Vampire Knight: The Prophecy

Among the Night Class students was one who would not be attending the evening’s lectures. Though Hikaru inevitably grew sharper and more irritable as the night of the full moon approached every month, he was much worse on the eve itself. He was forced to become other than he wished to be, and there was simply nothing he could do about it. It was best for everyone involved if he remained absent and free of all other people on this day.

When the left the Moon Dorm, therefore, he did not make his way across the bridge to the classroom building like the majority of his fellows. Rather, he cut backwards across campus and disappeared into the trees on the fringes. At first, he’d been uncertain about the efficacy and safety of allowing the change to take place here, still so close to humans and vampires both. But he’d spent a lot of time out here, and learned that only rarely did another student venture into this place, and at night even more infrequently still. It was as safe as anywhere could possibly be, and it was probably better not to leave campus for an extended period, besides.

Though he lacked the fully bestial transformation his mother had undergone, at least according to those who had known her, he still didn’t look like anything human or vampire when he underwent his. He supposed, if one were inclined towards mythology, what he became resembled more a demon than anything else. The people of this country might refer to such a being as an inuyoukai or even a kitsune, but for him there was no hiding the truth. He was an abomination, something caught between the elegant deadliness of a pureblood vampire and the raw, feral force of one of them. A werewolf. That his features also met in the middle was mere coincidence. He was still an uncontrollable force of violence and rage, more like the beast than the man on nights like this one, and he had no choice in the matter.

His feet made no noise on the forest floor as he tread, walking among the trees in complete silence, even to his own supernatural hearing. His lupine nose could not detect the incoming presence of anyone or anything, though the breeze was strong enough to carry him the scents of the intermingling Day and Night Classes, no doubt at this very moment kept separated by their determined, brash prefect. The particular train of thought attached to that one led nowhere good, and so he abandoned it as quickly as his mind would enable him to. It was better to think calming thoughts on this night, and whatever that woman was, calming was nowhere included.

Once he reached the heart of the small forest, he glanced around a bit, taking in the familiar sight of the still, clear pond and the grove of trees that ringed the clearing it was in. It would do—as it had for a year now. Hikaru wore only loose clothing, and not many layers at that. His body temperature had always been unnaturally high, and he did not stifle himself unless he absolutely had to. Picking a spot in the middle of the clearing, he turned a few circles out of habit before sitting down, then reclining back, folding his hands behind his head, mostly because it was something he always did, and not because he needed to. It was a gesture he’d picked up from his brother, who would often walk so, elbows stuck out to either side like an absurd butterfly or bird of some sort.

From there, he let his thoughts drift, generally keeping them on safer things like family or classwork, and he waited for the inevitable changing to come.

The first hour or so of his repose was calm as it properly could be, though he could feel the other part of him beginning to surface, that one that would surely herald the coming of the beast. Hotaru was so much more like the animal they both became that sometimes, Hikaru could not be bothered to distinguish between them, though they were in fact different. While Hotaru was hardly the model of restraint and quietude that Hikaru was, he at least had control of his own faculties, and chose his actions as he wanted, rather than sue to manipulation by some outside force. The beast inside them both was not like that. It was subject to his will in only the loosest of senses. He’d crafted what control of it he could over the years of his life, but it was still a creature of instinct, wholly different in character from either of his “sides.”

He was afraid of it, and anyone with half a brain to think with should be the same, he was certain. Which was why, when he inhaled and scented her coming in his general direction, he groaned inwardly and cursed his luck. Shizuka complicated his life to a degree that he did not appreciate (though that part of him quite enjoyed it), but he’d never want to hurt her any more than he wanted to hurt anyone else, which was to say generally not at all. But the beast would not discriminate. If it felt like slaying her, it would.

He considered just running, disappearing further into the forest, but he was in the center now, and leaving would take him too close to populated areas. He definitely didn’t want that. He had to get her to go away somehow, before he transformed and ruined everything his mother had built for him. This life, where he could pretend that he was only a vampire, and that would be enough. Where he had a brother, and things to look forward to. Where his little personality issue was taken to be an interesting eccentricity and nothing more. Most of the people he knew had seen weirder things, but none of them had ever seen what he became on nights like these.

Her words were hardly a surprise. “Always the prefect,” he muttered, mostly to himself, though he did not doubt she could hear. Honestly, he had trouble figuring this girl out. In one sense, she was very simple—bound to what she saw as her duty, rude, and belligerent. She’d more than likely attempt to deck him if he straightforwardly insulted her to get her to leave, but she was stubborn enough that she probably wouldn’t go if he just asked. He pushed himself up off the grass, eyeing her suspiciously. “Would it kill you to leave me in peace, just once?”

As he spoke, his left eye shifted from purple to red in hue, and the inky-black of his hair took on definite white streaks. Well, damn. He wasn’t sure if this was the transformation proper or just Hotaru being provoked, but either way, Hikaru clamped down on the changes for just a moment, leaving him in a strange state of limbo that he imagined must resemble what he would have been like if he hadn’t rejected the Hotaru portion of his personality enough to make it an almost-separate entity. “I don’t have time to deal with this.” And he didn’t—he could feel time growing short.

To say that he was annoyed by this turn of events would be rather an understatement. The irritation he was feeling only served to beckon forth someone who was much more inclined to confrontation, and while this insolent stranger bickered back and for the with the prefect, Hotaru folded his arms into his loose sleeves, observing the scene with eyes the color of blood rubies and frowning markedly. A hint of fang stuck out from one side of his mouth, but as this could be taken to be a vampiric trait of his, he didn’t much care. Actually, he wouldn’t have cared either way, but brother and mother were so very insistent that nobody discover the secret.

Something about this male raised his hackles, so to speak, and though he was not jealous, because that would be absurd for a man like him, who could have whatever he wanted anyway, he was feeling a bit territorial, so when the fool touched the prefect who’d come here with the intention of speaking to him, Hotaru snarled, instinctively reaching for the sword that was not actually at his waist. Why would he bother to bring a weapon on a night like tonight? He was about to become a weapon.

And apparently, he was not alone in this. He watched with a certain kind of morbid curiosity as the prefect reacted violently to the removal of one of her earrings, Like his, her hair turned white, her eyes shifting color. But where he always retained a certain amount of elegance to his appearance, the byproduct of his vampiric genes, she was nothing of the sort, and he blinked slowly at the snow-colored beast that she became, right before his eyes like the kind of sick magic trick he knew all too well. Even unshakeable, ever-bored Hotaru was surprised, his eyes widening momentarily with his shock, but when she took off towards the school, he knew she had not the level of control that he possessed.

He watched her go for all of two seconds before he made his decision. He of all people knew what such a creature was capable of. For the moment, he compartmentalized his surprise and all the questions he had about it, and simply focused in what needed to be done. Hotaru honestly didn’t care that much about all the people that would die if he didn’t intervene. But the part of him that was Hikaru would care, and Sora and mother would care as well. Besides, their goals in this case aligned with his, and he would not want to miss the opportunity that this would bring for a fight. So for once, he welcomed the change that overtook him as the moon wakened what was in his blood, a heated melody reaching a fever-pitch underneath his skin. His limbs burned as he rapidly grew taller, topping seven feet without any difficulty, and gaining broadness to match. His ears and eyes shifted until they were more lupine, the former planted in the glorious mane of silver hair he sported. His hands were tipped with wicked silver claws, and his already-long vampiric teeth grew thicker and stronger, the whitest of ivories. The long, plumed tail gave him balance, and he sped off after Shizuka, faster than she but also delayed during his own transformation.

