Disclaimer: I do not own Blood+ or Blood The Last Vampire.

Episode One: Blood For Blood

There was no loud greeting of any kind as George Miyagusuku stepped out of the jetway and into the actual terminal itself. There was no one holding a sign or even a face he recognized. Sure there were people waiting at the gate, but more than likely they had little or nothing to do with him. They waited for family members or friends to step out and they would meet them warmly, pleased to see them. There was no one like that here for George. His family was back in Okinawa, the place he'd been forced to leave to come here, and the people he came here to see were certainly anything but friends.

The people grouped at the gate paid George little mind when he walked through them. To them he was just another faceless passenger, not someone they knew or cared about. George looked around as he went trying to find a familiar face among them, but came up with squat. How likely was it that the people he'd delt with during Vietnam would still be working more than 40 years later, especially considering they were a good deal older than him when he first met them. That brought up another question. While he had been told someone would meet him at the airport how would they know what he looked like now. As quickly as the thought entered his head George realized how stupid it was. Of course they'd know. It was terrifying how well informed 'they' were and they had told him they would be keeping tabs on him. How else had they found him.

George could only refer to them as 'they', 'them', or by other ambiguous nouns simply because he had no name for them. He didn't know rightly who 'they' were only that they were invovled with the American government and didn't publicly exist. George wouldn't have even known they existed if they hadn't come to him all those years ago, and they wouldn't have come to him if he'd never seen the monsters while on duty in Vietnam.

George had joined the US army at 18 willingly rather than be drafted and like so many others in that time was shipped off to the jungle meatgrinder that was Vietnam. Of course that didn't beign to describe it. None of the media based sensationalism could come close to telling the story as it was. In a way George's time in Vietnam ended more happily than others. Yet in an entirely different way it was far more surreal and terrifying. Sure he'd been fired on. He'd seen what happened to soldiers who stepped on land mines or fell prey to Vietnamese traps. But nothing compared to the monster.

It looked like a bat-ape gone horribly wrong with glowing red eyes and a gaping, fanged maw that crushed Corporal Twane's head like a grape. Talons that could rend flesh like a lion's. The agility to leap and climb as a creature that size shouldn't. The amount of firepower it absorbed was unreal. The beast seemed borderline invincible as it carved its way through what the North Vietnamese had left of their platoon. Only two other people besides George himself had survived and only then because of the actions of Private Thatcher. When the thing sank its teeth into his shoulder he pulled the pin of a grenade and spent the next three seconds howling in agony before bright hot death swallowed him. To this day George didn't know if that had killed the creature or simply injured it. But the thing, whatever it was, hadn't come back after them.

The three of got away, trekked through the jungle, George and Sam carrying Stark most of the way, who'd cracked after the attack. Of the three of them only George still lived. Stark died in a mental hospital and Sam... Sam disappeared. He simply vanished in Vietnam, listed as MIA until he was assumed dead. The last time George saw him was just after they made it back to base and made their report. It was then the men appeared, flashing their badges and a piece of paper signed by the Secretary of Defense himself, and whisked the three of them away. George never saw him again after that. Sam always was a defiant, unyeilding man. Maybe he hadn't agreed with the terms of secrecy the men had forced on George and been done away with. Or maybe he'd been transferred like they said and killed out in the jungle. Geroge would always wonder. Truth be told he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

The men knew about the creature and drilled him for every bit of information regarding the beast and their encounter. Somehow these men with no names or ranks had the authority to seize him and compel his testimony. Not only that, but the official report he supposedly gave was changed and when he asked his commanding officer about it, the same man they'd first told the story to, he simply gave them the same story as the new report. They'd been attacked by Vietnamese and slaughtered almost to a man.

The men, who George at first thought to be CIA, set down several ground rules. He was not to ever repeat the story of what had happened to anyone again. Period. They would keep tabs on him, but he was never to seek them out or anything else concerning the creature in question. Period. He could either continue to serve or they would get him an honorable discharge. EIther way he was to lead his life according to the story they gave him. Barring they needed him or he screwed up he would never hear from them again.

For the past forty years that had been true. He'd served until the end of Vietnman and the troops were pulled out. He moved to Japan, the country he'd fallen in love with after a few brief stints at air bases there. Maybe it was the quarter of him that was Japanese that felt such a connection to the place. George got married and had a beautiful daughter all without seeing hide nor hair of the creatures or the men interested in them. They didn't even rear their heads when his wife and daughter died in a car crash and he fell into a depression. During that time he seriously considered suicide by various methods, ranging from putting a bullet in his brain to blabbing the secrets he knew until they chose to get rid of him. But he hadn't. He'd held on. George made it, day after day, trying to pull together the pieces of his life and himself. All through that time he was alone.

But the day had finally come. They had made contact with him and sent him a plane ticket to New York. Why? Why, after all this time, right when his life was getting back on track? He'd adopted two boys, opened a bar in Okinawa that served both the locals and soldiers at the military base alike, and most of all brought himself back to life. Now he was here, seperated form his boys by the Pacific Ocean and unsure of what to do next. He wanted to be back home, to be with his family. He wanted...

"George Miyagusuku?" George stopped his aimless trot down the terminal at the sound of the voice and turned. The man who'd spoken looked fairly young, with glasses and well grommed black hair. He had a smooth, yet angular face with an almost feminine touch, giving him a very Cillian Murphy-ish look. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored brown suit.

"Yes, that's me." George answered. Then, realizing he'd been unintentionally rude asked, "Can I help you?"
"Yes. I'm Archer Voight. I work for the A.H.A." He held out his hand and George took it, trying not to show any trepidation. This Archer was pleasant enough as far as innitial observations went. Despite the stiff way he held himself that led one to believe even his underwear must be starched, he seemed warm and friendly. Either that or he was a halfway decent actor. By far the best first impression he'd gotten from any member of the 'A.H.A' before. At least now Geroge had a name to put to them. Why come out and say who he was with though? Sure no one else would have a clue what that meant, but why tell him? He could just say he worked for the government like the others. They'd refused to say more and this guy had been direct. Why? "It's apleasure to meet you. My partner is saving us a seat for lunch. I hope you don't mind if we hurry back, he is a rather impatient man."

"Of course." George replied. They let go of eachothers hand and he followed Archer as the man turned and led him to one of the restaurants in the terminal. It was one of those over priced, we-sell-anything establishments that took advantage of the fact that people at air ports couldn't find much else.

Past the actual counter and stand was an area dominated by tables, only a few of which were occupied. Sitting at the one Archer seemed to be leading him to was another well dresed man, this one in a black suit rather than a brown one. Yet he had an unkempt look about him. He had a truly terrible case of bed hair, not to mention he probably hadn't shaved in a while. The blond, dirty man seemed an opposite to the strached, pristine Archer.

"This is Brett Philips." Archer motioned to the man in question when they reached the table. Then he looked to Brett. "This is..."

"Yeah, I know. I saw the pictures too. No need for all of this introduction bullshit." Brett slouched back in the chair. "If you want anything to eat you'll have to hop to it and order it yourself, 'George'. We already got our stuff while watin'." Sure enough the table already had food on it. Much of what was on the table was partially devoured.

"No, I'm fine." George replied simply. Brett only grunted in response. It was now George noticed the smell. While Brett may have been wearing a nice suit it smelled like he hadn't bathed in several days.

"Please take a seat then. We don't have a lot of time and there is a considerable amount we have to talk about." George pulled out the chair opposite Brett while Archer sat on his left. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

"That would be a safe bet." George still wondered what the hell this was all about. If they'd just wanted to explain what happened to him in Vietnam they'd have done it long before now.

"Well, lets start with us. It's the easiest thing to begin with. We work for the A.H.A. The Anti-Hematophagy Agency. Not an imposing name by any strech of the imagination, but our name has changed many times before, from HDF to SAD, and I don't think this one will be the last. Technically we don't really exist so a name is a moot point anyway. A.H.A is just a way to refer to ourselves. We were established by the US government in the early 1900s to deal with a single threat to our populace.

"Those monsters you mean." George half asked half stated. He already knew the answer.

"Yes. We call them Chiropterans. They're hematophagic creatures, meaning they live off of blood. They're almost impossible to kill without causing enough damage to them that they simply can't heal it all, which is particularly difficult since they regenerate injuries quickly. As long as they are gorged on enough blood they'll heal in seconds any wound that doesn't cause it to lose all of that blood. I know this sounds like a B-horror movie and anyone else would not believe a word of it. But you would, wouldn't you? You haven't convinced yourself it wasn't real, have you?"

"No. I know what I saw. I haven't been able to forget it in forty years."

"Good, that makes things easier. I can't tell you how many there are out there because we don't know. We don't know how many are hidden in hibernation or among us, just not causing enough of a disturbance for us to find them. Yes they hibernate, sometimes for years at a time after an extended cycle of feeding. What makes them so difficult to find is the fact they can take human form. They can create one from scratch or take the identity of someone they study and impersonate. Literally your neighbor could be replaced by a Chiropteran and you wouldn't know it. Now I don't mean to make you paranoid, they're exceedingly rare creatures. But it is a posibility."

"So these things can look human? How? It was so much bigger than us?" George was still digesting everything. It was hard to swallow for anyone, but with all he'd seen he was definetly a believer.

Archer shrugged. "One of our priorities is to study them for more effective identification and termination. Our head of research, Doctor Peter Collins, theorizes they can reconstruct their genetic codes on a structural level within a limited range, or one copied from blood they've tasted. If that makes no sense to you that's okay. Its Greek to me too. Truth is its all theory. We don't really know how they do it. Just that they can and do. Their natural form is what you saw, a monstrous humanoid with batlike traits. There are some variations on this form, but basically they're almost impossible to tell apart in their true forms, at least for us. I'm assuming they can with ease. They might even think the same of us."

"They're fucking monsters, Arch." Brett growled. "Trying to guess what they think is stupid. They impersonate us pretty damn well to not be able to tell us apart. Never seen one that looked at all like the other when playing human. Stick to the facts and lets leave it at that."

"Yes, of course." Archer cleared his throat, sitting even straighter if that were posible. George vaguely wondered if it were conceivable for this guy to let his body relax. "Of course the public doesn't and must not know about these creatures. If you can even begin to imagine the panic this could cause. The posibility that there are monsters among us would be more than enough for new age, lawless, personal witch hunts and thats not all. I can't be more plain about saying what we tell you goes no further than this."

"Why tell me all of this in public then?" George looked around as though expecting someone to be listening in on them just over his shoulder.

"Heh, shows what you know." Brett chuckled roguishly. "We're just a bunch of guys talking over a meal. No ones going to bother listening to what we have to say and even if they did they wouldn't understand half of it or the context. We're safe."

Archer leaned down, unzipped his bag, and pulled out a folder. "I know you're confused as to why we're breaking the silence with you after all this time. I wish I could say this is just fair play, but for the most part we tend to keep people who come into contact with Chiropterans in the dark, if we let them run free at all. We're talking to you because we need your help."

"What can I do for you?" George asked suspiciously. What could they want from him that people with their kind of influence couldn't get from someone else. He was getting a bad feeling about all of this, call it instinct.

"Here." Archer held out the folder to George, who took it and pulled it into his lap. There was no space on the table so he had to open it there. Several sheets of paper and newspaper clippings nearly fell out onto the floor. Only quick action on George's part prevented this and got them back in the folder. The first thing he noticed was where the clippings had come from. He'd seen them the very morning they appeared on the newpaper he had delivered to his home in Okinawa every morning. These were from home. Each one was a different article depicting the same thing, the serial murders plaguing Okinawa. In recent weeks there'd been several girls murdered, all about high school age. Their bodies had turned up various places, every single one of which was horribly mutilated. All the police could determine for sure was that they were the work of the same individual and the bodies had been moved considering the lack of blood at the scenes. The string of murders had been one of the myriad reasons George had not wanted to leave his two boys alone. True so far it was only girls, but he was a protective father.

"These are, from Okinawa. Are you saying that these are the work of your Chiropterans?"

"Yes. Well, at least one Chiropteran. They don't actually have to feed that often. At first we entertained the posibility that the number of deaths could mean there's an exceedingly high population of them in the area. But in our experience this goes against they're psychology. They're predators and gathering together in large numbers would put a strain on the food source and attract too much attention. Also if you'll look in the folder there are some profilers reports in there. They theorize that these killings were performed with sexual motives in mind. Of course profiling is not an exact science, combine those reports with what we know about the mentality of Chiropterans and you come up with a very disturbing prospect. This may be one Chiropteran who has developed a taste for murder, not just for food, but because he gets some kind of sexual pleasure form it, much like a human serial killer. This is a monster who has developed a monstrous mindset."

"What does the mindset matter? Its still killing people. A monster is a monster."

Again Brett chuckled. "You don't get it, Georgy. These bastards kill to feed like an animal, but this guy has taken up a very human passion, killing people because he gets off on it."

"What's so human about it?" George didn't like this Brett already.

Archer sighed. "We're getting off track. The point is we believe that these were caused not by a serial killer, but by a Chiropteran. We need to deal with this creature. That is why the A.H.A exists, and we need your help."

"Why? What can I do?"

"You know the territory. As a soldier I believe you already understand that advantage. We can get a list of businesses, the names of every man, woman, and child living in the city, their occupations, thier addresses, but data on a page and a map of the city is nothing to actually being local to the area and knowing the people. Not to mention your military background will serve you very well when we locate the creature and perform an extermination."

"An extermination." George repeated. "How? My platoon couldn't take down one of those things. How do you plan to do that, especially if there's more than one?" He didn't relish the prospect of tangling with even one of those beasts again. Georege was no coward, but he was a father. Kai and Riku did not need to be orphaned a second time.

"Awww, scared of the big misquito?" Brett said in a simpering, yet gravelly voice; obviously mocking him.

"You're correct, killing them is very difficult and the equipment required to do so would be very hard to conceal. However we have an...agent of sorts experienced in handling them. She's killed a fair number on her own and even more so with our help. We usually pair her with a man or two from our agency and support her with a backup crew for clean up and information gathering. However on her last assignment her most recent companion..."

