It was dark when Luka got back to the blood coven, but that was only to be expected. What she didn't expect, however, was Sonika leaning against the wall and glaring at her.

"Um," said Luka. "Hi."

"Um, hi, yourself," said Sonika. "We need to talk."

Those words never failed to send a jolt of dread down anyone's spine. "Why? What is it?"

"I've been informed by Gumi about certain issues with your identity," said Sonika, pushing herself off the wall. "You are not a fledgling."

Shit. Luka wasn't prepared to have this talk now, but at the same time, after that eternity of lying during the date, a part of her was just too tired to put up any more fight. So what if they found out she was Elluka? It wasn't as though the Karnsteins would give up such a powerful playing piece. That would be counterproductive, unless they were too afraid of this and wanted to kill her.

"What makes you think that?" said Luka.

"Gumi told me some things, and also, you're too good to be a fledgling."

Luka forced a grin. "Wow, thanks for the compliment. Maybe I'm just naturally talented."

Sonika snorted. "Bullshit. There's 'naturally talented' and there's 'too good', and you're in the latter. Don't be a smartass about this. Why are you pretending to be a fledgling?"

Luka's shoulders sagged. Whatever, she thought. They would have gotten her sooner or later. The whole truth, however, might be too unbelievable, so Luka spoke carefully. "I got in trouble with some of the Seraphim. Back when the blood supplier program came out."

Sonika's eyebrows furrowed as she did the mental calculations. "That would've been around thirty years ago, right?"

"Yeah," Luka sighed. "I got away - well, it was easy for me to get away at that point, I drank a lot - and then I laid low for a while. I decided to join a house because I thought it would give me protection. You know, a new identity."

Sonika frowned. "That doesn't explain how you got our bloodline powers. And the person who bit you said they did it themselves. They swore you were human before, actually."

"Please," said Luka, wearily, "if I can't inveigle vampires, how would I have lived this long? It was just a parlor trick. People's perceptions can be so easily changed. And you pick up things after living for so long."

Sonika's eyes narrowed. "You can't inveigle members of our family. It's one of our codes."

"Well, I did that before I joined, and I promise you that since then I haven't done anything of the sort," said Luka, spreading her arms.

"Not even to that human girl you had your date with?"

"What?" Luka stared. "Of course not! That wouldn't be-"

"Doesn't matter what it wouldn't be," Sonika interrupted, "you're exhibiting all the stalkerish traits of a vampire in love. We're pretty morally loose, and I assume you've been lying to her about your identity like you lied to all of us. If you're okay with lying about something like that, how would we know you aren't using your powers to inveigle her?"

Luka looked down. It was true - she was lying about her identity to Miku. Her gut churned. How could the two of them even have something if one of the essential foundations of having a relationship was illusory? Miku liked a Luka that simply didn't exist. "I promise I'm not using her powers on her. But it doesn't matter if I am or not, anyways. Miku isn't the topic of the conversation."

"I guess," said Sonika. "Listen - we'll keep you here. But you'll have to behave. If not, well," Sonika shrugged, "no matter how old and powerful you are, I doubt you can survive the wrath of an entire House, combined with the Seraphim you're hiding from."

"I've been nothing but helpful," Luka snapped. "I defeated Leon Magnus, I defeated the wendigo-"

"We weren't even having a dispute with Leon, you just went and killed him because he kidnapped your pet human. As for the wendigo, you probably wouldn't have fought nearly as hard if it wasn't for the fact that it was possessing a human friend of your's."

Sonika was right, hard as it was to admit, but Luka wasn't about to give her the satisfaction. "Whatever the next assignment is," said Luka, "I promise I'll help."

"Thanks," said Sonika, and she put a hand on Luka's shoulder. "But we'll be watching you."

-o-o-o-

Humans cannot eat dreams. This was a normal, natural fact of life. Humans create dreams, to be sure - they can live dreams, be inside a dream, but the one thing they cannot do is actually eat the entirety of a dream, swallow up that pure essence of experience.

