Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Throughout this mansion of eerie woe I saw one such as this, a huntress, hooded cloaked in red scarlet with abrasions littered about her body. Her face aged yet none so fair to say withered. Mine ever pale as the sunlit moon and never a tarry to my complexion yet. Tis a curse to be born such a thing but tis a blessing to be made by one. A horror crept from behind her majesty, cold hands restless and weary, his eyes blackened by death. My blade was my finger and in an instant he was no more. I wordlessly never registered the movement I made, chocking up my grand history as her Countess as my instinct for valor. Her eyes glancing to my form smiling as I lovingly rubbed her arm with the movements of a domesticated house cat. My purr imminent from her aura, an atmosphere she exuded since birth. Her coming-of-age restitution never daunting her. A truly intimidating warrior, one I thought so frightening at one time. Those times have long passed, our manor all to our own. Her vices of the flesh, inhaling and drinking leisurely without a care should anyone dare interrupt her. I, in turn, took my fill of her body both by bed and neck till death did she part me. It was a most sordid state of affairs, yet all the more enticing. Her manservant gone the way of endless, violent war and her Count all but lost, I was the only void to fill her heart. And fill her, I did. 

And then there came a time, not too much longer after our loneliness of the Counts and Pip’s demise weighed heavy on us so, that we felt the need to consummate this loss. I felt elated by her willingness, her eyes staring back with libido black. I was rendered helpless to her sun, a visage of sex so violently controlling I could do nothing but cry in ecstasy. Couldn’t reciprocation be in my toil, a lost form to me as one I held so dear was now deep within my breast? I so wished to return to my state of life, static burned out by her endless glow. The feel of her hands upon me, still youthful and placation unneeded for her ministrations. The way she laughed only then, nary a tint of sarcasm or queer malice about her. I was anew in her midst.

But…that truly did nothing for her. I felt only an anchor, castaway, drifting endless to the depths. Am I not worthy of one such as her? Even then, when she so willingly offered me her digits crimson that lustful night, it was only a blade sharpened by her merciless intent to annihilate Goebel’s Hellish followers. Her neck offered to me, my teeth the sooth-sayer lest I never be her guillotine. And I had taken pleasure in our mutual affection. The time we spent was ethereal. I always feared the fleeting gestures we partook. Were they as conscious to me as to her? Would she decide one day I was no longer her fledgling. Our Count is gone, I am but a poor substitute. My rope was hung loose, ready for my neck to tear; 

Yet, I bit it off. 

I said with assured sorrows thrown aside, “We shall plunge forth from this sea of needless depression, your morose emptiness no longer satiated by false misgivings of our love. I shall find another, a one to be so worthy of your presence, the very hairs on her head will worship to thine every command.”

And so I waited. Waited while she took to sweet mourning and jealous lies permeated about me from behind my absence. ‘Lady Integra weeps now, weeps for the Count’s final hours. She has never been so fragile, I feel a kinship with her now,” they would say, forgetting their place in God’s equation. I took to my vessel, much as my Count. I struck forth to the night’s sky, my wings spread and flapping as the land before me dissipated into the cumulus nether. My rise swift and knowing, with no cause to slow down. The years of learned mischief and memory lived on in me now, guiding my steps with such efficient prowess. His eyes widened with mine, the caustic accent still ringing heavy in my head: “Ah, Mon Cherie, what Madame could possibly be as magnifique as y tu?” 

With the best amount of grace I could muster, I spoke back to him, though how livid I was I must communicate with my brandished Cockney speech; how simple it must seem to non-English men and women that we all sound the same, rest assured, it is NOT the case:

“Pip, you speak ta me’ one more time bout’ this, I’ll tear ye’ from me breast meself.”

The nerve of the dead talking back. He knew as well as I what this was really about. To bring her a new “Count”, a Countess, one who could match such beauty, as hers wanes here on Earth. Time was yet fleeting always for humanity and so I, the superior must make it my mission to make best these short lives they undertake. For I am now, Eternal.

_

Given the days come and gone, without a suitable candidate in sight, I spoke of the rotten luck this gift had brought me. How I so loathed in then and how I could not live without it now. The last vestiges in my mind of my former life crumbling in my cerebrum: my sexist colleagues in the academy, now nothing but shit in the land’s waste. And my Count who so carefully crafted me from a blithering vampire, unholy yet whimpering into an ungodly deity, an Elysium form, lethal yet unnerved by anything. And now I could so easily slice the living flesh of my enemies before their minds could tell; I chose not to. A portion left of my humanity, I suppose. 

Did I need it? 

No. No, it was unnecessary now.

Those were vast illusions, delusion of grandeurs. No more could I cling to such mortal ideals. As a child, born of Satan’s wrath, I muster my darkest evils about me and join in Pandemonium’s’ celebration. I thought at first, “Should I find another Count? One who would be a new bloodline to me?”  Yet every man I met was without the slightest invocation of worth. I tried mortal men as well, some fine but none too awe inspiring. The underlying feeling I got was every single one of them had a chauvinist virus lurking inside. 

Like you could be better than me. I am undead and a goddess amongst you peons. 

That I do not rain my hate upon you is your only blessing!

That I do not rend your bodies dry by my whim is your ONLY SAVING CONSIDERATION!

THAT I DO NOT TEAR YOUR LOVED ONES LIMB FROM LIMB AND TORMENT YOU TILL YOUR UNTIMELY END IS YOUR ONLY ULTIMATE SALVATION!

I AM COUNTESS SERAS VICTORIA AND 

YOU 

WILL 

BOW  

BEFORE MY MIGHT!

_

The dark morir spreading by nightshade, a coarse underling begs me so. Their words rang hollow in my undead ears, speaking tinny to such a lifeless being as I. Her stature is tall yet capable I admitted, yet her experience is severely lacking. 

What was I to do with her?

Chapter Text

Akashiya Moka

_

1 Year ago

He was there, lifeless in a ditch. My father dead before him.

And I, by his neck till the end.

It was not that I felt the need to leave his cold body lying dead alone. His demonic possession ended by the fight before us, Mizore and Kurumu by my side now, sharing the tears we had, for such a man he was. The toils we had now faced, gone. In the face of such odds, the victory we had now was true, living even. 

I cried for his soul gone now to the highest Heaven, a place I should never join him.

Those last few moments, where I so desperately poured my blood into his veins, so wishing for him to rise from his catatonic state were all for naught. His ghoulish power turned Shinso and then gone in an instant.

The perversions he had been set upon were unfair, trials he should never have undergone. No matter his latent ability, it felt like I was the one who laid his head upon the scythe in the end. My Father was unforgiving in his universal hate and that cost them both dearly. It cost us as well. 

His body burned and battered by my father’s malice, one he had defeated, his valor never forgotten. 

He was now laid out to rest before me, his coffin grand and wake magnificent.

“My dearest Tsukune, you shall alway be remembered in these darkest of days.”

I suppose you look down on me now, wishing we may have lived out our days together. My immortality notwithstanding, our children would be merry boys and girls, trouncing about your family house as I look after their wellbeing, a loving mother even after death do us part. You may have even seen them grow into fine young men and women, eager to see their loving father in his last days upon God’s grounds.

The Oni would welcome them, not as half-breeds ill gotten by sacrilegious fornications, but as beings akin to the love all society wished to share with one's so pure. Our lights of shining embers, a flame unkindled.

Alas, it was not to be.

I saw Kurumu and Mizore, now destined together, themselves found in each other. His death shocked us all, myself most obviously. Yet still, our days of friendly rivalry over him were still in the wake of their minds.

The times we shared should have been everlasting but they would fade away like the morning rains gone by.

_

His funeral was lined with all faculty, staff, students, and surrounding parties. It seemed all schools knew of his brave sacrifice in the wake of a tragic onslaught upon us, Yokai and Human. All who stood within his way, obstacle or assistance, felt the abyss of hope from his eternal absence. The gray mixture of the springs lofty sakura's, dancing about endlessly as his body was brought forward down the stone pathway, all denizens by the sides grieving in synchronized woe.

And I, the “widow”, walking silently beside the wooden casket, my shroud hiding my horrified face. 

“Will you remember me, dear love? Even now your death weighs deep to all, seeing the burning of your tortured body lay at my feet. The coffin is empty and your atoms are dust in the wind.”

“Will you remember me up there, in God’s kingdom, as I had remembered you?”

Still my facade ever broken, my hair shimmered alight underneath the veil. My rosary broken and his holy lock smashed to pieces, clasped in my hands as I would never feel the touch of his pull on it again...a memory I too fondly looked upon now. It only brought more sorrow the more I let my mind wander more.

_

Father was given a funeral unworthy of his standing, no grander than that of a Ghoul. A man so plagued by his malicious thoughts, he forced his will upon others, wishing domination of all. And then, he was snuffed out by the very thing he despised most. Humans. In the end Tsukune and Father were the same, two great men struggling to achieve their goals. While Tsukune was a holy man through and through, I had no ill will towards the Count of my birth. However righteous one seemed to the other was not of my concern. 

I only thought of how they were both very dear to me.

I saw the other widow of the hour, Akasha Bloodriver, my dearest mother failing to suppress her tears as well. She had come again now, unleashed from my rosary and living from her attempted shared suicide with Father. Her eyes still showed a youth all their own but his passing gripped us all. My sisters by my side as well saw Father lowered into the ground.

That she wished to end together with him was a romantic one and yet she could not join him in his final happiness. She would stay, tied to the ground of immortals as the rest of my family would.

Killed and then revived without consent.

The Shuzen Family, half gone with no master to come back to and the other half left to see their loved one off. 

_

Father was a man of stature no one could compare, I had once thought.

His radiance everlasting and a smile that could melt the sun. The Count of tales yonder, Dracula. Everyone had heard of his endless reign, peaceful yet continuous. Through his unending existence, he faced countless foes and obstacles and became the strongest lineage of them all.

A Count worthy of God’s blessings.

And then, he was taken.

No, not by another or himself, no. By greed, by vengeance, by Satan’s otherworldly grasp he was taken from us. And then given back in a form unlike any I’d ever seen. 

A form so deathly, Death himself avoided his gaze.

My father was stolen from me long ago. 

And now, at only 20, I was left with no more than myself to guide me through.

The only ones who could save me now were lost. I thought wrong, it seemed.

_

My family came to me the next week.

Their heads bowed to the exasperated, dried-teared wreck that was I, sequestered mourning by my bedside table. My eyes felt a drought by the waters that poured forth from hours upon end. My younger sister, Kokoa, rushed to me, embracing me as hard as she could, her eyes still adjusting to the sadness inside them. My older sister, Akua, feeling nothing but the vice grip she had on her arm in the doorway, a look of pure disdain as she stood, head turned away from me.

Mother came towards, face wracked with guilt as she attempted to console me in the only way she knew how.

“Daughter, dearest Moka, there...will be another. I promise you. Only thinking of this man, however great he was, will bring you disaster. I do not wish to see my kin like this. I do not wish for you to live out your eternal life haunted by his memories unbegotten. He was valiant, yes and I believed he truly loved you; you had my blessing. It is just, he was human. Even Shinso, he could not possibly have stood up to Alucard and yet, he overcame him. He saved you and all of the student body with his actions. He saved us all. My husband, would've wanted it...this way.”

She hugged me to her chest, as a mother I felt would do.

“There will be another. To quell this ache of loss that now grips your very undeath. I know of it. I have felt it for so long. When I met Alucard, he pulled me away from these lovers almighty and thrust me into the fantasies of my wildest grandeur. But I loved him, and even now, saw his pain in murdering that boy. I tell you now, his unearthly reign sought revenge and your love destroyed him. 

He was already dead. I had married a man like him knowing his time would come. 

A bloodless warrior to the end.”

She did not mean that literally, as we all knew we were dead. She meant it as a grim reminder, the dark path he chose despite his infinite wisdom over hundreds of years.

For Tsukune to free him from himself; it was the only comfort I could see.

Suddenly, Akua came forward now, still hesitant to look me in the eye.

“You know, dear sister, that guise you used is now gone. Annihilated. Your true self is visible to all. How will you hide from these things anymore?”

“Akua, now is not the time to b-” my mother lightly scolded her.

“NO! It NEEDS to be said! You have nothing but the greatest lineage of all time and yet, you sully yourself with that man. His mere transformations were an abomination brought on by the Academy’s evil. You hide yourself behind this perverted fetish of a girl, nothing more than a tramp that means nothing to you. And yet still, for what reason would you do these things, when we love you more than anything?

Those girls, they loved him too. All of them. He was a human; it would never have worked anyway. And father, he was a great man, even if his ideas in the end were of nothing but destruction. He...didn’t deserve a death like that. 

“Akua-oneesan, what do you mean?” I asked, completely distraught by her words.

I , love you more than anything.”

She came forward trying to quicken the steps between us.

