I guess I can start this off with saying I'm sorry for such a long wait. Summer school is really kicking my butt, but beyond that this chapter gave me a lot of unforeseen problems. I can assure you that after this chapter things will be revealed at a faster pace.

Anyway, enjoy!

Justice T.

"This is all different from what I expected."

"I know, right? We're hunter and prey, best friends the likes of which no one has ever seen before!"

"It's nothing to laugh over."

"Awww, come on. I get enough of that at home."

"I can't. If it wasn't for this school... we would never be friends."

"Well, I guess I'm a lucky guy."

"That depends... on which one of us is the prey."

~Riku (age 17) and Sora (age 15)

. . .

What You Do in the Dark

. . .

~What You Are~

The car ride was silent except for my sobs. But soon even those drifted away and the hum of the car's engine welcomed the silence until my new caretaker roughly jerked the car to a halt. He let out a contented sigh before turning off the engine. "New recruits. Always interesting."

I didn't respond.

He laughed again. "You're a shy one, aren't ya?"

I crossed my arms. "I don't talk to strangers."

"Really?"

I kept my head bent towards my chest as my bottom lip trembled.

"Well, you just did." I felt the wind slap my arm as he opened the car door. "Alright, time to get out."

I shook my head.

"Kid, I'm sorry, but you don't have a lot of options. Just think of it this way, you'll be ahead of the game. Everyone will be struggling to cope once they enter the school, but you'll know all the secrets ahead of time."

"I don't want to do this."

"You sure?" He slowly started unraveling my blindfold while leaning forward, whispering into my ear. "Don't you want to know what Roxas is?"

I shivered. "Roxas . . . is my friend. I'll help him, no matter what."

He snickered, finally pulling the blindfold off my eyes. I squinted, unaccustomed to the glare outside, then turned towards him. What caught my eyes first was his hair. Wild, gelled up to the point where the spikes actually looked like they could impale someone, it was more red than anything I'd ever seen. Either that or it just seemed more vivid against his tight, black leather clothes. His eyes were green and shone with mischief, but there was also something red in them, an outer red ring around each iris. His mouth pulled back into a wide smirk, so wide that it seemed too big for his face.

All I could do was stare. Whereas with Roxas I felt nauseous, with this stranger I just felt . . . calm. The tension in my shoulders drained away and I stopped crying. His green eyes filled my vision, I couldn't see or do anything else. Before I could completely slip away he wrapped the blindfold around my eyes. "Sheesh, your Resistance is so weak. We have a lot of work to do."

"Huh?"

He simply pulled me out of the car, patting me on the shoulder as he guided me forward. "First of all, before we get any further, we need to establish some ground rules. Can't have you going crazy and trying to run away. Acting like that here will get you killed."

I whimpered at that but he just laughed. "Relax, I'm only kidding. Mostly. You have to be ready for everything, kid. It's the only way you'll improve." He knocked on the door. "Trust me, you'll be more helpful to your friend once you develop your Resistance."

"My . . . Resistance?"

"It's like a shield. A shield for your mind." He knocked on the door again. "And once this asshole lets us in I can get to the important stuff."

I swallowed and took a step away from him, but his grip on my shoulders was firm. I heard him breathe in, probably preparing to tell me that escape was impossible, when the front door swung open in a quick, snapping motion. "Well, this is a surprise." It was another man. His voice was cold and full of tension. It automatically made me feel nervous.

The wild man next to me laughed. "Riku, let's not do this the hard way. I think we both know it's pointless."

"I distinctly remember telling you I never wanted to see your face again." The warning dragged its mangled limbs in the air, waning towards us. I clenched my dress while my teeth teared into my lower lip.

If anything, the subtle threat only made the man next to me more excited. "You really do remember everything, huh? What was that, five years ago? I've memorized the pattern, alright? You've refused me over and over . . . yet, you invite me in every time."

"Yeah, and I regret it the moment you open your mouth. I told you that I was done with this, with all of it."

I heard the sound of wood scrapping against carpet as I felt the energetic man next to me move. His body shook next to me and I heard the force of the door being shoved against something. Then, the smell of smoke filled the air.

"Dammit, Axel! What the hell are you doing?"

I took a peek, lifting the blindfold up enough so that I could see what was going on. An agitated looking Riku was glaring at the caretaker who I could finally pin a name down to. Riku's hair, a light blue that could easily be mistaken for white in this light, draped along his back and shoulders like a mop. His eyes were also green, but lighter than Axel's (with no red rings). He had on a white T-shirt and washed out blue jeans. In other words, he looked utterly ordinary.