Dream-eaters, on the other hand, that's where they get their name. Dreams were, quite literally, their bread and butter. They eat and eat away at a person's dreams, experiencing only secondhand what power a dream might hold, catching only faint glimpses and taste notes of what the experience of a dream could have been. They could bring some of their stored dreams into reality, if undigested, and many of them do take advantage of the many, many, many dreams people have about flying to fly around themselves. Dream-eaters ruin a person's soul if they target the same person one time too many, which is why most of them hop and jump from person to person, never staying too long, never immersing their soul deep into another's.

Now, Ia, being half of both, was firmly stuck in a paradoxical existence. She ate dreams - being a daughter of a dream-eater, there was no way of that not happening - but at the same time, she could experience them. Every time she ate a dream, she had to struggle to not get pulled in to it. A whole lot of unpleasant things could happen when she shared dreams with someone else, the least of which was getting discovered snoozing away by a stranger in a stranger's bed in the morning.

It was awful, especially when one took in the fact that Ia could only subsist on dreams. Normal foods, that stuff of everyday life like burgers, bento boxes, takeout, and so on, Ia could only experience in dreams. So there was always that, of course, that pull of immersing herself in someone else's dream just for the experience of doing something else.

But right now, Ia couldn't afford to let herself get pulled into a dream. Right now, Ia was on the job. The first job she's ever been on, really - supernatural presence other than vampires had lessened significantly ever since House Karnstein moved in, and, well, the vampires had done their best to systematically eradicate every other supernatural in the city. Now there was nothing left but half-bloods and weaklings clinging onto life...and the new werewolves, Ia supposed, but they were illegal ones. Still, they had a plan, and Ia was tired of skulking around and hiding.

She scrutinized the piece of paper SeeU had given her and looked at the house before her. The house was dark. The werewolves had done their research on the Karnsteins and decided that the best way to go about their campaign was to strike at vulnerabilities - namely, fledglings and humans strongly associated with the blood coven.

"Back when they kicked us out, one of the bloodsuckers mentioned something about dealing with a wendigo problem," SeeU had said when she passed the paper to Ia. "All the other vampires are too old, too experienced...they'd know when a dream-eater is targeting them. We'll start small. Karnsteins have friends. We'll get in the heads of those first."

Ia looked back down at the list and frowned at the werewolves' list of hypothetical fledglings and humans. It looked like they just snagged a random grab-bag of names of whoever happened to stay behind in the Karnstein blood coven that night. Lily Matsuda. Yukari Yuzuki. Miku Hatsune. Luka Megurine. There was a Gumi Nakajima, but that name was hurriedly scratched out.

A human would be the easiest one to start out with. Ia did a requisite search of addresses. Luka Megurine was definitely a vampire, considering how her name was in the vampire database and she lived in the Karnstein blood coven. There was no way Ia was going to try to invade that on her first night. That building was ridiculously tall and Luka's room was similarly ridiculously high up. Yukari, Lily, and Miku were completely clean - probably friends of the Karnsteins. Why humans would want to be friends with vampires was beyond Ia. Vampires preyed on humans. It was like a lamb cuddling up to a wolf. Stupid.

But anyways. That left Yukari, Lily, and Miku as potential targets. It was best to target a human that was closest to a vampire - that way Ia could glean the most information about the Karnsteins. Yukari had apparently gotten her own room during her stay - possibly a sign of importance - but Miku had slept in the room of a vampire, so maybe Miku was the one who had a particularly close tie. Lily, on the other hand, didn't sleep at all.

But Ia had time. If she got it wrong the first night, well, whatever she gleaned from the dream should lead her to the right person. Ia put the paper back in her pocket and took stock of the building once more. It was an absolutely normal two-story house other than the fact that one of the windows was boarded up. Strange. Ia placed an experimental foot on the house's wall and concentrated, drawing out a little of a dream she had a few days ago, one from a little boy who dreamt of climbing walls and swinging from buildings, applying the lightest dusting of it to herself. Sure enough, her foot stuck and Ia climbed up the wall, keeping herself in shadow so that people walking around at two in the morning wouldn't look up and see a girl climbing up someone's house.

