“Hell man,” Sora replied plainly, raising both hands in a gesture of something between refusal and surrender, “None of that bowing shit, please. I just… did what seemed right at the time. You don’t need to thank me for being an impulsive bastard. Don’t even like ‘em, anyway,” he finished, more muttering the last sentence than properly stating it. The people who’d been creeping on Zenith were some of the same ones that glared at him with derision for daring to be the guy’s randomly selected roommate, for the love of fuck. Frankly, the opportunity to start something with them was welcome… or something like that.

Anyway, Rosenkreuz left after that, which was just fine by Sora, who was pretty sure he could use an opportunity to get away from all this complicated stuff and back to something simple… like killing things. That was the easiest thing in the world. Some people might find that unfortunate, but to him it was just normal. He was a Tsukino, and the family business was bringing death to the deathless. That still applied even if half the family was dead.

Reaching into his pocket, he extracted the piece of paper and read the name. Hm. He knew this one; interesting. He would not have picked the man on it to be involved in the killings of his family, but Sachiko was never wrong. Though they slew without mercy, his family was also absolutely scrupulous about researching their targets first. No death without a reason, and none without a cause. His reasons were the best ones he knew, and he was the only cause. None other guided his hand any longer, for this was the path he’d chosen for himself. He would not allow anyone else to define him any longer. Fate would not have him, to place in chains and yank around at her will. He forged his own chains, and bound himself only because nobody was truly free.

---

---

His target was some miles from Cross, but he was hardly concerned with missing class. If all went according to plan, he’d be back before the passing period. From his locked closet, he took the arms and armament he wanted—though he could just as easily fight with his body alone, he preferred to conduct electricity through metal objects, preferably bladed ones if at all possible. To this end, his preferred implement was a split-bladed knife of about a foot and a half in length, somewhere between a dagger and a sword, though he also concealed a number of throwing knives and some wires on his person. A proper assassin was never without at least five backup plans, and if ever there was a proper assassin, he was it.

Last was the pearly-white mask, unadorned save for the fuchsia marking slashing one eye.

There! It looks so much better that way, don’t you think?

He had not the heart to change the design. Better that the last thing those bastards saw before they died carried some trace of their forgotten collateral damage, anyway. Nobody was insignificant or unimportant. Nobody. He’d make damn sure they knew it before he ripped them apart.

Crossing to the opposite side of his room, Sora opened the window, releasing it even as his fingers began to take on a strange, feathery pattern. Most vampiric transformations were instantaneous, lost in a burst of light or something of that nature. Sora’s was strangely beautiful, or at least he’d been told so. Perhaps there was something to be said for it, the way the feathers appeared first as tattoo-black on his skin, erupting from the surface of it even as he shrank, the front of his mask distending into a hooked beak and turning the black of obsidian, or perhaps onyx. The wings burst from his back, and he stretched his arms to his side, that they might meld into these. Within a few seconds, he was a large, entirely night-colored falcon, and he hopped onto the windowsill, taking off and spreading his wings in silent flight out the window.

His destination took him a few minutes to reach, and he chose to land out-of-sight on a rooftop, straightening up as he lost the form of the bird, though not before plucking a single feather from his own wing. He had always enjoyed the sensation of flight, and had his life been different, might have employed such journeys for no other purpose than the exaltation of the wind beneath his wings. But his life was not different, and so instead he used it as an efficient form of transport to take him to his targets.

This one left the prescribed building right on schedule, and for several minutes, his future murderer did nothing more than follow him from above, hopping silently from roof to roof under the cover of darkness. His attention was unwavering, fixed on the deader (another word for victim—a dead man who does not yet know he is dead), but also spread to take in his surroundings. There was always the chance that someone would try to sneak up on him. They would fail, but they could try.

At long last, the target hit a backalley shortcut, and behind his expressionless mask, Sora rolled his eyes. You think they’d learn, but people never ceased to amaze him with their stupidity, not even those who were supposed to be ‘above’ others. Despite his boredom, he felt his adrenaline picking up as a matter of reflex—a kill was nigh, and his every visceral instinct was attuned to it. This was what he had been born and raised to do, and he had never known anything else. It should not come as a surprise to anyone who knew that to know that he found a certain kind of artistry in it. He was a creature of planning and precision, and he’d mapped the exact course of events for this night long before this moment.