He arrived to a tableau of pure carnage. Hotaru appreciated the effort even if it was lacking in artistry. He wondered just what kind of bloody canvas this creature could create opposite him? Or would it be more of a finely-acted bit of stagecraft? Either way, it was an opportunity he would not miss. He spotted his brother and another vampire woman amidst the crowd, apparently trying to get them away. Red eyes locked with gold, and Hotaru wordlessly conveyed that he would deal with this.

Swifter than he had any right to be, he approached the rampaging thing that had once been Shizuka, and, seizing her by the arm with a werewolf’s strength, he threw her, far away from the school building, chasing after her with the unerring precision of a hunting hawk in flight. He reached her just as she was standing, and bared his teeth in the universal gesture for threat. “You fight me now, bitch. Come.” His posture was deceptively relaxed, as though this were a Sunday walk in the park, but he was having a hard time not attacking first, his instincts screaming at him to assert dominance here, as animals did everywhere and form any reasons. But he was not thinking about reasons—such things were unimportant. There was only him, and her, and the fight, and he knew she would feel it too. The need to tear your way through the strongest thing you could find to prove to everything else that you were sovereign of your domain.

Blood coated the air in a thick, metallic scent. Shizuka could feel her nose twitch at the amount and only snarled when vampires tried to leave the room. There was one in particular that caused the wolf's ears to flatten against the back of her head, baring her fangs with a certain kind of ferocity. It was a blue-haired vampire, and he seemed so familiar to the wolf, yet she did not care. The only thing on her mind at the moment was killing the one thing in the vicinity that could prove to be any form of a threat or challenge to her. As she circled the room, something else, a different scent that burned the back of her throat, assaulted her senses.

Before she could take in what the creature before her was, she found herself thrown violently out the window, crashing into the nearby forest as a result of the strength used. Confused and shocked, it took Shizuka a few moments to comprehend what had just happened. She scrambled to her feet, lips curled back in a show of defiance as the creature appeared. He bared his fangs at her as she returned the gesture, ears flattening as the hairs along her back rose. This creature was invading her territory. He had no right to be, and to Shizuka, he was another being that needed to be dominated. This was her school, her lands, this intruder had no business here.

With that in mind, her claws dug into the earth, pulling up the pieces of grass as she growled at the creature before her. The animal inside of her was burning at it's cage, begging to be released however; even as a wolf, she was no fool. If this creature had managed to throw her with such force, she would need to be careful, but it didn't help that he too had bared his fangs, threatening her as well. She couldn't have that. She wouldn't allow something else to dominate her, nor take over what was rightfully hers. Then, it spoke, muttering words that Shizuka could make out, and that only further angered her. With as much force as she could, she pulled up pieces of the earth, tearing out chunks of it as she charged the other creature, fangs glistening beneath the moon.

His soundless snarl morphed into a smile, entirely inhuman but nevertheless recognizable as such. She was really quite something, this beast of a woman. He couldn’t remember the last time the blood in his body had boiled at such a temperature, perhaps because he had never been challenged by something that could almost match him for strength and speed both. It was properly exhilarating, and it ratcheted his adrenaline up several more notches. She was reacting to him—violently, and he was inclined to respond with the same. She wished to assert her dominance, did she? Well, he was no weakling, that could be controlled with such fear. He might not look the same, but he was just as much an animal, and just as territorial.

Her claws dug into the loamy earth beneath their feet, and he tensed in response, waiting for the slightest hint of motion from her frame. When it came, it was surprisingly fast, but not fast enough—she came at him like a freight truck intent on bowling him over, but he was ready and bent with the hit, allowing both of them to be carried to the ground. It was a serious contest of strength thereafter, but the point was not, at least for him, to kill her, only to wear her down and defeat her. He did not want the most interesting thing to have happened to him in a century to be taken away so soon, after all.

Her claws were as sharp as they looked, and her bite no less powerful, but he didn’t mind—his unnatural regeneration was vampiric in nature, and he would not have to wait an hour for the wounds to disappear. He chose very carefully where he scratched and bit her, or as carefully as one could in a vicious, bloody tangle of limbs and jaws and shredded ground. He worked to get her arms under his control, encircling the wrists with a grip stronger than ordinary steel, using one of his feet to roll her over onto her stomach and pin her forelimbs to her back, his knee resting just below them to hold her in place.

“Shizuka,” he growled, the sound deep and throaty from the exertion. “It’s time to change back.”

Shizuka charged at the creature in front of her, intent on taking him down with everything that she was. Appearing as a white blur, she tackled him to the ground, however; she wasn't expecting him to flow as smoothly as he had. Instead, they both fell into a mess of tangled limbs and snarls. Her fangs found their way into his fur-cased hands, her claws raking into his skin as she tried to assert her dominance. She was matched, strength for strength, speed for speed, and it was causing her to become infuriated. This creature was surely causing the beast to descend further into madness as they continued attacking each other, wounds healing while new ones were created.

She found herself pinned to the ground, limbs forced behind her back as she felt pressure as well. She snarled into the ground, saliva running down the sides of her jaws as she struggled to regain control. He kept her pinned down, and she didn't like it at all. He was overpowering her, her a beast who just killed a pure-blood, and three other vampires. A mixture of a howl and a whimper escaped her throat, her body still trying in effort to remove the creature from her back. Her breathing became labored as her muscles finally gave into the fatigue that was slowly descending upon her.

The more she struggled, the faster she became tired. Soon, a defeated snarl left her lips as the creature spoke, calling out her name as her golden eyes swept to meet his own ruby colored ones. If possible, they held a sort of confusion, yet they still glowered in defiance. Just because this creature bested her now did not mean she would allow it again, however; the words 'change back' echoed through her subconsciousness. Slowly, the golden orbs turned violet as the sound of bones cracking pierced the air. With a final pop of a bone, Shizuka glared up at the creature before her, arms covering her form in the process.

"Are you going to stand there and stare, or are you going to get something for me to cover myself with?" she snapped, her eyes never leaving the creatures.

A dark chuckle rang into the air, and he stood with far too much grace, his form also receding into the one he’d occupied before. It was certainly still Hotaru standing there, though—the white hair and red eyes did not change in the slightest. He cocked his head to one side and tucked his arms into the loose haori-like shirt he wore. “And if I’d rather just stare,” he said slyly, raising a brow, “precisely what would you be able to do about it in your state, hmm?” He’d clearly been the winner of their little tussle, and both of them knew it on a visceral level that went past simple fact. Mercy was his to bestow or deny as he chose, and he was not known for being the most charitable of men.

Even so, he shrugged out of the shirt, which given the height disparity between them was more than long enough to cover her almost to her knees, and slipped the sleeves from his arms, taking a step closer to drape it over her shoulders rather than just handing it to her. He closed it over her front, and, after a thoughtful noise in the back of his throat, loosed the long ribbon holding his hair in its tail, spilling the starlight locks over his shoulders. The thing was long enough to wrap about her waist twice, cinching the garment closed over her rather lovely figure.

“And there you are, she-wolf. I think I rather prefer being the only one to see, after all.” His smile was wicked, and still hinted at fang, given the fact that he was half a vampire. “But you know,” he continued in the same velvety tone of voice, capturing a lock of scarlet hair and twisting it around his finger before tucking it behind her ear, “You do have some explaining to do. And your choices are me, who will keep the secret if I have it, and those rather terrified and angry vampires out there, who most likely will not.”

Shizuka merely rolled her eyes at the response she was given, ignoring the male as his form had receded. She stood in her spot, arms still covering herself as her eyes never left his own. This man was truly infuriating and insufferable, that she could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing on edge. There were many things she could do in her state. One of those things, regardless of anyone was awake or not, she could walk away and head back to the dorm. It wouldn't be the first time she was out naked in public and it surely would not be the last. Or, she could just simply walk away. Either one did not sit well with Shizuka.

