Asuka Fujiwara's Story

The solitary figure was perched on the roof, looking out over the grounds with no particular expression on his face. Indeed, he could be said to look a little… dead. Kind of funny, considering how popular myth tended to portray his kind. The undead, living corpses, something of this nature. Ridiculous. He was just as alive as any human being, though perhaps minus something vital, like maybe a soul. Who knew? It wasn’t like a soul would do him any good; he’d just waste it, corrupt it. But sometimes, you just had to do certain things, consequences be damned. His burdens weren’t a matter of honor or anything so high and mighty as that. He didn’t pretend to have those things in mind when he slew his foes.

No, all Sora sought was vengeance, no matter how much it grew the gnawing emptiness where a human’s soul might have been.

He supposed he was probably meant to hate sunrise. It signified the end of his people’s dominion and the dawning of the human’s world. If he’d been a ‘lesser’ vampire, he would even have suffered at the advent of the sun, but no, he was simply intended to despise it on principle, for everything it stood for. He never had. Instead, he watched it with the same disinterests as everyone else, through even the clanging of the bell and the throngs of students passing below. They all looked so busy, as though what they were doing were so vitally important that they couldn’t even take the precious time it would require to be aware of their surroundings. Well, nobody ever looked up anyway, not even the careful ones. Maybe that was why he’d been taught to strike from above.

Huffing a breath from his nose, Sora tried to quell the growing sense of disquiet rising beneath his skin. In a way, it was his curse: he could never truly be at ease. His power moved too readily in him, flows and eddies of pure-bright electricity, and it was literally as well as figuratively difficult to rest, to relax. There was always the risk of losing his hold on that deadly stuff, doing harm he had not intended. The most dangerous blades are those that may be either dull or sharp. If one is always aggressive, people will grow wary, as of the fire. If one is always passive, one will forget how to do harm when necessity demands it. Be always unpredictable, be always vigilant.

“Tch.” Advice from a dead man who clearly hadn’t followed it well enough. Never mind, he would never be so stupid.

Nonetheless, he found that even such avowed reassurances would not tame his spirit today, though much seldom did. It was almost funny—people thought him so unrestricted, so free, but that was only with his words. When it came down to it, he was just as chained as anyone else, he just refused to bow to it. This decision carried its own consequences, however, and his persistent dissatisfaction with everything was one of them.

It was as he was thinking this that his keen ears picked up on a sound. Huh. New song, today. Moving to the edge of the roof, Sora dropped so he was holding onto the ledge effortlessly with just his fingertips, and began a catlike climb towards the source of the sound. It was the Violinist, again.

The music room’s window, from which the music was filtering, was not far from his present location, and he sidled along windowsills and stonework protrusions with the ease of long practice—he’d climbed much smoother things before. It was not long ago that he’d discovered that someone at the Academy had a real flair for music of this kind, and he’d taken to listening to them when he heard them. Most of the time, it wasn’t anything as involved as this, just a temporary pause outside the music room door or something like that. But getting into the school would be more effort at this point than he wanted to put in, and he’d probably miss the majority of the new tune, besides.

He didn’t really understand what compelled him to listen, but he saw no harm in it. If someone in this forsaken place had a talent like that, he figured somebody ought to appreciate it, as he’d heard of no public recitals every being given. Besides, the music was… nice. It made him feel quieter inside, though the songs the Violinist picked weren’t always quite the ones he might have, he appreciated that this must be their way of doing what he could not—channeling all their pent up self into something that wasn’t violent.

He was a little envious, even if he couldn’t really afford to be.

The window was indeed open, but he hesitated for a moment. He could easily slip in through it if he wanted, but that might ruin it. What if the Violinist was on his List? What if it was someone he didn’t like? This completely one-sided arrangement was on some level something he liked, even just a little, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to crack that veneer of anonymity that lay between them. He didn’t know who the Violinist was, and the Violinist presumably didn’t know that they had an audience.