Shifting in his crouch, Sora extended a hand to touch a nearby drainpipe, currently trickling a steady stream of water into a small puddle, which the deader even now approached. His timing needed to be perfect, but then, when perfection in such matters had always been demanded of you, you grew somewhat accustomed to it. Indeed, the pulse of electricity wasn’t even a second off, and the man collapsed with a muffled cry. The voltage hadn’t been lethal, though he could have made it so. No no, this required a considerably more… personal touch.

Launching himself into a flip off the roof, Sora landed with nothing more than a rush of air, straightening at once and approaching the deader from behind, drawing his blade as he did. His free arm wound around the man, a gloved hand closing over his nose and mouth even as he struggled to stand upright after the jolt he’d received. “Kristoff Kline,” he murmured, tone clear even through the mask. It might as well have been the voice of the void for all the emotion it displayed. “You have taken that which was not yours to destroy.” Slowly, Sora raised the knife to lay it across the man’s collarbone. The deader’s eyes went wide, and he started to struggle, but the Tsukino’s grip was as an iron vise, and there was no escaping it.

“I am what you sought to kill, and yet you failed. I hope you are satisfied, for I will never be. This is for Sakura and Yuusuke. I don’t expect you to remember them, but you will now.” He was never one for protracted talking, and he wasted no more words now, slicing into the exposed throat with brutal force, parting the vampire’s head from his shoulders. The body crumbled away to dust, creating a pile of ash near the bloody puddle, and the head was unceremoniously tossed on top. That would fade, too, eventually, but likely not before someone found it. The last touch was a simple one, a signature: the feather he’d extracted from his shifted self was dropped into the puddle, where it created only the faintest of ripples there, a last testament to a deed done from the greatest of pains and the oldest of motives.

---

---

He was back on campus before sunrise, as anticipated, the evidence of his deeds—the mask— stowed within his coat. He’d not acquired any new bloodstains, though doubtless he smelled faintly of it. It wasn’t like anyone cared enough (or was brave enough) to question him about it, and he was heading back to his room to shower anyhow. That said, he would not enter the same way he left, just in case Rosenkreuz so happened to be there. He hadn’t ever been thus far, but Sora wasn’t one to take chances.

On his way into the grounds, Sachiko had called him with an unexpected piece of news. She had a name. The entire time he’d been hunting their killers, he’d never known who’d pulled the strings behind it. But his cousin, his brilliant, loyal cousin, had at last struck upon something. The faintest whisper, and not even a thing that made real sense, but something that pricked a vague sense of memory, like a thorn in his mind. Perhaps his parents had mentioned it, but regardless it seemed important.

Contra Mundi.

But what did that mean? Against the world was the literal Latin, but that was hardly a clue. There was a new would-be tyrant born every fucking day, what made this one so special? So distracted was he that he didn’t even register that someone was on a collision course for him, so naturally, he failed to step out of the way. Not that this was a big deal to him—he was quite a solid person and quite skilled at keeping his feet besides. Less fortunate was the person that ran into him, and indeed doubly so, for he scented a trace of blood immediately thereafter. Furrowing his brows, he looked down, and couldn’t decide whether he should laugh at the grand joke the universe was playing on him or just curse his luck.

Her again? Someone, somewhere is having fun fucking with you, Tsukino.

Something about the fact that she was bleeding didn’t sit well with him. Particularly that he had caused it, which was absurd if he really thought about it. He’d just murdered a man without batting an eyelash, slit his damn throat, and here he was, perturbed that this girl had a minor injury that was mostly her fault anyway. What the fuck was wrong with him? Sure, she had nothing to do with the death of his family and was interesting on some level, but really?