"Whether I receive anything or not, does not matter. This is not, and will not be, the first time I was out nude in public. Didn't you know? I make this a daily habit," she replied in a sarcastic tone, the edge and defiance still laced behind it. It was at this moment that he shed his haori and placed over her, tying the string that had held his hair momentarily around her waist. She frowned at his next statement. The only one? Who did he think he was? This would be the only time he'd ever see her like this, and that was a promise she would keep.

"Don't flatter yourself Minamoto. This will be the only time you ever see me like this. Trust me, I wouldn't dream of offering myself to you in such a way," she retorted, pulling at the haori as it kissed her knees. His next statement, however, caused her to flinch. She-wolf, that she was, however, she wasn't inclined exactly to tell him her secret. Of course, he too would have some explaining to do. She wasn't the only one in the hole. At that, her eyes narrowed as she glared at the male.

"I am not the only one here with a secret, and as far as I am concerned, this secret has already been exposed. Judging by what you appear to be, what more explanation do you need? And what of you? You are not exactly prince charming on a white horse. You've explaining to do as well," she snapped, her face sporting a faint hint of pink due to the anger bubbling within. How dare this vampire, this wolf, whatever he was, tell her she had a choice between him and the vampires. She didn't have to say anything. He had his own secret to hide, she wasn't the only one.

“Mm, of course not,” he replied. Her anger was so… invigorating. Like being hit with a blast of cold air in summertime. “But my secret did not just kill three vampires, now did it?” He wasn’t judging her for that, exactly—he knew just how difficult controlling those feral instincts could be. But he did have a point, and he knew it. The burden of this situation was hers to bear, and whatever his motives had been, he was the one who stopped her before she did worse. He crossed his arms casually over his bare chest, fixing her with an appraising look, though unlike the last one, there was nothing lewd about it. It was just cold, practiced analysis.

“Very well, then. Your secret, such as it is, is safe with me. But if a total stranger can cause you to lose your control so easily, are you really safe here? You will be discovered eventually, perhaps by someone who cares what you have done. I think, that when you are desperate to learn control, and when you feel that your own resources have been exhausted, you will realize that I can help you. I look forward to your humble request.” With a half-smirk and a wink, he turned and walked away, apparently perfectly content with leaving things at that… for now.

After the little incident with the she-wolf, Hotaru returned to his dormitory, selecting himself a new haori and sliding it on. This one was bright red, in honor of the current subject of his thoughts. Well, that and because he looked very good in red, of course.

Actually, he wasn’t thinking only about Shizuka and the interesting little secret he’d learned about her. He was also curious about this other person, the one who had shown up and forced her to transform in the first place. Looking at it logically, that one had to have known even before Hotaru had, and was also able to deduce that she had been stopping her transformations via a measured kind of silver poisoning. An interesting thought, and clever, but it would never teach her to control and harmonize with the beast, only to subdue it until someone else figured out the trick and removed one of the pieces of jewelry. Hardly a method of control.

Hotaru padded back through the forest, his hair gaining black lowlights as his logical thought processes calmed his frame of mind and allowed Hikaru to reassert himself, at least somewhat. This intermediate stage was interesting, in that both of his halves were at play, and that tended to make it easier to think in different ways. Hikaru was abstract, Hotaru concrete, but this way, he could get a bit more of both. He raised a brow at the sound of incoming footsteps, and he didn’t need to turn around to know that it was his brother. Plucking a handful of blackberries from a bush, Hotaru popped the first one in his mouth and chewed it over thoughtfully, turning to face his brother.

The questions had more to do with one another than Sora knew, of course, but as loyal as he was to his brother, Hotaru did not plan on telling him this. He might not seem like it, but he was a man of his word, in either form. Still, he’d only promised to keep the one secret—there were other things he could say. “Didn’t what, dear brother?” He asked coyly, completely ignoring the first question for the moment. “Take her to my bed? You think she’d agree?” Oh, he could be charming when he wanted to be, of course, but the impression he gained from Shizuka was that the was not the kind of woman for whom any amount of charm was sufficient. It was fascinating—he wanted to see how much it would take to wear her down on this point.

“She was present for part of my altercation,” he explained with an air of boredom, eating another of the berries. They were causing his mouth to turn a deep reddish-purple, but it wasn’t like he cared. He was telling his brother the truth, if not in a clear way. “Her wardrobe suffered some… collateral damage. It seemed best to offer her something with which to preserve her modesty.” He shrugged, but then frowned when a strong, distinctive scent combination hit his nose.

“Speaking of which… I think it would behoove us to check on her...” He knew that smell, and he didn’t like it one bit. It was coming from the Sun Dorm, and mixed with it was her and a faint hint of himself. Something was wrong.

Hikaru sighed when his brother insisted that he’d caused enough trouble. Caused? He’d been the cause of exactly none of the problems that had occurred this evening. As a matter of fact, he’d mitigated the damage what both Sora and the She-wolf seemed to misunderstand was that if not for him, she would have slaughtered her way through at least half the Night Class. Sora may indeed have been able to stop her, but only by killing her. Only Hikaru had had the mix of brute force and mercy necessary to end it without further bloodshed. Nevertheless, he shrugged. It wasn’t like he cared about what happened to the prefect, as such. She was an entertaining diversion, and she amused him. It would be a shame for her to die, of course, but that didn’t mean he’d go out of his way to prevent harm from coming to her.

The reason he’d done so tonight was simply because the longer she spent in the open, the greater the chance that the secret they shared, after a fashion, would be exposed fully, and he did not want that. It was a perfectly-good reason, and though he would have preferred to erase the memories of all those involved, Sora had for some reason decided not to—and he did trust his brother, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Plus, he knew what that look meant: cooperate, or I’m telling mother. It had worked to bring Hotaru to heel since they were children, and it worked still. If there was one being he desired always to protect and never burden, it was mother. She had done so much for him, when she would have been well within her rights to curse the ground he walked on.

So Hikaru followed his brother back to the dorms, dropped into his bed, and slept the day away like a log. Transformation tended to take a lot out of a guy—especially when there was fighting involved.

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The second night of the full moon was no less dangerous than the first, of course, so he woke and ate a large meal of his own devising before he headed back out into the forest. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be interrupted this time—though admittedly, the row he’d gotten into the previous evening had been great for his blood pressure. He felt healthy, invigorated, and quite self-satisfied. In fact, there was only one part of the situation that bothered him at all: the appearance of that guy. Honestly, who did he think he was, intruding on private conversations like that?

Hikaru grumbled a few words under his breath and then dismissed his anger. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. The world was comprised only of boring people, interesting people, his brother, and his mother. The prefect and that man might have been interesting, but they were not his concern. Only two beings in this world had ever had that status, and only those two ever would. It was just that simple. So he flopped down in the milled of the clearing as he had before, resting his head on his interlocked hands, and chose not to think about it, opening his senses up to the forest around him and waiting once again for the inevitable.

Ah, the tender blue moon. How she hung in the sky, drawing eyes to her like the foul temptress she was. Or so Hotaru seemed to think, anyway. Hikaru was perfectly content to ignore the thing for as long as possible. Twice in a month really was bad luck, but he’d dealt with so many of these events that he just accepted it by now as part of his lot in life. He’d had to accept a lot of things as such—and most of them were not at all pleasant. Occasionally, the thoughts of how much easier his life would have been if his mother were actually his mother made him bitter. He could simply be a pureblooded vampire from an extraordinary line, with no hidden monster under his skin, no second self, his distilled violence and sexuality, to plague him by taking over his body at the worst of times. No risk for the people he might have come to like or love.

Normality, in other words. He could spend his days getting to know the woman he was to marry, making connections among his peers, studying, even, without this burden settling over him like so much weight. Sometimes, he envied his brother so much he almost couldn’t stand it. Sora was the model child, the very essence of what everyone expected a well-bred man of his caliber to be. Hikaru had always been… otherwise. Too wild even at his tamest.