“I, love you. Aishiteru, Moka-onee.”

She pushed Mother aside gently and leaned up to me. My face beyond surprised, still with dried streams down my cheeks.

“Do you not return my feelings, as “taboo” as they may SEEM TO YOU?”

I looked stunned by her audacity. To think, I, well...it was Akua after all.

“Sister, please give me time to grieve his passing. Please, I cannot even think about anything else right n-”

“NO!” she screamed at me.

She gripped my wrists and pushed me further on the bed. She tried to kiss me but I moved away. I couldn’t take this right now. I felt I’d collapse in a heap from the shock alone.

“AKUA SHUZEN! How DARE YOU!”

Mother grabbed her off the bed and slapped her across the face. Kokoa was startled, frightened by the scene before her.

“WHY?! WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT, SO...OPENLY?!” Mother yelled at Akua, her anger higher than I’d ever seen.

“BECAUSE THIS IS HOW I’VE FELT FOR SO LONG! YOU KNOW OF THIS PAIN ALL TOO WELL! YOU FEEL THE-... I CANNOT BURY THESE FEELINGS ANYMORE THAN SHE CANNOT BURY HERS FOR THAT, THAT- ARRRRRGH!!!”

Whatever she wanted to say, she could not will herself to do so and I feared I could never forgive her if she did.

Mother turned to me and wished to apologize but I was so taken back at Akua’s proposal.

I finally spoke up.

“I...I need time. We all do. To heal. While all our emotions may run high now, Mother and I have felt the greatest loss this last day. Do we not deserve our time of grief?”

Akua looked at me, heartbroken that I did not reciprocate, and left in an instant, slamming the door behind her. That only made me more upset.

I began crying once more, though from where this sorrow came I was not sure but I felt Kokoa and Mother embrace me. I laid my head on their shoulders, wanting only to hear silence.

_

I came to see Kahlua a month later. Though previously an assassin, she was now wrought with envy of us all, her being transfixed on serving Father. She sat in a study of his own private chalets, pondering her next move in life. I felt she would stake herself if I did not come soon.

“I see you come to cavort yourself around me once more,” she was predictably hurt by my “intrusion” as she felt I would do nothing but rub our Father’s death in her face. But that was of course, not my intention.

“I come to see you. To see you after so long a miserable life it must have been. To have known a person to turn so wrong, I know that now and see the rotten fruits of his reign. I come to bandage these things from our previous encounters.”

She turned from me, refusing to even give me the time of day.

“That you would lay with that human is beyond me; and that Succubus and Yuki Onna, were they not comfortable enough for you? Were you not content enough to abandon us all in search of such trifles as love with that filth?”

Her scathing remarks would have ended me at his passing but now I was steeled, more ready to face such challenges.

“They were and still are my friends. My cherished companions. You attempted to murder them all and when Miyabi withdrew you fell as well. You renounced your days as a killer.

Even after dear Kokoa killed you, I felt your softness the days we spent together. 

I know there is good in you. I will love you forever, till God takes my ash from the final obliteration of all things.”

Kahlua scoffed, getting up from her chair and looking out towards the moon, a sad look about her.

“There is no God, dear sister. That you would buy into such feeble ideas as ones prescribed by a Human is truly disappointing. But I will admit one thing.

One shared by our dearest Akua. One shared by all of the Shuzen family.

You, I loved you most of all. Even after that dwarf killed me, I loved you. It is by Miyabi’s blood I live now, haunted by my visions of death. 

And now that I have returned, I have nothing. 

Miyabi is dead, Alucard is dead, Gyokuro is dead.

They’re all dead now.

Kuyo said I was too pure to die and now I desperately want to. I tried multiple times. I even asked Alucard to kill me himself but he refused.

But you won’t grant me my death, will you now?”

I looked at her, so pitying her second life to be nothing more than a hollow shell.

“Do you not see sister? The life of our mother, the life of us all being saved by the likes of him is outrageous? I cannot begin to fathom the horror our Mother is in, her one wish of death like mine dashed. They bring us back, back from our end, the end we so wished for for years upon years and think nothing of those consequences. And for what? NOTHING! They think NOTHINg of what happens after! Ahhhh...uhhhhhh,

...All... I want to do, is rest now.”

She held a knife to her throat, plunging it straight through and out the other side, her wound healing in an instant. She grimaced at it and tried once more, failing again.

“If only I could die like that man did,” I saw her eyes tear up in frustration.

I ran to her and wrenched the knife out of her hand, loosened by her dread.

“NO! I will not stand for this sorrow you share with me! We must overcome it!”

She pulled back from me, my grip tightening.

“OVERCOME WHAT?! OVERCOME SORROW?! MY ENTIRE LIFE AND DEATH IS SORROW! THAT I WALK THIS EARTH NOW IS SORROW! THAT I SPEAK WITH YOU NOW IS SORROW! THAT I NOT KISS YOU RIGHT HERE IS MY SORROW UNBOUND!

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHY I HAVE TO SUFFER LIKE THIS?!”

I felt my only course of action was to grant her that wish. So I did.

I kissed her.

She felt like a cold steel chain, endlessly binding me to her. Her lips a dark soot, the sordid taste of death. But still, I would not recoil.

She gave in now, wanting something in life it seemed, however unhappy her undeath made her.

_

We separated, a string coiled from our mouths.

She, for what it was worth, looked flushed, a sign there was some enjoyment at least.

“There, there dear sister. Do you feel content, just a slight?”

She reared back and walked back to her chair. Her eyes closed in contemplation, the misery perhaps leaving a sojourn from her for a while at least. She sat puzzled, by my assumption, until finally she spoke again.

“That’s it? You wish only to kiss me to quell my emotions? A meaningless gesture then. How heartless you are truly, dear sister.”

She expected more it seemed and though Akua and Kokoa were closer to me, I dared not cross that path with any of them. Not...now.

“Kahlua-onee, I can only give you what I’m comfortable with. I cannot...cross “that” bridge.”

“How you say “that,” like it’s some sort of horrible thing. Ah yes, for you, a “Holy Woman,” it wouldn’t dare occur to you to lay with your kin. Incest is beneath you, I forgot. My mistake, you probably think us vermin for even suggesting it,” she laughed bitterly.

I felt unnerved that my sisters would now speak to me so brazenly now. At first, I took Kokoa’s “affections” as simply a blind adoration of my true form.

But, now, I was “out in the open”, as Akua put it. My inner self had been sealed away for so long I had forgotten the lust many had for me. And now, it was just me. My “inner” Moka.

“I...cannot do this anymore. I cannot live in this spiral of love and hate my family perpetuates.”

“TOO BAD!” she appeared before me instantly, my hair blown back from the speed she used.

“How fragile you are now, my dear sister. I saw you once as an unyielding force, capable of splitting your enemies in two, and now you are but a mouse and I, the feline who has gotten bored of your tireless scampering.”

I stood, trying to maintain composure.

“You can’t choose family, Moka! We are all you’ll EVER have!

And when you leave us for so long, what are we to do? Just forgive you? No, I daresay even Akasha wants you this way. I know it. I’ve heard her whisper sweet nothings about you. Her own daughter. And who would blame her? At 500 years, she looks like she hasn’t aged a day over 20. She’d be perfect for you, perfect for all of this. She can’t deny her urges for so long, especially after our Father’s passing. You can brutally deny it from her all you like but your time with the half breeds and lower bloods has clouded you. THEY ARE BENEATH YOU.

The only way family can exist is to be with family. For you to not marry a full blood and instead trounce about with that disgusting creature is so vile I can scarcely look at you now. 

And when I had loved you so much. Even when Blooddriver brought herself to accept your crime as merely the “whisper’s of the heart”.

Pshaw...such drivel. There is no such useless “freedom.” 

You are born with family and you die with family. That is the ultimate pleasure of life.

To see you with another fullblood would caress me so. Man or woman, it matters not to me.

To see you married to my sisters would warm my heart. They would be so overtaken with your love.

To see you married to his majesty would soothe my blackened soul. 

He would have been wonderful for you.

To see you married to our stepmother would bring me such joy. Her heart sewn together again from the morrows she’s gone under.

And to see you married to me, THAT, would complete me. Utterly, fully, complete me.”

Her voice was nothing but sincere and our close proximity made me think she’d dive in once more. 

But she made no such move. Instead her eyes teared up and I saw her so fragile now, as if she’d break into a thousand pieces in my arms.

“Why? Why do you come here? Just to...to...RIDICULE ME? I am DEAD, dear sister! This body you see before you is nothing but a shell of a woman long gone. I have told you my feelings and I know you don’t feel that way about me. 

So, just leave. 

Just leave me if you will not grant my wish of death or wish of sex. 

You pain me far greater than any wound I've incurred.”

I was speechless before her, looking deep into her bloodshot eyes.

“Sister I-”

“You either grant my wish or we are sisters no more. No family of mine can look at me that way.”

I had nothing to say but I didn't want to just turn around and leave. So I kissed her goodbye.

“I hope one day we meet again and you can come to forgive me,” I turned to leave just as she had hugged me from the back.

She whispered, “If that day does come, for all of the love I have, the cherished times we had, and for our mother’s blessing, I will honor that hope. 

But, if you come back before then, I will kill us both in harmony and utter bliss. 

Goodbye, my love. 

Aishiteru, Moka-onee.”

She then pushed me away, past the doors and into the hallway.

And that was the last I saw of her.

_

One last time, I would go to see them before I departed for good.

I saw Akua again after five months.

She was elated to see me but still I felt my absence waned on her far too much. Her skin had lost its alabaster white luster and her hair stayed frazzled and messy. Her eyelids sagged a bit and her eyes themselves looked tired and sad. 

Had I caused this? With my refusal to her confession? 

I felt awful even when she hugged me tightly to her, seeming to never let go. 

“Oh, how I’ve missed you, my love. How you have been robbed of me for so long; I shall never release you now for all of my undying life, lest you hate me.”

I pushed back only slightly when I showed a bit of a discomfort to the tightness she enacted.

Predictably, she moped at the sudden loss of comfort.

“Come Mother!  Come see our jewel once more!” she yelled, wanting to come to high spirits again.

I saw Mother come into Akua’s room, rushing to lift me up into the air as if I were a babe from a cradle. She hadn’t aged a day and was looking as youthful as ever; no one would ever guess she was my mother, we looked the same age. Still, I saw the same signs of wear about her, even if they were less than Akua’s.

Is it true, what Kahlua said about her?

“Oh, my dearest Moka! You come back to us now! How was...your time alone?”

She asked hesitantly as she returned me to the floor, almost expecting a refusal of her actions this far.

“I...went to see Kahlua-onee.”

The room froze as Kokoa came in and heard the commotion. She had heard the name “Kahlua” as well and all I could see was fear on her face, scared to death of her undead assassin sister.

“And...what did she say?” my Mother asked solemnly.

“She spoke about her own rebirth and how it pains her to be alive. She feels a kinship with you Mother, one in your desired death with Father.

She spoke of how I abandoned her and all of you to be with Tsukune-kun. 

She spoke of how you all loved me romantically and how leaving you unrequited was a crime punishable by death.

And she told me to never return.”

My mother was no longer jovial, looking away from me.

I turned it towards me once more by her shoulders, shaking her.

“Is it true, Mother? That you wished for that kind of relationship...with me? I understand we look the same and you’ve been sealed in me for so long, but...I’m your daughter.” I asked her steadfast, my face stoned and cold before her.

“You...you hate me now, don’t you?”

She just broke down in front of me, bawling her eyes out, a sight I never thought I’d see from her.

“Mother, PLEASE! Control yourself!”

I grasped her in my arms, hugging her with my head over her shoulder as she cried before me.

“I’ve lost Issa, I’ve lost Alucard, I’ve lost Kahlua, and now...I’ve lost YOU!”

She stayed like this for a while, finally subsiding over a long time as I patted her back in empathy. I felt more as the Mother to her now.

“That I would...love you so dear, dear Moka. Is that-is that, does that make you wretch now?”

I had not given the idea of it thought yet. I thought of my own love in Tsukune, what drew him to me. Was it him, as in his male body, his physique, his intellect? No. My love was deeper than gender and skin. I loved him for who he was, not what he was.

Maybe...maybe that’s how they felt about me. It wasn’t that I, their sister and fellow blood WAS their sister. 

It was that they loved me more, loved ME for who I was. They could only love family and family was all within their circle. The fate of a pureblooded life.

Perhaps then, Love had no boundaries. Not to me and not to them.

I, just happened to fall for a man and for them, a woman.

I thought about Kurumu and Mizore. How they must be, together now and unapologetic in their love. Heterosexuals, then Lesbians. Bisexuals. They were all human terms. Terms to separate us.

