After the bath, Shizuo wore the robe Sozoro placed near the bathing quarters' entrance and promptly fell asleep on the soft bed. He must have slept for a while, still pretty tired from the journey, when he heard something that immediately jolted him awake.

"Good evening," Sozoro said as he walked around the room, lighting the candles. Shizuo groaned. Doesn't the man know to knock on the doors? Or at least get his permission before…

…That sounded silly so he gave up. Maybe vampires didn't think privacy was needed when servants were just lighting candles. He must have slept the whole day but that probably was a good thing. Nights were when vampires were more active.

"Breakfast, or for you, it will be dinner, will be ready soon," Sozoro said as he laid out fresh clothes for Shizuo to wear on the table. It was more of the fancy vampire clothes with so many strings. It would give him a headache to tie up all those laces.

"My clothes…"

"Are being washed." The older gentleman replied gently to ease his concerns. "Don't worry, we'll also mend it."

Shizuo felt weird knowing a vampire was washing and mending the tears on a vampire hunter's uniform… That must be a conflicting task for a vampire servant.

"Y-you don't have to. I'm sure it must feel awkward for a vampire to do that." Shizuo started as he sat up on his bed. Then he remembered. This was Izaya's bed.

"No need. We do have a human servant whose many jobs include laundry and cooking. She will be mending them."

"A human?" Shizuo was surprised but then again, even at Mikado's place… There were humans. Each must have had their reasons since it was considered unnatural to willingly live amongst vampires. Although not impossible, the relationship between vampires and humans was always complicated.

"Yes. She will also be cooking your meals while you're here." He nodded and bowed. "We haven't had guests in a while so I do apologize for our lack of new clothes in your size. These are indeed used but clean. I am sure Kadota-kun won't mind since he hasn't been back in decades anyway."

"Kadota's?" But the older gentleman was already gone. Shizuo groaned once he was alone in the room. Great. Now he was borrowing Kadota's clothes. It felt weird. But if it was Kadota's, it was probably…

Shizuo walked over and picked up the robe. Yep, it looked expensive, since he was what, a general or something? That guy seemed like he preferred practical clothes so Sozoro probably could have found something more plain but he had specifically chosen one of the more elaborate clothes. Shizuo sighed. He would rather just wear a basic white shirt with comfortable trousers but he went ahead and tugged on the garments one by one, trying to figure out which string was to be tied to which piece of clothing.

After he wore most of what he thought was appropriate, he sat on the couch already feeling exhausted. It faced the beautiful, looming, arched window. The sun had just set so the sky was still more light blue than midnight dark. The candles cast a warm glow which finally allowed him to take in the room Izaya grew up in.

Near the door was the tall, hand-carved wooden closet. It didn't take a craftsman to see that the carvings of grape vines were both delicate and ornate. Everything with vampires seemed to be elegant. On one wall was a long row of bookcases filled with books. Shizuo couldn't even tell what types of books they were but he did remember Izaya liked going to the libraries back at the church too. He really must like books…

The couch he was sitting on had red velvet cushions with delicate embroidery that even Shizuo could tell it would take hours to hand sew. And then there was the bed he fell asleep on. Shizuo closed his eyes and refused to look at the bed. He was too tired to think about it earlier when he promptly napped on it but Izaya had…

W-why was he feeling so awkward about sleeping in a bed that Izaya slept in? They've been 'sleeping' together for months now. This shouldn't be embarrassing but somehow it bothered Shizuo. It confused him even more that Sozoro thought this was appropriate! S-sure it's probably the best 'room' in the palace for the guests and all but…

He remembered the order. So simple.

"I want his heart ripped out and his guts torn to pieces."

"Be a good boy and show them how great a guard dog you are."

Shizuo shuddered as he tightened his fist. He can still feel it.

The way the wetness clung to his clothes and skin. Still warm. The fresh scent of iron. He saw nothing but red. The flesh ripped so easily. So… easily…

And the erratic heartbeat in his hand. All he had to do was tighten his hand and he would crush it, make it cease to beat.

So simple. Such a simple order…

"Such a good guard dog you are…" the phantom voice whispered into his ears.

Shizuo started to tremble as his fist relaxed, terror seizing his heart so tight that he thought his heart would burst. He fumbled his pockets. The tobacco. W-where was the tobacco?!

Then he remembered, he wasn't wearing his church uniform. W-was it still in his pocket? He couldn't remember. He wasn't wearing it in the forest. What happened to it? W-what if Mikado tried to enter his mind again? He wanted to puke that disgusting muck that was climbing up from his gut. He wanted to claw at his throat to rip out the putrid filth that was corroding his insides. But he knew that no matter how much he threw up or repented, nothing he could do would cleanse him from his heinous deed.

