Tekeshi lay in bed looking at the tan skin of his hand against the dark gray of the ceiling. Were they the hands of a murderer, or the hands of a protector? He wasn't quite sure of the answer right then. Were it not for the years he had spent among humans, he might not even have questioned such.

What if he were human though? What would be the answer then?

It wasn't a question that he thought about often, but he did think about it. Even before he had gone to America he had spent much of his time around humans. In a way he didn't see that much difference between being a human, and being a yokai. However, those differences were quick to come to mind when he actively thought about them.

The injuries he had taken during that fight would have ended a human's life like it had never existed in the first place. Truthfully, had he not known that he was shinso, he would have thought that there wasn't anyway that he should be alive now. There was even a chance that he could have died right then, just from how much damage he had taken. Several hours later and he hadn't recovered much of his energy, and could still feel his body healing.

'I have to say, that was incredible. Though I really think that you should have gotten both of you out of there instead of you taking that fight. I am a living weapon, and I think that was stupid. You have an amazing wellspring of power, but it doesn't do you any good with it sealed like it is. You need to think more next time, and ignore that little fanged voice saying, "This is how a vampire should do it". I am really fond of you, and I would like to stay at your side for a couple of centuries at least,' it would have been a novel experience for anyone to be lectured by a sword.

"That is easier for you to say, than for me to do. I am a vampire, and I have been raised to believe, think, and act in a certain manner. That was instilled into me before I could even walk, before my fangs even came in. It is simply part of who I am, however I do agree with you that was stupid," he replied.

'I don't know how many masters I have lost to pointless fights. I'm just glad you weren't one of them this time. When you get back on your feet you should talk to the girl. She must be worried sick about you, not to mention that demon. She acts tough, but I think she may have a little bit of something for you.'

"Wouldn't that be a scandal? 'Vampire sleeping with best friends demonic familiar.' It would be all the talk at school for sure. Hey, Jakkasu," the young vampire had a slight smile on his face.

'Yeah, Tekeshi?'

"Thank you."

'For what?'

"Just for caring. A person can never have too many people that care about him. Those that say that they do, don't have enough."

The door opened and he turned his head to see his Aunt Akua come into the room. Looking at the expression on her face he didn't say anything. He wasn't a mind reader, but he could tell that she had something major on hers', and he felt that it would be better to let her get thoughts together and speak first. She crossed the room to sit on the edge of his bed for several minutes before speaking.

"Tekeshi. Yukari told us about what you were doing secretly in America. I know you didn't talk to her about it, and she didn't want you to know that she even knew about it. It doesn't bother us born vampires, but her and your father, it does. Not to mention that if it wasn't for your human heritage, it could cause some major issues that would make what happened with that orc look like a winter festival. I want to know why you did it," her words were even and well considered.

With some difficulty he managed to pull himself up to sit beside her, "She told you about the boy getting killed in the crossfire?"

"She did."

"It was a little more complicated than she says. He wasn't shot accidentally, the bastard saw him run towards his house scared, and simply killed him because he was there. The whole thing started just because two groups were passing each other and belonged to different gangs. The boy was six years old, autistic, and obsessed with fantasy stories. He really liked the kind where a monster was the hero instead of just some knight in shining armor. For some reason he attached himself to me. I don't know if he somehow knew what I was unconsciously, or what. I enjoyed his company, especially after Lizzie's disappearance. It made me feel less lonely than I was. His father lost his job at one point, and started drinking, he would run over for my protection when he hit the worst of it. Uncle Fang-Fang talked to his father at one point and helped him get turned around, and Ethan... he was so happy to have his father back. I would just sit and listen to him come up with outlandish stories, ones that he would never tell anyone else. When he died, I snapped to a degree. I knew that the guy that actually did it would be impossible to track down, I didn't see anything until they were speeding away. So I went for the head of the snake," Tekeshi stopped to compose himself.

"If you don't want to talk about it anymore I understand. I might have done the same, have done basically the same. Humans killed my best friend many years ago, really before your mother was even born. They put her head on a spike at the outskirts of their village. I hated humans for so long after that, and even now I do. It isn't the same hate that I use to have, but it is still there. Why did you drag the Mongrels into it though?"

