy such a promising young fledgling. Will you not reconsider? Abandon this Miku to her fate as bait for my shame of a daughter. They will both die, and we will rule over this land together how vampires should live - strong as the rulers of humans, not as pitiful little Houses clashing together in power struggles. We will be the Nobility once more."

Luka looked a little melancholy. "The time of the Nobility is over. This castle and the age of when vampires used to rule over humans is over and gone. You are nothing more than a fragment forgotten by time. Return to where you belong."

Miku stared at Luka. She had certainly not expected this refusal of power. Shouldn't Luka be jumping at the chance?

Leon seemed angered. "Silence!" he pounded his fist against the wall. "We vampires have been given immortality! We are the undying. We are the strongest, most intelligent, most organized of all supernaturals. What are we made for then, if not for ruling?"

It was then that Miku noticed that Luka was not looking at Leon. She was instead looking over at the portrait behind him, its features shrouded in darkness.

"I will see then that you die for turning your back upon the noble blood of vampires," said Leon, his face twisted in anger. "Vampires nowadays are nothing more than thin-blooded dogs, like my shame of a daughter! You should all die...all of you weak, thin-blooded animals!" He swept his cape out behind him and Luka blinked and moved back rapidly, drawing the sword that had been hanging from a scabbard on her waist. Leon's cloak fluttered, expanded, and tried to wrap around Luka.

Luka took another leap back and tried to strike at the cape, but Miku saw that the cape was sticky, and Luka's sword could not tear it. The cape twined around Luka's hand, forcing her to let go, and the sword flew to the side as Leon's cape returned to normal dimensions.

"And now you stand weaponless," he laughed. "Listen, fledgling - this cape was stitched with the skin of the countless human wretches I fed upon, lacquered with their blood. With the techniques I learned from Ancestor Banica Conchita herself, I made this cape ten times as strong as steel, and ten times more flexible than cords. Perhaps...after I defeat you, that girl would be the next skin to join my cape."

Luka 'tsk'ed and threw several wooden stakes at Leon, who deflected them easily with his cape. The stakes fell to the floor, and Leon took off his cape, which flared in the air, showing its bright red insides, and Miku could see the tiny white stitch marks between the human skins before the cape morphed into a blade, and Leon slashed at Luka.

Luka leapt back, but not fast enough, for the blade caught on her arm and drew blood.

"Ugh," Luka grunted and clutched at her arm as she stood directly in front of Miku.

Leon was looking rather confident. "In the end, you're still just a fledgling..." His cape began a cape once more in his hands, and it wrapped around Luka and began to constrict.

Miku put her hands on the ground and stared in horror at the spectacle. She wanted to help. Luka was in trouble, her face twisting in pain from the constricting cape as Leon stood back with a satisfied grin on his face. Miku couldn't be useless anymore...she had to do something. In that moment, she noticed the sword that Luka held. Maybe that? Miku ran over to the sword and picked it up. It felt heavy in her hands.

Miku gulped. She never really thought that she would ever do anything like this before, but she had to. Luka gave out a short grunt of pain and that did it; Miku felt her feet run towards Leon, whose face held an intensely concentrating expression, and slashed at his back.

In that moment, the cape released its hold on Luka, and she dropped to the ground, groaning, and Leon whirled around too fast for Miku's eyes to follow and caught the blade between his hands.

"Oh," he started to laugh. "I suppose you aren't so useless after all, human. I suppose when it comes to her almost dying, even you can be roused from your cow-like stupor. Well," Leon's expression darkened and Miku felt a chill of fear run up her spine. "I no longer need you. The fledgling blundered here to save you. My shame of a daughter is not yet here, and I have sent the fae Oliver and Yuki to incapacitate her...I daresay she's outside, dead and rotting, finally. You have outlived your usefulness, bait."

Miku's eyes widened as she heard the last part, worry filling her heart for Lily, and at that moment Leon pushed her with so much force Miku practically flew into the wall slightly below the giant portrait of some vampire ancestor, hitting her head on the stone, and she fell unconscious.

-o-o-o-

"Lily?"

It felt like morning. Lily felt her eyes sting below her eyelids. She had to get up to go to school, right?

"Lily!"

Shaking. Ugh. Lily groaned and pulled her pillow over her head, except there was no pillow - her fingers touched grass.

Immediately, Lily awoke and the memories of what happened rushed into her mind. She and Meiko had been fighting Oliver and Yuki, the fae of Count Carnival. Lily had been about to die...except she's alive? Lily stared down at her hands before looking up.

Oliver and Yuki were lying on the ground. More accurately, pieces of Oliver and Yuki were lying on the ground. Blue faerie blood painted the grass, and their lifeless heads stared up at the sky. They were completely rended to pieces, as if torn apart by some rampaging beast.

"Wow," Lily breathed. "Meiko...you did that?"

Meiko shook her head. "No. You did."

"What?" Lily stared at her before looking down at herself. "Me? How? I was about to die..."

"I think," said Meiko, slowly, "your vampire side awoke at the last possible moment. Thank goodness for that, otherwise we'd all be dead."