Sighing, mostly at himself, he reached into a pocket and extracted a handkerchief. It wasn’t his, of course; in fact it belonged to Sachiko, but he carried it around because the troublesome girl insisted that they were useful and he should never be without a clean one. “Shit, Fujiwara, if you’re this clumsy, I’m surprised you’ve managed to survive so many years at this school,” he groused, reverting to their normal schema of banter and insults because he didn’t know how else to handle the situation. Unusually for him, though, he did grasp her wrist with surprising gentleness and pull the arm forward, applying the handkerchief to the elbow with his other hand. “Be more careful, unless you want the mosquitoes sniffing at you.”

He wouldn’t admit it to himself, but she did smell rather good, so it was a legitimate concern. Moving her other hand to take over holding the handkerchief to her wound, he stepped back a few feet and swallowed. He was certainly quite capable of controlling himself, however, and so he made no move to dab at the drop still upon the metal surface of the locker. Running a hand though his hair, he glanced up and down the hallway. Nothing yet, but… “Being who you are, that should heal pretty quick, but you should get out of here until it does, yeah? And don’t argue about your duties or whatever—I’ll take care of it.”

He wasn’t sure why he’d just volunteered to do that, but he’d go with it. Better prefect duties for one shift than an incident between the Night Class and a ‘human’ student, right? He’d never be able to do his work in peace if there were all sorts of highborn idiots snooping around the place, as there surely would be if such an incident occurred. “And I really hope you’re not thinking about thanking me,” he added quickly, “Cause if you do, deal’s off.” He wasn’t assuming anything, but he did want to make sure. He wasn’t sure he could stand any more thanking—he’d had enough of that for a month, at least.

“I ain’t soft,” he groused, “It’d just be really damn inconvenient if the school’s only prefect got eaten by a bloodsucker, okay? The old man would probably try making me do this shit again, and I don’t have the patience.” The headmaster had bothered him more than once about taking up such duties, actually, and it wasn’t something he was particularly eager to do, but… no, dammit, he wasn’t even considering it!

He scowled deeply at the comment about his smell. He could say the same, only it was her own blood she smelled of, and if some half-controlled dumbass got it in their head to have a taste of the free stuff, her secret would be all over the school in minutes. Didn’t she get that? Oh fuck it, he didn’t care.

Don’t you? Midori teased, and he barely avoided growling. Bitch wasn’t even here and she still managed to bother him like she was standing right next to him. He hated that about her, the nosy creature. She laughed in the back of his mind, which only served to make him grumpier. Strangely enough, it wasn’t a particularly violent kind of grumpy—he felt more like… sulking. Which was absolutely pathetic and not something he ever allowed himself to do. He certainly wasn’t going to start now.

So he shrugged and was fully intent on leaving (because weird shit tended to go down when he hung around this woman, and he didn’t need more weird in his life right now), when—joy of joys—they were joined by a human who could give him a run for his money in the anger department, apparently. Beyond that, he’d used Sora’s least-favorite moniker, which meant that even though he didn’t recognize the guy (the number of people around here who hated him was truly staggering, and he didn’t bother to keep track of them all), moron thought he knew something about him. They always did think so, didn’t they?

Maybe it was just because he wore his bad attitude out there for all to see, refusing to hide it like all the self-righteous, entitled dumbasses that hid everything behind manners and decorum.

Was this guy trying to pick a fight with him? If so, he was doing a pretty bad job of it. Sora met the snapping glare with a dead-eyed stare, the one that had earned him the nickname empty in the first place. His expression was completely devoid of anything, as though he weren’t even truly hearing the words. It was, unbeknownst to anyone here, an assassin’s face. He wore the actual mask from tradition, not necessity. “True enough,” he said in the end with a shrug. “Fujiwara can handle herself.” She could do what she wanted, be who she wanted, and he had no intentions of interfering with that at all. He wondered if this guy could say the same.

He was also more or less right when he called him filth, though for the wrong reason. In all likelihood, this guy either hated vampires or Tsukinos, and neither one of those things was the reason Sora was bad news for everyone he met. Still, he rarely bothered to correct such errors, and so when they both left, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat and did the same, retreating to his room for a while to shower and change, stowing all his equipment save his knife, and then he crawled out his window and jumped to the ground, covering the distance to the main school building and taking a running jump, landing quite far up and ascending the rest of the way.

