Reminder: Akai is an Order of Van Helsing member in chapter 119 who had the gun at the meeting.

Luna stared out her apartment window and watched the busy street below. Her mind was a mess of emotions right now, and her pregnancy wasn't helping her keep her sanity.

Survivor's guilt. Her therapist had mentioned those words early on in their conversation about the bombing of the police station. She was sure the woman was probably good at her job and useful to the others from the department who survived like her, but to Luna, she was no help.

Luna knew the problems with the counseling were all her own fault. The therapist got her so wrong because she lied her ass off. She kept going now only out of devotion to Artemis. He insisted that she open up and try to get actual help. After all, she had been in the building seconds before the bomb went off. She'd be dead if Usagi hadn't saved her with superhuman speed.

Guilt wasn't anything she felt through the whole process, though. That fact made her wonder if something was wrong with her reaction to the horror that had happened. What she felt was that she was a survivor and that she had a purpose.

The bombing had affected her and tore her heart out. It was broken over the friends and colleagues she lost that day. She didn't feel guilty for surviving when they didn't. Instead, she felt like she had to live on partly for them. She had a chance at life they didn't, and she owed it to the dead to really live.

That was why Minako's actions made no sense to her. True, she was only transferred to Tokyo after the bombing, but surely she had lost colleagues in the past, too.

Luna shook her head and turned from the window. If she had thought hard about Minako, her confusion would have melted away, and she would not have liked the truth of the answer. Minako lived to protect others and didn't value her own life. She saw herself as a shield and a protector for those she loved.

She was sure Usagi was pissed right now, and she wanted that to get through to Minako. She believed it would, though —in the end. It didn't take her long to realize that Usagi was good at making people feel like they mattered just as they were, and Minako needed just that.

Bing.

That sound alerted her to an incoming message, and she went to her computer quickly in anticipation. Luna was waiting on a development that could be big for their cause, and she had kept quiet right now only out of caution. She didn't want to get anyone's hopes up.

A large smile spread across her face when she saw it was from her contact at the Fukuoka City police station. She was about to find out if her lead paid off.

Luna read the email and was elated. It was all coming together. Akai had allowed himself to be manipulated into being stupid after the Order of Van Helsing meeting and had gotten caught speeding.

The tip-off that he had a gun had paid off, and the officers on the scene found it with minimal effort. He was then booked into jail, where his ring and his weapon were logged into evidence. The police had found it very interesting that he was arrested not far from the site where a murder victim had been exhumed wearing the exact same ring.

Next came the research on the origin of the gun. They were very rare in Japan, and even police ammunition was counted and logged. It had to have come from somewhere.

Now, after much research on her side and a ton of police footwork from various departments, she had her answer. It was linked to a partially recovered smuggled shipment into Hakata Port in the Kyushu Region, a regional chapter of the Order of Van Helsing that Akai had been in prior to his move to his current chapter.

"The Order of Van Helsing," the words written in the body of the message from her contact, was her best-case scenario, especially since the police investigation seemed to center around the human part of their organization and not the supernatural.

In the Kyushu Regional chapter, they seemed to have gotten it into their heads that they should be more than just hunters of the supernatural. They had gotten a taste of power, and they branched out, which was getting them labeled under the category of yakuza during this investigation.

Now, through a combined police effort and cooperation, the Order of Van Helsing was being investigated as a criminal organization.

She made a quick call to Artemis and explained what their next step needed to be. He had to bring their allies among the group in as official police informants to protect them from possible criminal charges later.

After speaking with her husband, she set down her phone and relaxed on the couch. Ultimately, it turned out to be a very good day.

Saeko flopped down on her office chair, exhausted, and never had so little actual operating taken so much out of her. Performing a fake surgery on a vampire was damn near impossible, and she knew that not everyone in the room believed the crap she just made up lying to them.

Knock. Knock.

She groaned when she heard the knocking and, after letting out a long sigh, said, "Come in, please."

It didn't bode when her most perceptive nurse, not in the know, walked in and shut the door behind her. Mind racing, she tried to think up a lie about whatever question was coming.

Nurse Chi hesitated once the door was closed, and Saeko, uninterested in delaying the inevitable conversation or beating around the bush, said, "Come and sit. You might as well say what's on your mind."

Once she was sitting across from Saeko, Chi said, "Was that a vampire?"

"No," Saeko lied, not believing the nurse would believe her for one second.

"How is that possible?" Chi asked incredulously.

"Why ask if you're sure you're right?"

Chi said, "I didn't know any other way to start this conversation. I just found out that vampires exist!"

Saeko pinched the bridge of her nose and asked, "How did you come to that conclusion from the available facts?"

"Nurse Mitsuaki, he claimed that they existed once we saw all that supernatural fighting on the news."

