Hatori didn't bother yelling at Yamato like he wanted to. He knew in the end, it would only mean he was wasting his own breath. He still let the reason for his irritation be known. "You're telling me that Usagi decided that a detective in my own station, and under my authority, should get away with not one but two murders?"

"Absolutely not!" Yamato objected. "That is part of her message. What you do with him is completely up to you."

"But she's meeting with Detective Itsuki at noon?"

"You would be correct," Yamato confirmed.

Hatori cocked his head and asked, "How is that not her telling me what to do?" By the end of the sentence, he had thrown his hands up in frustration.

Yamato twisted his face in an odd position, showing he didn't fully agree with Usagi's message. "The way she sees it-"

"How do you see it?" Hatori interrupted.

After sighing loudly, Yamato said, "She says that you can decide to go after him if he did commit those murders. But she may very well be on Itsuki's side when you do. I don't think she's given you the option to prosecute him even though I believe that she sees it that way."

"She sees what we both see. She isn't telling me what to do, but she knows my decision. To her, that is still leaving it up to me." Hatori said, resigning himself to the inevitability of the situation.

Yamato nodded and then delivered the rest of the message. "She also said she's going to keep Artemis' and your involvement in this all quiet. She doesn't want him to implicate you if he ends up doing something stupid."

"Again," Hatori added.

"What?"

"Doing something stupid —again. He used the plot from that book."

Yamato shook his head. "I disagree. I think he doesn't care if he goes down for the murders as long as the Order of Van Helsing is exposed."

"He's sacrificing himself to stop them?" Hatori asked.

"We think so. Usagi will know more after today. And if he was, expect him to be more careful now. He will have powerful allies, which means he doesn't have to risk as much."

Hatori was irritated with himself, and he said, "I'm the damn police chief, and I'm not sure I'm going to care that those two guys were murdered. Where's my sense of justice?"

"You're in the gray areas. Shingo would be proud of you. And remember, they might have murdered an old woman just for being a witch."

Itsuki was sure he was walking into a setup and about to be arrested. He figured there was no way Thee Usagi would meet someone in an arcade full of kids' games. But he knew that he might as well walk into the trap if he had already been discovered. What other option did he have?

Once the doors wooshed open, he noticed how quiet the place was. Not a single arcade game was being played. At first, that startled him, but then he realized that it was Thursday, and all the kids would be in school at the moment.

One of the waiters approached him and pointed to the only occupied table. "Usagi is the blond over there with the distinct hairstyle."

"Bullshit," Itsuki said, even without thinking. He couldn't fathom the vampire of legend looking like a hot girl from the in-crowd.

The man laughed in response and said, "Do you want Dracula to vouch for her?"

The detective was going to respond with something snarky until he looked at the waiter and realized that the guy was being serious. "I don't know what he looks like either."

"So you're just going to have to believe me." He then stepped into Itsuki's personal space and menacingly whispered, "Try anything, and you don't make it out of here in one piece." Motoki felt protective of Usagi even though he knew she didn't need him to defend her.

"Motoki!" He heard "Usagi" scold the man. "Just send him over. I think we will get along just fine."

"He's murdered people!" Motoki objected.

"Maybe he's murdered people. If he has —so have I." She reminded him with a smile.

Itsuki walked over, not feeling very confident in what he was doing, but decided to see it all out to the end. There were five people total at the table. Only one of them he knew, unsurprised that Mamoru would be there. He then corrected himself. Some of them might be vampires and not people.

When he sat, Usagi asked, "Did you kill them?"

"You're blunt. Why should I answer you?"

She dramatically rolled her eyes at him and said, "Why else would we be meeting? Did you kill them? If the answer is no, then this is over."

"Why do you want to know?" Itsuki pressed.

Mamoru spoke up. "He killed them. I'm sure of it."

He glared at Mamoru. "I never admitted to anything." He then pointed at the other three people there. "Who are they?"

"Did you kill them?" Usagi pressed again. "There isn't any point in this meeting if you aren't the one who killed them."

"And they get to know who I am, but I don't get the same courtesy?!" he snapped, pointing at the others with her.

"They are going to be your comrades depending on the answer to my question. Why should I expose their identities if it's not needed?"

Itsuki rubbed his face in frustration with his right hand. "You want me to walk in and just admit if I killed someone or not? How do you fail to see what a big deal this is!?"

She leaned forward and asked, "Why am I here?"

"To arrest me because you're really an internal affairs cop or… Help me? Is that what you're after? Surely not!"

She showed her fangs and let her face transform, showing her blood-red eyes and the black veins underneath them. "The Order has hunted me for over a hundred years. Did you or did you not kill two of their members?"

Her words didn't convince him to talk as much as her vampire face did. It terrified him. "Yes."

"Now we're getting somewhere. Did they kill your grandmother?"

"Yes." He figured it was useless fighting it anymore. He was sure she could kill him in a blink if she wanted.

"Do you have proof?"

That much he came prepared for, just in case. He slid a flash drive to the middle of the table, too scared to get any closer to her. "Yes. It started with a strong hunch, but I did get proof once I knew where to look."