Love was love, really. One thing I was never fond of humans for was their want to separate each other. The yokai, yes there were differentiations in status and power, but we lived in harmony with others. I could kiss Kurumu, I could kiss Mizore, I could kiss Ruby, I could kiss Yukari, I could kiss Tsukune, 

If I could love them all the same, perhaps I…

No. I had to be honest.

The love I had for these women around me was only familial, nothing more, nothing less. I couldn’t go further without lying to myself. At least, for now.

But, could I pretend, for them? Give them one last time with me? Maybe I would at least enjoy their company, no matter how intimate it became. I could take it, their wants and needs. I could take them upon me, for their sakes. For if I wish to ever see them again, this may be the only solace they would ever have. I’d hate to leave on such a sour note. So much turmoil has come from the actions of that man. Perhaps I am the only one who can end that cycle.

I felt stilted in my actions now, as I pulled back slightly and kissed my mother on the lips.

She looked surprised but not unwilling in the slightest.

“If this is what you wish, Kaa-san.”

“Aishiteru, Moka-san.”

_

I laid by the bed, waiting for them to ravage me. Thinking, loving the feel of Akua by side was getting harder and harder to leave. Akasha had laid herself on the other bed now, slowly undressing. It was like I was watching myself, play with myself. As if a mirror took my image and showed both sides of me. Of who I was and who I am now.

It’s just, it was my mother, 5 centuries old and more and still a college girl with large breasts and a wonderful body. Her pink shimmer which I came to avoid in my time with Tsukune was now enticing. It was odd...though.

Not really because of the incest, I had kinda moved past that. My sisters certainly helped me and my mom just looked like another student. Yeah, that was it. She’s just like Kurumu and Mizore.

I kept telling myself that as Akua grabbed my waist gently and Akasha came over, crawling like a lioness to the bed.

I only felt sorry Kokoa could not join but she was still far too young. Off to her room, Akasha said, almost wishing her love could be fulfilled too.

She climbed up, on top of me now, and the awkwardness had gone full circle.

It felt less like I was about to make love to my mother and more like I was about to make love to myself. And though it was strange, it meant everything to me at that moment.

She pushed on my breasts softly, her face so hot with lust. 

“You know, dearest Moka, however uncomfortable this may seem, just know I will never lose you again. I protected you, all these years in that rosary you so loathed and for your memories of horrors within as well. Everything I did was for you. That’s why I couldn’t leave you just yet. I can't leave you alone. I love you all, all my children. I wish now Kahlua could join us too.

But you are my spitting image, my ideal sculpt, my perfect one.

And the fact...you...feel the same, even an iota, it brings me down from my pedestal, the daughter of Dracula...down to you, my most beloved star.”

She descended on me as she said as such, her face ripe with glee abound.

“Just think of this as the reunion of a lifetime.”

I saw her streams come down on me now, her eyes so soft with the sadness she still felt.

“Oh, Moka my dear, I’m soooo soooorry...I’ve left you alone all this time and when I saw you had made a connection with a human I should’ve been supportive. I blamed him for this, his fury unyielded. But...it was me. I had control, I had a say. I could have saved him.

I killed him.”

I had to wrap my arms around her now, she felt so weak. Nothing like a woman 500 plus years old.

“It’s okay, Kaa-san. You...didn’t do anything wrong. Tsukune, he, he would’ve rather died than let his friends be annihilated. Then let his entire race be wiped out. 

Tsukune was a good person and he died a hero. I won’t dishonor his memory now.’

She laid a top me now, her full weight pushed gingerly.

I looked over to Akua, seeing her tear up a bit too.

“Can we, “heal,” as you said, those 6 months? Heal with you, sister?”

I felt we had waited too long, tensions had run too high, and the one who birthed me was literally on my chest, so taboo or not, I was SICK of waiting.

“Yes.”

Chapter Text

_

She started a steady pace with me. Akua was in love with my chest, resting right behind me and felt Akasha caress me from the front, pushing up her breast to dock by mine. Though we look like twins, her breasts were slightly larger and they felt for lack of better word, Heavenly on mine. 

I thought of how far I strayed from God now, the God Tsukune spoke of. To lay not only with kin but with my mother as well...his God would damn me.

Ah, to Hell with God anyway. If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

“Kaa-san, you’re sooooo soft. How smooth. But...will you get undressed soon? We are still all relatively clothed.”

Mother was amazed by my words now, her face bright pink like her hair.

“Yes, I suppose we could completely disrobe.

_

I saw them now.

I suppose I had seen Akua’s but never my Mother’s. It was so smooth and befitting of our species. Shinso Vampiress, Nosferatu. Draculina. Countess.

Whatever our moniker, we were high class.

She had decided to taste mine first, my sister finally divulging her wants fully.

And as she dove I felt nothing but ecstasy. Mother had taken to my bosom again, sucking on them like I did years ago. It was so strange, how content she looked suckling sweetly on the nibs.

“Mommy, please, it feels so wonderful...just...not too hard.”

Akua was enjoying herself, as evidenced by the humming she made between my legs.

“Sister, your tongue, it’s wonderful too.”

She gave a sigh of approval, her teeth and fangs brushing by my, my “nethers.”

I just hoped she didn’t get so excited as to bite down. Then again, my thigh being punctured may feel pretty nice. Never got that far with Tsukune though…

“Akua-chan, could you move a bit higher? Nearer the….uhhh…”

“Oh, Moka-san, my dearest...you can say “pussy.” It’s not gonna hurt you, though I do love that innocence you never leave. A girl who can’t swear is such a turn on for me.”

“Can you move a bit higher, up to my...clit, then?” I said, hesitant and red as a demon.

“Gladly, dearest.” 

At that she latched onto me once more, and I felt myself getting closer and closer now.

I was no stranger to the idea. Kurumu taught me well and Mizore, well, she had a way with her hands. 

The cold felt nice in the right places.

“Oooooooh, Akua, just a, a- little more!”

“You’re enjoying her, are you? Well, I love these breasts you have, dearest. You’ve grown into a fine young woman,” Mother was milking me dry now, my teets threatening to spew happy anytime she wanted.

Oh that, was the spot. Akua had me and so did Mommy, right at the same time.

I came, lovingly.

Akua sat there and drank every drop, her mouth glued to me. She licked all the while, slowly like I was a fresh wound for her to feast on. Which, I had a feeling it would come to next.

“Moooommy, I want, want to do you too.”

There was no lie in my voice now. I’d loved this, more than I cared to admit aloud.

Next I knew she obliged, her plush butt on my face. Oh, she felt glorious.

She motioned a bit, hoping to get started soon as I saw her dripping.

“You love us so well, my sweet! How I always dreamed this day would come!”

I got to work underneath her, my tongue mirroring Akua’s previous treatment on her...pussy. I felt her coming though. Akua, she’d partake any time now…

We are Vampires, after a-

“EEEEEEEEEK!!!”

There it was.

Her fangs found their new home.

“Akua, my dear...how is her thigh? I wanted to suck on her breasts as well but I felt they’d be too sensitive for my fangs.”

I felt Mother adjust a top me, pushing down a bit into my ministrations. I redoubled my efforts, wanting her to feel as good as she made me.

“Deary, how would like me have a taste too?” I heard Mother say, as I felt Akua’s breath around my thighs and my blood slowly trickle into her mouth.

I nodded against her butt, trying to communicate via motion instead of verbally. My mouth was kind of busy right now.

I felt her bend down, pushing back on the bed till we laid opposite each other in a...69.

And then her fangs came out. Guess she couldn’t wait any longer.

They sunk tenderly into my groin, just above my flower and I was in nirvana.

Two of the finest women in the world are tending to me at the same time. I never wanted it to end.

I tried to finish Mother off now, working as well as I could without making that plunge. But then, maybe she wanted me too. We were all committing vampirism on the most lustful level now, a sin only we could enjoy to the fullest.

I joined them. I had to find the right spot and decided at the bottom of her right cheek was the nicest. I sunk in and went to work. It brought me back to Tsukune for a second, how chaste his neck must seem to them now.

I tried once with Kurumu, her blood was actually quite sweet too. Befitting of her promiscuity.

I actually wanted her here now, to join us in the debauchery with her wife as well. We could all heal together.

“AAAIAIIAIIIIIIIIIIII~!!!”

Mother creamed herself from the feeling I gave her, the whole ordeal too much.

It tasted kinda like mine actually, even a bit like Kurumu’s cherry too, just...a bit bitter.

Her age, maybe.

She got me to come the second time around too and all that was left was Akua.

Akua, who had been so giving up to this point, would now receive.

“Akua-chan, come here.”

She came to, hearts in her eyes, her life’s goal in her grasp.

“Where do you want them? I won’t waste anymore of your time.”

“My love, Moka-chan...please drink my blood from my neck. Please, I want to feel it.”

Mother came down from her high now and looked hazy at Akua.

“Akua honey, I’ll help you out in the other department. Just...lay down.”

She did as she was asked as I moved forwards, making a show of my mouth for her sweet jugular.

Mother got on top and pushed her forward, docking her breasts again. She must have a fetish for that.

“Akua dear, where do you want me now? It’s like your wildest fantasies.

 Two different Moka’s, all for you.”

Mother and I clamped down her at the same time, our synchronized pleasure radiating through her.

“My dear Moka’s...I love you SOOOOOO MUUUUCH!!!”

She was brought to climax so quickly as Mother fingered her quietly and I sucked away.

_

The aftermath of our affair now spent, I lay with them a little longer.

As long as I could.

I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. No thoughts of disgust came to mind as I looked upon their sleeping, naked bodies. Only love and the loss I would incur should I leave them behind. They slumbered so peacefully, I didn’t wish to disturb them.

So I left, without a goodbye. For I wished to meet them once more.

_

Chapter Text

Victoria

_

“What tis ya’ name, lassie, pray tell?”

She sat down, our journey far and her muscles atrophied as she woke slowly in front of me.

I gazed upon the young woman, more illustrious than I, at least with my wingspan dwarfing hers. Her eyes glistened so valiantly with the moonlight reflected upon them. Her hair, a bright silver, burning, shimmering with the trees and wind that passed throughout. Lips as untamed as the wilds, fiery pastel in rich color. Her cheeks, brilliant carmine courtesy of yours truly. A bust rivaling my own with roundness boundless. Her figure sculpted by Praxiteles, the Grecian canon adhered to the very last inch. A timeless arrow of life, spiralling through the night sky as any beauty magnificence from Pandemonium would have. 

Asmodeus, come to me so that my mind may dwindle away past this frightening love this girl elicits.

My lust unkindled, I held back, as thoughts of my ill dearest came back to me. Her poor figure taut as the last lidless nights of her passing came, bringing bloody tears to my eyes. I tore away from such distracting woes, focusing now on my task at hand.

“I am Akashiya Moka, countess of Shuzen and Lordess of Fairy Tale, dear Savior. 

And will thine tell me theirs?”

Subjected out of my stupor, I scoffed at such a felonious, abhorrent idea. To give oneself to a stranger, no matter her class. Unthinkable. As I am one so perfect as to be a high daughter of Lucifer herself, I saw no reason to divulge something so beyond her.

“I’m the one who saved you, hon’. 

Address me as “Master”. And ya’ only address me as such, git that?”

The beat quickened within her undead heart, a lilted voice threatening to spew forth from her insides. I saw the facade she took melt, as the pretty face she had turned to one of power. Her hair pearlescent now, a rapturous demon birthing from the inside out. 

She closed her eyes and wind swirled about her, the area becoming wracked with the torment of the elements.

I took a step back, marvelling at this sudden transformation.

What emerged I could only call a Goddess of Hell, one of complete control and conquering desire.

A true Devil’s kiss.

“I live to serve thee,” she said to me.

_

My time with them left me questioning so many things now.

The dark images in my head still ring forevermore across me.

_

10 Years ago

“You knew of sweet Jasmine, darling...did you not?”

Akua had struck me cold now, my face enthralled by her beauty. At such a young age, she and I were inseparable. I felt such kinship with her, as she brushed my hair by the porcelain vanity and confessed her feelings of love to whomever would listen. The feelings of her love of Vampires and their morrowind tones that would sound so lush by the night’s sky. The feelings of love towards our wondrous mother, my spitting image and celestial entity that brightened the luxurious halls a splendor by just her presence. The love of her sisters, so all-encompassing as to need no others to sustain her.

And the love of dear Father, his eminence permeating the very ground we stood upon, and everlasting radiance through time and space becoming the only truth in life.

All loves of hers,

except, me.

Oh, I knew of it. It was always in the back of my mind, how ravenous it was. How she could sooner disrobe me and curse my body asunder past any mortal pleasure demonkind could bring. 

But I was too innocent then. 

“Jasmine-san? Ai, I knew of her Onee-chan.”

I felt a slight pull on the brushes’ bristles tangling about my hair as she tried to strum through swiftly.

“She was my one. My only. To see the misery she was brought before her untimely murder...I will have my vengeance, on all of them.”