"Call him what he is, her handler!" Brett butted in.

Archer paused, then continued. "Yes, her handler." George wondered at the strange term, but kept listening. He would ask questions later. "Well... he died. This was their first mission together and it didn't go well. They were attacked from multiple angles. The girl was injured and he was killed. We have as of yet not filled his position and we would like you to take it for this mission. You know the ground and despite your age have the skills to handle yourself in a combat situation. You also already know about the Chiropterans so you're a perfect candi date."

"I'm retired. I run a restaurant now. I can't go around chasing monsters. I have a family to take care of."

"We know all about that. Isn't doing this in your favor? Its only going to be one assignment and it prevents anyone else in your home town from being harmed. People are dying and you can help stop it. Your protecting the community your family has to live in for them."

"Cut the bullshit, Archer." Brett sat up ever so slightly as he spoke, but still was more or less slouching in the chair. "You can try and make it seem right an' all to him, but the truth is even if he doesn't want to do it he's going to." Brett looked George straight in the eye. "You don't have a choice. Let's just leave it at you've accepted the job off the bat before we start playing Gestapo on your ass. I really don't want to go into that movie shit and start threatening the lives of your family, your job, hell your future. I can, but let's not. You don't have a choice in this. You're going to help us."

Both Archer and George were struck speechless for several moments. Neither of them knew how to respond to that. For Archer such a threat was a last resort. It was far better to convince someone to help you than force them. Such blunt behavior off footed him. George on the other hand was not just surprised, but furious. How dare they threaten to harm his family. His hand actually twitched under the table from the effort of controlling himself. He wanted to lay this man out flat. The problem was they could do just that. They had the power, the influence, and the will to get what they wanted by any means necessary. Brett wasn't bluffing, he wasn't fooling around. "Don't you dare come near my family." George growled, his voice shaking as he tried to keep it steady.

"Help us and it'll never happen." Archer tried to open his mouth, but Brett kept going. "I'm not going to pussyfoot around. People's lives are at stake and while I sucked ass at math in school I can count past three. I'll do what I have to if it'll get the job done."

"Brett please." Archer said, trying to defuse the situation. "There's no need for anything of the kind." The usually articulate and eloquent Archer was off-footed. How did one run damage contgrol on a threat like that. Thinking fast he looked to George. "But you ust understand if you do not help us our job may become more difficult, meaning more people will fall victim to this monster before we stop it. You're a soldier. You're no stranger to risking your life..."

"I already served. I'm retired. I'm through risking my life. My family..."

"Is also in danger. I understand our methods," he glanced meaningfully at Brett, "may make you feel more obstinant, almost cornered. But the facts are these. People are dying. So far mostly high school girls, but who's to say his palette won't grow over time or that he would kill people who get in the way. Either way there are now daughterless fathers and mothers out there. Your family needs you and so do we. We can stop these creatures and after we're done in Okinawa we'll leave, and you'll never hear from us again"

George did his level best to quell his anger enough to think clearly about what Archer was saying. Logically it made sense. If he said yes, he coudl help stop the murders. He would protect his family from not one but two threats and save others with children from the pain of losing a son or daughter; the very pain he wanted to protect himself from. He'd felt it once and it had nearly destroyed him. He never wanted to go through it again. Others were however. Mothers and fathers were losing their daughters. He, George Miyagusuku, could stop that. His anger at these men for even thinking of harming his family was incredible... but giving into that woudl be wrong. "I'll do it." George said quickly, before he could stop himself.

"Thank you, Mr. Miyagusuku." Archer bowed his head slightly. George knew Archer had played him with words, but he was also right. "We greatly appreciate your help." Archer then reached into his suit pocket and pulled something out. This too he handed to George.

"What's this?" The elder Miyagusuku asked, but got his answer when he looked at it. It was a plane ticket back to Okinawa, the flight would leave in less than two hours."

"We're leaving ASAP." Archer explained. "Once your companion gets here w'ell board the plane. We've sent a lot of our equipment ahead and rented hotel rooms. One for the two of us and one for Saya."

"Is Saya the woman?" George asked, even though he had a fair guess that she was.

"Yeah, that's her." Brett said with a snort. "If you want a face for the name there it is." He inclined his head ever so slightly to indicate something or someone behind George.

George turned in his chair to see this 'Saya' for himself and his jaw nearly dropped to the floor. They couldn't be serious. This Saya was just a girl. She couldn't have been older than 17. She had long, black hair that was braided into two pony tails and bangs that didn't come close to obscuring her eyes. Her eyes were her most distinguishing feature. They were an icy cold blue that shown brilliantly against her black hair. She was obviously of Asian descent with a small, thin build that the long coat she wore did little to hide. The coat was open showing the red sweater and jeans she wore. She carried no baggage with her and there was no trace of any expression at all on her face. It was simply blank. "Are you Saya?" He asked, knowing the incredulous tone was rather rude.

The girl stopped when she reached the table and stared at him. Her icy blue eyes met George's and he felt the hair on the back of his neck prickle. Without a word she maintained the stare until George suppressed a shiver and looked away. There was something uncomfortable about her. "She's just a girl. There has to be some mistake."

Brett chuckled and Archer sighed. "I'm afraid that there is no mistake. This is Saya, your partner until this assignment is over. Saya, this is your temporarily handler George Miyagusuku."

"Hold it right there." George said firmly. "I thought we were trying to save young girls from this monster, not feeding them to it. What, do you plan to do, use her as bait?"

By now Brett was actually laughing and Archer looked even more uncomfortable. Saya on the other hand did nothing. She continued to stare at George without a single sign of what she was thinking appearing on her face. It was like mannequin in a way, only mannequin’s didn't have those eyes. Nothing George had ever seen did.

"Dragging me into this is one thing, but dragging a kid in is another entirely." George threw up his hands. "This just can't happen. I won't put a girl's life at risk against something that I know is capable of destroying an entire platoon of soldiers. You can't send a child..."

"I'm no child." George stopped talking and looked back at the girl. Her voice was heavy, almost husky, but not quite. Her English was also had no accent what so ever. She spoke very clearly and concisely, not to mention the no-nonsense tone her words held.

"George, we are not sending a lamb to the slaughter, despite how this may look. Saya has dispatched a number of these creatures already and has more experience dealing with them than anyone alive."

"I've swallowed everything you've told me so far, but this is too much. You can't expect me to believe this girl has..."

"I have." The girl, Saya, cut in. Again George trailed off. The girl's voice seemed to brook no room for argument. Finally she lifted her gaze from George, as though he were no longer worth her attention, and she focused on Archer. "Where's my sword?"

"Its been sent ahead. It'll be waiting at the hotel. I'm afraid that with airport security as it is it would be a lot of trouble for us to get that thing to Okinawa any other way. We could, but its just easier this way." Saya didn't look too pleased by the answer. However her next question had nothing to do with her weapon of choice. "When are we leaving? What is the target?"

"Not long, maybe an hour and a half." Archer answered with a shrug. Then he pointed at the folder. "That is actually for both of you. We have you two seated together across the row from us in first class. Use that time to review what we've given you. George is also a local so any questions you might have about Okinawa he should be able to answer them if our resources can't. It'll also give you two a chance to get acquainted." Saya frowned at the word acquainted and spared George a rather unfriendly look. This girl didn't seem to be the sociable type. "Well...um... right. Also we've enrolled you at the high school most of these girls have been from as a student. We've got your uniform and everything else ready." Still no verbal response. "Okay then."

"How are we tonight Miss Kabuki?" Karl voice sounded friendly and polite, much as it usually did when he greeted students at school, as he closed the door leading to the basement stairs behind him and locked it. It was a precaution, although one he knew didn't really have to be taken. "Having a pleasant evening I hope." Sweeping his long, black hair out of his eyes Karl Fei-Ong turned his attention to the girl strapped to the table in the center of the room. She still wore the uniform she always did when he saw her at school, although the blind fold was new and she wasn't wearing her shoes. He'd taken them off carefully at the door to his house. It wouldn't do to be improper. A vice principle should set a good example for his students in all situations. She was a junior, with long, black hair and a fairly pleasing build. It probably came from softball, since she was on the team.

The only response he received was a strangled scream and a whimper that the gag didn't allow to come to complete fruition. The girl began to struggle again, her energy replenished by fear. It was no use of course. Karl built that table himself. He knew it would hold. The table was literally the only piece of furniture in the tiny space. There were a few boxes stored under it where Karl kept his playthings, but other than that the floor was spotless. Needless to say Karl had to clean it fairly often to keep it that way. The walls however were anything but. Covering them were pictures cut from yearbooks and school papers. Every single one of them contained girls at his school. Some were many years old and many he didn't even know the names of. Others however had greater prominence, actually having sections of the wall devoted to pictures of just them. These girls he could recout the names of with no difficulty, not to mention every detail of how he'd snuffed out their lives. The taste of their blood he could vividly recall. The experiences were so fulfilling, so erotic to him that they easily overshadowed everything else he did with his life. Even while walking through the halls of his school, acting as the dutiful vice principle, he couldn't help but fantasize about what he would like to do to every single girl he encountered. He could almost taste their blood; feel them quiver in fear as he ripped them apart with his talons or the man made substitutes. Of course no one would know it looking at him. He was always so proper, so prisy that no one would suspect him for what he was. He was no man, but rather a wolf playing at being one of the sheep.

"I'm glad to see that you are doing well." Karl walked over to the table as if he had all the time in the world. He did not want to rush the moment. The thrill he got from killing was too breif as it was. He wanted to enjoy it as much as he could. Restraint was crucial part of true pleasure. Yes, he was doing this for the pleasure as much as for the food. He was Chiropteran true, but this wasn't just about the blood. Others of his kind might not understand the true beauty in pain and death, seeing feeding as just a means of survival, but he did. The others didn't know what they were missing out on. They found him disgusting, seeing such petty, disturbing pleasures as too human. Of course there were always those too short sighted.

"Thank you for being so kind as to volunteer to help me in my endeavor. I do hope the camera will not bother you too much. This will be my first time on film too so I don't want you to get shy. We're both in the same boat." He spoke calmly, in a sickeningly reassuring voice as he bent down and pulled out one of the boxes. Still kneeling he unlatched it and opened it up. Inside was everything he'd prepared for the night. The tripod, the camera stand, and everything he would need to conceal his identity. He'd gotten this ideal from a fairly bad graphic novel that had been confiscated from one of the students earlier that week. Since everything like that was kept in his office he'd gotten to take a look at it. Needless to say performing for an audience appealed to him. The fear his killings had fostered would be nothing compared to what was about to ensue. Of course he'd have to conceal his identity and thankfully nothing in the room would direclty give away his location. This basement could be anywhere and since all of the girls killed came from the same high school the pictures appearing on film would not be problematic. Of course he couldn't talk once the film rolled. That would be another stupid mistake. Not to mention he couldn't take up his Chiropteran form. Their kind had laws about that. No human was allowed to see their form and live so putting a video of himself in his true form online would be akin to suicide. His own kind would hunt him down. Something they would gladly do as the others disliked him.

Karl donned the coat, hood, and mask that would hide his face, hair, and build. Next, of course, came the gloves. He'd already dressed for the occasion and dimmed the lights appropriately. Nothing would point towards Karl Fei-Ong when the video hit the internet. Then he pulled out the rest of the equipment. Setting up the tripod a good distance away he positioned the camera to get a good view of what was going to happen. "Show time." He whispered menacingly. With a press of a button the red light flashed on and he walked back to the table where his tools already sat. Tonight he would have a private performance, all to himself. Tomorrow everyone would see the art he created. He'd already found someone willing to distribute the videos for him, likeminded individuals that, while human, had greater clarity than he would give his own kind credit for. Sure others called him crazy, but what artist hadn't been called insane. He would show them. He would show them all. Then, once the show was done and the camera was off, he would feast.

Overwhelmed was probably the best way to describe how George felt right now. Ashamed could be another for he was part of something that would put the young girl sitting next to him in danger. Despite Archer's reassurances George simply couldn't believe they were doing any more than sending this girl to her death. Yet he would feel shame for not helping them too, regardless of how clandestine they operated. A handful of girls like this one here had already been killed and more could follow. Either way he would have blood on his hands, blood the Red Shield had put there. Then there was his family. They had him under their thumb because of his family.

George glanced across the row to where Brett and Archer sat, side by side, each with a book in hand to help pass the flight. Their differences were even more accentuated by comparing their choice in entertainment. Archer was reading Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, a fairly hefty classic, while Brett was reading this thing with graphic depictions of murder on the cover and an ominous title. The book was very thin in comparison and Brett also had earphones on; paying little attention to everything else on the plane, except for the stewardesses. Considering this and Archer's distance at the window seat it was likely that they wouldn't hear any of what George wanted to say to the girl.

Of course nothing had been said between them since the plane took off. Saya simply stared out of hte window wordlessly and George sat there, tyring to absorb everything. But now, if ever, was the time to speak. He had to try. "You don't have to do this." George said softly, just in case Brett could hear him over his musci. Saya turned her cool gaze on him, but gave no other response. "You don't have to... to risk your life for this. I could help you get out of this. I could..." What? What could he really do? George couldn't help himself, much less this girl. It was an empty offer. He really couldn't hide her from people like this.

"No, you couldn't." Saya's words, spoken with no hint of any emotion other than annoyance, seemed to mirror George's thoughts.

George sighed. "How can you be so calm about this? You could die. Do you have any idea..."

"Yes." Again a concise answer. "I will not die." She inclined her head slightly to indicate the men across the row. "They did not lie. Not this time. Not to you." The girl had an odd, simplistic, direct speaking style that none the less conveyed what she wanted to without useless prattle.

George wasn't sure how to respond to that. Either she was playing the part Archer and Brett had given her or she was honest. The topic went no further however for Saya reached over and pulled up the folder Archer had given George out of his carry-on bag's open pocket. She didn't bother to pull her tray table down but rather opened it in her lap and studied the contents.