But it was a poor time for such reflection. He wandered the festival, not having been particularly inclined to participate in anything himself but nevertheless dressed for the occasion, in a silk haori of deep red-violet, patterned in shining gold thread. The loose hakama he wore were black, as were the tabi he wore with his geta. If one was to do something of this nature, one may as well do it properly. His hair was bound into a topknot ponytail with another length of cord, this one gold as well, ending in meticulously-carved golden feathers, which clinked together gently as he walked, hands tucked into his sleeves.

The moon was by this stage bright overhead, shining down on the festivities with her customary silvery highlight, when he decided to take a rest at one of the booths that had been set up. He knew her scent was nearby, but he was content to ignore it. He did not feel Hotaru’s fascination with her, and honestly would rather steer clear of anything that reminded him of what he really was, underneath all the silk and thread and perfect skin. It wasn’t until he’d started browsing the menu that he realized that the staff were all members of the kendo club… and appeared to be dressed mostly indecently, as either French-style maids (minus most of the fabric normal to such costumes), or else in very nonstandard kimono.

Well… leaving now would look rude, he supposed, and Hikaru as himself was not, generally, a rude person. He supposed it wouldn’t be so bad—he knew a few of the members of this club, and he could politely ignore the way they were dressed when he was approached, he supposed.

It wasn't until far too late that he remembered who the president of this club was.

Hikaru was making every effort not to look at Shizuka, because some things were just too far up Hotaru’s alley to tolerate and he was going to go out on a limb and suppose that the interesting prefect in an equally-interesting attire was one of those things. He didn’t need that side of him putting in an appearance so soon after the night had begun, after all—it was his desire to at least spend some time at the festival his classmates had gone out of their way to prepare. Hotaru could do that, he supposed, but he also didn’t really want to wake up next to a stranger tomorrow, be that stranger alive and very satiated, as with Hotaru, or dead, as with a case of berserk beast. Best not to tempt fate, perhaps.

But then a smell, familiar and associated with things that he couldn’t care less about but his other side disliked, hit his nose, and Hikaru’s head snapped in the direction of the smell, or it would have, if he hadn’t stopped mid-motion to stare. It wasn’t her manner of dress that did it, either—if only it were something so simple and banal as that.

Rather, the cause of his sick fascination was the mark on her neck, clearly prominent and obviously of a very particular kind. Only a few very old bloodlines could produce bindings of that sort—his among them. But this was nothing Hotaru had done; even he had boundaries, and binding someone in this fashion was hardly something he would desire to do. Violet eyes narrowed precipitously, a strange mix of emotions churning about in his guts. Mostly it was disgust—such marks were not to be casually given, nor received, and certainly a bond of that depth would not have been hidden from the eyes and ears of the school’s gossip mongers.

Either this girl was stupid and being fooled because of it… or someone was a filthier creature even than he. Given the unlikeliness of the second, he was almost inclined to believe the first. “You fool,” he said, voice so low as to be inaudible to anyone but her. “Have you any idea what you have allowed?” He couldn’t have imagined her willingly submitting to something like this knowing the consequences—very few would, and those only in circumstances of sacred importance. He didn’t believe in the kind of love such a mark was supposed to signify, but all the same, he had been raised to understand—that was the only circumstance in which one may be made. To do otherwise was a moral transgression of the highest degree, and it made him sick just to look at it.

Hotaru, rather than the amusement Hikaru would have expected, was just angry, and he knew that was a reason to leave, and now. Pushing his chair away from the table. “I am sorry my presence inconveniences you,” he snapped, eyes flashing dangerously between colors, “but your contempt is better directed at whomever did that without telling you what it meant.” Shaking his head, he turned to leave, intent on finding somewhere to regain his equilibrium. This girl and her stupidity or her problems were not his concern, and he desired to be moved by them no longer. Distance was best. Distance had always been best.

He told himself that he wasn’t going to interfere when that thing appeared, because frankly, he didn’t care. Not about her, not about him, not about whatever stupid dramatics they were about to undergo. The parting shot about his mother didn’t even phase him. If he’d considered the wolf his mother, he might have been insulted, but he did not. His mother was a vampires who’d been tossed over for some sub-human whore, and that was that. It only made him more incline to leave the two of them to their contentious business. Shizuka had made it clear that she had no interest in his help, and he was far too disgusted by such a cavalier use of the mark to want to stay.

Hotaru was a little more inclined to do so, for the opportunity to contest the smug asshat who thought he knew enough about Hikaru to insult him, but even this was subsumed beneath the layer of irritation that he needed to manage. So while the little public display of not-so-blissful bonding continued, he took his leave.

It was, in the end, the right thing to do, because the minute that scent shifted, he knew he was in for another night of fighting, and unlike those two fools, he wasn’t going to allow everyone and their mother to recognize him. With great speed, he retreated to the forest, shedding most of the layers of his clothing as he went, leaving only the loose hakama pants and one of the layers of his haori in place. Both were ample enough in construction to support his taller, bulkier frame, and this time, he drew a sword as well—one made of silver. His half-bloodedness allowed him greater resistance to it than most, and of course, wielding such a tool was not difficult. He knew not which of them he’d have to slay, but he was not in the mood for mere fun tussling this time.

---

---

Hikaru arrived just in time to see the darkly-colored wolf pin Shizuka to the floor. It took no longer to make his decision, and moving faster than the eye could see, Hikaru sank the silver sword into the creature’s back, producing from him an unearthly howl of pain. It did not seem to damage him as badly as it should have, however, and he managed to rip it out, tossing it to the side until it stuck in a nearby wall.

Esaias was predictably agitated with the interruption, but seemed a bit more interested once he realized who was responsible. That feral, lupine smile stretched wider, his lips pulling back from his fangs in a grotesque parody of a grin, and he launched himself at the smaller Hikaru. The two met with a definite thud and the cracking of limbs, but both of the recovered just as quickly as the other, the marrow and bone knitting back together almost instantaneously. That was something a pure werewolf would not be able to do, and Hikaru suddenly understood. Esaias was as he was, not as she was. Why his heritage had lent him a full transformation was hard to say, but size and weight were irrelevant when both parties were as strong as these two were. Hikaru was simply more compact, and even then not by much.

The two tore at each other with reckless abandon, breaking limbs and delivering cutting slashes with claws. Teeth buried themselves in flesh and fur, and blood spattered the nearby ground and walls like some kind of macabre modern art piece. It was certainly a strange sound, the growling, shattering, crunching symphony of death. As fast as the damage could be dealt, it was repaired. The only advantage was one possessed by Hikaru: the other had been wounded by a weapon of silver, and it was working slowly to delay the healing of his body. Lest this turn into a contest of endurance that lasted days or weeks, it needed to end with a more decisive stroke. There was one more possible advantage that Hikaru could take advantage of, but that was a dubious risk at best.

Well, it wasn’t like the wolf in him was very cautious anyway. “Shizuka—the blade!” Esaias tried to turn to refocus on the girl, but Hikaru was having none of that, bowling into his back with all the force of a freight truck and carrying them both to the ground. Shizuka would have to be doubly careful of what she did with the weapon—she could hurt herself if she handled it wrong, or him if she aimed badly. There was also the chance of Esaias trying to compel her through that foul bond they shared, but he was going to keep the man so busy he wouldn’t be able to concentrate enough for that. This needed to end, before any more lives were lost.

Hikaru was only distantly aware of anything but the fight he was having with the other wolf—it was taking the total devotion of their mutual attention to keep either of them from gaining an untoward advantage over the other, and it was obvious that they were so evenly matched as to be almost identical, not just in skill itself, but in the degree to which they had practiced with this kind of combat. Each reacted in mere fractions of seconds, and even their patterns of thought and instinct were similar.