Eventually, Ia reached a window and tested it. It was unlocked. She slid it up and tumbled into the house. She left the window open and stayed there, still. It was completely silent. Slowly, Ia got up and looked around. She was in someone's bedroom, decorated in purple and rabbits. Stacks of newspaper on the desk. Cans of extra-strength caffeinated drinks. Supernatural romance novels scattered on the floor.

Ia wrinkled her nose in distaste at the messiness and walked over to the bed. There was a soundly sleeping girl. She looked completely exhausted. Ia waited. The girl did not wake. She bent over and pressed her lips against the girl's, stealing her breath, stealing her dream. The girl was cold, and her dream-

Shit. Ia hurriedly pulled back, but by then it was too late and the landscape was morphing before her eyes. She stumbled backwards, pinched herself, but it was too late. Somehow, Ia didn't quite count on the dream being this strong, but she should have expected it. The deeper in sleep one was, the more exhausted one was, the easier it was for Ia to get sucked into the dream too. It was the simple nature of things. Deep in sleep was when someone was deep in a dream. And this girl - Yukari, Ia knew her name now - was very, very deep in sleep.

-o-o-o-

"We must stop her!" the man shouted, placing a hand on Ia's back. Ia, dazed, looked up. She was on top of a train with a cohort of men, all dressed in military green. She looked down at her hands. She was holding a pistol.

"What?" said Ia. She stood up and pinched herself, desultory. It was a no go. She wasn't about to wake up.

Once in a dream, there were a few ways of escape. One was to exploit the rips of logic in dreams, make them so big that the dreamer couldn't help but to wake up under the jolt of realization that they were dreaming. Another was to find the dreamer and kill them.

Ia had a gun, so the easiest thing to do was to kill the dreamer, wherever she was. Since people didn't always take on their own appearance in dreams, Ia raised her gun and shot the men surrounding her. The train roared on, the gun never ran out of bullets, and the dreamer was not here. Okay then. Ia grabbed hold of a passing cloud, concentrated. It became solid under her hand. She climbed onto it, the cloud icy cold under her hands, and zoomed off.

-o-o-o-

"It's two in the morning," Miku said to herself as she stared at her computer. "It's two in the morning. I have school tomorrow." No matter how many times she said it, however, she was as resolutely awake as ever. With a sigh, Miku resigned herself. Maybe she shouldn't have had that drink of coffee after dinner, but her mother had just bought some new beans and, well, she was so enthusiastic about it Miku had to give it a try. What she discovered in the end was that no matter how good the beans were, she still hated the taste of coffee.

But coffee wasn't the only reason she was still awake. Half her mind was still fixated on that date she had with Luka, miles away. Even though the movie had broken, even though she ran into her friends by the end of it, that date confirmed everything. It had to, right? Luka had kissed her. On the cheek, to be sure, but a kiss was still a kiss and Miku doubted that Luka ran around kissing people she saw as just friends, and Miku wasn't that oblivious. It was as confirmed as it could ever be, a green light to go and...to go and what? Date a vampire?

Miku sighed and put her head on the desk. Vampire romances were common enough in fiction, but in reality, well, Miku didn't know. None of her classmates had ever dated a vampire, that was for certain. As for her parents...Miku felt a sinking in her gut. How could she even introduce Luka to them? It would be the most awkward thing. Her parents had assumed, like everyone else would, that Miku would date a nice, normal, human boy once she got into high school. If Miku was to show up with Luka in tow and introduce her as her nice, abnormal, vampiric girlfriend, well then. The bites on her neck, mostly healed over, itched and Miku closed her eyes, ran her fingers over the two slightly raised bumps. They tingled, and Miku shivered.