Lily stared at Meiko. "My...vampire side?" Lily didn't know what to think. She hated vampires. They were monsters. Her father's treatment of her and her mother proved that. Lily trembled, feeling as though something in her was crumbling. She was alive because of the vampire in her. Lily didn't even want to have a vampire side in the first place, but she was only alive because of that vampire side.

Lily put her hands to her head, and Meiko, silent, stood by.

After a long while, during which both of them were silent, Meiko offered her hand to Lily, who grabbed it and shakily stood back onto her feet. She stared at the remains of Oliver and Yuki. She was the one who did such brutal killings. Lily had never killed anyone before. Despite her talk of killing her father, Lily doubted that she would be able to kill him, in the end.

She felt sick and she stumbled away from Meiko and fell to her knees and threw up.

Meiko, considerate, said nothing.

-o-o-o-

Now there was only one left.

His shame of a daughter, Lily the dhampir (a mistake that shouldn't have been born in the first place, an unsightly scar upon the name of Magnus...he thought that she was a stillbirth; that was what the mother, a human whore, told him, but she was lying. Well, Leon would have to pay a visit to her someday...), was dead. Miku, the bait, was to be the next skin to be added to his bloodstained cape. Luka, the fledgling, was the only one left to die.

He watched as Luka struggled to her feet, wobbling slightly. She half-heartedly threw some stakes at Leon, stakes that he easily dodged. Luka then made a dash over to Miku and knelt down before her, checking her condition, and breathing a sigh of relief.

Leon's eyes hardened. Such a pitiful display of sentimentality. Fledglings were so susceptible to human feelings. Luka got back up to her feet and faced Leon, her face stern.

"Well," said Leon, grinning. "Now, you die." He began to undergo a transformation. He had to beg one of the great ancestors to teach him this one as well - the Demonic Transformation, where the vampire could transform into a horrid beast glimpsed in nightmares; an eight foot tall monstrosity, skin a rippling gray-black chitin, wicked spines sprouting from the vertebrae, arms elongated, forming into giant, hideous claws. His face too, warped into something out of a nightmare, eyeless, skin peeled back from the face, glistening face muscles warping and changing, teeth jutting, becoming fangs.

Luka seemed unimpressed, but Leon cared little for what the fledgling thought. This would end now. He brought one claw up to rend the girl to pieces, but when he brought it down, he found to his shock that the girl had his claw clasped easily between her hands.

Impossible. A fledgling could not stop an attack like this. A strong vampire, a very strong vampire, possibly, but a fledgling? Impossible.

Luka made a movement with her hands and immediately Leon felt himself return to his normal, humanoid form, Luka still gripping onto his hand tightly between hers.

"How?" he gasped.

Luka gave him an angelic little smile and all at once her arms transformed into that of the Demonic Transformation. Leon gaped at her. His mind seemed to have gone completely blank. He drew his eyes up at the unlit portrait of a great ancestor of vampirism, the one of Ancestor Elluka, and then he looked back at Luka.

The faces in the portrait looked so close, they were practically the same. The only difference was the hairstyle. Horror invaded Leon's being. It couldn't be. Elluka was dead. She couldn't be alive. This 'Luka' couldn't possibly be her. But then, how could a mere fledgling possess the strength to dispel the Demonic Transformation?

"It can't be," Leon said, his words dropping from his lips like stones.

"It only follows that the one who taught you the Demonic Transformation should know how to stop it," said Luka, her voice as sweet as honey.

Leon's wild eyes focused on Luka's, which were slowly turning red. "It can't be. I had to beg Ancestor Elluka to teach me that very same trick. C-could it be...milady, you really are..."

Luka, no, Elluka, one of the great ancestors of vampirism, the one who was supposed to be dead, because all of the great ancestors were dead, grinned evilly, her eyes fully red, and that grin was the last thing Count Leon Magnus ever saw.

-o-o-o-

Luka kicked Leon's rapidly rotting body aside in disgust and sighed, a relatively heavy one. Well, there's one person who found out, but he's dead now.

Luka looked over, up at her portrait, before drawing her gaze back down to Miku, who was groaning as her eyes slowly fluttered awake. Luka was at her side in an instant.

"Luka...?" Miku mumbled thickly.

Luka nodded, keeping her hand on her shoulder. "Yes. I'm here. You're safe now."

Miku blinked slowly. "I...helped, right...?"

"Yes," Luka assured her, smiling. "You helped."

Miku smiled and Luka's heart clenched at the sight of it. "That's good..."

Luka had never thought that she would eventually fall prey to love like the other great ancestors of vampirism...she thought that she was too strong for that. After all, she was the only one who was still living. But somehow she had eventually fallen prey to this strange feeling like all the other ones. Miku's blood had been the sweetest, most delectable blood to wash over her tongue, even though Luka had drank the blood of thousands upon thousands of humans over the centuries.

Luka looked at Miku, who was blinking slowly as she tried to reorient herself, and then Miku's eyes shot open.

"Lily!" Miku exclaimed, and she unsteadily got up, Luka hastily supporting her. "Where is she? Is she okay?"