He watched Mamoru pick up the flash drive and toss it to the employee Motoki. "Email this to her," he said once the man caught it.

Itsuki's attention was then brought back to those around the table when she said, "Minako, Kunzite, and Rei." As she had said the names, she had pointed each of them out to him.

He screamed out in shock when the forks and the napkin holder on the table started floating. "I'm a witch," Rei then stated. "I hate what they did to your grandmother."

Usagi nodded and added, "We all object to people murdering the supernatural among us. And the answer to one of your earlier questions is, yes. We want to help you."

"Why? I mean, I'm going to do what I have to in order to bring the Tohoku regional chapter down. Why do you feel the need to help me?"

Usagi gave him a puzzled expression. "You're going to get caught."

"So? They will be too?"

"You're okay with going to prison?"

"I'm a police detective who murdered two people. I was fully aware when I started this that I would get caught and go to prison —as a cop. It won't be pleasant there for me. But I made peace with that before I did anything."

"He definitely has balls," Kunzite acknowledged.

"You had to make that decision when you started —alone," Mamoru said. "But now you have a way to stay out of jail."

Usagi added, "Work with us." A buzzing sound cut her off, and she looked down at her new text message. It showed two emoji thumbs up.

"I don't get it," Mamoru commented, having read the text from Luna over her shoulder.

"It means they both check out. They killed his grandmother," Usagi responded. She looked up at Itsuki. "Work with us. We intend to take down at least two regional branches of The Order of Van Helsing."

"But why?" he pressed. "You get one regional chapter destroyed without lifting a finger. I don't get why you feel the need to help me."

Usagi replied, "I simply don't want you to go to jail. To me, and my apparently now antiquated views, you enacted justice for your grandmother. Even though it's an old way of thinking, I'm stuck in my habits. All I see is that you killed bad people with good evidence, but I fail to see the differences between that and the courts doing it. I will point out that Japan still has the death penalty."

For the first time, Itsuki dared to hope. "You mean you think you can keep me out of jail?"

"I know I can."

"But what if I've already made the move that will get me caught?"

Usagi scoffed, "You think prison bars or handcuffs can keep me out? It wouldn't be my first jailbreak."

"This feels too good to be true."

Mamoru shook his head, "No. It's Usagi."

"Stupid, sick, murdering bastards," Luna mumbled after sending the text.

Artemis sat down next to her. "So what did they do?"

"Kidnapped her, deprived her of alcohol, and then tattooed their mark on her body after they stripped her naked. The coroner at the time was lazy, so there isn't any evidence of anything else."

He pulled her against his side to comfort her. "With how much she drank, that would have been a painful way to die going cold turkey like that."

"She was naked, alone, and in pain. Not to mention what they probably said to her as she died," Luna lamented.

Artemis held up a gray flash drive he had pulled out of his pocket and said, "Well, you've rubbed off on me."

"What's that?"

"Evidence found at the first murder scene that he murdered the two men in vengeance."

Luna looked at him curiously, "I thought we were on his side."

"We are, which is why it's in my hands, not the police evidence locker. Like my beautiful wife, I've learned to break the law."

She looked at him and thought about her next words. She didn't want to insult him by asking if he was going to get caught. She knew he would be careful; they had a baby on the way. "Tell me the story of how clever you are," she said instead.

He went on to outline in detail how he switched it out for an identical blank flash drive. She found it incredibly sexy.

Unazuki said, "Okay. He's Usagi's brother's, many times, great-grandson."

"Correct," Rick replied, having asked her about Shingo. "How about Hatori?"

"For Usagi, the same, but you add more greats in that. He's also Shingo's great-grandson."

"Grandpa Hino?"

"Rei's grandfather," she started. "But then Luna and Artemis, who are having a baby, are his grandparents but are reincarnated. So they're having his… uncle." The pause was over how crazy that thought was and not how the child would be related.

Rick smirked, "How about-"

She covered his mouth. "Oh no, you don't!" she said, knowing which name was coming. "Thinking about how Satori is related to everyone makes my head hurt. He's Usagi's uncle but Naru's stepdad and Rei and Jadeite's son. Did I get that all?"

"He's Mayumi's husband," Rick added.

Unazuki said, "If you're being that picky, he's Sapphire's future stepfather-in-law too, and many times great uncle to Hatori and Shingo!"

"You thought you wouldn't get it all," he said, smiling at her and impressed with her memory.

"However, I was right about the headache it all gave me."

He pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry. But I'll remind you that you're the one who wanted to be quizzed on all of this."

"Saturday was confusing!" She then let herself rest fully in his arms. "I want to get this all. It's important to you and my brother."

He wanted to remind her that this was about her, too. "Jadeite told me that Mars talked to Rei about speaking with you once you're ready."

"Jackass," Unazuki said with no heat. "You get how weird that is to process, right? What am I supposed to think about a god wanting to chat with me?"

"Trust me, Mars is a whole level of things that I didn't know about before. I want you to have options, though, and he would give you some good ones."

"Like what? I don't even know what it means that a god is interested in… I mean, it is some kind of apprenticeship or something?"