"Shit," she whispered, and raised her head to look at her phone.

-o-o-o-

The dream was thankfully very small - Ia had only been flying for about three minutes when she reached the end and the cloud wouldn't listen to her anymore. The dream was composed of a train going around in an endless circle, a tall tower, and a school. The rest were sketchy masses, artist's approximations of buildings. The mind could only create so many complete interiors and exteriors. If Yukari had been dreaming alone, the world would seem infinite. Now her mind had to accommodate two dreamers, and the dreamworld was stressed.

But that wasn't Ia's problem. She fired a few more bullets in the air. The gun went off smoothly. Infinite bullets. Since the only buildings with interiors are the tower and the school, Ia decided to start her search at the school. She hopped off the cloud and walked inside.

Once in, the school seemed to be comprised of a single long corridor, filled with people talking about irrelevancies. Ia walked down the halls, recognizing the school uniform. Based on reality, as expected. Probably the school Lily, Miku, and Yukari attended as well. Ia tried every door. All of them were locked save for the classroom at the end of the wall. Bingo. Ia took note of the classroom number - 1-Q - and slid it open.

There were five people in the room, all gathered by a desk near the window. Ia strode over, eyes flicking over each one. A girl with long blonde hair, another girl with teal twin-tails, a slightly older-looking woman with long pink hair, and the dreamer herself, Yukari. Ia paused and looked at the woman. She was the single outlier, not dressed in the school uniform. Strange.

"Hello," said Ia, hiding away her gun. "I'm new here. Are you all students?"

The blonde girl glanced at Ia and rolled her eyes. "Of course we are, why else would we be here?"

"Oh," said the twin-tailed girl, brightly, "are you a new transfer student?"

"Yes," said Ia with a smile. "I got lost and I wanted to be shown around. If I could have your names?"

"I don't see the harm in that," said the woman. "I'm Luka."

"Lily," the blonde volunteered.

"Miku!" said the twin-tailed girl. "And this is Yukari."

Yukari glanced at Ia before looking away. When she spoke, her voice was tiny. "Hi..."

"What's wrong, Yukari?" Miku said. "You aren't normally this shy."

"Do you go to this school?" Ia asked Luka.

Luka shrugged. "No. I'm just here to be here."

Ia decided not to question it. Dreams were strange. At any rate, despite getting sucked into the dream, Ia had gleaned a good amount of information already. The school, the classroom, the faces to match with the names...it was more than she had expected. Time for Yukari to wake up.

"Alright," said Ia, and she smiled at Yukari. "Thanks for the dream." She raised her gun and pulled the trigger.

There was only an empty click. Of course. The dreamer would try to protect themselves. Before Ia could do anything, Yukari jolted up to her feet and ran from the room like a startled rabbit.

"What's her problem, right?" Ia said, but everyone had fallen silent, staring at her dully. Now that Yukari was out of the room, the dream was no longer bothering to accommodate these manufactured personalities. Ia dropped the gun and gave chase. There was a loud ringing in the halls now, resembling the sound of a fire alarm. Ia pushed aside the dream-people, all of whom seemed to conspire to block her way. Yukari's head was barely visible through the crowd. Ia struggled to push through a pair of hefty male students. Yukari took a sharp right turn up some stairs that were not there before. Ia cursed under her breath and followed. The steps lengthened under her. Ia applied a burst of speed from a saved dream and jolted up the stairs.

On the second floor Ia found herself in a grocery store, full of aisles and shoppers. The ringing was still going on, each ring a deep, long drone. Ia ran down the aisles. Cans of tomato soup and cream of broccoli fell. Ia slipped, hit her face against the floor, got back up, met the bewildered eyes of a store assistant, and grabbed her by the sleeve.

"Excuse me," said Ia, "I'm looking for a lost child, a little taller than me, purple hair, name's Yukari Yuzuki, can you make an announcement?"

The assistant nodded, fumbled, and spoke over the intercom. "Yukari Yuzuki, please come to aisle six, your..uh...sister is looking for you..."