He liked sleeping on the roof best, since you really had to work to get up there—namely, you had to climb or fly, and most of the fools around here cared for their dignity far too much to do either of those things. Actually, maybe he could tip Rosenkreuz off to the fact that nobody would bother him if he found his way up here… or maybe not. This was kind of his sanctuary, after all, and he didn’t want to risk the really crazy ones finding out about this and swarming around like rats or something.

Pulling his phone from his pocket, he dialed a familiar number, waiting for the person on the other end to pick up before he spoke. “Sachiko, it’s done.”

“I heard,” she replied grimly, ”It’s already making news in some circles.” There was a pause, and for a moment he feared another of her speeches trying to convince him to stray from the path he’d chosen for himself. Instead, she abruptly switched topics. “She’s been asking for you, Sora-kun.”

He clenched his teeth. Practically the same as the speech, only worse. “You know I can’t see her, Sachiko. I made my choice. I can either—”

“—give her useless words or give her a world where justice is served, I know,” His cousin replied. “But do you really think she understands that? All she knows that that you’re gone and you never visit her. She thinks she’s done something wrong, Sora-kun. She thinks you stay away because you hate her, and you know she always liked you best. Can’t you just think about how she feels?”

His free hand curled into a fist, slowly uncurling again, clenching and relaxing, the rhythmic movement the only thing presently keeping him in check. The truth was, that hurt. As much as he disdained forming bonds with people, there were some he’d been unable to avoid, and he loved her, he did, with all his withered, blackened, unworthy heart. “Tell her…” he started, then shook his head violently. “No. Dammit, Sachiko, you know it’s better if she forgets about me. She will, if you stop reminding her. Just let her forget. Please.”

After a few more seconds, he hung up the phone, slipping it back into his pocket, and lay down on his back, folding his weapon-callused hands behind his head and staring up at the sky. Dammit. Kaede… I’m sorry. His thoughts were troubled for a time, but eventually, the events of the last day caught up with him, and he fell into uneasy slumber.

In the space of about two weeks between what he was privately terming the ‘Fujiwara Incident’ and today, he’d killed three more people, all of them relatively prominent vampires, and all of them somehow loosely connected to someone calling themselves the Contra Mundi. But information on this person or persons was scarce, and even Sachiko, who was attempting to control her dreams to learn more of him, her, or them, wasn’t able to glean much yet, which meant that Sora’s life had gone into something of a holding pattern, though to call it a measure of complacency would be to mistake him for someone who was ever anything other than vigilant. His security measures had long crossed lines that other people would label with names like ‘paranoia’ and ‘fixation,’ but then other people weren’t being actively hunted.

He knew his extracurricular activities, so to speak, had put a rather large target on his back, but for the moment it was one that he only had to worry about when he chose to present himself as Null. Of yet, nobody had realized that the surviving Tsukino was a member of the main family, not a branch cousin like Sachiko, and naturally, Null left no witnesses. The link just wasn’t there to find if one assumed all of the “known” information was true. But that would only protect him for so long, and he was well-aware of this fact.

It was why he changed his routine every day, rarely slept in the same place twice, and certainly not twice consecutively. It was why he was always armed, even when he was simply in his room, and why he didn’t bother going to class most days. Why should he make it easier for anyone by being where they expected him to be? Of course, he did show up occasionally, mostly just to stay unpredictable, but unfortunately his truancy had at last come to the attention of the headmaster, who had in turn called the young pureblood into his office. It was the requisite self-indulgent speech about the value of an education, and wouldn’t he like to get to know his peers better, both Day and Night Class?

He’d actually laughed at that, a mirthless sound that he’d seen send a shiver down the old codger’s spine. Perhaps appropriate—it was an empty sound, as empty as the place in his chest where his heart should be, or the one in his brain that should hold his conscience, maybe. Oh, no… it was the lack of a soul, surely, that did it. Kara did suit him better than Sora, after all, he just didn’t like it when other people pretended to know why.