I had heard it from Mother, an all too clear tale of the evils of men and the death they brought with constant ignorance and foolishness. “The spawn of a devil,” they called her. She was skewered and set ablaze, the likes of such barbarism I hesitate to even recall the images she showed us.

Akua was smitten so fully with her, with no reprehension of gender discrimination to get in their way. And how she looked so fully like me; as if I were made whole by my copies, I turned to see my Mother in tears, keeping Akua’s misfortunes at bay.

_

4 Years ago

“You, BETRAY US! TO LAY WITH THAT...WORM! THAT HUMAN FILTH, HOW DARE Y-!”

Her visage was paler than ever, my friends near lifeless bodies by my feet. Kokoa had run her through, annihilating her lower torso entirely, and as she fell I saw the last vestiges of her hate go with her.

I ran over to Kurumu, seeing the deep gashes in her midsection from the razor sharp wings. She had a contented smile on her face as she lay almost breathless with Mizore’s mortally wounded figure by her side.

“To see my family do these things...to end all of humanity...how horrible.”

Kurumu lifted her arm up to my face, her smile still never fleeting.

“Go now, Moka-chan. Please, I don’t wish to see your eyes glisten in such pain. Let me lie here, with Mi-zo-reeee...” she stopped moving.

I laid upon her in agony, crying so profusely over my friend's corpse. 

“I can’t let it end like this. I, will save you both.”

_

The blood transfusions worked.

My blood now ran through their veins making them a part of me.

But I could no longer see them now. Just a fleeting memory…

_

“I hope those two are happy, wherever they are now.”

I had set out, away from the Academy, away from it all, towards England. The world of Japan had been a face, a folly and I felt I must reconnect with my true origins, by Transylvania and Romanian homelands. Away from them for a time and away from the memories of my love. To bereave him more would do nothing, no matter the pain I felt. I had to find someone else. Someone to attach to.  

My heart had mended what little it could from the ordeal, his presence still weary in my mind. Though, now it was more distant, a flutter sometimes. I didn’t want to forget him, truly I didn’t, but it seemed he would be lost to me in the coming years.

Such was the fate of anyone unworthy of my fullblood.

_

As I flew, I felt a pang. Deep confusion hit me like a thrown stone.

I so cursed the visions' haziness developing. My full blooded appearance, a Countess, now clashing with my frail construct. I saw the moon’s light move away from me and the clouds begin to dissipate. 

Not only my eyesight left me but my muscles became lucid, unable to hold up my wings anymore.

Am I…

Not another thought went through my head as I crashed, smashed heavy to the ground.

*SLLLLAAAAAMM*

_

“Hark, cry. An’other thoughtless damsel falls outta th’ sky.”

I was awake, only just, as I felt my body moved by another. Carried, softly from my realm.

Was I dead somehow? Was it an angel taking me to Hell’s domain?

I looked up and she certainly looked like one.

“Hello, mon cherie’. Are we awake now?”

Hell’s angel, it seemed.

_

Victoria

_

“Yer’ my protege, yes?”

I saw her grow so much in the coming months. As a young Vampire, she seemed content with the power she wielded. I felt so much the opposite. She needed to truly harness her power.

“Yet, yer’ so weak, I mean, compared to the Count an’ I.”

She perked up the mention of his name. 

“Dracula,” she said, as if she met him at one point. 

I sighed heavily.

“He’s gone now, left in memory of his eternal damn’ation, the bastard. I don’t wish to think about the wars he left withered by his wake. Those fascists...monsters High Hell could never have fathomed. Men of iron and steel now, laid waste to sweet Westminster. Fucking waste, I tell ya.”

“What do you speak of, dear sweet Master?” She looked poised like a cat. So cute I must say.

“The Nazi’s, the fucks.”

“The...Na-zis?”

I sighed, figuring her homeland far too removed from such conflicts of mortals. 

“Nevermind, luv.”

_

She sat with me now, bathing in Hellsing's magnificent indoor baths, though her ideas of washing oneself were quite far removed from my times in Sexton and Brixton’s Abbeys. She would douse herself magnificently, with water from a wooden washtub and then stay upon a bench, scrubbing herself while suds lapped by her frigid skin.

The steam could not give us one hint of warmth but I felt the serene atmosphere calming all the same.

“Soooo...is that how they do it where you come from?” I asked, gazing upon her lifeless, beauteous figure. 

“Well, it is what I’m used to now. We are both Yokai, so I see no reason to change my persona just because I live now in a different place altogether.”

Intrigued, I inquired further.

“Where...did you live before?’

“Nippon,” she said, a slight sadness about her.

“Ne-pon, huh… they got, uh, other “Yokai” in Ne-Pon?”

Even though she spoke perfect English, she had...a bit of an accent. Not of Romania, where the Count would sometimes drawl about the good old days but a bit Eastern, almost Asian.

“Master, you are quite funny,” she tittered at my question, very unlike her usual demeanor.

“I see no reason why you should be laughing at my question.”

She was spunky, I’ll give her that and it seemed her mood was affixed with me much of the time. As if I were her twin in the womb, she loved me like I’d never seen before in a girl her age.

“It’s just that, Master, Nippon is Japan. It’s funny how you pronounced it, as if it were some foreign delicacy,” she shuffled about happily on the stool, looking at me as the ripples by the wayside crossed my irritated chest. Her blush deep but lips pert.  

Cheeky .

“Ah, Japan. Well then, why didn’t you just say that, tart?”

She looked at me confused, a cute “O” to her mouth.

“Tart?”

“Yeah. It’s what you’re being right now. A tart, trollop, vixen. You know, a floozy.”

“Huh?”

“A flirt, ok? You’re being a flirt.”

She nodded slowly, still befuddled by my words. I got up and joined her on the seat, hearing a slight “EEP” when I sat beside her.

“Hmmm...when I took you in, I’d thought you’d be less…”

“What, Master? Is there something about me that displeases you?”

“No. Just, you’re so skittish, tis’ all. If I am to have a fellow Draculina by my side, she should be as worthy of me as I am of her.”

She looked up to me as I softly placed my arms around her torso. She had such a sweet face, so much more child-like than mine. Yet her eyes were that of pure blood, waves of crimson dyes in a spiral.

“Yer...so cute, you know that, right?”

“Thank you, dear master,” she tried to maintain composure but I saw the blush had spread to the rest of her figure now.

My precious pet, sent to me from the moon itself. Oh how can I repay you, Satan?

_

Chapter Text

Vega

_

She was all mine now. And I, hers.

Oh yes, it was perfection. Flighty beauties living together for years on end.

No one to bother us and no one to betray. A brilliant mansion all to ourselves. 

I can’t begin to ponder the years we’ve spent together now.

Her cruel father, gone from her head.

A tribe of hunters gone from this world.

By you...and I.

_

Elysia

_

She was, how you say, demanding now. Never on time for anything, sure, but still the one who called the shots. Drove ME insane, I’ll tell you. I mean, I had to rustle her out of bed every night, to enjoy the nights’ wonders as only our kind could. And what’s this? She would fall right back to sleep, sometimes as we flew to the next parish. Typical.

The castle in Romania we were ambushing was sparse, holed up with only a few ghouls here or there, which Vega took care of without remorse. The humans all vacated, Vega and I doing them the favor of not slaughtering them all one by one; I liked her blood more than anything anyway. Some were far more merciless, but we weren’t like that. We didn’t kill unnecessarily.

Anyways, we had a job.

Assassinate the Agents of the Vatican. Poseurs.

WE’RE the night hunters, not them! Dammit!

They were on call for supernatural threats in the area and this castle being a famous lords’, they probably wanted it open to the public again. Vega and I knew that within their ranks was one of “them”.

The arch hunters. The ones who…

No, it’s too painful to remember.

We’d take him out TOGETHER this time.

_

I waited for em’ to show, perched in an alcove above the main strut.

I tell ya, these old castle towers made for perfect sniping positions.

The open air whirled around me as I readied for my first kill of the night…

Thankfully, I was one HELL of a marksman still after all these years. This body was the perfect type to turn immortal. Kept up with that through the years. Vega and I were star-crossed, never to be pulled apart by anything. She made sure of that and I, in turn, had to prove myself useful to her as well.

I heard a silent rustle about the other tower and looked over to see Meryl, our lovely maid, perched on the strut, just in case things got hairy. Her katana at the ready.

For all these years, she's been with us the entire time.

So thoughtful....

Now much older than that fateful night yet still as lethal as the day I met her. 

Even 70 she was still kicking ass.

_

Soooo, we didn’t have to wait long. They came in, shooting up the place. 

Killed some leftover ghouls and shit, not really paying attention to Vega or I. 

They would soon though.

I always preferred the silent but deadly approach. 

I started with my Dragunov SVD equipped with a silencer for most hits. Real hit with upper militia types, vampire and human alike. You know, the army loves their PSG1’s and M1’s for the real pros, but I wasn’t bout’ all that. I liked reliability in a weapon and stopping power to boot. 

And stop em’ this did.

BIG TIME.

I waited till they rounded the corner, their armor plating having the best weak spot just below their knees. As they turned, I sighted the calf and took aim. I fired the first one from the rafters, a rather unfortunate girl in my sights went limp in an instant. Most would be worried muzzle flash would give them away but not so with the way I placed it. Taking another 7 consecutive shots, I had the first wave down on the ground.

Time for the blender, bitches.

I moved to my secondary location, giving covering fire to Vega as she moved in for the kill. 

I watched as she tore them asunder, her claws ripping through the agents like nothing. Oh, all of their blood surrounding her? 

Truly Exquisite. 

We were unstoppable together.

Oh, how lovely you are in action, my sweet.

I mean, I should know right? I tried to kill her for months on end until I found out about dad and man, I could hardly lay a scratch on her. That physique...so indominant, so chiseled too. Our time together for who knows how long had let me study that body fully and completely.

How’d she’d take control yet be so gentle...Satan only knows.

“Hey, VEG! Let’s wrap this up!” I yelled down to her.

She smiled up at me, her latest prey trembling their last in her grip. Not turning away from me, she slit their throat while her smile grew bigger, her love reaching me all the way up, the jugular’s contents painting her contented expression.

She so loved doing this.

I felt the need to somersault backwards in glee and run around screaming how lovely she made me feel. But I had no time to frolic; I had to finish this up.

I got out my heavy Browning next. It was always a pain to set up in a pinch but it cleared the area in no time flat. Loved the spread on this thing, top notch.

“CLEAR OUT, VEG!”

I watched her curtsy quick and then flout about to the hallway, the next wave of agents firing in every direction. Their expressions, scared for their lives as I rained hellfire on them.

* RATATAATATATATATAT *

The agents were none the wiser and I rendered them a red paste in seconds.

All in a day's wor-

Wait, hold on.

“What’s that?”

_

Dorothy

_

One hour ago...

I was tired of these late night runs. They were beneath me, seriously. As a High Sister of the convent, this kind of grunt () was intolerable. Agents be damned, we lose em’ left and right to these mongrels.

And yet, I truly love this line of work with Maria by my side.

Not that I wouldn’t much rather salivate at the thought of watching Maria tied up in my “Nursery.”

Now that’s worth wasting the night away. She’d agree, least I think she would. She said “YES!” through the ball gag last time, pretty sure~.

Still, she hadn’t shown yet, my dear sweet puppy. How like her. Her little tail was wagging, lagging behind me all the time. I really wish she’d take this more seriously.

She does when it comes to...well..you know ^^.

All these admirers of mine couldn’t compare. My little dog was all mine and I loved the absolute dominance I had over her. Cept, there was one. Shannon. She’s…*sigh* nevermind. 

_

It had been awhile since our last...excursion.

I figured the vermin we had been encountering in the beginning was just the kinda lowlife training you’d need for a rookie like Maria.

And then the command came down, from the highest order. His Holiness himself.

The dissolution of the League of Nosferatu.

The Count was dead now and London had recovered from the devastating attacks 10 years by Millenium. Over 2 million dead in one night. It was still unbelievable.

Father Anderson was on the front lines, his sacrifice one of the final blows to Vlad the Impaler.

The leader of the largest Neo Nazi organization in the world. Obliterated by a charlatan protestant and her pet vampiress.

Geez.

I heard the vampire’s master was in poor health and considering the toil she must’ve gone through, I doubt she’ll make it much longer. She’s lost the good graces of the Catholic Church completely now for her crimes of that murderous associate. 

England would never recover fully from this; hundreds of years of bombardments and fires spread across her vibrant landscape.

Nothing compared to the feat of the Major.

_

I remembered I wasn’t called in for the clean up. The Iscariot was ruthless in killing every ghoul that survived the massacre and I was...unavailable for personal reasons.

I...don’t want to talk about it.