Just then, there was another knock on the door, breaking Shizuo from his thoughts as Sozoro came in. "Breakfast is ready at the dining area. Please follow me."

Shizuo followed the vampire holding a lantern as he walked down the candlelight hallway. They flickered, casting shadows that moved, making Shizuo feel a bit unsettled. He knew it was impossible and yet he couldn't help but feel as if those shadows had eyes and were turning to stare at him, blaming him for his sin. Judging him for almost killing Izaya and having the audacity to still come into his home.

Instead, Shizuo focused on Sozoro walking in front of him. He realized that the vampire probably didn't need the lantern but was holding it for his sake so Shizuo was grateful.

The vampire hunter followed the butler down the hallway and back down the stairs. This time, he was led to the opposite hall from where Izaya had gone. The entire place was lit and so immaculately clean that when he nearly passed a completely dark hallway - Shizuo wouldn't have noticed it if it wasn't for the fact that this particular hall remained unlit . Shizuo paused to look, surprised to realize what he was seeing was dust. A lot of dust. As his eyes adjusted, he realized the hallway was actually a large, open entrance to a grand banquet hall. There were long tables lined up and chairs. The furniture was covered with cloths and a thick layer of dust. Well, Sozoro did say he only cleaned the rooms they used and certainly, there was no need to clean a banquet hall every day but… to keep it in such dusty disrepair was almost weird.

The warm light of the lantern that was fading away stopped and came back as Sozoro stood next to him silently looking in. Shizuo felt awkward standing there, unable to ask the rude question, and was about to turn and follow him again when the butler spoke up. "This is the banquet hall."

"I… I see." Shizuo said with a nod to the obvious answer. "I take it that you no longer hold banquets huh?"

"Well, we could, although we don't. However, even if we did, we would not use this room but our second banquet hall instead." Sozoro stared into the room as he lifted the lantern so Shizuo could see more clearly. The dust was thick as if no one had stepped in here in decades.

"..." Shizuo frowned in confusion. Why would they do that? Sozoro noticed the vampire hunter's perplexed expression and added.

"You see, this was where the previous generation of Lord Orihara passed away."

"..."

Shizuo's heart froze when he heard those words. Unable to breathe, he stammered. "Come again?"

"Has Lord Orihara not told you about his parent's passing?"

"I…. well… he mentioned them. That they are no longer with him." Shizuo tried to phrase it. What did Izaya say again?

Shizuo growled as his hands crushed the hay mattress under him. "Well fine! Geez, sorry, I asked! See if I worry that we killed your mother in the next hunt!"

"Pfff, no worries. My mother's already dead." Izaya giggled. He let out a sigh to try to calm down from his laughing fit. "And my father too. So no worries there."

Shizuo remembered Izaya dismissing it so easily with a laugh. As if it meant nothing to him. Yet the butler here refused to clean this area and Izaya must have used a different banquet hall. What did that mean?

Sozoro cleared his throat before he continued. "It was a massacre. It was Lord Orihara's 100th name day. For vampires that is when they are considered adults and we hold a Coming-Of-Age Ceremony. The younger generation of vampires are in one room and the older generation are in another. When midnight strikes and the new day, or rather night, begins, they merge. That day, someone had delivered a special blood wine. Lord Orihara's father, then the current head, was serving blood wine to all to celebrate. There was so much wine flowing that no servant noticed that a different casket of wine bottles slipped in without their notice."

Sozoro paused and sighed to himself. "It was the gravest mistake of my career. I still cannot forgive myself for neglecting my duties and not inspecting each bottle. An assassin had slipped in a bloodwine that was given to all the adults in their banquet hall. Minutes before midnight, everyone started to cough up blood but the poison had already taken their bodies. Once the poison is absorbed it boils a person's blood. I can't imagine the unbearable pain that made even the hardiest warriors scream as they tried to cough it up. There was no time to find an antidote. All who drank that wine died that night. Lord Orihara… came into the room during their final moments."

Shizuo's mind grew white, blank and empty. He stared back at the dusty banquet room and imagined it littered with dead bodies. He could hear the phantom screams of death that continued to haunt the hall.

"The entire generation… died?"

"Yes. The older generation in that room died that night and our great celebration turned into a mass funeral. The younger generation had to learn to take the seats of their parents. They had to grow up in a hurry. We were at war… we had no choice." Sozoro's voice remained strong but still filled with regret.

"...You said it was a different kind of wine," Shizuo said, once he recounted Sozoro's words. "I'm guessing you guys took a look at one of those bottles?"

"Yes." Sozoro nodded solemnly. "We examined each bottle afterward to test which had the poison. The accursed bottle was labeled, " Chateau Sans Couleur Potion X-138 ."