Still, he was too direct to keep skulking around like some kind of spy or creeper. That wasn’t his style. Seemed fairer to the Violinist this way, too. Plus, part of him was unmistakably curious; he’d been wondering about this for the better part of the school year he’d spent here. Might as well begin the day by solving a mystery, right? Swinging soundlessly onto the windowsill, Sora landed in a crouch, perched on the frame like some kind of large bird, the twin dovetails of his black duster coat hanging out the window even still.

What he saw wasn’t exactly what he’d expected, though he was inwardly relieved that the person here was in fact not on his list, nor someone he hated. Fujiwara, huh? He wouldn’t have picked the prefect to have a talent like this, but then again, he was pretty bad at reading people and they usually managed to surprise him, though admittedly, this was less unpleasant than most such surprises.

He caught sight of the owl, but if its presence moved his thoughts in one direction or another, he didn’t show it, instead waiting with uncharacteristic politeness for the performance to end before he spoke. “Hn. You’re pretty talented, Fujiwara.” It was certainly not a kind of talent he’d ever had the time to cultivate.

That owl was intelligent. More intelligent than an animal had any right to be. It was obvious in the way it looked at him. Sora graced it with the barest tilt of his mouth, cocking his head to one side. I know what you are. But there was no danger in this, because he also didn’t much care. Still, he wasn’t sure how she hadn’t been found out by now, if she let the thing follow her around like that. Who’d ever heard of a human with an owl for a pet, let alone one who smelled so strange. He shrugged to himself; none of his damn business, anyway.

The sound of a snapping string caused a twinge—he hadn’t meant to cause her to break anything, which was why he’d waited until the song was over. Her reply to his presence could have instigated an argument, if he’d wanted it to. I have as much right to be here as you do, princess, don’t try to tell me what to do. Or something trite like that. Instead, he let the comment pass in indifferent silence; it was hardly the clever reply she was capable of, and he supposed he must have caught her off-guard with the suddenness of his appearance.

The comment afterwards, though, did demand an answer. “Feeling a bit off today, are we, Fujiwara? Your comebacks are usually much better than this. What ‘creeper’ lets himself be seen?” He asked nonchalantly, glancing around the room. There was nothing particularly interesting about it, and so he settled for making eye contact again. Apparently, that was the socially-acceptable thing to do. He did it only because the range of expression that faces were capable of producing was telling, and much more interesting than staring at blank walls.

Her reply to that was just downright dismissive, and she seemed inclined to be leaving already. The hell is wrong with you today, Fujiwara? He hadn’t even gotten a proper scolding out of the deal. Instead, he’d been thanked. She must be sick or something, and he just blinked at her for a second, huffing a breath from his lungs as she disappeared beyond the doorway, disturbing the locks of hair that hung over his forehead. Well, that had been about thirty times more boring than usual. Shaking his head, Sora hopped from the windowsill and ran a hand through his hair, contemplating the wisdom of actually sleeping.

Ultimately deciding against it, he struck out down the hallway and back out onto the grounds. It wasn’t like he ever slept much, anyhow. He’d never really needed to—a few hours here and there was plenty to keep him going. He put it down to his childhood, and training that involved pushing hi and his siblings to the limits of their bodies’ capacities: forced insomnia, blood starvation… they’d been run till they were practically delusional and then forced to fight their ancestors. Nobody had ever accused vampire clans of being sane, and the Tsukinos had always taken things to extremes even then.

Whatever the case, his wanderings soon took him around the building, where he happened upon something most irregular: a group of vampires (and some humans, from the smell of it) were crowded around a tree. Frowning openly, Sora drew his brows together and went to investigate. There were a very limited number of things that would attract the attention of both species—you’ve got to be shitting me.

It wasn’t hard to tell upon approaching that the lollygaggers were actually observing someone sleeping. How messed up was that? Not to mention the fact that the sleeper was actually his practically-nonexistent roommate, though that really didn’t figure into what he did next.