"Mentoring?" Rick guessed. "I don't know, but that gives you even more reason to talk to him."

"I'm not magical like Rei."

He shrugged. "Rei is the strongest witch that ever lived. No one's like her."

"What?!" she asked, shocked. Rick reflected on the fact that there were still things he had missed when trying to tell her everything."

Saeko sat in the dark in her condo, all alone, drinking a glass of red wine. It was late in the evening, so the place was only illuminated by the city lights filtering in through the sheer curtain.

She toasted an imaginary person and said, "To being alone —again." She then took a big sip from what was her second glass. The other half of the bottle sat corked next to her on the end table.

She set the glass down on the coaster, something she had taught Ami always to use, and groaned in frustration. How was she supposed to justify killing? She was a doctor."

There was a knock on the door, and she ignored it. No way did she want to talk to anyone right now. When Yamato walked in a short time later, she cursed that she forgot that she had given him a key.

She watched him put it back in his pocket and then sit across from her on the couch. "I stayed away for twenty-four hours like you asked."

She looked at her watch and frowned. "Down to the minute."

"Correct. I followed your rule, and now I want you to follow mine."

"Is it to 'get over it?'" She scoffed and glared at him.

Yamato shook his head. "No. I want you to tell me everything. I need to know what's going on in your head."

"You don't want to hear all of it."

"I do."

Saeko laughed derisively. "You definitely don't want to hear that. I wonder how you can break the rules of police ethics so easily."

"That's exactly what I want to hear. It's the truth in how you're feeling, after all."

"That you probably belong in jail!?" she yelled. "You want to hear that? I don't even want to hear it all!"

Yamato was relieved by what he was hearing. She wasn't rejecting him. She was just angry. Anger meant she still cared about him. "Isn't the point to face the truth?

She shrugged and held up her glass of wine to him. "It was, and then the point was to drink."

"What's the count?" he asked, looking at the half-drunk glass.

"I'm on number two. You caught me at a… is sober a 'good time' for this conversation?"

Ignoring her flippant question, he asked. "What do you want?"

"I don't understand what you even mean by that question!?"

"I do get why you're upset." It was why he was terrified for their future. He thought she was probably in the right in all of this and that she could leave and he'd be the bad guy. "But what do you want?"

"For this all to go away," she snarked.

He was frustrated that she was stuck on being flippant right now. He decided to shock her out of it all. She was obviously spiraling in her thoughts, and he wanted to help her get to a place where she could make a decision and stop torturing herself eventually. Even if that meant he lost her.

Yamato grabbed her glass of wine, drank it all in one go, and placed the glass down. He then grabbed her up out of the chair and pressed her to his body. "What do you want, Saeko?"

She shoved him, and he let go quickly, not fighting it one bit. "You! But how can I justify that?!"

"I will walk away from everything, my job, my friends, Mamoru, becoming a vampire —everything. You're right. What I have done in my job is illegal, and I shouldn't really work there anymore."

"One of those people is my daughter," she objected. "How do I handle that?"

"What do you want then?"

"What I can't have!" Saeko snapped. "I want what I had before."

"You can have that," he countered.

"If I justify killing."

Yamato nodded, "True."

"That's what you want from me?"

"No. I don't want anything. I told you that I'd give up everything."

Saeko said, "Mamoru is like a son to you."

"He is. I fully believe it would hurt him, but that he'd understand. After all, he knows what true love feels like."

"You'd really give up everything for me?"

"In a heartbeat."

Saeko looked at him, trying to comprehend how he could be so willing to give up everything in his life for her. She then reflected on the thought of what she would give up for him. So far, she realized that she wouldn't give up a damn thing. But was that the right choice, and was that her final answer?

She thought about whether she could give up the outrage over the murder of some very bad people if she gained happiness for a man who loved her enough to give up everything for her. And, she added, her daughter. She was honest with herself and realized she hadn't created a strong enough reason for Ami to choose her over Usagi.

She grabbed the bottle, uncorked it, and took a swig straight from the bottle. "Ask me what I want again."

"What is it that you want?" Yamato asked. "I will do anything I can."

"I want… is there any chance they have some kind of authority to decide who lives and dies?" She deflated a bit. "There isn't, is there? I get intellectually that the police and the court system have the power that we choose they have in order to maintain order. It's merely a social construct."

Yamato smiled a bit. "Did I forget to tell you that Usagi and Mamoru are King and Queen of the Vampires and werewolves? You can probably add the witches, too, since Rei bows to them, and she's the most powerful witch that ever existed."

Saeko pinched the bridge of her nose. "If at some point I was told that it didn't register. I don't remember that part." She then added, "I'm taking that as an argument over why they would have jurisdiction over the supernatural —as far as any social construct would go."

He didn't press and tell her that Usagi had killed some humans because they were evil. He knew what she wanted, even though she hadn't said it in so many words. She wanted a way to learn to accept what she heard and live with herself for being a part of that group.

He knew what his truthful statement would be to Mamoru tomorrow. "She has a long way to go, but she's trying."