It was uncanny, and it was clearly affecting Hikaru more than it was Esaias, suggesting that the other… whatever they were knew something about this situation that Hikaru himself did not. It was proving to be a small advantage for him, but in a fight this close, even a small advantage was one worth having.

Fortunately, the advantage soon reversed, and in a much better way. Shizuka came through and plunged the sword into Esaias’s back, though unfortunately they were clocked close enough together that it also pierced Hikaru’s abdomen, leaving him with a deep, diagonal cut that tore through the rapidly-shredding fabric of his haori and his flesh alike, covered with a finer layer of fur than the other’s. He hissed and snarled against the pain of poisonous silver, but in the end, it was not nearly as grave as the wound dealt to Esaias, and he was able to flip them both over, digging his teeth into the juncture between the other’s neck and shoulder and tearing at his jugular vein.

The blood hit his tongue, spicy and hot in flavor, and he was momentarily assaulted by a barrage of memories that were not his own. This was not so abnormal for a vampire, but Hikaru had never felt a connection so strong before, and the force of it hit him hard enough to slacken his muscles for just an instant, but one that Esaias was able to take advantage off, throwing Hikaru off himself and staggering to his feet. He had to pull the blade out of himself, but tossed it to the side afterwards, bleeding still copiously from the throat, and fled. Two opponents of such strength was unwise to handle on his own, especially because that one was more his equal than he had thought to expect. Someone had given him misinformation, and that someone was going to pay dearly.

Hikaru rose to run after him, but the mental assault of the memories he was seeing and the physical damage from the silver were combining to make it very difficult for him to so much as see straight, and he just barely managed to make it behind a building before he changed back, covered in blood and with only the left half of his haori still intact. Given how many bloodied people there were hanging about, and the fact that they all seemed distracted by something, he probably didn’t look enough out of place to warrant any more notice than usual. His breaths moved in and out of his lungs with unusual force, and he spat excess blood—his or Esaias’s, he did not know, to the side, wiping his crimson chin with his intact sleeve.

It was only after a few seconds that he was able to process everything else that had happened while he was engaged. The unconscious pair of women, the dead body only now crumbling to ashes, his brother returning from completing the deed the jumper had started. He blinked slightly, eyes still red and hair still pristine silver-white, and sighed through his nose. “Take care of your intended,” he told Sora wearily, moving to crouch beside the unconscious Shizuka. Ensuring that he was safely wrapped up in his brother’s outer haori, he picked her up as gently as fatigue would allow him, placing one hand under her knees and the other across her back. “I’ll see what I can do for this one.”

He met Sora’s eyes solemnly for a moment, then inclined his head in acknowledgement of something they both knew but neither would say: this could not go on. Esaias had been free to do what he liked for too long, and Shizuka’s troubles were not going to abate because he’d been chased away once. The two of them could erase the necessary memories for now, but this could not last forever. It would not be long until she was discovered, if things continued to happen this way. And when her secret was out, Hikaru knew his own would not be far behind.

Picking up his pace, Hikaru was back at Shizuka’s dorm room in no time at all. He placed her down carefully on her bed, and checked for wounds with his nose rather than his eyes. While it was true that Hotaru would have had no compunctions about leering at her, it was no fun if she wasn’t awake to get mad at him. Even that part of himself had some decency. A decency Esaias clearly lacked. From her bathroom, he grabbed a few washcloths and a bucket of water and cleaned her wounds to prevent infection, which was an outside chance with a metabolism like hers but still possible. The water was pink by the time he was done, but he kept himself from licking any of his bloodied fingers. It was tempting to be sure, but he refrained anyway. The last thing he needed was more foreign memories to deal with, and it was taboo, besides. He had some respect for certain vampiric conventions, mostly due to the influence of his mother and brother.

When he was done, he stood to leave, but not before he brushed a piece of her hair aside for a moment, exposing the mark that had been left on her neck. Esaias was right about one thing: he would not remove it. There was only one way to do that, and it was not an idea that any part of Hikaru particularly savored. His mother would be ashamed that he’d even thought about it. Releasing her hair, he shook his head and left. She was in well over her head, but there was only so much he was willing to do about that. The rest of it was on her.

The gentle susurrations of the leaves canopied above his head were soothing to Hikaru, and even as he propped his back against the trunk of an ancient oak, he felt that irrevocable connection to the natural world reengage, giving him the distinct feeling of feeling at home. He was and would always be a child of two worlds, torn between them and tormented by the irreconcilable divide in his very nature. But the vampire was quietly discontent, the beast much louder, and it was it that needed the soothing, lest it overtake him completely. His other half despised this quasi-enslavement to the whims of a baser creature, but at least he was rational enough to do what he must.

Laying his recently-cleaned sword beside his knee, he tipped his head back, pressing the crown of his head into the bark behind him, and breathed deeply of the scent of the forest—loamy earth, fresh flowers, rain on the horizon and the sharper tint of pine. This was also his scent, overlaid with the distinctive musk of something humanoid and masculine and strong, but at base, he smelled like the forest, at least for the moment.

Amethyst eyes fell closed, and the memories started to flit about behind his eyelids. He had come to understand something very important about Esaias over the intervening days that he’d spent processing what he’d learned, and what he knew now disturbed him deeply. If he were a better man, he might have even felt some measure of sympathy for the man, but what he’d done was in so many ways unforgivable that all trace of that softer feeling was erased entirely. He knew now, both in his rational mind and his instinctual one, that the two of them were not meant to exist at the same time. They could not—the world had room for but a single abomination of their kind, and containing two was bound to tilt their existences too far on the axes of fate—until one of them fell off an into the endless dark.

It was strangely similar to a line of thought he’d heard, interwoven with the rest of the visual memories. Neither can live while the other survives. Esaias believed that this was meant to refer to vampires and werewolves, but Hikaru was no longer so certain. Were they both not living proof that both could exist simultaneously? Or perhaps they were as he had always known—abominations, not worthy of the life in their bodies, destined to die as time cleansed itself of this mistake. But maybe… all it meant was that there was only to be one of them, and the other must die. He could feel the instinctual enmity there, settled deeply in his bones. He had not felt it for Shizuka; fighting her had been fun, in a way, and felt like the natural course of things. Fighting Esaias had never been anything other than a bare contest for survival, and both of them had known it.

For all that he knew now, there was still much he did not understand. Hikaru was trying to put the thoughts from his mind when a familiar scent drifted towards him on the gentle breeze, and some part of him lamented that his life would never again allow him rest or peace. Repose was for other people, it seemed—and the truth of things would be his, even if he didn’t want it.

He opened his eyes as she approached, and stood as she entered the clearing. Her wounds seemed to have properly closed, without infection, and he tried to suppress the small flicker of relief he felt for that, dismissing it as rightful concern for a temporary ally. Her words were much more demand than request, but that was a farce, and they both knew that beyond doubting. She was swallowing a lot of pride to stand before him like this, and Hotaru may have been inclined to take advantage of that. Hikaru just wanted her to go away and leave him alone, but his mother’s voice in his head reminded him that it was the right thing to do, and he was a man of his word, besides. He’d said he would do this if she asked it of him, or at least implied it, and regardless of which part of him had made the commitment, he was bound to it.

He maintained their eye contact for a few more seconds, then inclined his head. “Do not wear the earrings again. The only thing that will inure you to the beast’s influence is exposure. You must learn how to be the stronger presence as often as possible.” Reaching forward, he removed them himself with surprising gentleness, sliding the silver pieces of jewelry into a pocket. “I will keep them for you, and return them when you need them no longer.” He paused, lingering on the mark on her neck, then exhaled through his nose.

