Usagi sat on the couch in the living room, clutching Mamoru's hand. She had asked how he wanted to find out about his parents, and she shuddered as she watched him close himself up entirely and say he didn't care.
That didn't sit well with her at all. So she made an executive decision and called two numbers. Everything in her was hoping she had gotten it right. There was too much at stake. He'd remember this moment for the rest of his life, and his life would be really, really long.
She sat there next to her beloved with her lips pressed into a thin line. Nearby sat Motoki and Yamato, the first was his closest friend, and the second was becoming an essential man in Mamoru's life. He was a mentor, and every day he became more and more like a father figure.
Usagi had briefly considered inviting Mamoru's pack but tossed the idea when she realized this was a challenging moment for him. If he cried, the pack wouldn't care, but he would. It's why she kept the groups so small.
Graham entered with his usual abruptness. One moment there was no one there. The next, he was making himself comfortable in an armchair.
He frowned, "yeah, this one was a pain."
Mamoru made a slightly odd choking noise, and Graham raised an eyebrow at him and said, "It involved an Oracle, and I hate Oracles –prissy know-it-alls. Mirian was the worst too."
Yamato looked at Graham abruptly. "Did you say, Miran?!"
"You knew she was involved with this!? I should kick your ass!"
"The name Miran was on the coroner's report. Is she an Oracle? They exist?"
Graham sat back in his chair. "She is, and they do. At least she was helpful. She didn't explain much, but she helped cover up the killing."
Usagi wanted to claw out Graham's eyes for being so cryptic. She gave an obviously false smile to go with her overly honeyed tone of voice. "Start explaining clearly, or I'll make you regret it."
"Did she kill them?" Mamoru asked quietly.
Shaking his head, Graham said, "Nope. She knew your parents and was friends with them. They knew they were going to die. She covered up the murder to hide and protect you. I covered it up because that's my job. We can't have the general public involved in things like that."
"Death?" Mamoru asked, confused.
"No. The supernatural. Especially when any investigation could lead to exposing things that should be kept hidden; after all, Wiseman's horrid witch was mostly really incompetent, but even that old hag would have figured out that she meant to have them kill you."
Usagi's ears began ringing, and her vision went gray. It wasn't what he said. It was that Mamoru could have been killed.
Mamoru felt an intense hum in the air and looked at Usagi. "Usako, what's… Are you okay?"
She shook her head. "Yes. Well, no, but I can hold it together."
Graham frowned. "Damn, you have it bad for him, Usagi. I've seen vampires react to things like this before, but this is intense."
"Yes. But he's not in danger from Wiseman now, so I can hold it together."
Motoki cocked his head, "is this a bonded mate thing?"
Usagi nodded curtly, "Yeah. It is. At the moment, my desire to kill is exceedingly strong, but I'm capable of holding back."
"You're seeing red?" Graham asked.
"No, I'm not." When extremely angry, vampires would see the world in shades of blood red. The vast majority of times, it resulted in lots of blood being spilled. She tried to focus on the present. "It's all in shades of black right now."
Graham swallowed hard. Even he had only heard a rumor that the phenomenon was possible. He assumed it stayed a rumor because if it had happened, anyone who could verify it was ripped to shreds.
Yamato was a perceptive man. Quite a lot of his job was picking up on subtle clues. He said, "Wiseman and his rotten son are very dead. Mamoru even got to stand over his son's dead body." He smiled when he watched the tension leak out of her a bit. He was so immersed in the supernatural now that it didn't dawn on him that he was essentially celebrating a murder.
Realizing he needed to get moving, tell everything, get his information, and get out, Graham continued quicker. "Wiseman had a dumb witch who saw what Mamoru was to become and mistook the future him for his father. He had the Chibas killed by that very witch. She didn't try to hide the fact that it was supernatural. Miran appeared at the crash site at the same time I did. Her goal was to protect Mamoru and, by extension, serve her friend, Aiko."
Mamoru knit his brow. "My father, and by extension my mother, died in my place?"
Motoki sighed, "Mamoru, I get that this is…" he paused, and his eyes grew wide. "Look at Usagi."
As he did just that, he noticed Usagi had her eyes closed, and as a vampire with no vital signs, she looked like a very realistic statue. A very furious-looking nightmare-vampire statue.
Her eyes were closed, but other things were visible. The veins showed around her eyes, and her fangs protruded from her mouth, which wasn't unusual. But her transition went further than he had ever seen before or even knew could happen. Her cheeks had hollowed out, her ears had become pointier, and he noticed her nails had grown longer and sharp. And still, that wasn't all. The air around her was completely still in a way that he didn't know was possible.
"Usako. Are you hanging in there?"
In a quiet voice, she answered, "There isn't anyone to kill." Her disappointment and frustration were obvious. "I really want someone to kill right now. I need to rip open someone's throat. I desperately need to spill blood." It had all been delivered in a flat and even tone.
Mamoru had her up and out of the room in a flash. He pinned her to their bed and said, "Open your eyes, my love." When she did, he wasn't too surprised that they were full of blood.
He pressed on. "I'm here with you. I'm not going anywhere. I'm very much alive."
She locked eyes with him and said, "I'm not strong enough to handle the idea that I might never have found you."
Closing his eyes, he pressed his forehead to hers. "You're being ridiculous, sweetheart. I'm right here, Usako, my beloved. Why are you focused on something that didn't happen?"
"I need you," she said brokenly. "I don't know how I lived all those centuries without you."
"You did, and now you have me –always." He then kissed her hard on the mouth. "They failed."
He was surprised when he felt her trembling like a leaf. It relieved him too. He knew it was the tension making its way out of her body. It seemed to him like something had gotten through to her.
As she came back to herself, she felt overwhelmingly relieved. Wrapping her arms around her love, she said, "Thank you. I can go back now and find more reasons why I wish Wiseman were still alive so I could use my centuries of knowledge to make him suffer profusely."
He pulled her fully into his arms and held her. "You make me feel like I matter."
"You do matter, Mamo-chan."
"I just didn't know this strong of a love was in the cards for me."
They made it back to the sitting room, and Graham raised his eyebrows and whistled. "Well, that just happened." He then smirked, "For those of you who don't know what just happened, let me enlighten you. Mamoru just did the equivalent of defusing a nuclear bomb with his bare hands.
"Moving on. Miran's whole goal was to preserve Mamoru's life. Wiseman didn't care that Kou was of werewolf lineage, and he wouldn't care about Mamoru either. He just knew that there was a power in that line that would surpass his own, and he wanted it destroyed."
Graham stood up. "That's all I know. Now, how the hell is he a hybrid?" He asked, pointing at Mamoru.
"Rei," Yamato answered easily. "She's the only witch that was ever strong enough to stop it from destroying him." He was stingy on the details. He figured Usagi wouldn't want too much given away, and he figured that Graham had to have realized already that Rei was incredibly powerful.
Three minutes after he left, there was a knock on the penthouse door. When Usagi answered it, an elderly man stood there with a worn piece of paper clutched in his hand.
"Usagi? On the day of the Chibas' death, Miran gave me a message. I used to be a coroner."
NOTE: We will get to Mamoru's reaction to his parents' deaths. I just can't picture him reacting in front of anyone other than Usagi. He has the support of Motoki and Yamato with him when he finds out, which matters to him. But he won't fall apart until later.