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?” Sora asked the assembled group, mostly women. This caused several heads to turn in his direction, most of them shooting him glares. A few looked properly chastised and colored in embarrassment, hurrying along on their way to wherever they’d been going before getting caught up in this stupidity. For all that, though, there were about four who stayed, and one found her voice relatively easily.

“Oh look, it’s the dirt-eating thin-blood. Why don’t you run along and go drain a human, Tsukino?” She was lucky there weren’t any more humans around, running her mouth like that.

He’d have been angry if he didn’t find it all so damn laughable. “Come up with that all by yourself, did you Karena? Or did daddy have to help you? Seriously, fuck off you idiots—how’d you like it if somebody stared at you while you were trying to sleep?” To think Fujiwara had called him a creeper. He had nothing on these ‘fans’ of Zenith’s.

Karena looked like she was ready to respond, but her tune abruptly changed when he took a step closer. If Zenith was considered beautiful by the majority of the population, Sora was terrifying when he wanted to be, and it was wiser to avoid him when he was irritated. The look they were getting could likely have peeled paint with its blistering nature, and with much posturing and dignified sniffing, they all sashayed away. “Goddamn morons. He’s a person, not a thing,” the young vampire muttered. A sharp exhale, and Sora shook his head. He should probably find somewhere else to sleep, though. Less public, maybe. Casting a speculative glance at the other pureblood, he opted to leave him there. Maybe it would take them a while to reform now that he’d scared them off.

It shouldn’t matter, really, he decided as he stalked off, but it kind of did. It was never for the same reason, but he knew what it was like to have people look at you and forget you had your own mind about things, like you were some kind of object for them to own. He’d always been more a weapon than the trinket those people seemed to think Zenith was, but the idea was basically the same in the end. Jamming his hands into his coat pockets, Sora allowed his awareness of the world around him to expand, his mind to empty of anything but the processing needed to properly identify all the sensations that came to him. It was meditative, in a way, and helped keep him in control of himself.

No mean feat, when just about everything about this place pissed him off so much.

That smell was fucking weird, and he didn’t like it. Sora, having returned to his dormitory to nap for a few hours and then ducked back out into the forest, had first encountered it upon returning. He supposed it might smell tasty, but he’d lost his concept of most such things quite a while ago. Living with bare survival in mind could do that to a person, and he’d never had much of a connoisseur’s intuition anyway. Blood was blood, it was food, and he honestly didn’t even mind the fake stuff as long as it got the job done.

But even to him, there was something strange about it, and strange things tended to translate as suspicious things where he was concerned. Occupational hazard, maybe. Whatever the case, it didn’t feel right, and he trusted his gut feelings on the matter. The trail seemed to abruptly disappear, though, and he wondered if the person to whom it was attached had some power to that effect. Teleportation, maybe? Not unheard-of, but rather rare.

It probably didn’t matter. They didn’t smell like anyone he’d ever encountered, which meant they weren’t on the List, so he properly shouldn’t give any damns whatsoever. Rolling his eyes to himself, he wondered if Sachiko was getting to his head after all, with this ‘helping people’ nonsense of hers, but dismissed the thought. He was just as he’d always been, and that was how he needed to stay.

His attention was caught by the presence of an animal, or more specifically, Fujiwara’s owl. There was no way the thing was a toy—he knew a real animal when he saw one, and they just didn’t make mechanics that good. He also knew it wasn’t just an owl, for the same reason. The inquisitive way it was looking at him went a long way to confirming this. Not prototypical owl behavior by any means. He wondered what it was doing here.

“Shouldn’t you be with Fujiwara?” He asked in a deadpan, standing beneath the tree that the creature had perched in and looking right up at it as though he held conversations with birds every day. His posture was deceptively casual: hands stuffed into the pockets of his duster, head tipped slightly backwards, but he was as alert to his surroundings as ever. “There’s something new on campus, you know, and it smells funny. Sure as hell ain’t here for me, if you catch my drift.” It could be anything, there for anyone, but a human-looking girl with a familiar was the weirdest thing he’d seen around here, so it would probably be best for them to be careful.