"It was Akoni's idea to actually go after the leader. I don't know why I even agreed to it except grief. Akoni has never had a good idea in his life, just different degrees of bad. He even got his uncle and grandfather to help us. Both of them are criminals, and they didn't really care if they dealt with any repercussions from it. They helped us find him, and are the ones that actually abducted him. They gave us a place to, talk, to him. The four of us, Akoni, Black, Heavy, and me gave him the option of telling everyone of his men that innocents were off limits. He laughed, and said that no one was off limits, it was his town and his men could kill whoever the hell they wanted. We all lost it. Heavy, there aren't many grown that would have been able to resist him then, forced him into a chair, the other two held his arms behind him, and I grabbed a sledgehammer that was in the corner of the room. I told him, 'You are way to weak to hold a city. You can't even fight back against four teenagers,' and brought it down on his legs. I then told him, 'Pull everyone out of this city, or you will burn, your children will, everyone you hold dear will burn.' I meant it too. I would have slaughtered everyone connected to him, whether they were guilty of anything or not."

"That is what it means to rule as a vampire. As a vampire you did nothing wrong, remember that. Honestly that whole thing at the academy should have never occurred, and your father would have been honor bound to kill every member of the board to protect you if they decided to execute you. Reasons like that have made it difficult to truly live in harmony with all other yokai races. Our own natural arrogance doesn't make it any easier to deal with us either. All of us are proud, even if you don't think we are. For all of our strength, most of us haven't had to fight with your handicaps, and we might not be able to go on if we did," Akua took her nephew into a hug.

She hadn't been real happy when she heard that Moka was pregnant, and that there was yet another split to her sister's attention. Yet when Tekeshi was born she fell utterly in love with him. He had just been so tiny, and his bellowing cries left Tsukune constantly half asleep. He was just perfect. While she had a bone to pick with him constantly getting closer to ceilings, she couldn't help but smile every time she heard him call her HIS midget. It made her feel less self conscious of her lack of development.

Tekeshi returned the hug, "Thank you Aunt Akua, I needed to talk to someone about it. It, festers, just keeping it bottled up. I'm glad your here for me."

"Get some more rest and I will bring you up some durian later, I bet you haven't had any while you were on the other side of the Pacific."

"That sounds great," he said as he laid back, "I love you Aunt Akua."

"I love you too, Tekeshi."

"I don't understand why he opens up to you so easily," Kokoa said to her older sister as she came out of Tekeshi's room.

"We just have a special connection. Has Moka got Tsukune calmed down over it yet," she said turning to her.

"I think she just about does. He has been one of us long enough that he should understand that we are not held to the same ideas as humans are, and he needs to forget about that part of himself if he wants to protect what is his."

Akua closed her eyes, "Aiya. Kokoa, no matter how long he is a vampire, his human side will always be there. It's what makes him work so hard to keep what he has. I can somewhat appreciate that part of him. It makes Moka happy at the very least. Beyond anything, I want that for them. To be happy For all eternity, or however much they will have of it."

"You should tell them Akua. I know that there isn't anything that can be done about it, but it will make it easier on them when the time comes," the younger vampire raised her head.

"How do I tell them. 'Oh, hey, lets ignore what we were just talking about and let me tell you why I can't buy a bra. It is because I found out that I have a very rare condition that hasn't been seen in three hundred years, oh, and it is going to kill me.' Will that make it easier on any of them. They don't even have a name for what this is, that is how rare it is. I want to enjoy what time I get to have with all of you, and I don't want to think about this. This is the retribution that I deserve for all that I have done to hurt others. This is what I deserve for siding will Alucard, and this is what I deserve for hurting Moka, and everyone close to her. This is what I get for hurting you."

"It isn't retribution, stop talking like that. This was in you before you did any of that. When you helped bring down Alucard, you made your amends. When you became a good sister, and a good aunt, you made your amends. You don't have to think in those lines anymore. I don't want to hear it anymore," tears started to form in Kokoa's eyes.

"Thank you Kokoa," Akua said her own eyes becoming moist, "I love all of you so much.

"Are you sure Moka, last I remember, Tekeshi is really not big on birthdays. Don't you think it will upset him. I mean, Yukari, back me up on this one," Kurumu's voice said from the speakers.

"He hasn't been, but this might be the only real good chance we have to have everyone here for it. Even Fang-Fang and his family are coming. Mom and dad. Tsukune's parents. You already said you the girls, and your mother are coming, right Mizore," the witch replied.