"Are these all of the victims?" Saya asked, eying George again. It took a second for George to realize why she was asking him, the least informed of the lot. As a local he would know if any victims weren't included in the report. Not that George really wanted to study the obituary section, he did pay attention to the news.

"As far as I know." George said. Truth be told he hadn't studied it that closely, but nothing had jumped out at him besides how grotesque it was. Still it was strangely less terrifying to blame this on a monster rather than a person.

Saya grunted and continued to study the folder's contents. Not a single detail escaped her eyes as she flipped through the documents and pictures. George couldn't understand how none of the material seemed to faze her. His stomach churned just reading about what happened to the girls and the pictures... the pictures could destroy anyone's calm. But Saya didn't even flinch.

"How did you get into all of this?" George found himself asking. No response. The girl ignored him completely. "What about your family?" 'They must be worried, that is if they even know anything about all of this.' He thought. If they'd tried to take either of his boys from him for a purpose like this he'd be more than worried, he'd be furious; furious enough to fight it tooth and nail. They would not touch his boys.

"I have none." Saya again answered with short, brutal directness. There was no sadness or resentment in her voice when she answered although George thought he detected an angry edge to her voice, although whether it was annoyance or something more he couldn't tell.

"Where are..." George started again, but was cut off before he could finish.

"Leave me alone." Saya replied sharply, finally looking up from the folder and gazing at him with those ferocious blue eyes. "Unless it is about our mission, leave me be." Then as if the conversation had never happened she went back to the folder.

George felt no words come to mind when he tried to think of something to say. Now he was as confused as he was concerned. Did they have something on this girl that made her not able to talk to him about anything else other than the job or was there something else wrong? Why was she even here at all? How could a girl hunt Chiropterans? Was she just bait that Brett and Archer planned to put in the field. There was so much George didn't understand about all of this. Hell he didn't even really know how he felt other than completely swamped. The monsters, this girl, Archer and Brett... this had just swept him up and off of his feet. The question was would he be able to regain them again. Right now he had no ground to stand on or a direction to go in. George Miyagusuku didn't know what was the right thing to do here and the wrong, just that he had to find out somehow.

The feeling of his own hand meeting the wood of the door as he knocked felt distant and dulled, almost as though it were someone else's hand and he was trying to imagine what it would feel like. The sound too seemed as if it were played to him by speakers that had seen better days. It was a surreal feeling he was none too familiar with nor did he ever want to be. His own body didn't even feel as though it belonged to him. The situation was begining to sink in. The nightmare that had haunted his dreams since Vietnam was solid and invading the place most dear to him.

Not long after he knocked he heard a click as the door was unlocked. When it swung open George Miyagusuku was greeted with the sight of a smiling, brown haired woman that had to be at least in her early forties. Her expression caused wrinkles to crease over many other areas of her face making it seem almost as though the skin was smiling too. She was dressed casually and from the smell wafting to George through the open door he suspected she'd been cooking. "Hello George, how're you doing?"

George did his best to regain his composure as he answered with the expected, "Good Mrs. Kinjo, and yourself?" Hopefully he sounded sincere and nonchalant...hopefully she hadn't noticed his distant expression when she opened the door. Then again she may just take it for jet lag.

Apparently the act and the typical, expected response fooled her for she laughed. "Aww, come on now; none of that Mrs. stuff between us George. Its Suko to you." George couldn't count with both hands how many times they'd had conversations start like this. "Come in, please. Riku is getting his stuff together and Kaori's taken over in the kitchen for me. I'm afraid Tanaka is still at work. These new hours are killing him." Her mouth broke the sound barrier, although this was just a normal conversation speed for her. "How was your trip to New York, George? I hope everything's alright, we didn't expect you back so soon."

"Uh, oh yeah it went pretty well." George coughed to cover his slight fumble.

"Riku your father's here!" Suko called up the stairs, turning her head ever so slightly to do so, blasting George in the process.

"Coming." Came a muffled response.

"So how was it?" Suko asked, turning back to George, who looked non-plused. "The ceremony. I must say its really something they'd go so far as to invite veterans from Vietnam even if they live out of the country."

"Oh it went really well. We had a reunion and they talked about things that happened during the war and that sort of thing. It wasn't anything special." He'd almost forgotten about the excuse he'd given to anyone who asked why he was leaving, Suko included, friend or not.

"Well its only right you get your due credit for going to that horrible place." The woman said, shaking her head. Thankfully George was spared having to make up the details of this mythical reunion by the sound of small feet on stairs. Riku had finally joined them.

"Hey Dad!" The boy cried, taking the stairs two at a time, which was slightly difficult with his leg length. Despite his enthusiasm he didn't do much of anything when he reached his father. Being twelve he'd recently reached the age where outright hugging your father, especially in front of people, wasn't 'cool'. He was carrying a bag over his shoulder, more than likely filled with his sleep over clothes and a few hygienic necessities, not to mention more than a few books.

"Haven't been giving Mrs. Kinjo any trouble have you?" George was surprised how much luster his falsified humor seemed to have.

"Oh no, he's been wonderful. Riku's such a sweet boy." Suko's overly sweet tone caused Riku to shrink on the spot. It had that effect on young people in general, her daughter included.

Speaking of her devil the kitchen door swung open and along with a heavenly aroma came Suko's daughter, Kaori. George immediately felt a familiar tug of pity; something that always happened whenever he laid eyes on Kaori. She looked comparably well; at least as healthy as the last time he'd seen her. But that could change very quickly. The reason for this was the Leukemia she'd been diagnosed with at the tender age of 8. Despite the best medical treatment available Kaori had suffered on and off since then, relapsing every time they thought she might be getting better. Kaori was a rather pretty girl in a delicate way. She was very thin with doe brown eyes and brown hair that was only just now beginning to grow back after a series of treatments she'd undergone the last time her cancer of the blood reared its ugly head. "Hello Mr. Miyagusuku."

"Kaori, aren't you supposed to be watching dinner?" Suko clicked her tongue as she spoke almost reprovingly.

"I just wanted to say goodbye to Riku mom."

Suko sighed. "Well one of us better look after it. Goodbye George. I'm glad your trip went well. Riku, it was lovely having you."

"Thanks Mrs. Kinjo." Riku immediately responded, being the polite child he was.

"Goodbye Suko." George said with a nod to the woman already headed for the kitchen. Part of him was thankful she had things she needed to do, otherwise she might just have stood there and talked with them in the doorway for up to an hour. George knew from personal experience.

"Did you have a good trip, Mr. Miyagusuku?" Kaori asked. It was the same question her mother asked and deserved much the same answer.

"Oh yes, it went fine. How are you Kaori? I hope you and Riku had a good time." Yes, Riku stayed at the Kinjo's, but neither George nor Suko had any worries about the girl/boy combination. Riku was all of twelve and Kaori was in high school. She was like an older sister to the boy; one who shared many of his interests including reading.

To think he would be telling this same lie to Kai and everyone else who knew him. No one around him would have the faintest idea what was going on. George wasn't even sure they weren't better off for it.

"161...163...165...167, here we are." Archer stopped in front of the door, inserted the key card he'd gotten at the receptionist desk when they'd checked into the hotel into the slot above the knob. The green light over the knob flashed and he turned it, opening the door. "This one is ours. 169 is yours Saya... oh my." The room was filled with boxes, some large, others small. It was an entire range of shapes. "Well, I suppose everything was delivered alright."

Brett pushed passed Archer and walked into the room. He didn't pay much attention to the boxes however, his concern seemed to be the two beds. After a few seconds of comparing them he nodded in approval. Obviously they met his specifications. They were large enough for him to share with a bedmate of the fairer sex. The next thing he did was walk to the closet and open it. After analyzing its size he again nodded. He could stash most of the box's contents in here on just such occasions. Brett preferred it when his women didn't ask too many questions, so best not to give them reason. Speaking of women, one had entered with him and was studying the packages, not that he considered Saya a woman. Truth be told he found her distasteful. Brett had no desire to grapple with something so inhuman. "What are you lookin' for?"

Saya didn't answer, instead she leaned down and picked up a long thin package. With a ripping sound she pulled it apart and sure enough she'd guessed the contents correctly. It was her katana, sheathed and undamaged. Also inside was her carrying case. After drawing and inspecting the blade she sheathed it and put the weapon away in the case. "Key." She said coldly.
"Oh right, here." Archer handed her a card, this one being the key to 169. "You'll need to be up bright and early for school tomorrow. We've got all of your papers in order so things should go smoothly. I'll come get you..." Saya was already walking out of the room. "Okay then." Archer watched her leave, not bothering to close the door behind her. A few seconds later he heard another door open and close.

"If you didn't catch the hint there, you talk too much." Brett muttered. Archer just sighed in response and bent to start opening one of the boxes. He was distracted however when Brett also started to walk for the door.

"Where are you going?" Archer asked, looking up from his work.

"I'm going to find the nearest bar. What do you think? If we're going to be staying her a while I'm going to need to know the essentials."

"You've got a key right?" Brett stopped, turned, and gave him a look that had 'no shit, dumbass' written all over it. "Just checking. You will call ahead to warn me if you bring a woman here, right?"

"Yeah. I'll call you before hand. I'll give you at least a good ten minutes to put this crap away and make yourself scarce." With that Brett too left.

"Okay then." Archer sighed and resumed unpacking the equipment. Brett was an expert in the area of forensics. Hell, he was down right brilliant, not to mention a good man in a pinch. However his egocentricities made him hard to work with. Still Archer had kind of gotten used to it after months of working with him. Besides he was more familiar and comfortable with this equipment than Brett. Almost everything in the boxes was devoted to tracking Chiropterans. When they transformed this machines could pick up on the high pitched and far reaching sounds they made to contact others of their kind nearby, not to mention their hunting cries. These things were useless while they hid in human form, but once they showed what they were, these machines would be able to pinpoint them anywhere in the vicinity. Only three boxes present did not serve that purpose. The first two, of course, held the weaponry they might possibly need on this assignment. Hopefully they would not be the ones tangling with a Chiropteran, but sometimes they weren't given too much of a choice. The third was for Saya's transfusions. They'd have to get blood from a local hospital, but at least they had what they needed to keep her fed.

"Hey Mao," cried a light, warm voice when the girl in question entered the classroom. The speaker wove her way through the students miling about the room, waiting for class to start and talking, to get to her friend. She was pretty much the same age as every other teen, give or take the ones who'd had birthdays very recently, and dressed similarly too. Of course that tends to happen when all students are required to wear their gender specific uniforms. Kaori had a gentle, soft featured face and a delicate build. She had a thin layer of brown hair and eyes to match. "Good morning."

Needless to say the scowling girl she was greeting could most easily be described as her opposite. Their similarities ended with their hair and eye color. Mao had long hair that reached to her shoulders, a sharp angular face, and just a much more intimidating countenance in general. Even her voice was harsher, with a tone that suggested she was used to having her way. "Yeah, real good morning." Her displeasure was obvious.

"Oh," Kaori visibly deflated. "What's the matter, Mao?" Of course she didn't really need to ask. There was only one thing that could put Mao into this mood. True, Mao was as often in a bad humor as a good one, but Kaori had learned to tell the ill omen's apart from one another and she knew this one.

"Kai!" Mao growled, the hand not holding her school back clenching and unclenching like a bird's claw. "He's such a fucking bastard!"

"Who is?" A boy, who'd been talking to one of his friends turned and asked. Kaori didn't know much else about the boy other than his name, Tatsumaki. His curiosity had been piqued by Mao's cursing and tone. He hadn't caught the name though.

"None of your damn business. Get your nose out of it." She shouted at him, then turned back to Kaori and started talking before Tatsumaki could voice his indignation at the rude treatment, even if he had been being 'nosey'. "He's being...you know... how he gets when he's in a mood. He's such an ass; actin' like he doesn't care. You know the usual bad boy thing. Its just fucking annoying when I'm his girlfriend and I get treated like everyone else."

"I'm sorry Mao." Kaori said with complete sincerity, even though she heard this rant, or at least ones similar to it, on a fairly consistent basis. "What happened this time?"

Time however seemed to be against Mao this morning for right when she opened her mouth to talk the bell rang, drowning out her words. There was an immediate reaction from every single student in the room. Like trained animals they all turned and walked for their desks. Mao and Kaori went in the same direction incidentally as Kaori sat directly behind her. The buzz died down and everyone took their seats, one among them in particular still looking mutinous. "Please rise," called the class representative and dutifully the students did as they were told, some more willingly than others. "Bow." Again the next step of this morning ritual was performed for the teacher entering the class. "Now sit." Butts hit chairs everywhere in the room.

"Good morning class." The teacher, Mr. Kanzaki greeted them as a whole warmly receiving very unenthusiastic responses. Not even the class rep was really into it, although that might be because he wasn't much of a morning person more than anything else. Everyone perked up however when they noticed someone standing behind and slightly to the left of the teacher. It was a girl with black hair tied back into two pony tails and cold, blue eyes. She looked less than happy to be standing there. She was dressed in the mandatory uniform of their school, a white button up shirt and a black skirt, so it was pretty obvious she was a student. But no one present knew her. Was she new? That question was very quickly answered by Mr. Kanzaki. "This is Saya Otonashi. She's an exchange student from Tokyo. She'll be staying with us and viewing classes for a little while." Immediately the room began to buzz and the teacher quickly tried to regain control. "Please, let me take roll. Then maybe Miss Otonashi here can tell us a little bit about herself." Anyone with half a brain would have noticed the mutinous expression on the girl's face, but somehow Mr. Kanzaki didn't. Although whether this was lack of perception or by choice no one was sure.

The teacher started down the roll, each student answered when his or her name was called; the whole process taking less than a few minutes. "You think he'd know us all by this point." Mao muttered as Mr. Kanzaki finished up.

"I think he does." Kaori offered meekly "He might get into trouble if he doesn't make sure." Mao just grumbled something about a waste of her time.