“Transform. Focus on keeping your own thoughts as well as the instincts you are presented with. And do not concern yourself too much. I will not allow you to hurt anyone, and we both know you would have great difficulty hurting me.” Hotaru would have said it with arrogance; Hikaru only meant it as a statement of fact.

Hikaru watched impassively as she tried to reach for her beast, offering no means of assistance for the most part. Once, he had thought as she did: that the creature inside himself was something to be always contained, always suppressed, and never anything but hated. He could not lie and say that even now, he did not hate it, but he had learned that total suppression was not the answer. It fought that—beasts did not like to be caged. But they could be bargained with. His own bargainings were flawed, and had resulted in the twisted reflection of himself that was Hotaru, but that was at least in part due to the fact that he was also another kind of beast: a vampire, a creature that fed on the blood of others. His two halves were diametrically opposed; it was hardly surprising that he himself had split to accommodate them. What Esaias had become was even worse still.

But she… she might be able to come to true accord, actual harmony with the creature inside herself, as Hotaru had managed to do, for the most part. Her struggles initially seemed in vain, but then she began to change. Still Hikaru did not move, his hands folded calmly into his sleeves. He sensed the exact moment she surrendered, and exhaled heavily through his nose. Someone had taught her poorly, if she thought she could not coexist with it, that one of them had to be the master.

At least she didn’t run right off to kill anything. Hikaru maintained his own form. There were limited things he could teach her should he transform as well—it would probably only aggravate her fight instinct more than he did already. And that was quite a lot; he knew this because she had the exact same effect on him. Even now, against his will, he could feel the adrenaline in him, heightening his every sense to the pinnacle of sentient perfection, because she was here.

Part of it was what it always was: the desire for territory and dominion, to establish himself as the Alpha he knew he was. But part of it was something else, something that itched and burned and sang in his blood at uncomfortable pitch. He could feel Hotaru stirring, the glee in his darker half pointed enough to disturb him. While Hikaru viewed Shizuka with an even mix morbid curiosity and mild disgust, Hotaru wanted nothing more than to be under her skin, in her thoughts, and the focus of her existence. He wanted that with people generally, really—it was part of his general lust for the regard and attention of others that Hikaru did not need. But She was somehow different, and the desire more urgent in ways he could not explain.

His hair took on frosty highlights, and one of his eyes turned red, but Hikaru otherwise retained control of himself for the moment at least. This was too important to trust the flighty, fickle, deceptive one with. “Shizuka,” he said, hiding well his alarm at the fact that Hotaru was so close to the surface already. “Look at me. Look only at me.” Directing her focus was important—his tone brooked little argument, but it was not straightforwardly combative. “This is not a matter of war and surrender. It is a negotiation.” She needed to understand that she could not fight the creature and win if she wished to survive without slaying others. She needed to make peace with this part of herself, however tenuous that peace may be.

“I know you’re in there, She-Wolf.” He took a step forward, locking eyes with the creature. “Return to me.” His aura flared slightly as he said it, exerting the latent dominance of his other self—a creature that was used to commanding and being obeyed, whatever shape he was in. It wasn’t quite an open challenge, not yet. Just a reminder… of who had overcome whom last they engaged. And a promise, that the same would happen should the situation reassert itself. Hopefully, she would regain some rational control before that needed to happen. Hikaru did not relish the thought of transforming himself at the moment.

She seemed to retreat inside herself, and he could sense the internal bargaining she was doing with herself. Perhaps, had he no sense of irony, he would have told her that treating Shizuka and the creature as different entities was a fundamental mistake—they were, in fact, one and the same person. But he would have been a hypocrite indeed if he expected her to act like that. He had not two people in him, but three, a poor showing for anyone who wished to speak of the oneness of his parts. He would let her do this much her own way. It was the only way that any of it would work, regardless.

She struggled, and he changed as well, the harsh-but-mannered Hikaru receding until the deceptively-gentle, sensual, and generally sociopathic Hotaru was dominant inside his mind. He watched with interest as she returned to something like her own being, but like him, this form was still a little bit… wolfish. His grin stretched wide when she spoke to him, flashing the pearly-white of his fangs, prominent especially in this form. “Perhaps,” he said with a touch of amusement flashing in his reddened eyes, “because you have.”

He clasped his hands behind his back as he said it, leaning far enough forward that their noses were only a few inches apart, and his smile grew for just a moment, but then he leaned back again and cocked his head to the side. “Now then, while you’re here, perhaps it will behoove you to sharpen your senses. Like a sword, they do much better when honed, no? Close your eyes, and tell me what you smell.”

Shizuka rolled her eyes at his statement, clasping her arms over her chest in the process. It didn't help her temper much when he leaned forward, their noses barely inches apart, and his scent assaulted her senses. She scrunched up her nose in the process as he leaned back. She was very tempted to bite his nose, but she refrained. She released a quick breath through her nose, as if to expel the scent and it's unpleasant feeling it caused her. "If you see it that way," she retorted once the smell left her. She rose an eyebrow at his next statement, however; she would comply for now. It was she, after all, who sought him out for help, was it not? She narrowed her eyes slightly before closing them fully.

Her brows furrowed as she tried to take in the scents around her, however; his scent made it difficult to concentrate. It was the only thing she could take in, save for a few flowers that were surrounding them. "You stench is over-powering everything else," she nearly gritted through her teeth. She took a deep breath once more, opened her eyes and glanced around. There were a lot of other things she could focus on, so why was it so difficult? With a frustrated groan, she tried once more. Again, his scent assaulted her, however; there was a another, lighter, scent that came with it. She couldn't tell exactly what it was since it was covered in a light, pepper smell.

"There's...a raven ten feet behind you. And," she paused, tilting her head to the side in the process. There was something else, something she couldn't quite place. Perhaps it was because it was so clear, hardly any scent to it, but it was still there. "A stream about five yards to your right," she concluded, opening her eyes once more.

He chuckled, throaty and low, at her comment about his stench. He knew for a fact that it was nothing so offensive, but of course that was hardly the point. They both had their own little fronts to put up, their roles to play, and for now, her pride demanded that she hate him. He was fine with that—when one as hated, one was often at the center of the hater’s thoughts, and this was precisely where he wished to be with her. How he got there was irrelevant, and riling her up was simply too much fun to resist. Her second attempt at an answer was somewhat more satisfying, but only a little.

Clucking his tongue as a reproachful teacher, she shook his head, mirroring her body language from a mixture of mockery (well-intentioned enough, though she’d never believe such) and subconscious forces he didn’t care to understand. “Ah, my dear She-Wolf, that was rather… disappointing. Surely, there is more to it? Even in this intermediate form, you and I have noses that vampires can only envy. What of the trees—their species, the amount of birds nesting in them? The warren of rabbits not fifty feet from where we are standing? The scent of dying leaves on the air, the wet earth beneath our feet, the rain not three hours from falling upon us all?” He enumerated just enough of the possibilities for her to get the point, then waved a hand dismissively.

“Again. And this time…” he seemed to disappear from in front of her, but it wasn’t more than half a second later before his warmth was obvious at her back, and he leaned forward to speak directly into her ear. “Tell me what you can hear.” His voice was a low rumble, almost a growl, even, and his lips just barely brushed the shell of her ear as he straightened to stand upright, though other than this, he apparently had no plans to vacate her personal space. Contrary to what one might think, there was a point to that other than annoying her. One needed to learn to use all one’s senses even when distracted or in a crowd… and he wondered if her ears were good enough to detect his heartbeat or his near-silent breaths, stilled largely for her benefit.