"Chateau-" Shizuo muttered as the name rang a bell in his head. Then it hit him. His face paled at the horrifying epiphany as he remembered exactly what Izaya said back in the cellar under Mikado's palace.

From the low blue light shining below the plate, Shizuo could read "Chateau Sans Couleur Potion X-138" as he walked closer to Izaya whose back was turned to him.

"Izaya?" Shizuo wasn't sure how to approach him. They just fought and it was Izaya who wanted to leave this cellar faster. But instead, they chased down a rabbit hole, deeper into this creepy lair of rotting tortured humans, unable to die as their blood was drained.

Izaya placed a hand on the tube and the tube reacted, the lights from underneath turning on as if switched. Shizuo's eyes widened as he saw what was inside it.

A young woman with long black hair was in it, her legs and arms entangled with another man, presumably her lover. This presumption from Shizuo was in part because she was kissing him while in the large glass, floating with all sorts of tubes hooked onto her, draining her blood. However, what completely horrified Shizuo wasn't what was going on but what else was inside the tube with her.

Scorpions. A hundred if not more scorpions and long centipedes that were the size of Shizuo's arm, if not longer, were crawling inside the tube with her and the man.

"I-Izaya? What is...this?"

"..." Izaya remained silent for a minute before he quietly replied. "It's Haruna."

"You were... Looking for her? Is this a favor for Anri?"

"No. I have been looking for the drink Chateau Sans Couleur Potion X-138 for almost two decades. It just happens to coincide with the missing ancient bloodline vampires from the Dollars."

Shizuo looked over and saw how pale Izaya's face was, although it could be from the blue light casting off from the tube.

"So that damn Mikado… he's drinking vampire's blood? That's…." Shizuo frowned. "That's cannibalism, isn't it?"

"No, he isn't drinking this one. This one…. is poison."

Namie crossed her arms and leaned on the desk stacked to the brim with tall paperwork. Izaya sighed at the tall towers of paper and then back at Namie. "I'm not getting to all of this tonight."

"No, but you will get to them all before you leave." She smirked. Then her smile went away as she spoke in a more solemn tone. "I received a message from Kadota. How much of it is true?"

"Which version? I am guessing you deciphered the encryption?" Izaya sighed as took one paper from the stack and glanced at it while he rested his cheek against his palm.

"Of course." Namie frowned as Izaya's flippant attitude and questioning her intelligence was beyond disrespectful and he was edging towards his dementia.

"Then you are correct on some. I didn't tell Kadota everything. Too many ears. Besides, he takes matters into his own hands without asking me when he knows too much." Izaya signed it and tossed it to the floor. Namie used her heel to stomp on the document and then leaned forward.

"I'm serious. That vampire hunter. How much does he know and is he blackmailing you?"

"Blackmailing…" Izaya tapped the feather end of the quill to his cheek. "Not quite. Let's say it's a mutual contract."

"... So you are being coerced." Namie's eyes narrowed.

"Like I said. A mutual contract." Izaya replied firmly. "I get something out of him and he gets something out of me."

Namie looked at him suspiciously. "He didn't look all that smart."

Izaya smirked. "He isn't. You can say I am getting more out of him than he is of me."

Namie didn't budge as if she wasn't buying Izaya's 'lie'. "If he shows any hint of betrayal…"

"Then you can do as you please." Izaya shrugged. "But I have more pressing information that I need to share since I couldn't deliver it to Kadota."

Namie eased up a bit from the desk but she haughtily glared down at her boss, her arms folded under her opulent boobs to support them as her daintily painted nails rested neatly on each side of her arms. "And what more information could be more pressing than the fact that some vampire hunter and the church could have our lord as their hostage and plaything for more than a decade?"

Izaya couldn't help but smile as he leaned back on his posh leather-backed chair with a sadistic glimmer in his eyes. "I found it. The Château Sans Couleur Potion X-138."

Notes:

Author's note:

Huge thanks to everyone who kept persistently asking for the next chapter update. That pandemic had ruined my mental health and I couldn't write for a while. I'm sort of back. Another thanks to Eromkk who kept poking me once in a while lol. I honestly thought people had given up on this fanfic but she and several others who kept messaging me, made me work on it little by little. And now here's another cliffhanger. But I figured I post something and something is better than nothing? 3

Even though I got back to writing, one of the reasons why I haven't been updating my fanfics is because I've been working on my original story that I plan to publish. When it is published, I hope that people won't mind checking it out. I'll try to post about it once I publish it.

Thank you all for your continued support. I hope it won't take another 4 years before I write the next chapter haha. Jokes aside, some of the 'secrets' that I've been foreshadowing is finally being revealed. I hope I don't lose steam and that I can write the whole thing.

Last but not least, thanks to my beta, Izayaislife, Voissane and Badromance for reviewing my story.

Thanks everyone 3