_

His Holiness’ decree was met with much backlash from the representative Vampires such as Countess Carmilla and Bathory and his son Alucard had been murdered by an unknown Japanese assailant in a life or death battle. And a young one, at that.

Least, that was what I heard. I didn't pay too much attention to politics.

Still, the orders came through:

Mass assassination of all high vampires.

Honestly.

Like I’d believe that shit was gonna work. They’re capable of annihilating vast quantities of human life effortlessly and you want to start () now?

Sure enough, we found out just what that would entail. Idiots.

_

Course, Maria wasn’t a full blooded vampire. Those were rare, barely even in the same league. Dhampirs are abound, fucking everywhere I go but full bloods? Just doesn’t happen anymore.

How foolish of me to think so naive.

_

“Hello there.”

I saw a cute gunner above me as I waltzed down the stairway, her face surprised by my sudden appearance. I surmised her ammunition was running low from the sheer carnage she just wrought. She looked wary of me even though I was dressed in my habit and robe, showing no sign of a threat to her. YET. 

Just a harmless little nun, right? Oh darl, how wrong you are .

“See you’ve made yourselves at home already, how lovely,” I spoke to the taller of the two on the ground, Vega, her lips lapping at the fresh blood covering her arms. She was absolutely drenched in it.

Poor bastards.

“You look lovely as well, dear,” she teased me as she turned towards me now, her eyes poised for more action .

She licked down her arm.

“What’s that, your 25th or 26th kill tonight alone?” I asked, glib about the humans they just slaughtered. You get used to it.

She responded, a slight grin to her remarks. “27th, actually.”

I chuckled at her bold display.

“And what is your name, “Sister?” I don’t believe you’ve given me the courtesy. How rude for such a...disciplined disciple,” she seethed out sarcastically.

“Dorothy. And I already know who you are, Vega,” you could just taste the sly of my tongue as I spoke.

“Charmed. Glad I’m so popular.

You smell nice, you know. Though, not nearly as nice as my Beau up there.”

Her claws oozed with the remains of the unfortunate blood bags she had just eviscerated. 

My comrades, sure, but really just cannon fodder in the end.

“Oh? And here I was just thinking of her as your next meal. 

You have a history with the little miss, then it seems?”

She looked rapt and ready to go at me anytime, her claws feeling sharper by the minute the more I stared into those dead eyes.

“You...you could say that. Heh.” 

“WELL VEG, ARE WE GONNA STAND AROUND ALL DAY OR DRINK THE BITCH DEAD?!” 

I heard her companion yell from above.

“You heard her, babe. Duty calls.”

*SHUUUUP*

She lunged at me with ferocity only the best breeds had. Still, I was highly trained for this and dodged before the impact.  A Shinso, maybe? No, too random.

“Feisty tonight, aren’t we?” I said as I flared my pure gold Desert Eagles and blasted through the bricks beside me, wafting back and forth as the little missy a top started firing again. 

*RAATATATATATATATATAT*

The bullet’s tips were blessed and nickel plated with melted down rosaries from the Santa Maria. They were mercury too, with explosive cylinders that fired apart on impact. Tiny holy grenades powerful enough to penetrate an M1A1.

One shot would be MORE than enough.

I glimpsed the smaller of the two above, getting ready for her next volley to hail at me.

She started firing, as wild as possible, and she wasn’t half bad either.

We dipped and dodged, trading blows for a bit, my reinforced steel slides making excellent blocks against her razor sharp claws. Still, her partners’ bullet rain was unceasing, much heavier than I expected. Seemed she didn’t care that Vega was in the line of fire; then again, maybe they were just that in sync.

She was slowly backing me away, into the far wall of the courtyard. Dammit!

“I admire your tenacity, babe, but this is where we part ways,” Vega vanished and appeared right behind me, slamming her foot into my back. 

I was caught off guard and felt my spine go numb as I went flying into the pillar holding up the rafters. 

* SLAM*

The collision cracked the supports, causing the entire upper section to fall down, with the gun toting tramp in tow. 

Guess they weren’t as in sync as I thought.

“URRRGH!!!”

The force was more than I anticipated and I felt dazed, trying to get up. Man, she walloped me hard.

I saw the other girl fall with the gun crushing her on the way down, collapsing under a heap of rubble.

She tried to scream in pain but was buried on-the-spot.

The supports fell around me but thankfully I wasn’t in the line of destruction.

I saw the taller of the two turn pale white in horror.

“ELYSIIA!!!” I heard her cry out, practically teleporting over to the demolished structure, digging through the debris to save her. She pulled her out and saw her body, battered hard. 

I got up now, limping a bit but still pretty steady. Owwwww…

“Well, gotta say Darl, you did me a solid already, taking out your OWN girlfriend and all. Now I just gotta make sure you catch up to her. Wouldn’t want you to miss her now,” 

I came over, loading in my holiest hollow point shells, my ace in the hole. The Arch Cardinal and his Holiness themselves blessed these and the Vatican has only 3000 in existence. They’d shred anything she had to pieces and there would be no chance for regeneration. 

Lucky her. She gets to feel the warhammer of the Vatican. An honor, really.

“Got anything left to say? I’m a real Sister, you know. You can confide in me all your sins before I send you to God, I don’t mind,” 

I had her down, pointedly executioner style as she kneeled with her lover’s arms in her hands, limp as a fish. The little lass was near death, just barely breathing; it honestly surprised me there was a body left to salvage. I expected her to be ground to a pulp from all that weight and wreckage. 

That’s Vampires for ya.

She turned back to me, livid, her hand now grasping the body of the young girl, and biting deep into the poor thing’s neck, trying to revive her. 

I scoffed and aimed right for her head. What a pity.

“How pathetic, you can both go -”

*SHIIIING*

Out of the night’s sky, a blade came rushing down like a rocket, 

splitting my left arm IN HALF!

My blood flew out like a geyser, raining down on all of them.

“THE FUUUUCK?!”

The figure who cleaved me stood up from where they landed, and it was a mere woman, old, in a french maid’s dress, her face bandaged with an eye patch across her stone face.

What?!

_

50 Years Ago...

“Vega! Get back here!” 

I fired wildly with the last of my arsenal, silver tipped bullets raining from my Mac 10. 

“Nah...you're just too slow, sweet Elysia!” she dodged all of them predictably, at a dizzying speed.

The recoil was doing a number on my hand and it made me drop the gun midfire.

“AGHHHHH!!!” I yelled, frustrated at how useless she always made me feel. 

“Isn’t this fun, dear Elysia? I’m having lots of fun right now, just being here with you…”

She blew me a kiss , winked, and curtsied, turning me bright red.

She was at the end of the hall now, all fixtures about the grand corridor riddled with the shrapnel of many attempts on her life. All futile.

She beckoned me, never fighting back, as usual. “C’mon my dear. That can’t be all you got?”

How she loved to toy with me. I’LL SHOW HER!

I had an ace up my sleeve this time. It took a while to procure but I finally had the Vatican’s own Holy Grenades. I’d ended it with this, finally!

I readied the charge on hand, walking up to her slowly to pull the pin behind my back. The power of these babies was not to be trifled with so I’d have to get out quickly if I wanted to make it.

She approached me and at a foot taller when we met in tandem, I felt as if I were staring down a model. Her appearance was so sleek, with jet black leather dusters and chains about her rather more manly attire. She was so...ugh...HOW DARE I?

I was the one in the combat skirt, armed to teeth at one point, and still, I felt so weak against her.

Not ANYMORE.

“So, we done for today then, hmmm?” she reached out her hand to me to caress my face, inches away.

“Like Hell, BITCH! EAT THIS!”

I reared up with the canister behind my back and threw it right over her shoulder.

It had a short as hell fuse so I ducked out of the way the minute it hit the ground, stepping back as far as I could in that moment.

*KSSSKURRBBURRRGHHH*

The resounding flash and boom lit up the area in an instant and blew a hole through the hallway window fixtures. It rattled the entire place, the foundation even rumbling with its magnificent force.

But that wasn’t my true trump card. I knew that wouldn’t be enough.

I had gotten far enough back to avoid the blast altogether but now as the dust cleared, I could see her figure still standing inside the smoke.

I placed my blade in one hand and pistol in the other, rushing up the way to catch her off guard.

As I saw the smoke dissipate I could see she was turned around, away from me.

My chance! FINALLY!

I jumped up and aimed for her head while gearing up to slice off her head.

“THIS IS FOR MY FATHER, VEGA! BURN IN HEE-”

*SHUP*

My wrists were clasped out of the air as another figure rose from the smoke. Vega looking over her shoulder, with a sly smile at me.

Her maid, Meryl. Goddammit, I forgot.

_

“Heyyy! To, agairnt on,’ in’t’t far!” I said, mutton in my mouth as I ate away the fine meal she had prepared for us. Much as I hated to admit it, Meryl cooked excellent dishes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that on account of you thoroughly enjoying my cooking,” Vega responded, her hands folded up so that her chin could rest on them in satisfaction.

She sat across from me, a table width between us of about 8 feet, yet still I felt violated by her presence.

“So, I’m taking you enjoyed blowing a hole in my house today? For shame, Elysia. For shame.”

I hated how smarmy she was. 

“No, you were supposed to die! How the hell did you even survive that?!”

“Well, a lady has to have some secrets to herself. I’m sure you have a couple as well~.”

“SHUT UP!” I yelled, blushed.

I scoffed in irritation, finishing up the rest of my fine wine and prime meat, wiping my mouth clean with her satin table handkerchiefs.

“Whatever, I’m going to take a bath.

And at that I stormed off, hearing a slight giggle from her before I left.

_

Of course, it was already drawn by the time I made my way upstairs. It was insane how fast Meryl moved, seriously. I undressed, leaving my gun by the side chair.

I dipped in, loving how wonderful the natural salts she had scented it with surrounded my senses.

My time was always cyclical, least for the past few months now. I couldn’t go a day without blowing off some of the steam I had garnered vying for Vega’s death. 

She killed my father.  I want revenge. Simple as that. 

I heard it from the hunters themselves and then, when I saw what was left of his body brought back to us...I vowed to take her head myself.

As an assassin, there were plenty of ways I could’ve gone about it. At first I wanted to set fire to her estate and watch her burn inside. But turns out she was pretty immune to my attempts, always snuffing out the fuse before it could be lit.

Eventually she found me and took me in, inviting me all around her studies and bedrooms, so very girly in her machinations. I’ll admit she was pretty, attractive on the outside at least. And when I inevitably felt the need to…”relieve” myself, she offered to assist with no hesitation.

Urrrrgh, to be deflowered by your father’s murderer...so awful.

I never forgave myself, no matter how many times she made me scream in ecstasy that night.

_

I sunk down into the steaming pool of lilies before me. My chest pushed gently to and fro about the water’s edge. The window behind showed the brightest moon, pale as death, eeking comfortably past the shadows it shared space with. The noise of the tap was serene with the few droplets it had left silently making their way to the water's surface again.

If there was anything I enjoyed about my time here it was this. Gave me time to think.

_

When I joined the agency I thought to myself, 

“How much damage can these vampires really do? They live far away from normal civilization, least...most of em’ anyway. And they’re all so radiant too. They shine so bright in light that no other being did. They’re so beautiful. Why should we kill them in droves just to satisfy our primitive need for control?”

My mentor who only went by the name of Lady, taught me otherwise. She was a demon hunter herself, always on about how cursed she was to live this doubled hellish life. 

She told me how she killed hundreds of demons everywhere who threatened so many lives.

She told me how her first love was a demon, a man in fact by the name of Dante. I never thought the legends were true, the story of Sparda and accursed Mundus. But they were.

Purgatorio was where he lay now, just another fallen veteran in this blaze of interdimensional war going on for millenia without end.

She told me how her second love was a woman named Trish, a high commander demon who fought with Dante’s legendary brother, Vergil. She was the spitting image of Dante’s mother and worked with Trish in tandem for years as partners.

And then Trish betrayed her. Outright. She left her without a single word.

Lady fought back the hordes hell sent for years on end.

Now approaching 60, with so much blood spilt, she had no way of returning to normal.

She had lost her to ether of time, a woman so transcendent of Hell.

She told me her sadness would only end by her death.

I didn’t want that. I didn’t want a life of misery.

_

They had me train with Reynolds next, a wonderful man. He told me how my father was a hero.

How he saved village after village from the evils of those foul beasts.

I didn’t want to believe it though. I would follow as a pupil with my firearms and martial arts training to defend me from the evil creatures of this world.

But, not to murder them. Not to kill for no reason. I couldn’t do that.

_

I remember reading stories about the particularly famous ones. They were always spoken of as Hell’s worst and most vicious kind, marauders bent on the annihilation of humanity as we knew it.

But, they were always portrayed as intelligent, wise beyond their limitless years, and stout faced aristocrats. The picture of undead royalty.

The Countess, Bathory.

The Wicked, Carmilla.

The Luxurious, Vampirella.