Not that he really cared or anything, of course.

“Plus she was acting odd this morning. Adds up funny, doesn’t it? If I were you, I’d look into that stuff.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug and started back in the direction of the school building. He had plans to make for the evening, after all.

Huh. The owl had a sense of humor. Who’d have thought? Fujiwara hardly did, though he had a feeling that was just an affectation on her part. The note about the festival surprised him a bit—it wasn’t like he kept up with school gossip or anything so frivolous as that. He’d have to keep track of this, though; it would make moving about tomorrow a bit harder to do unnoticed.

He had no idea what the creature was talking about when it spoke of that side of Fujiwara, though. The only side of her he had any dealings with was the sarcastic spitfire one, not that he minded that. It was fun, or at least less boring than everyone else he knew. Well, perhaps it wasn’t the only one he knew, now. He had just discovered that she was the violinist, after all. Did that change things? Should it? Probably no to both. It was a footnote, a curious little fact, and he didn’t have time for those right now. Maybe one day, he’d be able to live for something other than his vengeance, but that day was not today, nor could he foresee it. Not even Sachiko could, or at least not that she’d told him. Too many factors, she’d said, to properly know where his future led just yet.

That was fine—he’d never liked spoilers or talk of fate.

He was on his way back across campus when something caught his attention: still beyond the treeline, a small foxlike creature was nudging something white that lay on the ground. Hold on, wasn’t that…? Stepping silently closer, he identified the owl, and his brows descended his forehead, resting heavily over his black eyes. It had been fine no more than a few minutes ago; what gave? Adjusting his gait so that he could be heard, he approached the two, crouching near the owl. The fox-not-fox (they didn’t look quite like that, normally) had a faint trace of a smell on it that he recognized.

Scowling, Sora carefully scooped the owl up in his arms. The least he could do was sniff out Fujiwara and take him to her. Turning to the fox (it was his roommate’s, he was sure of it now. Distinctive smell on that guy), he addressed it brusquely, but bereft of any real rudeness. “I’ll take care of it. You can go back to whatever you were doing if you want.” He lifted a single shoulder in a shrug, surprisingly careful not to jostle the creature in his arms, and took off at a dead sprint.

Fujiwara’s smell, unusual as it was, was easy to pick out, by comparison to just about anyone’s, and he angled himself for her location, doubling his speed when he picked up the smell of blood—human blood—on her. The hell have you gotten yourself into, woman? He thought. For once, Sora didn’t bother to calculate the reasons for what he did, or what it was going to mean for him, he just acted. A bit like he had this morning, chasing off the creepy groupies. Some thing just weren’t optional, anyway.

He found her in a clearing, folded in on herself so as to make herself as small as possible, from the looks of it. He could detect the tremor in her limbs even from this distance, and he slowed his pace, moving closer at a pace she could properly register, scuffing his feet on the ground on purpose to make sure he was audible. Sora crouched in front of her, Snow the owl still held carefully to his chest. He was breathing normally enough, just unconscious. He must have hit the tree or something, which should have been amost impossible for an owl, let alone an intelligent familiar. Something was up, and he didn’t like it.

Sighing heavily, the young vampire shifted his hold so that he was cradling the bird in one arm, and used his now-freed hand to reach up, a single index finger extended, and press the tip of the digit to the center of the girl’s forehead. “Messed up, did you?” he asked bluntly, though something in his tone was almost… sympathetic. It was probably a good thing he wasn’t really listening to himself, more interested in her, and as always, his surroundings. If he’d heard the steely flint in his voice recede even a little, he would have withdrawn from the situation.