Regardless, the old dolt had been persistent, and though he was in no mood to acquiesce, he’d agreed to the less troublesome of the two ‘options’ presented to him, because he needed this position in the school to keep him close to his information and connected to the pulse of the vampire world, to use an ironic turn of phrase. He could manage without his enrollment here, it would just be harder, and his instinct told him he needed to be here, at least for a little while longer. So, instead of pretending like he gave a damn about this festival and participating like all his esteemed peers had been convinced to do, he was working a covert security detail. Apparently, the headmaster was concerned about the fact that the school had only one prefect for such a large event, and she was also a participant.

Hence his present location, up a tree on the grounds not ten feet from the nearest festival stall, watching everything and nothing all at once. Even as close as he was to them, none had yet noticed him, for he masked his scent and nobody ever looked up. He wasn’t even actively trying to hide—he just didn’t tend to draw attention unless he wanted it. It was the tarnish, maybe; he wasn’t near as shiny as some personalities, nor did he strive to it.

He watched those arrayed on the ground bustle about their business, the occasional peal of laughter ringing out into the evening, the events well and truly underway now. Out of consideration for the sun-sensitivity of some of his kind, there had been large umbrellas and colorful tents set up for much of the day, but as the sun fell beneath the horizon, they were being taken down, allowing every student full view of the sky, the deep reds and oranges now spangled with dusky purples and the first shades of nighttime blue. What were his damn parents thinking, naming him after something as beautiful as that? Fools.

One figure drew his attention simply by moving contrary to the slow eddy and flow of the foot traffic on the ground, and he recognized Fujiwara, carrying her violin. She appeared to be headed to a makeshift stage of some sort, and Sora shifted slightly, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees. A public showcase, was it? He’d have thought after three years at Cross and no performances that he’d ever heard of, she either didn’t want people listening or was afraid to play in public. Whichever it must have been, it was no longer the case now, apparently, and he watched with intent curiosity as she moved about to a new song this time.

It was very… expressive, this sort of thing. He’d been inclined to simply close his eyes and listen when the music had filtered from behind a closed door, but he realized now that the visual element was a component of the whole not to be ignored. As a man who’d been taught well to read body language, he had a certain professional interest in what of herself she was revealing here, and even when his chin fell to his hand, he did not lift his focus from the stage. He supposed it was, in some sense of the word, lovely, or perhaps beautiful, but he thought it impractical. Look at how vulnerable it made her to what was around her, after all—her eyes were even shut. It was little wonder she had not trusted an audience before. It seemed that to perform in this way was to give too much and take nothing at all, save perhaps attention.

Most impractical, indeed.

“I don’t really enjoy anything,” Sora told the owl bluntly. “But yeah, I find altitude to my liking, and it’s not a bad thing to be able to see so much.” He diverted his attention from Fujiwara as the second song started up, readjusting the lens of his focus so that he was once again observing the general flow of events and no one thing in particular. The Night Class’s booth-stall-whatever seemed to be popular, though that was hardly surprising. Seriously, was everyone at this school a fetishist? He knew it was a pretty common trait in vampires, raised to value a very, very small number of personal traits over all others, but he would have expected the tastes of humans to diverge a bit more, since they were all so different. Then again, maybe the ones here were just as bad as the vampires, who knew? Wasn’t any of his concern anyway.

He shook his head, though, at the next inquiry. “I’m no prefect. This is just temporary, for the festival,” he rolled his eyes upon the last word. What were they celebrating, anyway? The fact that vampires were pretty and humans were dense? That was really all he saw on display, anyway. “Idiot told me it was either this or that,” he said, pointing down at the booth occupied by his unfortunately-mobbed roommate and far too many other people. “And there’s no way I was gonna let someone dress me up like an okami or a neko or some shit.” He snorted derisively. He’d probably have preferred to be an oni or something, but as he seldom acknowledged, he too was a vampire, and thus he too was sadly quite pretty, though perhaps in the most masculine sense of the word.

He would have made a pretty good tengu, maybe, halfshifted, with the patterns of feathers tracing over his skin and in his hair, wings sprouted from his shoulderblades. But that would have been giving away the grand old secret, and he’d prefer not to be expelled just yet.