"Well now Miss Otonashi," Mr. Kanzaki said, motioning for her to step up. "Tell us a little bit about yourself." Saya stepped up to the front of the room alright, but she didn't say a word. Instead her cold eyes moved slowly, taking in the room and everyone in it. Seconds went by with the only audible sound being a few snickers. "Come on now, don't be shy." Mr. Kanzaki tried to encourage her. Still nothing. She simply glowered at the students in front of her. Now there was an undercurrent of whispering and outright giggling. The teacher however remained patient. Mr. Kanzaki was one of those perpetually cheerful people that so annoyed less peachy individuals. "Would anyone like to help her out? I'm sure some of you have things you'd like to know."

Unsurprisingly there wasn't exactly a rush of hands hitting the air. At first no one moved. No questions were even shouted out. After a few seconds however a girl three rows down from the middle hesitantly raised her hand. "Why'd you decide to come to Okinawa?" Saya's eyes zeroed in on her and the girl in question shrank as far back as she could in her chair. For some reason that gaze just creeped her out.

Saya had been briefed on her fake background as 'Otonashi' so she was more than prepared to answer any questions, although she would have preferred not to have to speak to any of these people at all. Instead of answering she turned to the teacher. "Where is my seat?"

This rudeness, for lack of a better word, caused an eruption. Students laughed, jeered, and began to talk among themselves. One voice however pierced through the haze. "Wow, what a bitch." The voice belonged to Mao, who made sure to be loud enough for everyone to hear.

Saya showed no reaction to the comment what so ever. On the other hand Mr. Kanzaki did. "Language Jahanna." He said, miraculously still calm and downright jovial. "If she doesn’t' want to talk right now that's more than alright." He turned to Saya. "Please feel free to take up any empty seat. We'll continue this some other time."

Saya didn't respond, as could probably be expected by this point. She simply walked towards the only free chair in the back left corner of the room and sat down.

Kaori sighed with relief as the lunch bell rang. She had been watching the clock for almost an hour, thinking hungrily of the lunch she had packed this morning and trying, along with Mao, to hold back giggles every time her stomach had growled during the teacher’s lecture. She and her friend usually ate outside under the trees; it was nice to get some fresh air after being stuck in a school building for the first half of the day.

But as Kaori stood up to leave, lunch in hand, the beeline she had been intending to make for the door was diverted as the new girl walked by. She had been introduced that morning as Saya, and to be quite honest, she had seemed a little out of sorts. But it was her first day, after all. She’d probably hated having the whole class looking at her; Kaori knew she would have hated being in Saya’s position. She knew all too well what it felt like to have people staring, out of curiosity or pity, but not because they really cared.

But for whatever reason, as all the students in her class began to stand up and leave the room for lunch, Kaori wanted to stop Saya from leaving just yet.

“Hey, Saya!” she called out as the black-haired girl passed in front of her.

The girl turned slowly, staring at her with a blank expression. Kaori swallowed; she didn’t mind talking to Mao or some of her classmates, but she was admittedly a little nervous about the first impression she might make on the girl. Especially given the rather one-sided exchange between Saya and Mao earlier that morning, Kaori didn’t want the new girl to think there was any need for hostility between herself, Kaori and Mao. Kaori was interested in getting to know more about this girl, and although she was nervous about the opportunity lunch had presented her to do just that, she couldn’t pass it up.

“Um... we... I was wondering,” Kaori quickly corrected herself as Mao’s gaze zeroed in on them curiously, “I was wondering if you’d like to eat lunch with us. Since this is your first day and all, I didn’t know if you’d have anybody to eat lunch with, and so I...” she was quickly faltering under the stare Saya was giving her. The girl looked annoyed and slightly incredulous, as though Kaori had just asked her to do something outlandish. “I just thought I’d ask,” Kaori finished, disheartened.

“I’m not eating lunch,” Saya said, coldly and simply, and started to turn back to the doorway.

“Well, you’re welcome to sit with us, then,” Kaori tried again. Saya paused, out of confusion more than temptation, but Kaori took it as her cue to go on. “We like to sit outside, under the trees. It’s pretty boring to sit in school all day. It’s nice to get out for awhile, especially when it’s sunny...”

“No thank you,” Saya said sharply, cutting the girl off. She tried again to get out of the door but was stopped short at the sound another girl’s voice.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? I get that you don’t want to sit with us but you don’t have to be so rude. She wasn’t even finished talking! You owe Kaori an apology, Miss Otanashi.”

Kaori visibly shrank; she appreciated Mao’s support but could see that her friend’s words had irked Saya.

“I don’t owe her anything,” Saya said softly, the intensity of her voice fully communicating the aggravation that Mao expressed by increasing her volume. With that, she walked out the doorway, leaving an enraged Mao and a very confused Kaori behind.

Saya knew the school’s hallways by heart. True, she had only been here for a day, but she had memorized the map George had given her seeing as she needed to know her surroundings in a situation where combat was probable, especially if the Chiropteran was in fact somewhere in this school.

That was her closest guess so far; she’d been picking up subtle traces of its scent all day, noticing it on the teacher and on a few girls in her class. She didn’t know their names but she remembered what they looked like and would pay close attention to who they spent time around. She knew she could have used lunch as an opportunity to find this out, but for now it was quicker and less complicated to spend the time wandering the halls, following any traces of the scent to their sources.

She was pursuing one now, a faint odor that had been running straight down the hallway thus far. Saya automatically followed it when it lead her around a corner and to various points in the hall, making almost a zig-zag across the floor. Whoever’s scent she was tracking, it looked like they had stopped at various points in their walk to speak to people.

Although she was alert, Saya didn’t bother to read the signs on the doors she was passing. She knew the layout of the school; that should be enough… but if she had looked ahead, she would have realized she was approaching the teachers’ lounge. She looked up from her trail only when a plump, brown-haired woman emerged through the doorway and stopped in the middle of the hallway, hands on her hips.

“Where are you going, Miss Otonashi?” the woman said in a reprimanding voice. Saya recognized the woman from this morning, one of the teachers who had shown her to her first class. Saya could have easily found it by herself, but she said nothing to the woman about it. Let them go about their procedures; it was necessary to make sure she did her job without detection. She was a little confused, however, as to why this woman looked so annoyed at her.

“Students are allowed to leave the classrooms during lunch, correct?”

Now the teacher looked nothing short of exasperated. “Yes, if you have somewhere to go, but roaming the halls is not allowed.”

Taking this as acceptance of her actions, Saya continued to walk past the teacher.

“Hey!” the teacher called after her, but the girl made no response. The teacher had no proof that she wasn’t headed somewhere perfectly acceptable for lunch, so an explanation didn’t seem necessary, not to mention the fact that Saya simply couldn’t be bothered. However, the teacher didn’t seem to share her opinion as she started after her, sputtering in frustration at the girl who was walking unconcernedly down the hall, ignoring her futile attempts to make Saya see reason. The teacher took a few steps forward, then stopped as she realized how ridiculous she looked, planted her feet firmly on the ground and put her hands back on her hips.

“Stop right there, Miss Otanashi!” the teacher thundered.

Saya pushed down her frustration for being interrupted as she realized this was a direct order. Adults were the authority in school, and the importance of her work was such that she was to avoid drawing attention to herself if she could. She couldn’t directly disobey an order from a teacher; as much as she resented it, she had higher orders where that was concerned. She stopped walking.

“You and I need to go to Mr. Sakajo’s office for a visit about what kind of respect you need to pay to your teachers,” the woman said, glaring at the girl with obvious displeasure, “And to discuss what exactly you’re allowed to do during lunch break.”

The woman would have liked to have frog-marched Saya to the principal’s office, but although the girl had obeyed her, there was something about that blank expression and those dark eyes that unsettled her, and the teacher decided that touching her wasn’t the best idea. Indeed, Saya would have been thoroughly perturbed if her superior hadn’t decided against it, but for the moment she couldn’t care less about being ‘in trouble’.

When they reached the principal’s office, the teacher motioned for Saya to have a seat on one of the plastic chairs outside his door, next to a boy with short, spiky auburn hair and a disgruntled look on his face. The teacher leaned over and mumbled something to the secretary behind the desk before giving the two of them a disapproving shake of her head and walking out of the office.

The boy sitting next to Saya sighed loudly and leaned back in his chair. There was a tense silence in the room as Saya thought bitterly of the time being wasted by sitting in the principal’s office. She’d remember the scent she was following, but she had been dead sure it had been getting stronger as she followed it down the hallway, meaning that whoever had been carrying the scent hadn’t been there too long ago. There was always the possibility she would get out of here before lunch was over, but…

“So what’d you do?” the boy next to her asked gruffly, interrupting her train of thought. Saya’s eyes flashed as the frustration already present for being disrupted turned into actual anger for a moment or two. This boy was a student, and as such, she saw no reason to waste her time with him. “Huh?” he pressed, scowling at her in what was meant to be an intimidating manner, and although many of his peers saw his trademark scowl as just that, Saya did not. He had seen her walking down the hall with Miss Mayabi this morning and had noticed the blank expression on her face, not lost or confused or nervous, but just blank. Now, she looked the exact same way she did this morning, and he was getting annoyed with her continued silence. “First day of school and you’re already in trouble. Way to go.”

Had he been speaking to anyone else but Saya, who had no idea of the boy’s history, the hypocrisy of his statement would have prompted retaliation at once. However, Saya didn’t know Kai Miyagusuku well enough to understand the sarcasm in his comment. He was making fun of her, jeering at her for being in the same predicament he was in, and trying to provoke a response. Unfortunately, thinking that giving him the desired result might shut him up so she could think, Saya turned an icy glare in his direction.

“Leave me alone,” she said in a tone that, had she been prone to using profanity, might have been better suited to the words ‘fuck off’.

Kai glared at her and leaned back again. What a bitch, he though to himself. He was genuinely curious as to what she might have done to get sent to the principal’s office on her first day, but if she was going to be so anal, then forget it. It probably wasn’t worth knowing, anyway. He just wanted to go in and get it over with. Kai was used to being in trouble, and this time he had a feeling he couldn’t talk his way out of it seeing as the kid he’d just ‘gotten in trouble’ with was in the infirmary, suffering from at least one black and most likely a broken nose. Kai popped his slightly sore knuckles; he thought he had heard the bone in the bridge of the kid’s nose crack, but he wasn’t sure. He wasn’t fussed either way. The guy had insulted him and his friends, looking down on them and the way they looked and acted. A good beating was well-deserved in this case, in Kai’s opinion, although he doubted the principal would feel the same way.

Just then, the door to the principal’s office opened and out stepped Mr. Sakajo. “Miyagusuku,” the man said with a frown, but didn’t look at all surprised to see the boy sitting outside his office once again. Kai stood up and walked forward, bracing himself for the interrogation he knew was just inside that doorway.

Saya actually looked up as the boy went into the room… Miyagusuku? It could have been a coincidence, but this boy’s last name was the same as her handler’s. She knew George had a family and a home in Okinawa, but she hadn’t expected to meet them in the principal’s office, or meet them at all, actually. She had no desire to be involved in George’s life outside of work, especially not if his family consisted of more people like the boy she’d just met.

Saya stifled a sigh as the bell for the end of lunch rang. She didn’t dare try and follow the scent during class time; she was in enough trouble as it was. But at least her thoughts would have no more interruptions until the principal was done lecturing Kai and it was her turn.

“Hey, over here!”

Karl Fei-Ong watched as the young, brown-haired girl waved her friend over to the clump of trees where they were sitting. The girl who had been called to turned when she heard her friend’s voice and slowly started heading in their direction with a smile. Primal instinct mixed with the deeper, more familiar urges to turn her delicate, pale-skinned body into a beautiful work of art clawed at Karl’s self-control, but the glass of his office window overlooking the school grounds served as a reminder of the barriers he would face until the time was right to do so. As vice principal, Karl’s manner had to be professional in every way, and although he had fantasized more than once about using his office as the isolated place necessary to have the quality time he wanted with each of his girls, he knew it wouldn’t do. His house had been transformed into the perfect place to fulfill such desires, and until he had the opportunity to take his newest attraction to it, he would simply watch her and wait.

His sharp hearing picked up the girls’ voices through the glass and fifteen feet down; in fact, he heard their conversation with ease. He didn’t necessarily care what they were speaking about, but simply watching as the target in question as she talked and laughed with her friends, the fact that she was unaware she was being watched, the extent of her teenage naiveté… all were intriguing up to a point.

A loud, “Ah, shit!” caused Karl’s ears to perk up as he realized it had come from his target. She was sucking on the forefinger of one hand and holding a half-opened cup of some sort of dessert in the other.

“What is it?” one of the girls asked with a concerned look on her face.

“Oh, nothing,” she answered, “Just sliced myself with the tinfoil, that’s all. I hate that stuff!”

“How can you cut yourself with tinfoil?” the other girl sitting with them asked.

The target shrugged. “It gets really jagged edges when you’re trying to open something and I guess I just…” the girl kept talking, but Karl’s attention was suddenly drawn to the injured finger in question. He felt as though someone had just given him an electric shock that sent a warm, erotic sensation throughout his entire body. There was indeed a slice on the girls’ finger and a droplet of blood formed at the top of the cut. Karl could also see a thin coat of saliva where she had licked her finger and he realized that some of the blood from her wound would also be in her mouth.

Instincts considered too ‘human’ for his kind suddenly overwhelmed him. He already planned for this girl to be more than a feed, but the more he watched her, the more ideas filled his head. An expression of pain spread over her face, distorting her normal features and morphing into an expression he longed to see below him as he ripped her tender flesh. How much more pleasurable would those features be when her eyes were also filled with terror?

“Mr. Fei-Ong?”

Karl heard a knock at his door that, to his fury, jarred him and interrupted his fantasy. Only just realizing that he had been breathing heavily, Karl swallowed but didn’t turn away from the window.

“What is it?”

“There are two students waiting to see the principal. Do you…”

“Send them on,” Karl interrupted the secretary speaking to him through the closed door. “I’ll get their names from you later.”