The Cunning, Akasha.

The Hateful, Drusilla.

The Serene, Selene.

The Hungered, Blaylock.

Legends, all of them. 

Akasha being the most important as the daughter of Vlad Tepes himself, was also the most mesmerizing. That she stayed in another world, affixed away from mortals entirely, was fascinating to me. There, she could live undaunted by prejudice. 

“So why kill them? En masse, no less? 

Yes, they feed off us in minute areas but hardly a layman knows they exist in the first place. 

They’re harmless.”

And that’s when it happened.

That’s when all the things that mystified me about these Queens of the night, vanished.

When she took his life away.
_

“Reminiscing, are we?” I saw her sitting on the other side, legs curled up but still smirking at me.

I hadn’t heard her come in? The Hell?!

Suddenly, she lunged at me and I, always prepared, pulled my Beretta from the holster on the chair.

Too late. 

She had me in her arms already. Couldn't even register a thought to pull the trigger before her grasp enveloped me and I staggered, dropping it on the floor tiles.

The oncoming kiss was something I would’ve never been able to avoid, so like many a night before, I begrudgingly gave in to my baser instincts.

_

Chapter Text

Dorothy

_

“AGGGH!!! YOU, YOU FUUUUCKING BITCH!!!”

She said nothing, only brandishing her saber again, and swiping it to the side, my blood that stained it gone to the ground below. She looks good for 70 somethin’, I’ll give her that.

I went for my inhibitors, injecting painkillers into my arm to stop the blood from causing me to bleed out. God, I hate using these.

“MERYL!” I heard Vega yell, now in full revival mode, injecting Elysia with her venom.

The maid in question didn’t waste any more time. She swiped deftly at me, my body too injured to move gracefully. I felt her speed increase more and more as we went on. She moved normally though, trained but not superhuman. 

She’s fast for her age.

I have to fight back or I’m as good as dead.

Now was as good a time as any. His holiness would have to forgive me this time; Macedonian silver hollow point ammunition was extremely hard to come by so to use it on a human was a grievous misuse of its power.

Ah well.

I aimed forward, my sights true to changing her head to a split mess in half a second.

But she didn’t flinch and simply sliced upwards.

Aw, fuck. I’m dead.

*SHUP*

She went for the kill, taking off my other arm cleanly. 

I fired all the same though, last chance to try. But it missed completely, flying straight past and blowing a hole in the wall next to the two vampires.

“AGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

I slumped down to the ground in agony, her blade fixed by my neck. No emotion adorned her face.

Goddammit, Maria! You’re always late!

I looked past her, to the two of them, Vega now standing with her lover in her arms.

The girl had marks on her and a gash down the side of her arm but I saw her breathing all the same.

I was careless to think they wouldn’t have backup.

I looked up to my killer in defiance.

“Well? Don’t disgrace me any longer. Finish it.”

She paused for a moment and then rose her up, directed straight for my neck.

What a bother…

I heard it come down in one fell swoop and looked up towards the stars.

It’s about time I joined you, sis.

Then, I saw a twinkle among the lights in the sky, as if the Lord himself was welcoming me into his kingdom. I smiled at the thought. With all the debauchery and sin I’ve committed, to forgive me now...such a kind Father you are.

The twinkle got brighter and brighter yet, now so bright I felt blinded gazing at it.

The blade had not beheaded me and I felt a shiver take over my executioner as she no doubt looked right at what was coming straight at us.

Well, you took your sweet time.

And then it hit. A deafening blow.

*SHUP* *BRRRFGHGGHASSSHHHHH*

A metal cross of enormous proportions flew down into the structure at a blazing speed, obliterating the surrounding area. I felt the earthquake it created, the impact blowing right through the buttresses and brick mortar construction.

And at the center...her.

Bout’ time.

_

Maria

_

I hadn’t planned on being so late. Honest!

Really, she did a number on me last night, the whore.

I couldn’t believe what she’d have me do though if worse came to worse. 

To hurl this thing so fast as to break the sound barrier took like, five liters of hers at least.

And lots of you-know-what. Just...unGODLY amounts.

Oh, so much I could barely count at the end. 

She rendered me speechless all too many times.

Bitch.

_

2 Weeks Ago...

She said these were no ordinary vampires this time. I looked at the pictures of them and how beautiful they were. Not like any vampires I saw. Almost like...models and celebrity actresses.

“These are our targets, mainly. Their names are Elysia and Vega. They’re wanted for multiple accounts of mass murder in the surrounding Romanian areas. They’re armed and extremely dangerous,” Dorothy said, almost nonchalantly, sitting back in her plush chair.

I looked at her and then back at the photos. I laughed.

“These TWO?! Honestly, Dorothy, why we going after wannabe goths? Aren’t we higher up than that?” I was puzzled why she’d ever waste her time with such nonsense.

She scoffed at my incredulity.

“I know you may think they look harmless but believe me, they are a force to be reckoned with. And as for our stake in this, I don’t like it just as much as you do.”

She looked out the window to the sun slowly setting on the steeple that day. Her days in the agencies’ convent are still a mystery to me, even in the year and a half I’ve been with her. 

“You’ll learn in time, puppy,” she said, as if she could read my mind.

Creepy fuck.

_

“Took you long enough! What, were you fucking every bitch you saw on the way here?”

I stared straight at her, my form still very much a trial to get used to. Being dressed so scantily, ugh…

“I would’ve been here sooner if you didn’t nearly take my back out last night! 

And my ASS still hurts like hell, thanks for asking!

You’re WAY TOO ROUGH on me these last couple weeks!” 

My lack of dress I had yet to adapt to but I felt no shame now speaking about our ongoing affairs.

“You know you loved every second of it,” she said a sultry look about her; the way only she could.

“Ugh…” I saw as the dust cleared her arms had been sliced off.

“So what are we going to do about that, huh? You’re not exactly useful to me as an amputee.”

“I’ll have to get new ones. Regenerators are plenty resilient, I’m sure you know that by now~.”

She blew me a kiss, always making dirty jokes.

“Ya know, if you had what’s-her-name backing you up-” 

“NO. I don’t...I don’t want to involve her in this,” she protested, a serious tone for once. 

Figured as much.

_

“So...we got em?” I looked about the remains of the giant crater I made. 

“You see any bodies? No, they definitely got away in time,” she seemed quite annoyed that her arms were gone but wasn’t screaming or anything.

She kneeled down on the stone, left charred by the heat of the contact.

“Maybe I incinerated em’,” I said leering at her, taunting.

Shoes on the other foot now, bitch.

“I think you’re just trying to get out of telling the board you reduced an entire medieval castle to smithereens,” she spat back. 

My face turned a bit pale at the thought of what they would do to me if they found out.

She started laughing at my predicament.

“Ahahahahahahah! Don’t worry hon, I won’t tell. Though they will want an explanation for why you were so late.”

“I...thought you had it “under control,” mocking her was probably not the best course of action right now. 

 “I did, till that bitch of a maid showed up.”

“Maid? I didn’t even see one.”

“Now, how would you have been able to see anything flying straight at me from the sky.”

“Well, I mean…”

“And just how did you do that exactly? I’ve never seen you wield that thing like a rocket before.”

“I’ve been...practicing.”

“Practicing? You?”

“...goodpoint.”

Cunt.

_

Chapter Text

Moka Akashiya

_

One year from present.

It was becoming more apparent Lady Integra was getting sicker by the day. Her days fleeting as she turned only 30 now, the illness that took her leaving her with nothing but dread. I saw my master’s desolation at the thought of losing her Lady so soon.

Frustration grew among all parties of the Hellsing branch now, seeing such a proud woman waste away in bed every night. I felt fearful the worst was upon us.

That my Lady wasn’t going to make it much longer.

_

How my Lady was afflicted with this malady I felt I’d never know. Master never spoke of it.

When I first spoke of Alucard as Father, she looked stunned but said nothing further to me, for a while, at least. I felt my master’s absence then, like I did so many a time with Father.

My mother was always there for me, even when she wasn’t. Even as that man who I can barely remember now sacrificed himself for the good of others, she was there, holding me tightly against her.

I wanted to go back to Kurumu and Mizore, see how they did, as longer living yokai, strive onwards in life. It felt so lonely, lonelier than ever now. And his name...that man…that man I supposedly, loved…

It was like he never existed, only his picture by my bedside to give me an indication he was real.

I can’t even remember his name anymore. This curse Father put on me, to prevent my beloved from ever being a human as long as I fought his evils. Had I stayed there in that world, I’d only feel his specter, haunting my depression. I wanted to heal, I thought I did when I met master...but now...

I didn’t want this...

I DIDN’T WANT TO FORGET HIM, ENTIRELY!!!

This is oh, so much worse. I clasp my head in my hands at night. I feel the pounding of my limbs around me, as if I were to cease to be. But I know I won’t…

I’ll live on and on and on. With even my loved ones leaving me before.

I want to choose a mortal life. To hell with a perfect complexion when I had no one to show it too!

…

Alas, maybe it’s just me. Maybe I just need to find someone else. I went to England because of the disaster I learned of two years ago. The sack of London.

It happened now 12 years ago to this day, but the world would never forget it.

My curiosity got the better of me and I learned of the true horrors man committed that day.

I almost agreed with Father at one point. That if all of these wretched evil men were purged from this world we would be all the better for it. Our harmony in the Yokai world was nothing but a way of hiding from the truth. I understood why...no, still can’t remember him.

But I knew he was human. And I...didn’t hate him. 

I looked at the back of the photo of him. On it was just simply “Valor,” in Japanese.

But even then I had trouble understanding what that meant. 

“Valor? Of what? What did he even do? Who was he? I...I-I DON’T REMEMBER!”

I took the photo and threw it angrily across the room. I smashed against my window into pieces and fell shattered on the floor.

I threw myself on my bed in resentment, so wishing I could go back.

I loved them all and wanted to go back so badly. I feared I could never return to her, however. Now entrapped in this...“place,” this damnable prison of a mansion where only old relics were left.

Not that I resented master but she...she could not lie to herself anymore. I was not enough for her. Her “beloved” dashed away from her by Death again. 

How much will we eternals be subjected to the unreal, never-lived?

These humans we so covet...we cannot subject ourselves to this torment of their demise any longer.

I..had to know. I had to.

_

“Master.”

“Hmm? Tis’ unlike you, Moka, to speak to me so direct’ly,” master adjusted her dress, the only kind befitting a Countess of her stature.  

I stood ready for any blowback this might have.

“I have decided. I must leave for the time being.”

She laughed immediately at the thought of me ever raising my voice to her.

“My lil’ cherub, for what reason would you wish to leav’ me? Am I not all you need?”

She flaunted her figure about, one I had seen in many a night together.

“Master, you must understand. I will return, I promise you. You know I have loved you this past year like no other. I just…-”

“Now, now Moka. Do not lie to me,” her tone got more grave now, that sinister area of a Draculina showing its darker side.

“Master?”

“I know you ‘ave ‘ad feelings for another. All this time…”

“Master…?”

She went back to her more jovial side in an instant.

“Oh, no~ I ‘ave no problem with such mat’ters. You know of course, I luv my Lady more than anything. Buuuut...just who is the lucky girl to be in the sights of the great Countess Moka Akashiya?” she elongated that last part, teasing me.

I gave it some thought. Who could I say that would get her to truly let me leave? There was no doubt she was not at all aware of Kurumu and Mizore and I couldn’t say Ruby or Yukari as they left to join their clans once more. I know where my home is, the Shuzen estate but if I said that name…

Oh well, nothing ventured.

“Akasha Bloodriver.”

_

Chapter Text

Moka Akashiya

_

I saw Master’s face turn stone and then she just burst out laughing. 

“AKASHA BLOODRIVER?! YOU LUV?! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”

Her demeanor pointedly drunk.

“And why is that so funny, Master?” I had to be a bit forceful now. I knew she was in sorrow now but I...couldn’t let that daunt me.

She walked over to the bedside table, viscous red wine sitting for her taking. She poured herself a glass wistfully.

“Funny? Why is that funny, luv? Well because, there’s no way you’d even know that name, unless someone told it to you,” she laughed and downed the entire thing, getting ready to pour another.

“And what gives you that idea, master?” I hated getting snippy with her but I was out of options. Either this rough patch between us or a knife through my head every night just to try and trigger his memory. It was just the wine talking...right?

“You are a renown’d Countess, what would you want to do with that woman anyway? ‘er time is long gone. She’s bar’ly a memory now,” she replied, a bit forlorn but still stubbornly blunt. Her words swaying and body becoming more rigid.

I was elated. She knew where she was!

“So, will you tell me her place of residence now? You obviously know much more than you’re letting on, Master. Please, this is very important to me!”

“And just why is that, hmm? Why do you care about some fossil wife, not yet done servin’ her time under that loathsome, irksome, waste of a son of the late Count?” It was so disheartening to see her spout such hateful diatribes about Father and Mother. 