"Bite me," she retorted at his statement. It's not that she couldn't smell anything else, but rather it was hard zoning in on one particular scent when his was everywhere. She grumbled beneath her breath as he continued to speak, however; a slight chill went down her spine when he disappeared and reappared behind her. She shivered when his breath was on her ear as he told her to listen. She had a strong urge to maim the man, but she resisted the strong temptation. She twitched somewhat at how close his lips had been to her ear, and did as she was told. Truth be told, it was easier to hear than it was to smell. She could hear the endless chatter of a few ducks, the soft whispers of the crickets in the nearby field, and something beating. It wasn't fast, and it wasn't slow. It was an even rhythm that, for some odd reason, was comforting. She could feel the hairs along the back of her neck rise at that thought.

"You have a steady heartbeat, I'll give you that. And those ducks don't seem too inclined to stop their chatter any time soon," she began, tilting her head slightly at another sound. "And it appears that one of the Day Class students has decided to take a stroll," she concluded as she turned her head in the direction of footsteps. They were still a good distance off, and although it wasn't exactly night, that student should still be in class. She shrugged her shoulders in the process. She may have been prefect, but they were of little concern to her right now. The only way she would be concerned is if a vampire had decided to take a stroll (and not just any vampire), as well and tried to attack said student.

It was then that she finally heard his last statement. It was going to rain. She finally took in the scent of rain, and immediately her eyes darkened a bit. She once loved the rain, but now, it held similarities to that man. She didn't like the scent of it at all. As if on cue, the mark on her neck began to burn slightly as she covered it with her hand. There was no evidence that it hurt at all. Pain was irrelevant to her, only when she shifted. Pain comparable to that had yet to be discovered for her. She glanced at Hikaru, or Hotaru, from the corners of her eyes and narrowed them slightly before returning them back in the distance. Her hearing was fine, it was her sense of smell and perhaps her control, that she needed work on the most.

Tempting, he thought inwardly when she told him, angrily, of course, to bite her. He considered, just for a moment, doing so, if only to see how she would taste, and how she would react, but he decided against it. The game was not fun if it ended too soon, after all. Unseen by Shizuka, he smiled a little when she mentioned the sound of his heart. She was right, of course—he was so used to physical exertion that it rarely ever became irregular, but there was something almost soft in his expression for half a second, before he caught it and corrected it. Her hearing was at a more acceptable level than her nose, he decided, and he wondered if this was simply an effect of his scent, or if something else seemed to be the problem. Though he knew a lot more about their capabilities than she did, he did not know what it was for two of their kind to interact.

He could smell past her scent all right, though he would admit that it did draw his attention, as though everything else were still present, but beneath her in the hierarchy of his concern. Or rather should be. Perhaps that was natural—she was much more a threat than anything else he could smell, even if he did believe her generally incapable of killing him. Perhaps if she had the advantage of surprise, though… yes, that was possible. Surprise could be quite the advantage, indeed. But the way she smelled, her presence would never surprise him. An interesting thought.

Her hand went to the mark on her neck, which he had successfully ignored for the entirety of this session, but was now unable to. Hotaru’s eyes narrowed, and he did something that Hikaru would not have dared. Still standing behind her, he took her wrist in his hand and tugged as gently as he could while still succeeding in removing it, and pressed the first two fingers of his other to the mark. There it was—the aura of the one who’d made it. Snorting softly, Hotaru focused his own aura to a point and countered. It would hurt quite a lot, but only for a brief moment, and then the pain, though not the mark, would be gone. “A temporary solution to a permanent problem,” he muttered, tone edged with something a little more intense than irritation, all traces of playfulness gone from his demeanor. Shaking his head, he dropped his hands and stepped back, effectively putting distance between them and his back to her. “Be here again tomorrow, at the same time. We have much work to do, you and I.” It would be a slow process, but he would figure it out… if only to spite the one who sought to take advantage of her weakness.

Hikaru shook his head, the faintest of smiles gracing his masculine features for a few moments. The paper on which the missive was written ruffled slightly in the breeze, but his grip on it was good enough that it would not go flying out of his hands. His mother always seemed to know what was required in any situation, and he knew that she of all people would be able to help Shizuka, perhaps without the residual something that tended to distract him in her presence, especially when he caught sight of the mark. She was making progress, but perhaps slower than she needed to, and he supposed that if anyone would understand why, it would be his mother, who had raised one half-wolf, and trained two sons for battle. He and Sora owed their prowess with a sword to Reiko, and she had a way with teaching that was hard to match.

Perhaps it was the right solution, but was he the right person to pass this on? How likely was Shizuka to take him seriously when he offered? He trusted that his mother’s letter would be sufficient to convince her—if she even read it. Coming from him, though, she might not. Shizuka made no secret of the fact that she hated him, and while Hotaru just found that funny in his way, Hikaru as a whole grew tired of it. It wasn’t like he had to go out of his way to teach her. He could have let her tear apart the forest and the school on the fourth day, and it wouldn’t have been on his conscience. At least… not wholly. But he helped her anyway, and even he didn’t know why. Sure, his darker side found it fun, but Hotaru was amused by a lot of things, many of them requiring a lot less effort. It was true that the force he’d had to exert to make her submit that day was exhilarating in its own way, but it wasn’t like he was going out of his way to fight Esaias, and that had required more. Something about her was different, and he didn’t understand why.

Maybe this, too, was something his mother would understand, but he dare not ask her in a letter. That would require a talk in person. She was the one person he never had reservations about sharing with, not even something as ridiculous as his emotions. She knew them better than he did, anyway.

Decided, at least for the time being, he lay back on the stone ledge of the school’s roof, tucking the letters away in his pocket before propping his head on his folded hands, staring directly up at the sky. The clouds moved by lazily overhead, and there was small chance of him being disturbed here. It was a weekend, and he only smelled two people. One of them was her, and as always, he could not fail to notice. The other was faint, enough so that she could not properly identify it. He took that to mean that it was sufficiently distant so as to be of no concern. He doubted she would seek him out if there wasn’t something she wanted from him, and he’d told her today was hers to do as she wanted with—he wouldn’t force her to work seven days a week, after all. He was surprisingly disciplined for a man of his demeanor, but he wasn’t some kind of drill-sergeant hardass.

The wind stirred the ends of his black hair, tossing a few of the strands over his brilliant eyes for a moment, but he was content to let them be. Instead, he closed them, and drifted into meditation, aware of his surroundings but focusing on everything and nothing in particular. He willed his mind to be empty of troubling thoughts, and tried for a while to simply exist.

The way her scent was mixed with cat amused him to a degree, but unlike his other self, Hikaru did not live to be amused, so he didn’t really show it on his face as such. In fact, until she spoke, he didn’t look at her at all. When she did, he lowered his head so as to look her in the eye, though she was standing and he seated. The red haori he’d been wearing, what seemed like an eternity ago. He’d say he’d forgotten about it, but that would be a lie—he simply hadn’t cared to retrieve it. It didn’t bother him, that she had it. Actually, there was something slightly interesting about the idea. But if she wanted to give it back, he would accept this, as well.

“Are you sure you do not want it? As collateral, I mean. I do still have your silver,” He referred, of course, to her earrings, which had once kept her beast at bay through minute silver poisoning. A rather barbaric method, he thought, but then, desperate people were sometimes moved to desperate measures, and those who knew not what a werewolf was or how to deal with one were quite desperate, indeed. One need only look to some of those in this school to understand that—the Night Class shied away from her like she had the plague… all save for himself and his brother, anyway.

Well, if she didn’t see the need to hold the shirt hostage in hopes of regaining her earrings, he would consider it progress. Towards what, he was not sure. Either way, he took the garment, folding it with precision and setting it down next to him. “Before you go,” he said, withdrawing the parchment, “I would like you to read this, if you will. It is from my mother, the person who taught me to control my beast, and it’s for you.” He said no more, merely held out the envelope for her to take. Within were words he knew not, but they were, in fact, an appeal to Shizuka as well as an invitation.