He took the retreating footsteps as a sign that the secretary was gone, but it didn’t diminish his frustration. Damn his job! There wasn’t a single reason he could think of that he had to do the paperwork for students in trouble when the principal was perfectly capable of doing it himself. At least he didn’t have to give the lectures to those students; apart from being tedious, it wouldn’t do his self-control any favors if certain young ladies found themselves in trouble and alone with him in his office. But the waiting was all a part of the process and made the moment of the kill so much more pleasurable.

“So do you want to come?”

These words made Karl’s ears prick up again as he turned back to the window, realizing one of the girls below the tree had spoken again. It was the loud, brown-haired one, who seemed to be dominating conversation for the most part.

“Sure, I just have to be home by 6:00. You know how my mom is,” the target replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Okay,” said the quieter of the two brown-haired girls. “I think Mao’s the only one who can stand the mall for three hours straight, anyway.”

Karl let his frustration at the interruption fade as he continued to watch his target laugh along with her friends, his excitement building by the moment. He had the perfect opportunity so close by he could almost taste it. It had been awhile since his last feed and he was hungry, and hunger made him aggressive. He only had to wait a few more hours, however, until he could find the necessary outlet for every repressed instinct, “human” or not, pent up inside him.

Brett tossed back another glass of saki and looked around the club with a mischievous glint in his eye that, in any other situation, might have been mistaken for mal intent. He leaned comfortably against the bar, swiveled around in his chair to face the mob of frantic dancers moving to the pulsating beat instead of the rack of drinks behind the bar. He liked what he could make out of the women he’d seen so far, but none of them had particularly caught his eye. Suddenly, he heard a husky voice next to him.

“Rum and coke, please.”

She was tall and had a pretty face, with a pancake-flat stomach and a rack that he was sure the bartender was admiring as much as he was as she leaned forward over the counter. Her cropped shirt and skintight jeans left little to the imagination, but somehow Brett found himself imagining as he watched her. She pushed back a curtain of silky black hair and looked at him, her dark eyes dancing with the neon light that filled the place. His interest was immediately sparked by her flirtatious smile and he found whole body was tingling with desire. It was a strange sensation, something Brett had never felt before when looking at a woman, like his whole body was vibrating…

In fact, the vibrations seemed to be coming from his back pocket in particular. Slightly embarrassed, Brett pulled out the cell phone and barely glanced at the number before answering. It was Archer.

“What?” he said gruffly, turning away from the woman.

“I got a signal, not 10 miles from the hotel. Saya’s waiting for you.”

Brett let out his breath slowly, looking back at the woman who was giving him a pout, no less. Ignoring how adorable she looked, he slid off the stool reluctantly.

“Okay,” he grunted and hung up, heading for the door without a backward glance. Unfortunately for him, there would be no sparks flying tonight unless they were from Saya’s sword.

Saya’s body slammed into the side of the car door as Brett made a sharp left turn and stepped on the gas, sending them wheeling around a bend that, thankfully, no cars were coming around at that moment.

“Archer, you still there?” he grunted into his headset, the earphones plugged into the jack of his radio for convenience.

“Yes,” Archer’s tinny voice came through the headset, but it was faint and edged with frustration. “I lost the signal.”

“Shit.” Brett exclaimed under his breath, hitting the steering wheel in aggravation. Saya could tell from the tone of Brett’s voice what had happened, but her hand didn’t leave her sword. The moment she caught the Chiropteran’s scent, her blade would be out of its sheath and at the ready.

“Where was the last point you had the signal?”

“2 miles north. Keep going straight on this road until you come to a fork…”

Brett stepped on the accelerator, gravity holding Saya to the back of the passenger seat and jostling her around as Brett swerved around debris in the road. They could see the aforementioned fork approaching rapidly as the car’s headlights cut through the darkness.

“I’m there,” Brett said, interrupting his partner.

“Okay then, take a left and go down that road a few miles until you come to an abandoned building on your left.”

Brett grunted in response, barreling down the left fork in the road. Saya just sat placidly in the passenger’s seat, watching the trees speed past out her window, watching for any sign of unusual movement. For most people, the car would have been going too fast to see anything out of the window, especially at night, but Saya’s sharp eyes could easily pick out the dark form of a Chiropteran against tree-line where, in the night, they could actually blend into their surroundings without being in human form. Saya saw nothing, however, to suggest that they were nearby a Chiropteran, and anyway, it was more likely that she would smell the beast long before seeing it.

Finally, Brett turned into the parking lot of what looked like a dilapidated warehouse, killed the engine and started to get out.

“We’re here,” he said into the headset as he and Saya got out of the car. There was a silence, save for the sound of their feet crunching against gravel as the two of them scanned the area for any sign of life.

At that moment, George’s car came barreling into the lot. George parked close behind Brett’s car before hopping out. Brett was almost impressed at how well George had been able to keep up, but now was not the time for boosting the man’s ego. If they found the Chiropteran, as Brett hoped they would, George didn’t need to be going into the encounter with anything remotely resembling a big head. Brett was fairly sure George wasn’t nearly ready to face a Chiropteran, but they didn’t have much choice. All they could do now was rely on Saya and watch their backs.

Their headlights shone onto the abandoned warehouse but George pulled a flashlight from inside his jacket as a precaution. He had a sneaky feeling that the inside of the building wouldn’t be so well illuminated and besides, it was only a matter of time before the headlights would shut off.

Saya could smell the Chiropteran; it definitely had been here, but she smelled something else as well. It was a familiar scent, but she could quite place it…without a word, the girl turned and started walking toward the crumbling building. George started to call after her but stopped himself, remembering that she was more experienced with Chiropterans than he was. It was hard to imagine Saya fighting or killing sometimes, even though he could plainly see the unfeeling coldness in her eyes. She was always on the job, she was always serious, but everything else about her looked like a normal sixteen year-old girl.

Most normal sixteen year-old girls, however, did not just barge into abandoned warehouses, sword in hand, tracing the scent of a monster that could kill them in one swipe. As George followed them into the building, his old gun in one hand and flashlight in the other, he resolved once again that Saya was definitely not normal.

A putrid and sickeningly familiar smell hit George as he stepped onto the floor level of the warehouse. He was almost ashamed that he was so familiar with it, and although Saya seemed to recognize it just as much as he did, she didn’t seem to share his guilty sentiments. It was the smell of blood, making the air they breathed oppressive with its stench. It was the smell that had ridden every battlefield he had ever fought on, the smell of blood and rot from human corpses. Sometimes he would remember the smell and stop in his tracks, looking around for its source and finding that there was none. As far as he’d been able to tell, it was just his imagination, the memory of war coming back to haunt him as it had so many who had fought in Vietnam. But in light of his discovery of the existence of Chiropterans, he was no longer so certain.

Although George was fighting nausea, he noticed that Saya hadn’t been thrown for a moment by it. In fact, she seemed immediately drawn to the source of the stench. She led them up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the warehouse, which was filled with storage units.

“Which one?” Brett asked her as they spread out across the second floor, guns still at the ready, although he didn’t really need to ask. Saya eyes were fixated on one particular locker that the smell was emanating from. Brett tried the handle of the storage unit and found that it opened on the first attempt.

The young Japanese girl had been partially dismembered to fit all of her into the locker. Her naked body had been stuffed against the back wall, all her remaining limbs twisted at odd angles. Most of them were probably broken, save for her right arm, which was lying adjacent to the corpse instead of attached to it. Long, raw gashes covered her body from head to toe, one across her cheek, one just below her neck and trailing down past her collarbone. Even her breasts had been ravaged; the right one looked like a claw had ripped through it, shredding it into nothing more than a lump of mangled flesh.

Her appearance and the knowledge that she had once been a living, breathing human was further distorted by the fact that her body had been almost severed in half, with just enough skin attached to keep her torso hanging together. White ribs could be seen through the mangled opening and the remains of shredded organs littered the floor around her. If Brett hadn’t known better, he would have said that injury would have finished her off, except for the fact that the corpse seemed completely exsanguinated.

He moved closer to examine the body, slipping on a pair of rubber gloves he’d remembered to stuff into his pocket before leaving the hotel. He needed a good look at this girl before the police got to her. Brett slowly examined the girl’s remaining porcelain-white arm, and gingerly moved her hand.

“She hasn’t hit rigor mortis yet,” he said grimly. “She hasn’t been dead for long. Chances are we just missed the sick bastard who did this.”

George nodded numbly. Although Brett didn’t seem nearly as unnerved as he was feeling, he recognized that the man wasn’t being nonchalant about the situation. He was working, and as such, he was impassioned about what he was doing. Still, George suspected that, like him, Brett was making at least something of an effort to disconnect himself from the fact that this was not only the work of a Chiropteran but the murder of a child, so that he could focus on his job instead of the disturbed and enraged feeling he got from looking at the girl’s dead body.

“Looks like these were made by claws,” Brett mumbled, more to himself that to George or Saya, as he gestured to one of the girl’s open wounds. “They’re clean cuts, though. I’d bet anything the police’ll identify them as knife wounds. Cleverly disguised. The body, though…” he paused, thinking for a moment. “Everything except the blood loss reminds me of a serial murder. The fact that the body’s naked, the slightly ruined features…” he examined her mangled breast, searching for bruising or extraneous scratches. “This kill was more than a feed, although…”

George balked as Brett crouched down and peered closely at the girl’s genitals, probing them with his gloved hands. He straightened up after a moment, sitting back on his haunches with a frown. “There’s no bruising or tearing of the genitals and no visible semen, so I’m guessing she wasn’t raped, but…”

At that moment, Saya pushed past Brett and drew closer to the body. The scent she’d caught a whiff of in the parking lot was now overpowering her senses, and now she recognized what it was. That scent made the rest of the scene fall into place—the serial killings of young Japanese girls, the naked and mutilated body, and now this.

“Musk,” Saya said softly. George gave Brett a quizzical look but it was ignored, seeing as Brett was giving much the same look to Saya.

“Musk?” Brett repeated. Ignoring him, Saya turned and walked out of the room. She needed no further information; the musk a Chiropteran emitted when it was aroused was unique, and apparently killing the victim in question had aroused this particular Chiropteran. True enough, the body showed no signs of sexual abuse, but then again, the mentality of a Chiropteran was often that of a predator and the main goal of a kill was to prey upon it, not necessarily to breed with it. But however common or uncommon, the scent of the Chiropteran’s musk would now allow Saya to track him indefinitely.

Brett sighed and stood up.

“I didn’t know Chiropterans had… musk,” George said, a little uneasy at the idea.

“Well, it makes a helluva lot of sense. Just glad we got to the body before the cops did. Now Saya can pinpoint the bastard. As for her…” Brett looked to the girl in the locker, “Leave her for the cops to find.”

“Shouldn’t we at least call…”

“No,” Brett interrupted warningly before George could even finish his sentence. “We can’t be connected with this in any way.”

“It could be weeks before the police find her. Her parents will…”

“Miyagusuku,” Brett said sharply, “The objective here is to find the monster and kill it. Then the parents will be placated and she’ll rest in peace and all that shit. But any information we could give, even anonymously,” he added at the look on George’s face, “Will only put the cops on our asses and we don’t need them getting in the way, especially not before the job’s done.”

George suppressed rising fury as Brett spoke, part of him trying to listen to the man’s reason and part of him wanting to punch him squarely in the face for speaking so disrespectfully and call the cops right away. But honestly, he knew it wouldn’t do any good. The girl was dead and the only thing he could do about it was wait for Saya to kill the monster responsible. Until then, nothing would make a difference to how he felt about what he’d seen tonight.

“I need to take some pictures to put on file,” Brett said, pulling out a camera from inside his jacket. “You should go home.”

George grunted in response and turned to leave, only stopping when he heard Brett’s voice, softer and bitterer than before.

“Anyway, nothing you can do’s gonna make her parents feel any better. If we called them, chances are they’d be wondering how the hell we know where their kid is and would probably want to tear us limb from limb. It’s not like we could tell them how we found her or convince them we didn’t do it ourselves. It’s not like they’d be grateful. Maybe you think as a dad you’d want to know if your kid was killed by some monster rather than a car crash or some serial fucker…” Brett looked up at him with a piercing glare, “Well if I was a dad, I sure as hell wouldn’t.”

“Well you’ve never been a dad, have you?” George snapped. Brett narrowed his eyes but bit back any snide comment he could have made. He really didn’t give a damn about this old guy’s views or emotions toward kids, and there was no point in continuing the argument when his job wasn’t finished yet.

At his colleague’s silence, George turned and walked out the door, knowing he would spend the rest of the night trying to get the sight of the girl’s contorted body out of his mind and the smell of fresh blood out of his nose.

The atmosphere of the school had a palpable heaviness to it when Saya entered it. The feeling was not directed at her, rather it reflected the overall mood. There was no laughter in the halls and every other group of students she passed by had somber expressions. Conversations where more hushed, lacking the energy of Saya's previous day here. Some girls she passed were even crying. Apparently word spread fast that a student had gone missing a night ago and with a serial killer on the loose, well... hopes weren't high. Every other girl who'd disappeared had been found ripped apart later. Surprisingly school wasn't canceled today because of the crisis.

The mood in Saya's homeroom was, if anything, worse. Several students were in tears, including the girl who'd asked Saya to have lunch with her. Standing around her were several other students who seemed on the brink. The one called Mao had a mixed expression, somewhere between fierce protectiveness, anger, and loss. Saya paid everyone little however. Their sadness was of little concern to her. At least until her keen ears picked up on one of the things Kaori said between sobs. "She was with us all afternoon. If I'd just walked her home..." The rest was unintelligible through the choking, coughing noises she made while trying ot fight off her tears and failing miserably.

Saya stopped dead in her tracks. The girl who's body they'd found she had seen in Kaori and Mao's company. They'd gone to eat lunch together and Saya was fairly sure she'd also seen the three of them leaving school in each other presence. Immediately Saya changed course and walked up to the crying girl's desk. A few of the students glanced at her, but she was the focus of no one's attention. At least not until she spoke. "Where was the last place you saw her?" It wasn't so much a question as a demand.