“You know,” he remarked to the bird, “I see you more often than my own familiar these days. Easily bored or something?” It may have been a bit hard to tell, but Sora really didn’t sound like he minded this fact, he was simply observing it. Speaking of which… he made a quick scan of the crowd, sharp eyes picking out the shape of a small black kitten with huge green eyes just then hopping up onto the table presently occupied by what remained of Fujiwara’s food, sniffing at the wrapped plates and turning her head upwards to fix the prefect with her best wibbly kitten-eyes. Oh, for the love of… you’re a shameless bitch, Midori. She’s probably saving that for someone more important than you,” he thought to her.

Like who? Midori replied slyly. I know of no such person, master.

He rolled his eyes with a huff, but upon the following inhale, froze, stiffening and inhaling deeply. Something in the crowd’s makeup had shifted. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what, but something there didn’t belong, in a way that triggered the shadow of a memory. Sora’s mouth dropped into a scowl, and through their mental link, he felt Midori’s inquiry. Stay down there, he said to her. Something’s wrong. He drew in another breath, just confirming that something new, distinct, had entered the milieu of smells produced by this festival, and curse it, he’d be able to track it so much more easily if all these people weren’t in the same damn space.

“Something’s come,” he said aloud to Snow, and without further warning, launched himself from the tree, landing in a small puff of blossom petals at the bottom. He wasn’t too far away from the Night Class’s booth, so he went there first. Not where the scent was coming from, if the way it was weaker here was anything to go by. Then again, vampires generally smelled more strongly than humans did.

As it turned out, he found himself in proximity of Rosenkreuz on his way, and stopped for a moment. Were it another time, he might have commented on the vaguely-outlandish way the guy was dressed, but then again, he was only doing it to participate, probably. Besides, there were more urgent matters on his mind. Making eye contact with the other pure-blood, he spared few words as ever. “Something smell off to you?” he asked in a low voice, though it did not stop someone nearby from picking up on it.

“Only thing that smells funny here is you, Kara,” someone replied, but for once, Sora didn’t even spare the energy required for a glare or a waspish retort. Such people weren’t even worth the air they breathed, and obviously, they were too weak-nosed to sense what he did, anyhow. Normally, a strange odor at an event like this would not have caused any particular reaction from him, but… something about this one was familiar, in a way that he did not like, and he wasn’t one to let such things go.

Midori, meanwhile, had picked up on it as well, as well as the urgency to her master’s usual calm tones. So she, in her miniaturized kitten form, stayed close to Asuka, putting her face in the prefect’s hand and walking beneath it as cats often do, though her eyes were warily watching for anything out of the ordinary.

Sora had absolutely nothing against monosyllabic answers. In fact, he may even have preferred them. It was enough to know that he wasn’t the only one that had sensed the gradual shifting in the air. A small thing, at first, one that he had been content to attribute to the influx of new people onto the school grounds. But then it had altered too sharply, and he could not longer pass it off as such, not to himself. He watched suspiciously as a man he did not know accidentally bumped into his roommate, then elegantly straightened himself and offered words.

There was nothing unusual about him whatsoever, but as every assassin worth his salt knew, those were precisely the best disguises. Still, he had nothing other than a vague suspicion, as yet unvoiced, and that was not enough to act on quite yet. So he behaved as though he weren’t even really paying attention at all, only nodding briskly when Rosenkreuz indicated his departure. The other man would do what he felt he needed to do, and Sora at least respected his intelligence enough to assume that whatever that thing was, it would be useful.

He himself split off in the opposite direction, following his nose. There was something… and he thought perhaps the fox creature from that particular incident was there as well, but it would take him some time to reach through the crowd.

Midori, who had been basking in the attention provided her by Asuka (though she refrained from berating her master for not lavishing her with the same—now was not the time), smiled inwardly to herself at the girl’s cleverness, that she could place some familiarity in the tiny black kitten in front of her, having never seen such before. It was said by people who cared to speak of such things that familiars and their masters often shared a certain something, an aura, if one would, but reading these was a tricky art, more often instinctual than intellectual.

When the man appeared, she recognized him from a quick mental image Sora had sent, unfiltered, over their link, and she sat herself down on the table, fixing him with unblinking cat-eyes. Not unusual behavior, for such a species, but the glimmer of intelligence was a little too bright in Midori’s eyes, perhaps.