I didn't look directly at Axel, but I didn't have to see his face to know that he was in pain. Than again, you don't think of much else when you literally see someone's leg being roasted. The clothes around the leg he had in the doorway had shriveled up, leaving only his red, cracking foot that left nothing to the imagination.

I don't know why I felt so calm seeing something that drastic at such a young age. I had gotten back from crying in the car and yet here I see an open flesh wound slowly eroding up a stranger's leg and I don't so much as flinch. A part of me wanted to run and scream, yes, but something was forcing me to stand still. Something kept me from opening my mouth. And, in a weird strange way, I knew it wasn't because of Axel. He had made me zone out before, but this was all coming from me.

But, this of course, only lasted for ten seconds. The tears came then, the one normal reaction I could count on. The rest of my body just shut down, a shaking statue in the midst of two scary men for two very different reasons.

I almost missed Axel's next few words. His voice wasn't light anymore. It reflected pain, frustration, and it was nearly guttural. "If your memory is so good then tell me this, don't I always come when there's an emergency? Have any of the people we've trained regret what we've shown them?"

Riku's face was pale. "Look . . . I told you before. I don't teach anymore. Axel, make no mistake, your kind is an abomination to me."

"I take it you're lumping Sora into this also?" Axel chuckled, but it sounded forced. The five-degree-burning scars were spreading up his leg. It had reached past his ankles and was now halfway to his knee. The smell was awful.

"Axel, get your foot out of my door."

"Did you two fight or something? Is a petty grudge what's holding us back? Really?" Axel's voice almost didn't sound human. It had gotten deeper, and every few seconds a chill inducing hiss would follow. I was finally courageous enough to take a few steps back when he spoke again. "You . . . need to get over yourself."

Riku's eyes narrowed. "You would let yourself die for this ridiculous cause. This is what the school is for, and I'm not even supposed to be a part of this. I know that now . . . and everyone has accepted what I've chosen for myself. Even Sora." His smile was grim. "Why is it that you can't get that through your thick skull?"

"Your freaking father made you a part of this, asshole!" Axel's voice rose to a higher pitch as the burning rash moved along his thigh. His foot was almost black. "You'll never be just done with it. You're too important, and like it or not, some people are going to come and annoy the hell out of you because you're all some people have!"

Riku just pressed the door against Axel's shriveled leg. "Why would you need me? I'm not the only teacher around. Take the brat to someone else."

"Even if it's Sora's brat?"

Riku's eyes widened to the size of saucers. "He . . . has a kid?"

Axel grunted, nodding quickly. It was obviously getting harder for him to talk. "Yep. A girl. Who-is-behind-us-just-so-you-know," he said in a burst nearly lost among hisses and growls.

In a move too quick for my blurry vision to catch, Riku's palm struck out, sending Axel completely out of the doorway. Axel's body landed next to me and I yelled. Riku was next to me in a few long strides. He gripped my hair, shifting my face up as he stared at me. He frowned, eyes slightly sympathetic, then he let me go, muttering to himself. "Like her . . . but your eyes . . . " He frowned.

I swallowed and said nothing. Axel sat up, glaring at Riku. His burning flesh was slowly fading away, meshing into pink, newly healed skin. My jaw dropped and I felt something inside me stretch and deflate like a balloon. Their voices were indistinguishable now, filtering in and out, like hectic bees. I reached out for something, anything, before feeling the ground meet me as I welcomed my first black out.

It was the first of many times that I would inevitably pass out. Axel and Riku were more connected than I could have ever imagined. I can't say if what they did to me at this point was wrong. All I could do was learn one fundamental rule.

The darkness was my friend.

I'm not talking about your regular, everyday darkness. I'm talking about being in true darkness with no one else but yourself. I try my best to push myself back, to remember what happened during these critical moments of my life . . . the only thing I can find outside the darkness is my memories of Roxas. Just the same old dreams: Roxas was in danger (somehow). It would happen (sometime) and I would have to save him (somehow). But besides that, there was nothing. I can't find anything.

Except for one word. A . . . a title. I can remember Riku saying this, saying that this was what I am. He must have said it a few seconds before I passed out, a second before my hearing went away.

Cambion.

One word, flawed premonitions, and a world of silent bliss. I say silent bliss . . . because that's what I hear when I think of anything after I was first taken away to see Riku. Seven years of my life are missing. I don't know how, and I don't know if it was natural or if I was cursed, but it's something I'm still trying to fix today. I've kept journals, I have various . . . abilities. I'm working to fit the pieces together and remake my history. The only problem is every time I get closer to my past I also uncover the secrets of others. There are secrets I can't have, there are secrets that can get me killed. But it's too late; I know too much.

I am a Cambion, the child of a human woman and an Incubus. If only I could leave it at that.