Ia hoped the dream was overwritten and that Yukari had forgotten entirely about Ia's appearance, and sure enough Yukari appeared in aisle six with an empty shopping cart.

"I have a sister?" said Yukari.

"No," said Ia. She grabbed a nearby x-acto knife, tore the packaging off, and lunged at Yukari. Yukari gasped and pushed the shopping cart towards Ia. It caught her mid-step and Ia fell back with an 'oof'.

"Oh my god," Ia muttered, climbing to her feet, "would you please just wake up already?"

-o-o-o-

After the third ring, Miku resigned herself to the fact that Yukari was probably sleeping. It was, after all, half past two in the morning, and she did just have her wendigo incident the other day. But talking about this kind of thing during school would be a little awkward. Slightly less now that Yukari, Lily, and Miku were all acquainted with vampires, but for Rin and Len things would probably be rather confusing.

There was another person she could call who would definitely be awake at this time. Miku ran down the list of names on her contacts, stopped at Luka. She hesitated. What would she even talk to Luka about? It was poor form to call someone right after a date too. Miku groaned. Maybe she should've read more of those supernatural romance novels Yukari was so enamored with. One more try, Miku thought. She scrolled up and dialed again.

-o-o-o-

Ia pressed her back against the wall, rifle close to her chest. The walls were thrumming with electronic beats and Ia adjusted her grip, peered around the wall. There was a dark shape. She fired. The dark shape cursed and Ia watched as its rifle turned red, signifying that it could not be used until the cooldown time was over. Ia abandoned cover and ran towards the two-story structure in the middle of the room, dodging fire.

"You're not supposed to run in laser tag," someone reprimanded her over the speakers.

Ia ignored it as she ran up the steps two at a time. Yukari had been sniping from this position for a while, a conclusion Ia arrived to solely because Yukari had been topping the leaderboard and whenever people tried to get close to the structure, they were shot down. Good thing Ia was a small target. Upon reaching the second level, where there was no Yukari but instead a circular hole in the wall, Ia dropped to her knees, crawled through the tube, and entered a room made entirely of wood. There was a loud ringing from far, far away, a milky underwater distance. Panting, Ia got up to her feet. Yukari was crouched in the corner, looking at something. There were absolutely no weapons to be found, and when Ia turned around, there was no exit. Nothing she could use save the window. Ia looked outside. The drop was fatal. She turned towards Yukari.

"Laser tag," said Ia. "Clever."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Yukari. "I'm building an airship."

Ia walked over, crouched, and saw that Yukari was fiddling with some controls set on the floor. "Cool. But it's time to wake up, sleepyhead."

"Like stars burning holes right through the dark," Yukari mumbled. "Flicking fire like saltwater into my eyes..."

Ia was silent for a few moments, and then she placed her hands over Yukari's thin neck. The blaring in the background grew louder. What was that noise, anyways? It sounded like it was getting closer. Ia looked behind her. There was a missile coming through the window.

"Are you serious," said Ia, and then she woke up.

-o-o-o-

"Ah!" Yukari shot up in her bed, breathing heavily, eyes wide as she ran a hand through her messy hair. Her sheets were all tangled up and she looked around. Her window was open. Did she leave it like that? Her phone was blaring loudly and Yukari stared at it for a second, her mind struggling to come back to reality. Her heart was beating like a jackhammer, as though she had just come back from a long run, and Yukari rubbed the sleep from her eyes and answered it. 'Hello?"

"Hey, um, Yukari," said Miku. "Sorry. Did I wake you up?"

"Yeah...what is it?" Yukari yawned and pulled her knees up to her chest. "Something happen?"

"Oh...sorry," said Miku. "Um, I just couldn't sleep. Look," Miku's voice became hurried, "I don't know why I called, we can talk about this tomorrow, I'm really sorry-"

"Hey, wait," said Yukari, "now that I'm awake we might as well talk, right? It's no problem at all. I was having an awful dream anyways."