The Yuki-onna nodded, "Umm. I haven't been there for one of his birthdays since he was six. Yusa and Asusa are excited about it, and knowing Harumi she would throw a fit if you made her miss it. Besides, how long has it been that all of us have been able to get together without the possibility of a major crisis. I also want to meet Utsuki. Asusa has been going on about her since she got back. I don't think she talks about anyone beside Tekeshi more."

"I can't win, can I," the succubus looked up for a second before she answered, "I can afford to push the reopening of the Kyoto restaurant a few days without issue. That's actually the only thing I had left on the agenda for the rest of the year at this point. I swear I am going to have to start hiring worse employees just so I have something to do."

"You know you won't let your standards drop like that. Besides, would you dare let anyone but yourself make a cake for your nephew's seventeenth birthday? Could anyone do such a thing justice but the one and only Kurono Kurumu? I couldn't imagine anyone that could live up to the occasion like yourself," Moka slathered the charm on knowing what the answer was going to be from the start.

"You win. I will be there, my restaurants can go to hell as long as Teki-kun gets a proper cake for his birthday. Are we going to do it on the 31st, or a few days earlier?"

"I'm planning the 28th that way there won't be so much hurry when we go back to the school. We are leaving the 30th so the kids have a day to get settled back in. If you want, we have the room they can stay here a couple days and Nurari can drive us back to Yokai. Though I expect that Tsukune and Tekeshi are going to balk if I tell them to leave their motorcycles here."

"What is it with men and machines that can kill them. I swear, they start looking at cars or motorcycles, and then even tits won't distract them. Heath used to be like that with cars. He cried for a week after he sold that one to Tsukune. He was so upset he wasn't going to get to take it with him when he rotated back overseas. I almost thought that he wasn't going to fight to be reassigned over here because of it. I miss him so much, but I don't miss his car obsession," Kurumu shook her head thinking about it.

"Fang-Fang is the same way about golf clubs. I don't understand what the appeal of the game is. Hitting tiny white balls out in a big field and trying to get them in a little cup. I told him that if Chick nearly chokes on another one, he is going to experience how those balls feel," Yukari had her vicious side.

"Speaking of that car. I let Tekeshi use it, not knowing how the day was going to go, and I thought that Tsukune was going to push for a divorce, or have me help him try to kill himself. At least until I hung off his back naked. That changed his tune very quickly."

"So, still no luck," Mizore asked quietly.

Moka's face dropped and Yukari answered for her, "I did an examination earlier today. Tekeshi's birth was really hard, and heavily traumatic on the lining of her uterus. For some reason it hasn't healed even after all these years," she looked to the vampire in question and received a nod to go on, "There is a very high chance that, she may not be able to conceive again."

Kurumu took a dark look on her face, "That's why Tekeshi's birthday is so important to you this year. I'm so sorry, I know you really wanted another child. I can't even imagine what you are going through. There isn't anything that can be done for it?"

Moka took a breath, "When something is bad enough that we can't heal it on our own, oftentimes it never heals. I knew that it was hard on me, but I always thought that it was just life getting in the way of things that kept from happening again. You two are the only ones that I have told about it since finding out. I just, I can't bring myself to tell Tsukune. I think he wanted another child even more than I do. It's going to break his heart when he finds out. I just don't know how to tell him."

"Moka, I am going to get Harumi put together, and we are going to be there post haste. Screw waiting, you need me now," with that her square on the computer screen went dark.

"I'm going to go check and see if Tekeshi is doing any better," Yukari left the room.

"Moka, I know all three of us agreed, but I would be willing to tell the girls. I know they don't really care, but it might make him feel better. I, " Mizore started.

"I know you are worried about what it may do to Kurumu, and I don't blame you. Loosing Heath like that would have killed her if it wasn't for her being pregnant with Harumi. Knowing that Tsukune is the twins' father, it might finish her off. "

"You two will never know how much it meant to me. I know it wasn't easy for you, I don't think that Tsukune really enjoyed the process as much as most men would have either. I would not trade them for anything though, but I can't imagine losing any of you either. All of you, even Akua, you are so precious to me."

"I feel the same about all of you as well. Just remember, it was my idea. I know how close you came to never having them. I know that Tekeshi is Shinso, and that he is going to be really hard to kill, but it has come so close, I can tell you, I'm not sure I would be able to keep my mind if I lost Tekeshi."