Is this really just because of thy Lady’s illness?

“I do not care for...Alucard. I care for her. She is my...cousin,” I lied as best I could, her eyes looking me over for any signs of weakness in my perjury.

“And to lay with your cousin is what I presume you wish to do now that you are tir’d of me?” she said with a huff, acting genuinely hurt by my words. She held her glass tightly now, with an air of contempt mounting from her poisoned breath.

“NO! No, I-I didn’t mean it like that!”

“What? You gotta sister kink too?” she spout.

“NO! It’s not like that. It’s just-”

“I never thought in all my years as a vampiress, even during the Count’s days, I’d find such a deplorable and depraved subject as you. Really now…I never took you for some incestuous harlot,” her eyes wavered about in scorn.

“I-I…”

I was on the verge of tears, the first time in our time together that I felt this sorrow again.

I felt horrid, a used piece of meat for her pleasure now. I felt as if the reigns that chained me from accepting who I was tightened around my neck.

My porcelain neck, my beauteous neck.

“When I saw you that night, falling from the skies’ edge, I felt rejuvenated by your youthful spirit.

To think you were the daughter of some whore like ‘er...with her whore children, how could I ever be so careless as to let you in this ‘ouse? Are you one of them, those despicable, spineless bitches?”

I was hurt, so hurt, not last since two years ago did I feel this pain.

How dare she treat her fellow Countess this way?

Against my better judgement, I blew up at her.

“I-I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS! I WAS JUST BORN THAT WAY! SORRY I’M FULL BLOODED!

SOOOORRRY-THAT I’M NOT SOME..SORT… OF STUBBORN HALF-BREED LIKE YOU!”

She was taken aback, stunned by my sudden outburst. The glass dropped out of her hand and shattered hard against the floor, staining it red.

I realized what I just said and attempted reparation.

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean-”

“Get out,” she said coldly, her eyes fixed on me now.

“No, please, master I-”

“GET OUT.”

“Really Maste-”

“GEEEET OOOUUT!!!”

She fumed heavy, barely containing her anger, a slur to her visage, warping her entire persona.

“GET OUT OF ‘ERE AND DON’T COME BACK!”

I hated seeing her like this; that I could end our relationship so easily felt horrible.

But I couldn’t stop myself.

“F-FINE! I- I...never loved YOU ANYWAY!”

“NEITHER DID I! YOU WERE JUST A FANCY! AND I FLIGHTY ONE, AT THAT! I COULD’VE HAD ANYONE BUT I HAD TO CHOOSE YOU, YOU WEAK LITTLE C...”

I screamed as loud as I could, drowning out her final word.

“ AAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH !!!”

Furious with tears pouring from my eyes, I ran outside to the balcony, my wings spreading before I even knew. My body took off, flying out of reach and into the crisp air where I would journey alone once more.

If I looked back maybe I could’ve seen her reach out to me once more, to renounce her vicious insults and come back to me. And indeed, I could've very well taken it, just let her berate who I was.

But I refused.

_

One year and 5 months ago…

“It’s beautiful! Truly it is, Master!”

I looked at the luxury her mansion exuded. The mere facade was enough to make any denizen envious. Even I, who had been born from nothing but the finest things was in awe at the splendor.

 “It is, i’nt it, Moka. And it belongs to thy Lady. We shall do nothing but ‘onor ‘er.”

She spoke with sadness stained, as if the person she spoke of was not long for this world. This Lady she so loves, could she be a human like Tsukune?

_

We made our way down the corridor’s winding, the house seeming infinitely larger than it appeared outside. My jaw hung open as I saw hundreds of years of history before me, history coveted by the Lord Count himself, Vlad Tepes. To see this pedestrian Protestant manor be the front for the creator of us all was so..contradicting. Like everything I knew on this Earth was turned on its side. 

The religion Tsukune spoke of...Christianity...was I supposed to believe entire nations were built on these whims of a martyr since over a thousand years ago? That even now I questioned all I knew, truly horrified by the bubble Father had trapped me in for so long.

And Mother did so too.

But she did it to protect me! To shield my eyes from the world of Man and all its evils. 

But to think the world of Man was just as gripped by our kind as the world of Yokai. To think my full blooded grandfather, Count Dracula was here this entire time and just 10 years ago disappeared from us forever? I never even got to meet him. I was imprisoned, trapped in that school where my own memories betrayed me.

To think a random boy, a Japanese teenager would be the only inkling another world existed at all.

And now it was clear.

The world of Yokai and Man were connected and now that I could pass between them so easily, I finally saw the secrets kept from me since birth.

The world Father wanted to end.

_

“Isn’t she glorious?”

Master pointed to the paintings on the wall, all of a tall tanned and thin woman with a very serious expression. She was frightening, just looking at her.

“Sir Integra Fairbrooks Wingates Hellsing. That’s ‘er full name, luv.”

“Master, what was that you just said?”

“Oh, Sir Integra Fai-”

“No, no. Not thy Lady’s name. You said, “love” right?

“Well, yeah. It’s how I refer casually to ones so dear to me. Luv.”

“I...like how it sounds, coming from your mouth, Master. Does that mean...Master thinks I’m dear to her too?”

“Of course!” she smiled with a bountiful joy about her. Joy I wanted once more.

She embraced me and said, “To me Moka, you are a shooting star, a comet that I fly by with the air breathing softly on our surfaces. And I, go on with thee, into the stratosphere.”

She kissed me softly and oh, how I wished it lasted.

_

As I got more and more acquainted with her, I felt the need to ask how she met her. In hindsight, I feel this was knowledge I could’ve gone without knowing, for to be in ignorance once more, in all things, would comfort me so. But how could I truly live on as a shell again? No, no more.

She answered, forgiving me for any misgivings she may not have intended. She told me of the vampire hunters, the Vatican forces, and the vampire nazi legions she stared down. She fought long with the Count as he was her first love, and thy Lady, her second. He taught her the plights of the world, a brutal lesson in death and misery, and how to embrace her true form as vampiress to the Count of all.

Satan’s servant on Earth. The Impaler.

He slayed countless numbers of all, no innocence registered within his mind. He was ultimately successful in vanquishing his foes, all but one that was.

His butler, his trusted servant, Walter had betrayed him and as such put into the play the annihilation of the once thought unkillable. The Count was reduced to nothing, a kafkaesque destruction of his very existence.

I sat beside her, enraptured by the recollection she explained. Her eyes valiant in every word she spoke of him and her loyalty to her Lady to the very end in the tone of that sweet voice.  

“‘e has been the slow end of my Lady from the very beginning. No matter my devotion, I saw ‘is tortured soul be the very end of a nation in one single night. ‘e pour’d rivers of blood from ‘is body and drown’d all in ‘is endless sorrow. ‘e could not rise once more, I realized ‘is death was upon 

‘im. And I accepted it. It pained me so but I accepted it.

My Lady...she cannot. She will not EVER. She clings to his memory like a vice and I fear it will kill her spirit just as it killed his. And without my Lady, I fear I cannot go on.”

“What must we do, Master?”

“You are precious to me, Moka. I can say these past few months have been a bevy to the slow, depressive nightmare I’ve been under yet. I can say with utmost certainty your presence in my life has been a welcome one. But I have to say this. I do not know ‘ow long my beloved has left. Such a strong woman...now frail like a leaf. 

I need a companion once more.”

I felt awful for Master but pried further, something I wholly regret now.

“Does thy Lady not love thee?”

Master turned to me with a forced smile.

“She does, but...I am not her one. ‘e was. ‘e was mine as well, yes but he was ‘ers since she was a child. My childhood was rife with murder and hatred, far as I could tell. So I felt camaraderie wit ‘er, you know? When I joined the police force-”

“The police force? You mean, you were a vampiress in the-”

“No. I-I suppose I should tell you now rather than later, luv.”

She took a deep breath, one full of anxiety and apprehension.

“I...wasn’t always a vampiress, as you say.”

“You mean...you were turned?”

“Yes. By the Count himself. I was lucky to have the Lord himself save me, but I was very much dead that night. In fact, it was the Count who shot me.”

“How awful, Master…”

“It was awful at first, yes. But I came to love my Count. He was my only connection left to this world. And after I met Pip, I felt my humanity return.”

“Pip?”

“Yes, he was a French mercenary, a man of endless wit and humor abound even in the most hopeless of situations. He was more than infatuated, he loved me like no other did. He was gripped by his mortality and chose to die a glorious death. And in the end, he was the first I drank from that offered his dying breaths so willingly. He gave me the strength I have now and…”

Mon cherie, it is best to keep “zhat” a secret. It is unwise to trust one so young and pliable as zhis.

…and, ‘is passing has made me who I am.”

As I heard her tell so visceral a tale with such grand emotion, emotions she most assuredly had locked away for these past years, I felt memories of Tsukune come back.

The way he laughed…

The way he cried…

The way he smiled…

The way he was torn from this world…

The valor in his heart that fateful day where he looked back to me and said, “I love you.”

And then never returned.

This woman, Master, had lost ones so dear to her all her life and now she would lose one more.

I had to be her ballast upon the filth of this torrid ground.

I had to be…

But she would never let me in.

_

I wiped the falling tears from my eyes, hurrying desperately back home. To the castle where my kin had laid for centuries. Away from the malevolence of these Counts that so plagued me and back into the loving arms of my family.

It was all I could do.

“Mother, will she forgive me? Will I even register to her after these two years away, not a word said to her? My sudden run away, no difference from the way I so unabashedly abandoned them before. Would they forget that transgression, as all transgressions they’ve forgiven before?”

“Or, was I the final straw?”

The thought wounded me, tearing a stake through my feelings of love lost again.

But still, I persevered, flying forward.

_

I reached the world of the Yokai after three days of flight, my wings heavier on me than ever before. The portal I always went through, knowing it to be still within that small Kanto neighborhood. That day I rode my bike...I remember running into someone the first time I knew of the portal. But their name escapes me now.

I remember my thoughts of that wonderful succubus Kurumu and her lovely yuki-onna wife, Mizore but there was another. Was it Yukari? No. Was it Ruby? No. It was...no, I just can’t recall anymore at all.

_

As I flew home, I stopped by the academy. I figured after two years the changes here would be for the better. I remember Father’s death was the reason I left, I couldn’t bear the trauma I had taken on form his deceit and I remember the night I had with Onee-sama and Mother but it was hazy between those two events.

Wasn’t there also my visit to Kahlua? Did I...what did we even talk about?

“HEY MOKA-SAN! LONG TIME NO SEE!”

A rather burly man with a gentle gruffness about him came up to me. He reached out and shook my hand vigorously which I, startled at first, obliged.

He looks familiar…

“Whaaat...you don’t recognize me? It’s me, Ginei-san!” he exclaimed, with a beaming face.

“Ginei-san? That’s you? I’d...I mean, I would have never recognized you! You look so...different.”

He smirked a bit, not snydly but with a hardy grin.

“You know, you say that but you look different too Moka-san. Your hair’s all silver now and your face is way more serious. And your...assets are-”

I had half a mind to slap him for these comments but instead just took in stride.

“Yes well, I got a makeover. This look is more me after all. And I’m sure you remember seeing it before?” I was of course referring to the night my rosary was pulled off by...Kurumu, I think. Not sure who it was. But he’d seen me like this before.

“You? Like this? Yeah I remember. But, I mean, I met you like 6 years ago, remember? And to me, you were always that pink haired chick with Tsukune.”

“Tsu-kune? Who’s that?” my face was riddled with confusion from that name.

His face turned from jovial to dour in an instant.

“I know now why you left. Really, even though we had our disagreements in the past, his sacrifice was hard on all of us. Especially you. I can’t imagine the pain you’ve been in for these past few years.”

I reiterated again, confused by what he said, “I have been in pain, from Father’s passing. But who is this Tsukune?”

He looked at me sternly now, a bit of anger in his tone.

“Moka, I know it’s been two years but I can’t believe you could forget him. You would be in the garden just saying each other's names back and forth, Tsukune, Moka, Tsukune, Moka, you know, right? I mean how could you forget that, especially after he…”

“He?...What, Ginei-san? What happened?’

He looked genuinely concerned for me. I knew it, these last few days, each day less and less, I feel like whoever this person was is now a hole in my psyche.

And no matter what I did, I could never know again who they were.

“Tsukune...died. Saving you. Saving all of us. From Alucard, your father.”

I knew Father was killed but by whom I didn’t know. And even as Ginei tried to jog my memory, it was as if the events never happened. Oh, I remembered my romps about with Kurumu and Mizore just fine and I remember the enemies I had to deal with in my wake. I remembered when I found my ultimatum was my family or friends. 

But it was all in vain now.

“I’m sorry. I understand what you’re trying to tell me but I can’t for the life of me recall who he was.”