Now that got everyone to look at her, most with either shocked expressions or glares that clearly read 'how could you'. None of them were exactly warm considering there was no hint of sympathy or care in Saya's tone. Kaori looked up at her, but not with any kind of anger. Truth be told her red, puffy, tear streaked face showed very little besides pain. Surprsingly she answered before anyone rebuked Saya. The girl's words were barely intelligible. "When we left the mall. We were really close to her house and she decided to walk home." She took a deep, almost ragged breath before continuing. "We weren't thinking. We should have walked her home..."

"What route from the mall did she take? Where is this mall?" Saya placed both of her hands on Kaori's desk and leaned down to Kaori's level.

"Leave her the fuck alone!" Saya had little or no time to react to the words or the familiar voice before someone gave her a particularly hard shove, pushing Saya off of the desk and actually back two steps before she regained her balance. The offender was Mao. The Jahana girl was in a state too. Mao had a different way of handling loss than Kaori. She felt anger as much as she felt the loss itself. She wanted to lash out, to do something rather than just break down. Saya had opened Pandora’s box and made herself an ideal outlet. Mao had lost one of her friends and Saya had just twisted the knife in another. Fully all of the helplessness and rage in Mao was directed at Saya.

The room instantly erupted. Students were shouting and moving around, some yelling encouragements, egging things on, others trying to get Mao to back down. Kaori, too bewildered to indicate her feelings one way or the other, simply gawked at Mao through her tears. Needless to say, Mao was practically deaf to it all, attentive of nothing at that moment but the black-haired girl in front of her.

Saya was also ignoring everyone in the room, although her focus was on Kaori rather than Mao. She had every intention of re-stating her question, although anyone else might have given up getting any information out of the distraught girl long before, but Mao quickly stepped in the way of that.

“Who the fuck do you think you are? You’ve been a complete bitch to Kaori ever since you got here for no fucking reason!” Mao shrilled, her face turning red with anger. “If you have a problem, say it now or leave her the fuck alone!”

Saya’s gaze shifted to Mao momentarily, annoyance sharpening her features as well as her thoughts. This girl was getting to be a hindrance, and although Saya rationalized that there was little she could do about it without drawing attention to herself, she decided the odds were worth the risk. She needed information and Kaori had it, and this loud, irritating girl was not standing in her way.

“I need information,” Saya said sharply. Mao’s expression was incredulous, wild-eyed in anger and disbelief.

“You need information?” she practically screamed. “There is a serial killer on the loose and he’s taken our friend and she could be dead! How much more goddamn information do you need?”

At this point, two things happened simultaneously. The first was that Saya lost her patience, considering a moment more of her time spent on Mao a moment more wasted. The second was that her gaze shifted over Mao’s shoulder and onto Kaori, who had begun to cry even harder at Mao’s words and was now shaking violently in a practically collapsed position on the desktop. Saya knew that if she failed in calming the girl down now, there was little to no chance she could get the information she needed to kill the Chiropteran before she was carted off to the infirmary.

In a single swift motion, Saya grabbed Mao’s shoulder and pushed her to the side, barely stopping to realize that the girl traveled about ten feet and had fallen to the ground after her back collided with a desk. Saya moved forward to Kaori, who had looked up only at Mao’s outraged cry of pain and recoiled in horror at the sight of the very strong, very pissed-off girl standing before her.

Mao struggled to her feet, despite the sting where the metal had probably bruised her back, and started toward Saya, almost too angry for words. Almost.

“Get. Away. From. Her,” she snarled. Saya’s head whipped around as she shot Mao an icy glare, fully prepared to repeat what she had just done in hopes that the second time around Mao would not get back up.

But just as Mao charged the girl, a weak, frantic voice cried, “Wait!” and a brown-haired blur rushed between them. Kaori grabbed her friend by the shoulders and Mao, not stopping to think who was grabbing her or why, lashed out, striking Kaori and knocking her to the ground.

Saya fully expected Mao to rush her and had turned to face the girl, only to find that she was standing frozen, horror-struck, staring down at Kaori. Kaori stared back up at her friend, a wounded, confused expression on her face as fresh tears welled in her eyes.

“K-Kaori,” Mao stammered, not even knowing where to begin or how to try and justify what she had just done. She had hit Kaori, the sweetest girl she had ever met, the girl she had been comforting and trying to protect just a moment before. Kaori was really the only girl in the school who had stayed with her, who had never said anything behind her back, who had never criticized her temper or her controlling nature. And on top of that, Kaori had leukemia. Her body was fragile and she was always in poor health, and now that she was actually well enough to come to school, she had been knocked to the ground by someone she considered a friend. Nothing Mao had felt that day, not the worry over her missing friend or her anger at Saya, could compare to the gut-wrenching guilt she felt as she watched silent tears slip down Kaori’s face.

The class’s attention was drawn from Kaori, however, as the classroom door burst open and Vice Principal Fei-Ong charged in, followed by the teacher who had been monitoring the hall.

“What is going on here?” he demanded, his expression obviously dark and displeased… until his eyes landed on Saya.

Her build was healthy, her hair thick and ebony, and her livid eyes a stunning blue. The appeal he found in soft, porcelain-white skin was suddenly infused with the image of the young girl in a stance ready to fight, more animalistic than human, the purest breed of feral adolescent female. His decision was made immediately as he imagined her, not pleading helplessly in fear as his claws ripped her flesh, but writhing under him with that expression, feeling her body twist and her muscles strain under him as those crystalline eyes shot daggers at him and she bared her teeth and rage and pain. It would be so different from any of his other victims. What kind of sounds would she make, he wondered?

The thought made him throb in excitement and anticipation but he forced the haze of his lust to dissipate as he remembered his timing had to be impeccable—and to appear aroused in front of a classroom full of high school students would definitely and royally screw his chances of fulfilling his newest fantasy.

“The three of you to the principal’s office, now,” Karl commanded, turning from the doorway and walking down the hall with the expectation that they would follow him. He needed a few moments to clear his head and anyway, it was probably best to have his back to them in his current predicament.

Still numb with horror, Mao extended a shaking hand to help Kaori up. The two girls hung their heads as they filed out of the doorway and down the hall in silence. Neither of them noticed that Saya was not behind them until they reached the principal’s office, by which time the girl was out of the building and long gone.

She had smelled musk more clearly in that room than she had on the body of the girl they had found in the locker, and she could tell directly where it was coming from. She had all the information she needed now, she thought grimly. She had him.

"Are you sure?" Brett asked for the umpteenth time, giving her what could easily be described as an evil eye.

Saya returned his gaze with even less warmth if that were possible. "Yes. Vice Principle Karl Fei-Ong is the Chiropteran that has been hunting at the school. You should have allowed me to carry my sword with me there." The last time she'd performed an infiltration mission at a Japanese school she'd been allowed to carry her sword with her, claiming it was a project. That was back during Vietnam when she was still had David as her handler; the only half-way respectable one she'd yet been paired with.

"Too risky. School violence is a very real fear these days and we don't need to get mixed up in all of that." Archer said without pausing in the slightest. He was a virtual frenzy of activity. He'd called at least two people on his cell phone, both probably related to Red Shield in some way shape or form and had made several trips to the van with equipment. He was also triple checking everything to make sure he hadn't screwed up somehow. He may be organized, but it irked Saya that he made it so complicated. "Okay then, I think that's everything." He looked at his watch. "We're still a fair ways from nightfall. I'm going to call George and get him over here."

"We're really going to send in that glorified boy scout with her?" Brett jabbed his thumb at Saya. Unlike Archer she was completely still, slouching on the edge of the bed as he was.

"We don't really have a choice. He's all we've got. For a situation like this we're working on minimum personnel, at least for now. We can't send her in alone, you know the rules." Archer noticed Saya's pointed glare and froze. "No offense, its just...our... policy." Policy wasn't quite the right word. There were strict guidelines for all members of Red Shield dealing with Saya, not to mention the collar placed around her neck. “We’re doing this and we’re doing this with George.”

Brett shook his head. “Since when has sending a boy scout against a grizzly bear ever been a good idea?”

George had always heard the wait was worse than the actual event itself. Yet he wasn't sure that logic could be applied to going up against a Chiropteran. With what had happened in Vietnam there was a good chance he wouldn't survive said event, so living through the wait already made it seem much more preferable, despite the condition he found himself in. George was physically sick, like he was going to puke at any moment. The outside world felt uncomfortably warm; his chest seemed filled with ice.

Also sitting in the back of the Van with the equipment were Archer and Saya. Brett was driving. Archer worked furiously unpacking things and checking readings on devices George didn't even have names for. Saya was the picture of calm however. She stared straight ahead of her at the window. If she felt any trepidation at all her face didn't show it. Leaning up against her shoulders at a diagonal angle was what looked like a Katana. An actual Japanese Katana. Was it a replica? Was she really planning to use that against a beast that could shrug off automatic weapon's fire?"

Like all waits this one had to end. Soon he felt the Van come to a stop and heard Brett call back. "We're within a block of the son of a bitch's house. Let's get rolling before another kid gets fucked up." Brett opened the door on his side and jumped out of the Van.

"Okay then, George step out. Let's get you prepped. I've got everything up and running. If he flees the scene or calls for help we should be able to track him." While Archer spoke Brett had crossed around the Van and opened up the back.

Saya was the first out, landing gracefully and looking around. "Anything girl?" Brett asked?
"No. There are no Chiropterans out here. Neither he nor any others are hiding nearby to ambush us." She replied curtly.

"Course there ain't. It's called the element of surprise. We got it, they don't. Hey boyscout, step out here."

It took George a second to realize that Brett was talking ot him, at which point he climbed out too. His joints ached in protest. He'd never felt so old before. Wow, every part of his body, while flowing with adrenaline, felt as though it had aged a decade on him without his knowing it. He wasn't a soldier anymore. What did he think he was doing?

"Arms up." Brett ordered, pulling something out of the van. George raised his arms and felt a coarse, thick material being pulled over his body and strapped to him. When Brett finished George looked down. It was a vest...of sorts. "Kevlar." Brett grunted. "Won't do much good though so don't rely on it. They cut through armor like they do meat and they're real good at that." George felt his stomach churn. "Its also got a back support for impacts."

"Here, these too." Archer pressed down a belt with an attached holster. In it was a fairly hefty looking pistol of a kind George did not know. "It's got a good deal of stopping power so it should, note I say should, slow it down. Its got a strong kick to it though so be careful with it." These guys weren't great at confidence boosting. It felt like a dead weight in his hands and when he put it on the feeling didn't change much.

Then Brett passed something even heavier into his hands. It was a shotgun, but again not any kind he'd ever seen before. "You're best bet are weapons like these, but the recoil is even worse than the handgun. Brace it good or it'll break your arm."

George wasn't sure when he opened his mouth whether words or vomit would come out. Thankfully it was the former. "So... what's the plan." George asked, still staring at the gun in his hands.

"The target's house is directly down the street. The last one on the block. We're as sure as we can be that's where he is at the current moment. You and Saya will approach the house directly. Normally we'd blow the door to make an entry. However considering his taste for high school girls he may simply open the door for Saya when she knocks. He might not pause to question his good fortune or simply open it out of confusion or the wish to keep up appearances as the vice principle. Anyway, that's going to be the initial plan that we're going to go with. You're to wait out of sight for the door to open while she takes the direct approach. Saya will of course make sure the sword isn't in sight of the peep hole while knocking." He gave Saya a pointed look as if to drive home this level of common sense to her. "When he opens the door she'll have a direct shot at him. Hopefully she can kill him in the doorway before he transforms. If he doesn't open the door or she doesn't get him in the initial attack, you're to back her up, pursue him inside, blow open the door if necessary, and kill him."

"What about the two of you?" George asked, noticing their distinct absence in the plan.

"We're not a combat team George. That isn't our job. The kill team is Saya and her handler with possible support based on the severity of the situation. This is one Chiropteran as far as we know. Saya can probably handle this herself, but it is procedure to send a handler with her. Our job is to clean up the mess after you guys get through. Or if everything goes wrong, to perform the worst case scenario suppression measure." Archer explained, not seeming too comfortable with this topic.

"What's the suppression measure?" George asked, resisting the urge to shout at this man, 'Do you mean to tell me you're sending me and a little girl in there alone to die!'

Archer stared at George for several seconds and then without a word opened up another of the boxes. Inside lay several blocks of a substance George could have easily recognized just from having watched a few action movies as well as everything one would need to set up a remote detonator. "We're going to blow this place to kingdom come. Better than letting that thing get out alive." Brett said unnecessarily. "Might not kill it, but if you guys fail its the best plan we've got."

George felt as though the ice in his stomach had formed a hand which had reached up to grip his heart. His mouth moved but no words came out. What the hell did you say to that? "I'm sorry." He heard Archer say, although his mind barely processed the words. "That's just the way it is."

George wasn't sure how long he stood there dumbly, trying to sort out just how to handle this in his mind, but the clicking of shoes pulled his eyes away from the faces of Archer and Brett. Saya was already walking down the street in the direction of Karl's house. George had a choice. He could stay here, argue with them helplessly, and let a girl go alone to her death... or join her in walking into hells gates. Did it really make a difference whether or not he went with her? Her fate would still be the same.

"Looks like she's ready, boy scout." Brett said with a humorless laugh. "Are you with us or not?"

George didn't answer. Words failed him. Silently he turned and moved off behind Saya.

"Wait!" Saya felt a large hand on her shoulder, stopping her in mid stride. She was already more than halfway up the walkway to the target's door. The stench of Chiropteran was so strong she would be completely unable to pinpoint its exact location by smell. This was its lair and this weak willed human was holding her up. Saya turned her head ever so slightly and glared at him, vaguely toying with the idea of ripping off the offending limb. George let go of her shoulder, as would pretty much any man with common sense. "Look, you don't have to... I could... let me go in first. I'll blow him away when he opens the door or at least lead the way in." From the tone of his voice he was none too confident, not that he didn't have good reason to be.