"Crap," Saeko muttered. He had been in the operating room with Minako. He had seen her first hand.

"They're obviously here to protect us," Chi continued. "We all saw them protect the citizens of the city. Everyone in Japan sees them as heroes."

Not everyone, Saeko thought. That didn't matter in this conversation, though. Instead, she said, "Is this a professional courtesy?"

"What?!" Chi asked, not following what she meant.

"Are you warning me that you're reporting me to the ethics board? I appreciate the heads-up if you are," Saeko said with genuine feeling.

"No!" Chi yelled out in shock. "We all agree that we need to protect those that are protecting us. We aren't going to tell anyone. That's why I'm here. We know you suspected that we figured out the surgery was faked. We don't want you to worry."

Saeko solemnly said, "Thank you. I'm sorry I made you all compromise your medical ethics."

Chi snorted in response. "Doctors promise 'do no harm,' and that's just what you were doing. As nurses, we don't make any promises, but we all fully believe we did the right thing today."

Once Chi left, Saeko closed her eyes and let her head fall back to rest on her chair. She was tired from so much craziness lately and what she had to learn to accept. Chi got her thinking, though; maybe it was enough to look at it all as protecting the people who defended Tokyo and its citizens. Perhaps that was enough to completely lay her trust on for now.

Dracula smiled as he watched Lucy from across the room. She was still upset from before and contacted friends in an attempt to bring down The Grand Inquisitor.

Without looking up from what she was doing, she said, "You're loving this."

"I am," Dracula admitted readily. "You know how it affects me to see you so fierce. You only get like this over me or our daughter."

Lucy looked over at him and said, "You're the same way, darling. Even from the very beginning, you worked desperately to keep me safe."

"That's because you are hot, and I wanted you in my bed," he teased.

"And you loved me," she said, smirking at his comment.

Dracula was across the room in an instant and stroking her cheek. "Yes. I loved you. But don't make the mistake of believing me to be pure-hearted when I brought you back to my castle. The strength of my desire would have been just as strong if I had despised you. You know I crave your body. Taking your virginity was so erotic."

With desire burning in her eyes, she replied, "You practically made it into a ritual."

He gave her a heated look and said, "It was a ritual. It was one that vampires used on virgins back then —it was very en vogue."

At the time, he hadn't explained it to her for good reason. She might not have taken it well. Then, after that, time passed, and he went decades without even thinking about past vampire trends.

Lucy grew confused. She hadn't heard of that before. "It was in fashion? I don't understand."

Dracula said, "Many had a competition on how many virgins they could pluck. It was a game to them. The ritual made the virgin blood taste better."

"How many did you…" Lucy trailed off and grew nervous. She didn't like the idea of him having used the same ritual on any other woman. It felt special to her at the time, and she didn't like to think that he had done that before. "Never mind. It was a long time ago, and I don't want to know."

"I believe it's called 'locker room talk' nowadays," he said casually. "Obviously, it wasn't referred to like that back then, but you get the point. I was told how to perform the ritual and am exceptionally intelligent. When I wanted your blood, I didn't need experience. I just needed the outline of what to do to perform it correctly. Or did you have any complaints?" he asked seductively.

"No," Lucy responded quickly. "Why didn't you tell me back then?"

"I didn't want to make you feel used. The ritual did exactly what it was designed to do."

"It was designed to make my blood taste better," she said, feeling like she was following along.

Dracula shook his head, "That too. Lucy, what I didn't want to say was that it was a way to get the most pleasure I could out of your body and your blood. It was all to maximize my sexual pleasure. It was incredibly selfish."

A small smile crossed her lips, and she asked, "It was that good?"

Confused, Dracula asked, "You're not mad?"

Lucy said, "I was a virgin who hadn't had 'the talk.' I knew nothing about sex. Why wouldn't I like knowing that I pleased you?"

Rolling his eyes lovingly, he said, "You have always been precocious. I used you, and you don't care."

"You didn't use me, Drac. I wasn't the last in a long line of women you used that ritual on. You chose only me to experience that with and don't forget, I enjoyed myself too. I felt the time and care you put into that ritual. It made me feel special."

"That we can agree on," he conceded. "You were and are very special to me."

Lucy looked down at the email she had been working on and clicked send. Once she did, she said, "Too bad that only works on virgins. Oh well. You'll just have to get creative right now. Take me to bed."

"As you wish," he said, grabbing her breasts.

"Dracula," she said, pausing in thought for a moment. "If the ritual worked, why don't vampires use that anymore?"

"Virgins naive are harder to find nowadays," he replied. "That and the ritual takes a lot of work —vampires have become lazy."

She giggled and said, "Complaining about the youngest generation, how modern of you."