She tracked the gentleman’s movement, largely for her master’s peace of mind, and it was not long before there was a small commotion involving him, and the estimable Mr. Rosenkreuz. Over a human girl, no less. How intriguing. It certainly prompted action on Asuka’s part, and Midori mewled softly when she was picked up, wasting no time in arranging herself so that she was draped easily over one of Asuka’s shoulders. She might not have the overabundant caution of her master, but she was still attentive to the situation, and ready to transform into her much larger, more imposing self at a moment’s notice. Any sign of trouble, and she certainly would, at that.

Unfortunately, Sora’s progress in the direction of the scent was stymied by what was first an explosion. Not a huge deal—it was in the direction he’d intended anyway. Of more problematic constitution was the damn mob that formed up in the wake of the event, apparently as yet undecided on which direction, exactly, the herd would be travelling today. Fucking pathetic, really, but he had no reason to care. Let them do what they would, and he’d do what he wanted, and there wouldn’t be any need to kill any of them for interfering. Minimize collateral damage; that was what he’d always been taught. Apparently, whomever had set off this bomb had not received the same education. Either that, or their entire goal was to make some kind of theatrical statement.

Morons.

Shoving his way through the crowd, Sora arrived in enough time to see Rosenkreuz reabsorb his familiar in a flash of light. Well, he was in the right place. Glancing over at the individual on the other side of the standoff, then back at Zenith, the Tsukino heir refrained from cutting in. Rosenkreuz may have a good dead-face, but he knew a showdown when he saw one, and he wasn’t the type of person to interfere in another man’s fight unless it was absolutely necessary. Here, it didn’t seem to be, so he’d leave it in the hands of his roommate. It wasn’t like any of this had shit to do with him anyway, did it? The scent was vaguely familiar, and maybe even carried traces of a much more important one, but it wasn’t the one from that night.

Noting the presence of another spectator, this one smelling and appearing human, with bright red hair, he raised a brow. “Might wanna stand back a bit more,” he advised, but he said nothing else, turning and leaving the area. If it wasn’t his business, he had no reason to stick around, and no obligation tethered him to this school. He didn’t care even slightly whether or not it all blew to smithereens, nor whether all of the students therein died. It was how they felt about him, minus some of the outright hostility, the least he could do was return the favor.

Well, I’d rather you saved me, at least, Midori snarked into his mindspace. And I’m currently attached to your favorite prefect, so I guess that means you’ll have to help her, too. He rolled his eyes at the characterization.

You realize that Fujiwara’s the only prefect in the entire place, right? He replied tersely, but nevertheless his eyes scanned the crowd, trying to pinpoint her location and thus Midori’s.

Not today, she isn’t, the cat replied, and to that, he remained silent.

It wasn’t hard to find her—she was standing at the front gate and trying to direct traffic. She’d mostly succeeded in getting them to stop moving, which was something of an improvement, but they seemed disinclined to move more rationally. Well. I suppose you’re not going to leave her until this is taken care of, are you? He asked of the green-eyed cat, still draped over Fujiwara’s shoulders.

No, she replied smugly, and he sighed.

With reluctance if no lack of grace, he jumped to crouch on the gate itself, or rather one of the stone pillars that held it in place. “Well, there’s the smoke from the explosion, so how about going away from that?” he asked, his caustic tone carrying over the crowd noise even though he wasn’t yelling. He pointed at the rising curl of the stuff to emphasize, then swung the arm sharply to indicate the opposite direction. “Move, now,” There was almost a threat in his voice, and it was certainly dangerous enough to provoke motion again, as a few startled and hustled away from him at a reasonable pace. Of course, the starting was the hard part, and once those few had begun, the rest followed like dominoes, or more accurately, sheep.

Watching them file to safety, Sora tsked and shook his head. Focusing his gaze back on Asuka, he spoke. “Midori.” The kitten on Asuka’s shoulders mewled adorably, but he appeared unfazed, and though she stood on the prefect’s shoulders and licked her cheek with a raspy cat-tongue, she did leap off thereafter, shifting forms in midair and landing as the horse-sized creature she was.

“You called, Master?” she asked with amusement lacing her low, purring tones.