"No. You can't kill it. Proceed as planned." Saya continued to walk forward, not bothering to look behind her to see if George was following her still, or hiding behind her. Slowly moving for the door she didn't even have to mentally prepare herself for the task ahead of her. She was always in a warrior's mindset, ready at any moment to kill her enemy. This was just another mission. The only difference between this moment and any other was that she knew the location and the name of her target.

To say a knock on his door at this time of night surprised Karl would be an understatement. But that was nothing compared to the surprise he found waiting for him on his very doorstep when he looked through the peephole. It was a high school girl, the new girl; his target in fact. What kind of luck was this? Had a parent driven her by so she could apologize for her misdemeanors? If so he could take care of them before getting onto the main course. If she'd come here alone even better. With a serial killer on the lose no one would doubt that she never made it here, if she'd even told anyone. This Saya girl seemed like the independent type. Still, in case she had it would be best he finished with her tonight and cleaned up everything in his house just to make sure that if the police investigated even here, they would find nothing. Nothing at all to link him to this girl. True it would be risky to snatch her when she visited his house, but hell; she was worth it. What could police do to him anyway, a superior life form?

"Hello? Can I help you?" Karl said before he even finished opening the door, showing his eagerness. The very girl he'd selected earlier that day, the most desirable one yet, had show up on his doorstep. He was trembling with excitement. Her eyes were still so cold, her face so exquisitely lovely, her hands...gripping a sword coming out of its sheath as she rushed him.

Only Karl's quick reflexes saved Karl from a moved reminiscent of Iajutsu as practiced by the ancient samurai; the art of killing with the same stroke one draws with. As it was Karl felt a searing pain as his arm was sliced cleanly off at the elbow by the deadly blade. He didn't even have time to scream, the only sound he made was halfway between a gasp and a grunt. The new girl, Saya, was in the entryway in a second, readying her weapon for another swing that was sure to bisect him where he stood. Reacting with the speed of the desperate Karl pushed against the floor with both legs and leapt back. The distance he traveled could only be described as superhuman. His back actually collided with the wall more than 10 feet behind him. Saya was only a second behind him though, her face set in that same fierce glare he'd seen back in the room, full of cold, yet somehow animalistic fury. The same look that was so erotic to him before was now one of the most terrifying sights of his life. For an instant he was afraid.

With fear however comes anger; a natural response to an animal's desire to destroy what it fears if it can so that it need never fear it again. That rage brought Karl back to his twisted senses and reminded him that while being completely cut in half would do him in this was an inferior being. She may look ferocious and smell differently from any other girl he'd yet preyed on, but this was still a girl; armed or not. He was a Chiropteran. This thing was nothing more to him than amusement and food. Why the hell was he running from it?

Again Karl tumbled away as Saya slashed at him, again missing him. As soon as he had his feet back under him he jumped again, this time carrying himself all the way into the next room. This one served the purpose of a dining room when he entertained guests, usually Education big shots and sometimes his coworkers. He rarely ever used anything in here, not even the table itself. Of course tonight he certainly hand a purpose for something in here. Karl reached down and grabbed the nearest chair and swung it around just as Saya came at him. He caught her sword coming down in the early arc of its swing, before it could gather enough momentum to slice cleanly through the chair. Still it bit deeply into the wood and Karl wasn't about to give her a chance to pull it back out. He shoved forward with the chair hard, actually knocking Saya off her feet. The moment her hands released the sword Karl flung the chair away from him, across the room, to smash into the opposite wall. "You're mine now." Karl half growled, half wheezed from excitement. It was time to transform, to show this girl the fear he felt! So what if she fought back now. It would only be more fun.

The beast in front of Saya was finally showing its true colors. That in and of itself was not good. Chiropterans were weaker in human form. She was physically on par with them then. When they actually took their Chiropteran form their strength increased exponentially and they gained several new weapons like their claws and teeth. Not to mention the intimidation factor. Now Saya had seen them like this many times so that last advantage was of little use against her. But she'd seen trained soldiers freeze up at the sight and indeed it was fearsome. Karl's muscles bulged and grew. His arms lengthened and thickened until they were equal to the size of his legs if not larger. He hunched over like an ape and his face extended into the fanged maw she knew so well. The batlike features such as its ears topped the whole thing off. This particular Chiropteran's skin color was charcoal black, something that would likely give it an advantage against humans if it fought them at night or in a dimly lit area. Of course its blazing red eyes would probably give it away if they flared up like they were now. Karl Fei-Ong's monstrous form was almost like a physically representation of his capricious nature.

Saya began to crawl back, never taking her eyes off of it. They were predators and her current predicament made her an easy target already, she didn't need to give the beast any other advantages. True she'd faced these creatures without her sword before, but that time she'd come as close to what humans called death as she'd ever come and it had only been one. She didn't fancy her odds. She needed to get to her sword or to something else that could function at least as a decent weapon, not that she had the time to scavenge.

Now Karl was moving, stepping towards her. His legs hunched, his claws unfurled, and what passed for lips unfurled to reveal a horrible fanged maw with what resembled four sets of canines both the top and bottom in addition to the smaller yet no less dangerous teeth that filled the rest of its mouth. His movement was abruptly reversed in an explosion of gore. A hole appeared on his...its chest right where the right pectoral muscle would be on a normal person. It didn't fall over but it stopped moving forward. In fact it had to scramble and shift its weight to stop itself from plopping over. The way the round tore through the meat despite its rock hard skin and densely packed muscles unlike most bullets would it had to be a very high power weapon firing a slug. The loud report that preceded it also supported this idea.

Saya took a chance and looked in the direction of the sound. It was only a glance for, as aforementioned, taking her eyes off of her enemy for even a second was monumentally dangerous. George had come into the room and had the shotgun he'd been given pressed up against his shoulder firmly. His body shook as he fired again and while no normal person's eyes could have followed the slug in mid air Saya was not exactly 'normal'. She actually followed its trajectory back to the creature as it made another dent in its chest barely inches from the first shot. If he'd fired a little more to the right there would be one rather large hole rather than two smaller ones. It took another step back. She heard a metallic sound as George pumped the shotgun and then a third blast as he fired again. Four times; five times. On the fifth shot it pitched back and fell onto the dining room table. Wood splintered as the creatures weight broke the table and it crashed to the floor.

For what felt like only a second or two the only two sounds Saya could here were the heavy huffs George made as he breathed and the rapid thumping of his heart, the latter being something no one else other than her or her prey could hear from this distance. Then there was a rustling as the creature began to stir. Damn, she needed to move fast. Saya raced for her sword, giving the table as wide a birth as she could. Unfortunately there was no such thing as a safe distance and just before she reached her sword she felt something close around her ankle like an iron vice. The cold, clammy skin of a Chiropteran was all too familiar. Saya pitched forward, her hand reaching for her sword. Her heart leapt as she felt her finger tips barely brush up against the hilt. Then she was yanked back. It slung her around as though she weighed nothing and threw her up. Unfortunately there was something called a ceiling that prevented any real vertically oriented free-flight. Saya smashed into the ceiling and fell back down right into its waiting claw. As the chiropteran grabbed her she felt the talons on each of its fingers dig deeply into her body. Pain shot through her nerves like electricity, as that was exactly what pain is, electric signals to the brain. The sensation was so extreme she gave a strangled sound halfway between a gasp and a scream. From her position above it she could look directly into its smoldering eyes and though the pain was incredible she forced herself to meet its menacing stare with one of her own, conveying every once of her battle rage to it as best she cold.

It held her there for a moment as though studying her and she could hear George shouting something, although no shots came. He was probably afraid of hitting her. Then the beast's mouth opened and closed as its misshapen lips tried to communicate in a language its mouth wasn't build for. The words were garbled and it made disgusting smacking and growling sounds as it tried to speak, but it was understandable none the less. "So beautiful." The words were trailed out in a sickly manner reminiscent of a slasher movie psycho. Then she was flying through the air again, this time horizontally. It had thrown her. She smashed into the wall with such force she was sure she'd broken something on impact; probably her left arm, which was caught between the wall and the rest of her body when she hit. Then she fell to the floor.

The creature was getting up and Saya was down. He'd heard the scream, but there was nothing George could have done without risk to Saya. He'd wanted to protect the girl and now... damn it if this wasn't going as badly as he'd expected it to. Still there was only one option left to him and it wasn't flight. He couldn't leave the girl. She was still alive, curled up and clutching at her arm, but alive. The limb was bent at an odd angle and likely broken. She wasn't crying though. The fierce expression on her face hadn't gone away. Still he didn't have time to study her. George pumped the shotgun and fired at the beast again. It jerked with the blow, but didn't topple down again. George pumped and fired again, then a third time...only for nothing to happen. The shotgun only had seven shots and Brett and Archer hadn't given him any extra's to reload the gun with. They probably figured if he needed to fire the gun enough to reload it he was probably dead. That kind of logic didn't seem all that far off as the creature lumbered towards him.

George had to think fast. It had been so long since he'd been on the battlefield, but still the instincts came back. His adrenaline was pumping and although there was fear he still stood his ground. His mind still worked. It went to the gun in his holster. He still had a weapons. George dropped the shotgun and went for his pistol. The beast crouched as though getting ready to leap. George pulled the gun from the holster and raised it up to aim. He only had time to get off one shot before it jumped. He saw the claws outstretched for him as it leapt and dove to the side. His reflexes weren't quite as good as they used to be. Every joint in his body ached in protest at the sudden movement, but the wind of the blow that just missed him was more than enough to convince him the pain was a good trade over the very sudden demise that was the alternative.

George attempted to bring the gun around, but he wasn't quite fast enough. The beast lashed out at him with what could have been described as a backhand if it were human. It struck George squarely in the chest, knocking the wind out of him and sending him crashing to the ground. The gun went off as he fell. Archer hadn't been kidding about the recoil and this time he wasn't braced for it. He was falling after all. Judging from the pain the recoil had almost broken his wrist. As it was when he crashed to the ground he didn't have the strength to keep the gun in his hands. It clattered across the floor. George resisted crying out from the pain in his wrist and he began to try and squirm away from the monster. Karl would have none of that however. He reached out with his hand towards George.

Then there was a whistling sound George associated with something flying through the air at high speed, usually a baseball. What pierced Karl's arm just above the elbow was no baseball. It was a chair leg, probably broken off of one of the chairs in the dining room. Blood and splinters went everywhere as Karl thrashed around wildly and tried to remove the offending wooden object.

Saya's expression was somewhere between a ferocious snarl and a smirk of grim satisfaction. Her aim with the chair leg had been true. While the end was not sharpened she'd thrown it with more than enough force for that to really not make much difference. It had nearly killed George. True she could have left it to butcher him while she got her sword, but that wasn't her way. First of all the rules Red Shield forced to her obey prohibited her from outright killing any human or simply allowing her handler to die through negligence, not to mention it simply wasn't her way. George had shown some fighting spirit she hadn't thought in him. She would save him if she could.

"Get away from him! Get your weapon!" She shouted to George, and then scrambled for her sword. When she tried to use her left arm she half screamed half growled in agony and fell to the floor. Damn it, she couldn't slow down for any reason. She moved across the floor in almost a worm style before she got her right arm under her and crawled as best she could for it. Pain was getting in the way and she couldn't allow it. This was a battle and weakness was not an option. Her life depended on it. George's life depended on it. Every second felt like an eternity. At any moment she expected to hear a cry of pain, a groan, or even a dying gurgle from George or the creatures claws in her back.

Finally Saya's hand found the hilt of her weapon and she pushed up with just her legs. When she steadied herself she turned back to the noises the monster was making. It was pinning George to the ground. The man had the shotgun in his hands, one hand holding the barrel and the other holding the opposite ending. He was using it to fend of its mouth. It had its teeth sunk into the barrel and its large arms on either side of him. So far he was managing to fend it off.

Saya braced her legs under her and leapt into the air, jumping over the remains of the table. While the jarring force of her landing was of considerable discomfort with her injuries she couldn't let that slow her down. By this point Karl had yanked away the gun George was using to defend himself. Saya charged at him, sword in a ready position at her waist; unwaivering despite her speed. Karl seemed to recognize his danger for he grabbed George and yanked him off of his back, turned, and held him out as almost a shield against Saya.

Saya didn't slow down. She kept coming, her mind working fast to sift through her options. For one she wasn't allowed to simply cut through the man being dangled about a foot off of the ground, but she couldn't allow...then she had an idea. Just before getting into striking distance, Saya dropped onto one knee and slid underneath and passed George. Blood splattered everywhere as she came up with her sword, slicing its leg off just above the knee. With a howl of pure agony Karl came crashing to the floor, releasing George to drop along side it. With a twirl of the blade Saya reversed the swing in the same move she got to her feet again. In the next instant Karl's head rolled across the floor and the body's began to thrash around, one of its claws nearly gouging George right in the face. Thankfully he had the sense to roll away.

Saya stood, poised for another strike even though she knew it wouldn't be necessary. With the amount of blood it had lost it would die like this. Her eyes never wavering Saya watched coldly as the death throes weakened, slowed, and then stopped altogether. Karl Fei-Ong was dead.

George wasn’t quite sure where he was; he could tell there was light filling the room he was in, harsh fluorescent light, and his lips felt dry and his body stiff. His injured wrist throbbed painfully, and for a few fuzzy moments he struggled with the memory of what had made it hurt so badly. Like a forgotten dream coming back in foggy pieces, the events of the previous night were slowly coming back to George. The last thing he remembered was the flood of relief he’d felt as his reflexes had saved him, even on the edge of unconsciousness, from being torn through by an enormous claw.

George sat bolt upright as the ramifications of that memory finally hit him, and he was almost put right back down by the excruciating pain in his head. It didn’t take rocket science to tell where he was, deducing from the equipment that surrounded him and the fact that a hospital bed was what he’d almost toppled back onto. Archer’s worried face swam before him as the man finally noticed Saya’s handler was awake.