It was of course at that moment when a very worn-looking Lily and Meiko burst into the room. Miku immediately brightened up at the sight of those two, and she ran towards Lily and immediately enveloped her in a hug.

"Thank god you're okay," Miku said into Lily's shoulder. Lily looked a little uncomfortable, but she smiled and patted Miku's back. Luka felt the alien feeling of jealousy run through her at the sight of their closeness, soon enough relieved when Miku pulled back from the hug.

"I take it then that...he's dead," Lily said, eying the body. "So that's my father...I was hoping I would have a chance to talk to him." She frowned.

"He had nothing worthwhile to say," said Luka blandly.

"Oh, and you!" Lily whirled on Luka. "What are you doing here? And...why's Miku here? I told you not to come, Miku..."

"She was kidnapped," said Luka with a huff. "I was here to rescue her."

Lily paled. "She was kidnapped?"

Miku rubbed the back of her head. "Y-yeah, but I'm fine now. It's thanks to Luka. She saved me."

Lily sent a frown at Luka that Luka returned. "Yeah?"

"I think she can be trusted, Lily," said Miku hastily. "She risked her life for me."

Lily exhaled. "Still though. A fledgling who could defeat a vampire like Count Magnus...she's pretty exceptional."

Luka hesitated and opened her mouth before closing it.

Such confessions could be saved for another time, she decided.

-o-o-o-

"So uh," said Miku to Luka a few hours later as the two of them traveled back to Crypton. "You never told me...why you were helping me. Magnus interrupted."

Luka looked at Miku and closed her eyes. It was tempting to confess everything, tempting to tell Miku that she felt as though she had fallen in love with her. Fell in love, an affliction that all the great ancestors suffered from, and died from, eventually; Luka had been a late bloomer. A very late bloomer. Vampire loves happened quickly, yet Luka knew all too well from all of the other great ancestors dying that they were true, true and obsessive, so true that to lose their love was certain death, because life would be unbearable without that special person, chosen by the threads of fate and destiny.

Luka wanted badly to tell Miku this. To tell her that she think she loves her. To kiss her. To take her blood and have Miku want Luka to take her blood.

But not now. It was too soon. Miku wasn't ready yet.

"I helped you because I want to help you," said Luka, honestly.

Miku snorted. "What an answer. Oh, and...if you could tell me...I'm sorry if this is too personal, but...on the day we first met, why couldn't you just go to the government?"

Luka hesitated. The government, unlike vampires, kept close track of vampire movement. Luka had killed a person by drinking too much; she was dizzy with the freedom and ease the blood supplier program brought when it first came out. Undoubtedly the government had a record on her. If Luka were to go to the blood supplier, she would get kicked out, yes, after having her record examined, but...

It was possible that Luka would be revealed as one of the great ancestors of vampirism, Elluka, if her record was examined too much, if someone were to compare the appearances of Luka Megurine of House Karnstein and Elluka.

If that was the case, Luka would be hunted down, for the human government was strong and very wary of old vampires such as Luka, as old vampires were very powerful, so powerful they could walk in daylight.

Which was why Luka had been so generous with her time incense when she gave some to Gumi. She was old enough to amass a lot of time incense, and she was also old enough to not need it anymore.

"I went a little too wild with the blood drinking," said Luka, quietly.

Miku nodded. "...I see."

"You aren't scared of me, right?" Luka looked over at Miku. "I won't hurt you if I can help it."

Miku smiled quietly, although Luka could detect mild unease in her body, in the tiny shifts of her shoulders and arms, mild unease, not fear, but unease.

Of course. Luka was still a vampire, and humans were still after all this time distrustful of them.

"I'm not scared of you," said Miku. "Well, now that this is all over, what are you going to do? Don't worry, I won't report you to the government anymore. You already rescued me and saved my life twice...I suppose I never thanked you for that before, so. Thank you."

Luka accepted the thanks with a nod and thought. True, this was all over now. Luka had no logical reason to visit Miku anymore - her debt was paid in full and the threat that menaced Miku and Lily was gone. For all intents and purposes, her story with them was, logically, over.

But love wasn't logical.

"I like you, Miku," said Luka, bluntly. "I think I would like to spend more time with you. So if it's okay..."

Miku was obviously taken aback. A slight blush colored her cheeks. "I...you like me? You want to spend more time with me?"

"As friends, I mean," Luka added hastily, not wanting to scare Miku off.

"Oh," Miku looked simultaneously relieved and disappointed. "As friends. Okay. I...sure. I'd love to hang out with you."

Luka felt her face break into a genuinely happy grin. "That's great, Miku!"

Miku smiled back and nodded.

For now, this was enough, Luka decided as she looked at Miku's peaceful face. She looked out the window of the train, at the buildings rushing by. It was night, and Miku was beginning to fall asleep.

Luka looked over at Miku and smiled at the sight of her sleeping face.

And then the vampire also closed her eyes as she felt a wave of relaxation wash over her, peaceful and easy and soothing.

And...THAT'S A WRAP! For Part 1, lulz. There will be more (after I take a short break). Hope you all are enjoying the story so far :D This is where we start getting into the exciting stuff!