The Minamoto estate was a castle, quite literally. Situated in the Romanian countryside, it had walls of dark grey stone, giving it a shadowlike aspect at night. It was beautifully-illuminated by floating lights, seeming to have no particular source, but Soran and Hikaru both knew that this was simply one manifestation of their mother’s powers. The lights were in many different colors, but reds and oranges predominated, and her sons could read from the hues that she was both happy and anticipatory—she was waiting for them.

Hikaru would generally not have allowed himself to show his happiness in front of people not his brother, but at this moment, he honestly didn’t care that the other two were here. He could smell them, of course, and he never forgot that they were present, he just ceased to pay attention to this fact. They both liked Sora better than they liked him anyway—let his brother entertain them.

The castle home even included a moat of all things, and the staff had to lower the drawbridge to allow the car that held them all through onto the grounds. The gardens were absolutely breathtaking, even in winter, but they were only able to glimpse them as they drove past, arriving at the front doors to the estate several minutes later. The chauffeur let them all out, and several other servants attended to their things, leaving only the act of walking through the door to their own power. He didn’t need to do so to know that she was there—her scent was in the air. Pine, ice, sunshine, and mint, his mother smelled like, a strangely wintry combination for someone who was in demeanor so warm.

The four of them were shown in, and Hikaru’s eyes went immediately to the top of the balustrade staircase, where his mother stood. She was still the most elegant and graceful woman he’d ever seen, even dressed in a simple cream-colored gown and with her dark umber hair spilling down her back in a loose cascade. She was lovely of course—what vampire wasn’t?—but she also exuded such an obvious sense of love and safety and maternal care that it was impossible for him at least to imagine her as anything other than his mother. She smiled down at the four of them, and turned slightly to descend the stairs.

“My sons,” she said softly, embracing first Hikaru and then Sora. Hikaru returned the gesture with surprising tenderness, the smile on his face for once entirely genuine and not even slightly condescending or mocking. She was still the only person on earth that could bring out that part of him, and his expression smoothed out again immediately afterward, save for the subtle softening of his eyes. That stayed.

Her children greeted, she turned to the other two. “Nicole, Shizuka. I’m so happy to meet the both of you,” her voice was smooth and sweet, like honey, and gentle as the brush of a feather. “My name is Reiko, but you may refer to me by whatever makes you the most comfortable.” She stood first in front of Nicole, regarding the younger woman gently for a few moments, the smile curving her mouth tinged with sorrow.

Reaching forward, she gently clasped the girl’s hand in both of her own, imparting a soothing sense of comfort in the gesture. “Whatever else may happen, wherever life might take you, you are always welcome here,” she said, and there was no doubting the sincerity of the sentiment. How much she knew of what Nicole had undergone was impossible to say for sure, but a fair guess would have said that she was not so ignorant as she had been believed regarding the girl’s situation.

Shizuka, she did not touch, out of awareness for the fact that the werewolf in her might not take it well. She’d shown no such reservations for Hikaru, but they were long past that. “I’m so pleased that you’ve come,” she said honestly, and there was something in her dark garnet eyes that was impossible to read, something just at the edge of her tone that suggested heartbreak. Hikaru immediately paid attention, his spine straightening and his eyes narrowing suspiciously, but he did nothing, and his mother shook her head slightly. “Forgive me. You must all be tired from your travel. Please, rest all you like. There will be time enough for talk tomorrow. My sons will show you to your rooms, surely.” Hikaru frowned slightly, but it wasn’t as though he could deny her.

“You’re this way,” he told Shizuka, heading up one of the twin staircases at the back of the room.

Almost as soon as he’d come upon his home and his mother, Hikaru’s eyes had half-changed color, and his hair had taken prominent streaks of frosty white to contrast the inky darkness of the rest. It was almost always so when he was at home—he was able to relax the iron control of himself and let a little of his more… casual inclinations assume influence over him. Hotaru wasn’t only his violence and sexuality—he was his more tender emotions as well. As such, it only made sense that he would be both his selves here, the one place he’d never needed to worry about anyone judging him for what he was.

He was actually a little uncomfortable with the fact that the women were here. This place had always been his sanctum, his refuge, and the only people who’d been in it were people that he trusted, people that—he could barely even think it—loved him. As though he deserved to be loved. It had made him fiercely protective of everything: his mother and brother, the few trusted servants the household employed, even the grounds themselves. Letting others into the place was something that happened only rarely, and he’d never liked it. This time, though, it was more than even that.

Here, he could be as he truly was. It was exhausting to wear a face of artifice all the time, and in the end, both of his “selves” were masks—part of him, yes, but only part. What would happen, he wondered, if she knew his whole self and hated him anyway? Hikaru didn’t care what she thought, Hotaru was only amused by her aggression, but… the person that was both of them was more vulnerable than either. It did not bear contemplating. Some part of him knew that the girl behind him as just like all the rest. She hated him, and rightly so. But… but she was also the only other person in the world who knew what it was like, to have this thing living inside you, and somehow, in the last few months of their acquaintance, he’d felt less… alone.

It was weak of him, and he didn’t like it, but he smothered the thoughts, and registered her words as they dropped like solemn stones into the empty air between them. He didn’t stop moving, but he slowed a bit, turning to regard her over his shoulder. The things he was feeling: the uncertainty, his gladness to be home and tender affection for those that dwelled within, his wariness at the intrusion of strangers, and his caution around her, all swam through his eyes in a heady mixture of emotions. It was quite the intent look, though he did not quite realize it. There was a bit of pride there, too, and gentleness. His voice lacked almost all of its usual certain or haughty volume when he replied.

“It is as she is,” he said simply, referring to the general atmosphere of the place as well as the elegance and loveliness of it. “My mother has dwelled here for many centuries.” In that time, she had made the very land on which the castle stood wholly her own. It reflected her moods and her melancholies, as though the earth itself were responsive to her desire. In spring, the flowers bloomed for her song, the light motes floating by overhead in light green and cheerful yellow. Once a year, on the day that man had died, there was scarcely any light or cheer at all, just the sense of a bastion, a wall holding fast against a threatening tide of grief, and even the walls seemed colder.

He reached a carved wooden door and pushed gently on it, stepping back to reveal a room full of elegantly-carved furniture. It was a rich red in color, the wood dark and most of the fabric a soft cream or gold. There was an obvious sense of finery to it, but it was not ostentatious. Hikaru folded his arms into his sleeves and turned to face Shizuka. “There is a bathroom attached. I am several doors down if you require anything.” With that, he turned on his heel and departed.

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The next morning, Shizuka was invited to a private breakfast with the Lady herself. Reiko sat at a small round table in her salon, various teas and pastries laid out in front of her, with jams of every conceivable flavor, clotted cream eggs, and even richly-cooked meat in maple glaze. As soon as Shizuka entered, the woman looked up from where she was placing a blood tablet into a cup of tea and smiled with friendliness. “Good morning, Shizuka. I didn’t know what you liked, so I made a little bit of everything. I hope you don’t mind.” Cooking was a skill shed picked up while raising Hikaru, who went through a phase where he refused to sustain himself on blood or anything like it. Given that his metabolism could handle either-or, she’d taken it upon herself to learn. Now, though, she rarely had the chance to practice.

Reiko crossed her leg elegantly over the opposite knee, smoothing the edge of her deep blue dress. The room was much like the others, except this one contained a traditional set of three swords over the fireplace: katana, wakizashi, and tanto. From the look of the weapons, they were priceless and old, but still in working condition. It hadn’t been any man who’d taught her sons to use the blade, after all—Reiko believed in doing things herself. “Please, have a seat. I know my letter must have been quite sudden, and I also know that what you’re going through can’t be easy. You must have questions, and I’d be happy to answer what I can.”