"Again?" Miku's voice instantly became alarmed. "Does it have anything to do with..."

"Oh, god, no, nothing like the wendigo," Yukari laughed. "It was just a normal nightmare, I think. I don't remember any of it."

"Well, if you say so," said Miku, not sounding reassured. "You've been having a lot of bad dreams lately. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," said Yukari. "So what's up?"

Miku hesitated. 'Well...it's about Luka..."

-o-o-o-

Hiding under the bed. Ia had been reduced to this. Hiding under the bed while someone gossiped with their friend on the phone. Great. Her ankle itched but Ia didn't dare move.

"Luka?" said Yukari, and at once Ia's ears perked. "What about Luka?"

Silence. Then, Yukari laughed.

"You worry way too much, Miku, seriously. You're a good friend and I love you but you think too much." Pause. "No. You're in high school, so it's okay." Another pause. "Really! I'm sure Luka would be a great girlfriend and besides, you two have been dragging this on for way too long."

Ia rolled her eyes. Boring. At least now she knew that Miku had a thing with Luka, though, so the one closest to the vampires would definitely be Miku. Ia slowly dug in her pocket for her phone. The only contacts she had were Yuuma and SeeU. She opened a new text.

There was a 'thump' as Yukari's feet landed on the floor. Ia froze and placed her phone face down so that its backlit screen wouldn't give her away.

"No, I'm being serious," said Yukari. "It's not too fast. It's fine." Pause. "It doesn't have to be now, I'm just saying that you should totally go for it like soon." Yukari leaned down. Ia watched, heart hammering, as a hand came perilously close to her hiding place to pick up a book. "Anyways, that's my advice at least. Huh? Oh...I'm just cleaning stuff up now. I have books all over the place from when Luka fought the wendigo in my room."

Yukari's hand crept under the bed, evidently searching for some book. Ia located it and quickly slid it over to her hand.

"It's fine," said Yukari. "Really. I'm not even tired anymore."

Oh my god, thought Ia, her heart sinking to her stomach. There was the soft plush sound of Yukari sitting on her beanbag chair.

"Don't worry about it," said Yukari. "I went to bed early today. You should go to sleep, though."

Ia wondered why the hell they were staying up so late. Don't these people have school tomorrow?

"Alright," said Yukari after a bit. "Night, Miku! See you tomorrow." There was the jingle of the phone ending a call, and then silence. The itching on Ia's ankle grew worse, but Ia pushed it from her mind. She could see Yukari tapping her feet on the floor from here, and Ia sent out mind signals - go to sleep, go to sleep - to no avail. Yukari was not moving. Judging from where her feet were, if Ia was to make the slightest movement, she would be discovered. Fantastic.

The clock in Yukari's room ticked, agonizingly slow. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Yukari showed no signs of moving. Maybe she was asleep? Still, Ia didn't dare to move. At the same time, Ia couldn't stay there until morning either - the light would definitely reveal her. Combined with how light her hair was, staying under the bed forever was not an option. Ia had to move. She searched through her album of dreams, but she had none of any concealment properties. As she searched, each dream became a little less potent, a little more decayed as her body consumed them. Ia bit her lip. What was Yukari doing?

It was an eternity later when Yukari sighed and got up. Ia watched her feet head over to the bookshelf. There was the smooth soft clunk of a novel being slid back into place before the bed creaked with Yukari's settled weight. Good. Now Ia could finally send that text. She grabbed her phone, opened up the text window again, and typed this in:

miku closest to luka, luka vampire, vocalo high, classroom 1-Q

She sent it, slid her phone shut, and stuffed it into her pocket. She listened. Yukari's breathing was smooth and regular. Now or never. Ia quickly slid out from under the bed and got up to her feet, brushing off the dust bunnies. Then, she heard a gasp.

Ia spun around and stared at Yukari's wide open and very awake eyes.

"Shit," said Ia at the same time Yukari screamed.