“You can’t make amends sitting here scared, Fujiwara. You’ve gotta stand up and face your problems. Head on.” He withdrew his arm, and smiled, his usual feral grin that carried equal parts mischief and danger. “If you need to punch something first, I promise I can take it.” Hell, violence was sometimes what you needed to fix a problem or get over a hurdle, and he understood this in a way that most people never would. Granted, he’d never volunteered to be a punching bag before, but then, he’d never been in a situation where it seemed like a good thing to do for somebody. He’d also listen if she had to vent at him, but then he already did that pretty often (when her irritation with his taunting turned into irritation more generally, he’d usually stick around and let her lay it on him), so he was pretty sure she’d know.

Sora, much like one handling a wary or half-tamed animal (or perhaps someone who was a half-tamed animal) didn’t move, for the most part, his eyes tracking Fujiwara’s movements with uncanny precision, though they seemed to go a tad out-of-focus when she settled again, right in front of him as she had been. In truth, he was thus because it was easiest to detect movement that way, without fixating on one thing in particular. Not one for using his social graces, he figured it was probably rude, but in the end, she’d probably value her secrecy more than his manners, and this way, he’d know they weren’t being watched.

She was talking more to herself than him, though, though much as he hated to admit it, the words did strike a chord with him. Have you ever felt like something wasn’t quite right with you? He could have laughed, but it would not have been a pleasant sound. He was a freak of nature, even among his own people; when hadn’t there been something wrong with him? Even now, when he could hide his obvious deformities, he wore a brazen attitude instead, daring anyone who wasn’t a coward to come straight out and tell him what they thought of him. Nobody ever had—they were all too afraid of him, even without knowing what he was capable of.

That, he realized belatedly, was why he wasted so much of his valuable time prodding at Fujiwara. Because she wasn’t afraid of him, not even wary, at least not any more than she was of anyone else. This quality admittedly fascinated him, as until now the only people that had displayed it were either dead or Sachiko… or didn’t know any better.

His offer to be her punching bag was still in effect, and he took it to apply to the verbal lashings as well, hence offering no reply or retort while she vented right at him, though his eyes did narrow almost imperceptibly when she accused him of not understanding. He might not be half-human, but that wasn’t the only way to feel out of place, excluded. Everything he was grew from that very foundation, and he knew well that he wasn’t the only one, either. Lots of people dealt with that. Maybe it wasn’t always right in their blood, as it was with the two of them, but it was pervasive anyway. Just look at vampire society: anything less than perfect in your honeyed lies and showy decorum, in your meticulously-planned displays of power and wealth, and all of a sudden you were a pariah, unworthy of the dirt beneath someone else’s feet.

What she didn’t understand was something he knew well: the only person who could save you from a ‘fate’ like that was yourself.

She left in a huff, and for a long time, he remained there, perfectly still. The memory visited him in shadowplay, flickering ghosts behind his eyes, as though on an ephemeral film reel, grainy at the edges and faint, the voices almost blending into the rustle of grasses and the daytime birdsongs.

What happened?

I don’t know! I was just training with him, and then…

Your electricity disappeared?

I swear, it was him!

Faces glare down at the child, and a boot finds its way into his stomach. He accepts the punishment silently, assuming that it is merely another part of what he has come to see as normal. It is to make him stronger, they say, able to withstand anything without breaking. To look the power of so-called nobility in the eye and laugh at it. To know the pain of a thousand stinging needles, countless whip-lashes, and hold his tongue. To face the worst nightmares his mind could conjure, the most excruciating pains his body could experience, and simply endure. It is their way, and it is many years before he understands that his was always the worst. Because their hopes for him were always the highest.

Perverse, is it not?

It would be all that saved him, in the end.

Sora stood abruptly, shaking the last fragments of memory from his head. It was a useless thing; he had no need of such recollections. They strengthened him no further now, after all. This was a waste of time; he never should have come here. His time would undeniably be better spent preparing for tonight.

“So certain of that, are you?” a rich contralto voice asked, dripping with mockery, asked him, and the Tsukino survivor grimaced. Not you again, he thought in the creature’s general direction, eliciting a throaty chuckle. The panther emerged from the shadows of the trees, all liquid grace and effortless motion. Its color was such that it seemed cut from a starless night sky, or perhaps the dark side of the moon, save for its gem-bright eyes, a startling emerald green. “I see you’ve been as useless as ever while I was gone,” the cat continued nonchalantly, glancing around the clearing with steady gaze.