“You awake?” the man asked cautiously. George didn’t even bother to nod the affirmative, irritated at Archer’s pointless question seeing as he was obviously awake, but instead focused his energy on speaking.

“Karl,” George struggled with the words, his mouth thick and bad-tasting. “What happened…”

“Karl is dead,” Archer assured him. “Saya must have killed him after you lost consciousness. She pulled you out of there. You’re pretty banged up, but you’ll be alright.”

“How is Saya?” George asked immediately. He had seen the girl’s left arm practically snapped in half; she must be much worse for wear than he was.

Archer glanced over to the far corner of the room, and as George followed his line of vision he found the dark-haired girl standing by the window, watching the two of them impassively. She had been so quiet he hadn’t noticed her. He also noticed that both her arms seemed perfectly intact. “She’s fine.”

George nodded to her, taking on an entirely new respect for the girl. Well, to be quite honest, George’s opinion of her had greatly changed as soon as they’d set foot in Karl’s house. He hadn’t realized just how powerful this girl was, or how dangerous. He had seen the power of Chiropterans in Vietnam and couldn’t believe that Saya’s sixteen year-old body could rival it, but he had been wrong; his beliefs had been shaken. She was more than he ever could have imagined. Part of him wanted to compliment her, to comfort her or tell her how well she had done and how brave she had been, but all he had to do was look at her face to know that wasn’t she wanted. She didn’t need his encouragement or his recognition. She just needed to do her job.

“You need to rest,” Archer said, handing George a plastic cup of pills along with some water.

“What are these?” George asked, leaning back against the wall in an attempt to stop the throbbing in his head.

“Just painkillers,” Archer replied. George shook his head (not the brightest idea in his condition), and set them on the tray by his bed.

“I have to get home to Kai and Riku. I need to be awake.”

“Kai and Riku are safe. You need the medicine, George,” Archer replied with a worried look on his face.

“Where are they?”

“They’re staying with Mrs. Kinjo for a few days until you get better. We called and she agreed to take care of them for awhile, although she did leave a message on your house phone saying your oldest son didn’t come home last night.”

George sighed; Kai did have a habit of staying out all night, regardless of whether or not there was school in the morning. He’d been trying to convince his eldest for quite some time now that he was making a mistake where that was concerned, especially given the group of boys Kai ‘hung out’ with on a nightly basis, but all his efforts seemed to do was damage their relationship even further. There had been a period where their only communication was done through shouting, much to Riku’s dismay, but now it seemed almost easier just not talking to Kai at all.

“Where did you say I was?” George asked. He would need to know his alibi in the face of any questioning he might receive, as much as it pained him to lie to his sons.

“We said you’d been hit by a hit-and-run driver. They know you’re alright but as far as they know, you’re still unconscious. So taking a few painkillers,” Archer prompted, trying to hand George the pills again, “Won’t make a difference to anything except your own comfort.”

George shook his head firmly. “I need to leave.”

“Not yet. You’re not getting discharged until you rest.” Shifting uncomfortably under George’s glare, he added, “And there are a few things we need to talk about.”

George raised his eyebrows. “Like what?”

“Just procedures. You obviously can’t talk about this to anyone, although of course you knew that.” Archer laughed nervously, a bad attempt to lighten the mood. The man was uncomfortable about something, something George couldn’t quite put his finger on. But from the rapid way Archer was talking, barely pausing for breath, George got the distinct feeling that he didn’t want to be asked any questions. “All the paperwork’s been taken care of, and some of our people higher up are making sure the police don’t actually investigate the hit-and-run driver story. The driver can’t be traced, anyway, so it was the closest to perfect alibi we could come up with.”

“What about Karl? How are you covering his death?” George asked.

Archer’s mouth opened for a few seconds with nothing coming out of it, and then he let out a sort of strangled sound followed by a sigh. His behavior was seriously starting to worry George. What the hell was going on?

“He’s been identified as another victim of the serial killer.”

George was incredulous. Archer met his glare, embarrassment and defeat written clearly in his own expression, which was received none too kindly by his colleague.

“What do you mean ‘another victim of the serial killer’? He was the serial killer,” George said cautiously, daring to hope that what Archer had just implied was far from the truth.

Unfortunately for him, Archer shook his head. “The public doesn’t know that Karl was the serial killer. They can’t know. As far as they’re concerned, Karl Fei-Ong just disappeared. As far as they know, he was just another victim.”

“Why?” George shouted, not bothering to suppress his inward explosion of anger and indignity. “Why would you do that? These people have a right to know that the bastard who killed their children is gone! They’ll always be left with a hole, a void. I’m a father. My children... my children are my life.”

“Do you really think the satisfaction of revenge is going to fill that?” Archer said. “I know it’s a movie cliché, but it’s also correct. Revenge drives people to try and satisfy wrongs done to them, but the wrongs are still there. You’ve just said it; your children are your life. The satisfaction of your revenge will still leave that hole.” Again Archer was trying to turn on the charm, as he always did when trying to convince someone else of his point of view.

“Yes, let’s leave the people in fear in order to cover our asses.” George continued; his frustration far from spent. “Let’s allow kids to worry about which of their friends is next. Let’s allow parents to fear for their children’s life. Let’s let people look over their shoulders for a stalker that is non-existent. Paranoia can ruin lives.”

“It is right that they should be afraid.” Saya’s voice cut through George’s mental haze like a knife and both men looked at her. By now she’d stepped away from the window and over to the bed. “There are others out there.”

“What?” George could hardly believe his ears.

“While in Karl Fei-Ong’s home I caught at least three distinct scents. The overpowering one was his. It was his lair. The others have at least visited there once. These people have a right to fear. There are wolves among the sheep.”

George felt a leaden weight in the pit of his stomach. There were more of them. There would be more blood spilt before this was all done. “So Karl wasn’t the only one killing them?”

“That’s very likely, although the evidence all points to the murder’s we were tracking all leading to Karl. The fact remains there could be bums that disappear that no one notices. Murder’s disguised as suicides or natural deaths. Yes, we may have stopped the high school killings, but Okinawa is still their feeding ground.” Archer explained, glad the conversation was beginning to steer away from conflict.”

George gulped. Took a few seconds to clear his head and asked. “What are we going to do?”

“Kill them all.” Saya answered simply.

George looked her straight in her cold, blue eyes and he held her gaze. They were eerie barriers between him and what really went on in there. Still, he could practically feel the intensity that burned inside of her. “I want in. I want to help you finish this.”

“Well that was the plan. But we’ll talk about that later. Right now let’s talk about pain killers.”

“You’re going to have to start attending school again, just in case the things have any more ties to the place. It might not have just been Karl preying on the girls.” Archer said to Saya as they walked back to the van. George was walking in a rather amusing, wobbly manner as best he could beside Archer. Brett had not taken it when he set off to do whatever it was he did in his free time. Saya didn’t know what the hell he got up to, nor did she care. “We’ll have to keep our eyes open.”

Saya nodded even though she disagreed. Karl was sloppy, vicious, and blood thirst, but despite that she considered him one of the easiest targets she’d ever tracked. Because of his insanity and lack of subtlety she was able to find him. Even though he was a monster he was an oddball among chiropterans. The others would likely be more cunning and would leave less bodies in their wake, if news of a death or disappearance turned up at all. Not to mention Karl’s death would leave any Chiropterans in the area quite wary. Something had killed one of their kind and the only thing going for her was the fact they didn’t know who, what, or how.

As Saya got into the car her thoughts shifted to George’s talk of loss and fear. The man had proven himself a warrior in Karl’s home. That had earned him enough respect from her for her to listen to him. She understood the feelings behind his words. She’d mused on loss and fear many a time. Now was one more to add to the number

Kaori jumped at the sound of a knock on her door and hastily wiped the thin, wet sheen caused by her tears off of her face. One would think that she would stop falling apart every time she thought about her friend. If anything it had gotten worse. Yui's body had been found earlier that morning. Now it wasn't just speculation. She knew for sure her friend was dead. She'd spent most of the day up here, looking at the all of the pictures she had of Yui and her friends. Each one was a walk down memory lane paved in blood or a reminder of what she could lose in the future. Every time she looked at Mao's face in one of the pictures terror ate away at her insides. Mao could be the next victim. Every day there was a chance it could be the last day for to see her friend again.

"Yes mom?" Kaori called out. She already knew who it was. Her mother was the only other person in the house. Barely a second later she realized having the photo album out in plain sight might be dead giveaway as to her plight and she quickly buried it in her blankets.

The doorknob turned and Suko Kinjo opened the door. Leaning in she said with some concern. "Dear, there's someone here to see you." The look of pity on her face was worse than normal. Sometimes Suko could act like any normal mother with her, other times she treated her like glass. This was one of the latter. "Are you alright with seeing people or do you want me to..." She trailed off. Kaori caught the meaning well enough however.

"No, its okay. I'm..." She couldn't say the word fine. Her lips moved but no sound came out. But Suko too understood. Her daughter felt horrible, but wanted to tough it out as best she could. She had, after all, had Kai and Riku staying in the same house with her until yesterday while the search was still ongoing. Who knew maybe this could take her mind off of the tragedy. Of course it was equally as likely this newcomer wanted to talk to her about it, in which case certain safety measures needed to be taken.

She disappeared from the door and Kaori heard her voice echoing from somewhere a little bit further down the hallway. "Head on in, but she has chores she needs to do so you girls might not have very long." When she heard that Kaori almost smiled. Good old mom. The chores would be her way out when she couldn't handle the company any more.

Needless to say of all the people she expected to walk through the door at that moment the new girl, Saya Otonashi, was the furthest from the mark. Kaori's mouth actually dropped an inch when Saya entered the room and stood stock still after taking three steps in. Saya's eyes were no less warm even though the setting had changed. Her expression was blank, which was preferable to the fierce one she wore the last time she'd seen her.

"Um, hello." Kaori tried to make her greeting feel warm, but it sounded more nervous than anything else. The awkward silence that followed wasn't helpful. Saya just stood there, staring at her. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? The last time she'd seen Saya was when she'd fought with Mao. The girl hadn't shown up to school since then. How was she supposed to feel? This girl had been... less than sensitive or tactful about Yui and even though Kaori was not one to hold a grudge the girl hadn't seemed to keen on being buddy buddy with anyone. She just didn't seem the sympathetic type nor did she seem like a gossip hound here for the latest news.

Silence reigned for several seconds. Seconds turned into minutes... well if they weren't actually minutes they certainly felt like it. "Um, would you like to sit down or something?" Kaori asked, nervously running her hand over her head, feeling more skin than hair. It wasn't growing back as quickly as she'd hoped. Yui had said it was coming back nicely, but Mao had been brutally honest about it not to mention right. Realizing she'd inadvertently brought attention to one of the many signs of her illness Kaori attempted to stretch out her arm like that was all she meant to do and patted the bed. "You can sit down if you like." Saya didn't answer. She simply stared at the place on the bed Kaori had patted like it was going to bite her and she should kill it before it did so. "Its okay." Kaori said, misreading Saya. "I'm not contagious or anything. I'm just..." Kaori sighed and deflated. She was used to people either treating her like glass or treating her like she was a rat scratching black death bearing flees off of herself. She'd given this explanation many times, but it never got any easier. Much the opposite. "I've got a kind of cancer of the...well in my blood. Its called Leukemia. In some cases its treatable and others its not. We've been trying to um... fix mine for a while now, but it keeps coming back. You can't catch it from me though or anything like that."

"I know." Saya said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Slowly she approached the bed and sat down, or at least tried to. Halfway down she tensed and lifted herself back up with just her legs, an incredible feat of lower body strength and balance in and of itself. Then, without a word, she reached down and pulled the blankets off of where she'd just plunked down. There was the album, still open. From where it lay now Saya had probably sat down directly on the binder rings, which must not have been very comfortable.

"I'm so sorry. I forgot that was there. I didn't mean..." Kaori stopped when she realized Saya was paying her not even a bit of attention. Instead she was studying the album intently. Kaori looked down and mentally groaned. All of the pictures on the two pages were of Yui. "Um...about that...I was..." Kaori felt tears begin to well up once more, but forced herself to hold them back. Her lips quivered as she fought back a sob. She didn't need to get this emotional now, especially with how cornered she felt. Maybe having the company wasn't such a good idea.

Now Saya looked at her. Her expression had changed yet again. It wasn't angry, cold, or even void. While her icy blue eyes still had the qualities that unnerved Kaori there was something else now. It wasn't pity. Kaori knew that kind of look all too well. While many people showed her pity in different ways she always recognized it. This was more of a sympathy. Others might not distinguish between the two, but she did. Somehow it felt like the wall that separated them had a small chink in it and Kaori saw a fragment of what she herself felt. This girl, Saya, had lost someone very important to her once, possible more than one person over the course of her life. It was understanding almost. Saya picked up the book in one hand, turned, and sat down next to Kaori. Then without a word she handed it over to her.

Kaori accepted the book hesitantly and then looked down. The pictures told a sort of time line based story of a day she and Yui had spent at the mall. Mao had joined them halfway through, but only because they promised to go to the cinema. "I don't think these were taken more than a year ago." She found herself talking. "It was kind of the three of us since middle school. We got so comfortable around each other we could do or say almost anything. Like this." Kaori pointed to one where Yui had come up from behind her and seemed in the process of dropping and ice cube down Kaori's almost non-existent bosom. "Mao took this picture. I think she knew Yui was going to do that. I think she even planned it with her."

Kaori paused in her one-sided reminiscing to glance at Saya. The girl was still watching her intently. The sympathetic expression was gone now, replaced by her usual blank one, but Kaori had her attention. She wasn't moving, she wasn't leaving, she wasn't telling Kaori to go away and leave her alone. She just watched her. Like with the expression before it was almost like a subliminal communication occurred. She felt alright with continuing. The girl wouldn't leave and would allow her to share with her whatever she wanted, whether it was part of the burden or simply Kaori's fond memories. Such an odd way of supporting someone. What a strange girl.