“What do you want, Midori?” he demanded of his familiar, scowling at her. To observe the interaction, one could not be blamed for assuming they disliked each other quite a bit, but such a theory would be shown false by the way which the black huntress approached, nudging her head under his arm. He sighed, but scratched behind one large rounded ear all the same. As far as familiars went, she was massive, easily large enough to carry two people mounted, three if they were small people.

She purred like a kitten under the attentions, but cracked one eye to look up at him wryly. Rather than answer his question directly, she offered a statement. “I overheard your conversation with the girl. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why should I? It’s not my place to decide anything about her life. Besides, I’m not here to make friends. We’ve been over this. She’s interesting enough, but that’s all.” He started back towards the edge of the forest, the great feline padding along just as noiselessly by his side, quite the feat considering her size.

“Such a waste,” She chided languidly. “I grow bored of your revenge schemes. You are at your best when your attentions are focused elsewhere, Sora.” Her tone was sly, but he knew she truly believed what she said. Too bad he didn’t.

“Oh yes, because I’m utterly fucking charming,” he replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes to the sky above. The rasping chuckle sounded again, and she bumped his side with her head. Sheer reflex and solidity kept him from falling over—she was very strong.

“Not everyone needs pretty words. Sometimes, they just need true ones.”

He scoffed low in his throat. “There’s nobody on earth who’d prefer the ugly truth to a pretty lie, Midori. Especially not when it’s coming from me.”

She tilted her head to the side. “So you say. But I know you had something to tell her. I want you to tell her now. You’ll regret it, otherwise. You can’t watch out for people behind the scenes forever. Sooner or later, someone’s going to figure out that you’re not as bad as you make yourself seem.”

“Yes I am,” he replied, his tone so low that it almost constituted a growl. This was not a conversation he enjoyed, nor the first time he’d had it with her. In the end, though, there was only one way to make her give it up. “Fine. I’ll go try it, but I guarantee you she won’t even open the damn door, and I won’t blame her for it. People and I don’t mix.”

“Must be why you spend so much time talking to your cat,” She replied glibly, and his jaw tightened. Honestly; she really was insufferable sometimes. Whatever. He’d just get this over with, Fujiwara would ignore him as she rightly should, and he could go back to the entire point of his stay here without having to deal with shit from his familiar anymore. At least she hadn’t told Sachiko; his cousin would be fucking unbearable if she thought there was even a snowball’s chance in hell that he’s made a friend. Ridiculous.

He and his familiar entered the school building, both of them raising the angle of their heads to sniff the air in a curiously-matched motion. Catching the scent he was looking for, Sora followed it to, where else, the music room. Shooting the large panther another glare, he approached the door, laying one palm flat against it and leaning forward until his forehead made contact with the wood as well. Standing like that, he waited for the song to end—properly this time—then tapped the door twice with his knuckles. He made no move to enter however. Midori had never said he had to say any of this sentimental bullshit to her face.

But it’s not bullshit, is it? Midori thought at him, traces of amusement tingeing the mental communication. Every word of it will be true, and that’s what you can give that few others do. His scowl deepened, but there wasn’t a point in retorting to that at present. Taking a deep breath, he spoke through the door, not particularly loudly, but firmly. “Not gonna pretend to care here, Fujiwara,” he said, echoing her words from earlier, “But I do get it. Do I ever fucking get it..” he shook his head.

“To you, I’m just that dumbass that you get angry at every once in a while, but it’s kind of bullshit to just assume that people aren’t going to get your problems, you know.” He pressed his forehead harder into the wood panel of the door. “You’re you,” he said, and this was much quieter. He supposed it might have been tough to hear through the door, but he was gonna do this his own way or not at all, dammit, and Midori could shove it if she didn’t like it.

“And that’s enough of a thing to be. The rest of it’s just stupid shit that people are gonna pretend is important for your whole life. You don’t have to let them, though.” Another pause, and he pushed himself away from the door. This was a stupid idea. He sounded like a damn idiot, saying the things he wished someone had told him all those years ago. True things, but he’d been fed a diet of lies instead. Shaking his head, he shoved his hands into his pockets and started away from the door.

He’d known he was right—nobody had any use for him as anything but a weapon. It was all he was good at, after all, and he’d accepted that. He couldn’t do this people stuff; better to leave it to someone else and get on with his business.

Sora halted in his tread away from the door at the sound of his roommate’s voice. Great, he’d had an audience for his incredible stupidity. Just what he needed. And what was the guy doing here anyway? Shouldn’t he be trying to avoid large hordes of admirers or something? Almost as if to check that there were none, the dark man’s eyes focused over the light one’s shoulders for a minute. Nope. No slavering herds of fangirls. That was just plain unusual. He couldn’t imagine that his overly-polite roommate had actually properly told them off for once, so maybe he was just getting better at hiding or something.

Sora’s reply, such as it was, was automatic. “Rosenkreuz.” He inclined his head slightly, but it was not a gesture of deference, just acknowledgement. If there was one thing to be said in favor of his incredibly-blunt mannerisms, it was that at least he always treated people like people. He may not have it in him to defer to anyone, but he wasn’t such an ass that he’d completely ignore somebody who seemed to lack ill intentions.

Still, it wasn’t like he had anything else to say, and there was no way the guy was here for him, so he continued on his way, Midori at his side stopping to offer the other vampire a more complete, if equally irreverent “Good evening, Mr. Rosenkreuz.” With her, though, it was the slightly sly tone that always accomplished this, rather than the brevity of her phrases.

He thought he was going to escape this bizarre incident unscathed, but his shoulders stiffened when he heard the door open behind him. It was followed by the sound of Fujiwara’s marching feet, and he turned around again with resignation. It was more than a little irritating that whatever tongue-lashing she was going to give him now was going to have onlookers, but then they fought in relatively public locations fairly often, so it probably wouldn’t seem that far removed from the ordinary. She’d grabbed his hand, forcing the neutral set of his mouth back into a deep scowl—people did not touch him, ever—and drew back her free one. Oh, so it was going to be the violence thing? He could probably deal with—

What? was the only thought that properly registered for a few seconds after that. The rest was just sensation: arms, thin but strong, wrapped around his torso, a face pressed into his uniform shirt, the unfamiliar contours of another’s form. What the fuck was going on? Midori’s cat-laughter was the only audible sound, and he shot her a venomous glare, holding his hands awkwardly at his sides because he wasn’t sure what to do with them.

You’re supposed to hug back, the cat informed him smugly, which he supposed meant that he ought to put his arms around her, too, but what of his face? He couldn’t really do exactly the same thing she was doing, nor did he have a particular desire to. Sora had not been hugged before in his life; it wasn’t something that was done in his family, nor had anyone else ever shown the faintest inkling of wanting to. In the end, he just placed a hand on Fujiwara’s shoulder with some hesitation and waited it out, weathering his considerable awkwardness as well as he could. His first thought had been that she was trying to crush the wind out of him, which was an awfully difficult way to try killing someone, but he’d thought she at least had points for guts.

The way Midori spoke of this, though, it was not an act of violence at all, which puzzled him. Still, he allowed it for the sake of what he’d promised, since that was the only way he could really think of it. Eventually, she drew away on her own, and he made no effort to hide the perplexed look on his face, one that only deepened when she thanked him again. This was officially the weirdest day he’d ever had.

Then she mentioned fixing a mistake, and he supposed maybe something he’d said had made sense after all. He stayed in place until she’d disappeared around the corner, then shot a glance at Rosenkreuz.

“…I don’t understand people.”

And that was really all he could say about it.

“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.