“Moka-san, do you have amnesia perhaps? They say such a horrible event can have untold damages mentally on someone.”

I shook my head. I knew this wasn’t some malady, that this wasn’t some conjured up disease.

“No, Ginei-san this can’t be amnesia. Because I remember you, I remember Kurumu, I remember Mizore and all the others I spent my high school days with. What is this Ginei-san?”

“Wish I knew. Sorry...but maybe…”

“Hmm?” His tone became one of discovery as he put his hand to his chin in deep thought.

“Have you seen Kurumu and Mizore since you left?”

I turned elated at the thought of seeing them again.

“No! Where are they, do you know, Ginei-san?!”

“Now, they may be somewhere else now. I haven’t kept up with them but last I saw they came back here, to Tsukune’s grave, least his grave in this world, last year. They looked...happy together. Happier than I’ve ever seen them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I guess marriage really does change a person. I wouldn’t know, I’m still a loner.”

I wondered why he’d say that and then something I felt the need to address came to me.

“Ginei-san...why are you still here? I thought for sure you grad-”

“I’m studying to become the next gym teacher. Yeah, I figured my athleticism would be more useful in bettering students here,” he put his hand behind his head in slight embarrassment.

I beamed at him.

“Ginei, I don’t think they’re the only ones that have changed. You have too.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I’ll still just be a loner. I haven’t found anyone by 24 with looks these good and I doubt I’ll ever find anyone now,” his tone fell and he frowned looking more weak than I ever thought I’d see him.

I felt the need to comfort him. Must be my newfound empathy I’ve garnered over these years. 

“Ah, don’t say that Ginei-san. I’m sure you’ll find someone.”

He smiled at me, lifted from his bout of sadness.

“Thanks, Mokka-san. You know, you’ve really changed too. Not to say you weren't always nice, but in that form, I guess your only form now, you were always cold and calculated. And now, you’re like the pink haired version only less…”

“Less?”

“...I was going to say naive but then, maybe I shouldn’t,” he laughed merrily while I just smiled at him, a bit annoyed.

“Say, Ginei-san, do you happen to know where Kurumu and Mizore went afterwards?”

Oh, how I still hope they are in this world.

“Hmmm, I’d have to guess either her cottage or Mizore’s. They still live at home, I think. They may have moved out though, not sure...umm, you know where those are right?”

I knew of Kurumu’s but Mizore’s? Her’s was atop a mountain, a chalet in a blizzard of snow. I couldn’t imagine a warm blooded succubus like Kurumu enjoying her time up there. Then again she married a yuki-onna, so maybe she likes it that cold.

“I...think I know the way. Thank you Ginei and I hope to see you again!”

I waved as I left, lifting off and heading south to Kurumu’s.

“NO PROBLEM, MOKA-SAN! SEE YOU AGAIN!”

For just a moment, I felt the loneliness leave me.

_

Chapter Text

Victoria

_

One Year ago…

It was getting ridiculous. I couldn’t stand it. This girl who was supposed to be my salvation was just another notch. A kid really. She had the looks of a woman and was certainly the age of one but I saw her endless naïveté, her overwhelming ignorance, and it consumed her.

Over nights, where she should have been gallivanting with me, all I heard was torment. She’d sleep all night now and during the day she’d rise. Like that made any sense for a vampiress.

Yes, our skin didn’t burn and no man could kill us the way we were now. But the way she handled herself, for being the offspring of what I assumed to be a noble vampire family, was so childish. Her face was stern and resolute but when she spoke she had such a shelter to her voice, as if she were pampered all her life.

Sure, she may have encountered hardships now and then, but nothing like my Lady and I. She does not know true horror before her very eyes. No matter how pretty she may be, now matter the joy I take from our pleasures given and the skin we may share.

She is no stone.

No steely visage covers her.

Only softness, weak and bendable. She’d snap like a twig under the slightest of pressure.

_

As the weeks went on, I caught my dissatisfaction caused by her. I may put on a false smile and tell her she’s the one I’ve dreamt of to carry me on but they were all lies, one after the other.

My Lady was not long yet. I saw her one night crying out to the dear Count, wanting his touch again so badly. She coughed and wheezed, his passing acting as the illness itself, and every memory of him hurt her more and more.

I could do nothing more.

_

“Moka, I must see to my Lady.”

“Master?” she was stunned by my sudden departure, a foul wind blowing by our faces through the open window. The balcony shuddered under the speed and I felt a storm coming as well.

“Would this night spell my Lady’s end?” I thought.

_

“My Lady…”

I saw her, catatonic in bed now, only seconds after I had finished admonishing myself for letting dear Moka go. 

Moka, my dear Moka, could you ever forgive me? I promise to you, I renounce every word I said tonight. That is not how I feel. I can’t justify anything I just said.

That wasn’t me.

“Oh, Seras, please. Come here. I hate to see you so woeful now.”

My Lady called me and I just realized I had been crying this entire time.

I came up to her and sat beside her in bed, brushing my hand down her leg in perfect silence.

“My Lady I-”

“No Seras, please call me Integra. You and I have been through far too much to distance ourselves through the tawdry formalities of man.”

“I-Integra, are...you feeling better? At all? Can I even hope of a recovery from you now?”

“Seras, you are all I need. Alas, you must prepare. Prepare with Akashiya, prepare for my passing. I fear this is one journey you can’t join me on.”

“BUT SIR! You’re still so young, why would you leave now?” I felt her hand by my cheek still wiping my tears away.

“Seras, you know I have lived through the worst of man’s destruction and these years with you have been the best I’ve ever had. But I must go now, I cannot linger here any longer. The Count, he is waiting for me.”

My Master, my Lady, my All, was now condemning herself to Hell with our Count.

All I could do was embrace her as I sobbed into her chest.

“Now, now dear Seras, you will live long with Akashiya. Please don’t let me be the only thing in your immortal life. You have found another.”

That only made me bawl harder.

“No, Integra. I do not deserve her. I don’t deserve anyone now.”

I felt her hand on my hand, gently brushing her fingers through my hair.

“Of course you do. She is one so young and could learn so much from you? You love her don’t you?”

“No, my Lady. It’s...she’s gone.”

My Lady stilled for a second and then resumed her ministrations.

“Gone? Has she left you?”

“Yes. But it is my fault. I drove her away!”

I pushed deeper into the comforter my Lady was under, wanting to suffocate myself from the anguish I was under.

“I-I said such awful things to her. Things I can never take back. And then...she left me. And I fear I’ll never see her again.”

…

She paused and then gently pulled me up to her face. “Seras, she will come around. I promise you. I know of her love for you and I doubt it is so easily broken.”

“I hope so, Integra. But I fear I can’t go on without you.”

“You will, my love. You will.”

_

Chapter Text

_

Kurumu

I felt my destined one, Mizore, by my side now, comforting me now.

_

“I can’t. I Can’t. I CAN’T. I CAN’T! I CAN’T!!! I CAN’T!!!

I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE!”

_

Two years ago…

_

Tsukune...

He was so innocent. So pure. I felt bad every time I tried to push myself onto him now. I knew that in the beginning, I was nothing but a vixen, trying to steal a girls love away. How horrible of me. But it was my lot in life. A succubus. 

But now, I have changed. My kiss to Mizore during that fall that special day was the start of it. We had become one in a way after that. So I was happy to see Moka grow with him. To see his happiness with her...

And then, in a flash he was gone.

At first, I couldn’t speak to anyone. It was only days before, in fact only three days that week that I had proposed to Mizore. So when we saw him die…

I wanted to kill myself. I forgot all about my promise to Mizore, a fact that so wounded me. It wasn’t even that I loved him; it was the sight of seeing someone so dear to me be annihilated in an instant. Like, how can I even…

She stopped me. She saw how wrecked I was and took me to her home. She nursed me back to my old self, least what was left of it after the funeral. The sight of his coffin was too much for me still, even though his sacrifice was such an honorable act. To see him die so young...it felt horrific to even describe.

I saw my mother grieve with me, his times by our sides warmed her heart as well. Mizore’s mother was worried for her child. Mizore had said nothing after his death and only now, as I laid resting on her couch with her beside me sitting, whimpering out my last, I heard her let it all out. 

I had never seen her so distraught.

I quickly cradled her to my chest, wanting desperately to quell this desolation she and I felt.

I yanked her close to me and kissed her, feeling her emotions run ragged till they settled.

We pulled away only for a moment.

“Mizore-chan, you are my one and only. I want you to know that.”

“Oh Kurumu...”

She started sobbing again and I wiped away her tears.

“Hush now...It’s ok. We have each other and that’s all that matters.”

_

I remembered seeing Moka leave in a hurry that day, the rain pouring down on everyone in an effort to solidify the mourning parties.

That was really the last I saw of her.

I had the mind to ask Kokoa where she was a couple weeks after but all I got was a dejected sigh and a single teardrop down her face.

Thinking back, I could’ve guessed. I’m sure it was her I saw one night by her family's mansion in the window. Her hair was now silver completely, no pinkness left. 

I...liked that pink. I remember my first night with her she was pink.

_

One week after Mizore’s attempted suicide...(5 years ago)

It was a test really. A test for me, anyway. Not for Moka.

We said we were vying for Tsukune’s love but in reality I just wanted her. She had this fancy to her where whatever she did made you like her even more. No matter what I did we were at odds all the time and now...I had come to like that. Jealousy was a part of my being, my species, of who I was; of course I was jealous of her, who wouldn’t be?

But I could never hate her. And not just because she made Tsukune happy.

But because she made us happy. She made ME happy. I did not want to hate her.

_

I brought her to my house, my mother graciously inviting her in, unaware of the debauchery we were about to commit. But then again, I was the daughter of a succubus.

I’m sure she wouldn’t be THAT bothered by it.

_

Sex with a vampire was more than I could ever hoped. It was fervent and loving, and oh so sensuous. She did EVERYTHING to me, Oh the details I could divulge about her would make any person envious. But then…

When she bit me... 

She DRANK from me. And I was in ecstasy, unable to even think of anything else. 

_

When I told Mizore, the only one I would ever tell, she was pretty nonchalant as usual.

“So, was she good? Was it good for you?”

If I told her I was suddenly in love with my enemy in love…

No, Moka was a dear friend of mine. We just bonded last night, as two promiscuous Yokai.

Nothing to be ashamed of.

“You bet she was! Hell, I'd go at her again in a heartbeat.”

“Hmmm…*pop*” she took the sucker out of her mouth and leaned in to kiss me.

“WHHHHHAAAA???!” I thought, her lips rushing against mine. Finally, after about a minute, she leaned back.

“So, was I good as well?” she popped the sucker back in her mouth with a slight mischievous smile.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!” I wasn’t angry at her, just...surprised.

“Weell, I suppose I’d have to do more than just kiss you for it to be a fair comparison...”

“What’s...gotten into you, all of a sudden?”

She looked at me softly.

“I dunno, I just see you now in a different light I guess. Ever since you saved me.”

“You mean...the day you?”

“Yeah. When you kissed me it...made me happy. In ways...I’ve never felt before. I dunno, hearing you talk about some night you spent with Moka-chan...it’s “cute.”

“What do you mean, “cute?” I inquired, a bit of blush coming to my face at how heated she was making me now.

“Like “cute”, like I...wouldn’t mind joining you next time. Why did you do it anyway and why did she agree? Don’t you think that would betray Tsukune?” she said, not really meaning the latter half of her statement.

“No. I mean I did ask her as a challenge but really I just wanted to have sex with her. I don’t know why, I just have been feeling...lonely as of late. Damn Tsukune.”

Mizore made a slight O face, and then snickered silently.

“Ah, so that’s why she agreed. Moka-chan never backs down from a challenge. Say, if it were her, me, or Tsukune which one would you choose?” she leaned up to me again.

I felt this whole conversation was devolving into utter nonsense but still yet she threw me. Maybe a year ago I would've said Tsukune without hesitation but now…

“Ah, see? You’re hesitant. You like us all now, perhaps even equally. What a turn around for the self-proclaimed jigolette of the academy.”

I backed away slightly, her words getting to me as my face turned redder and redder.

“Mizore, are you making fun of me?”

She stepped back to her original spot, seeming to have calmed a bit now.

“Not at all. Though, you did just call me Mizore, without the “chan.” How bold.”

She stepped backward and left, her feet softly petering out of the courtyard as I just stood there.

Stone.

_

Wasn’t much later that we had our first go...with Moka too.

_

_

We figured we could share her pretty favorably, her petite body just enough for the two of us to divulge in.

I brought wine, mother’s stash; figured mom wouldn’t mind and chocked it up to an “aid in the experimentation.” Mizore had a few glasses but Moka, surprisingly, spat it out immediately.

Funny that a vampire of all things wouldn’t drink wine.

“Heh, wasn’t to your liking, I’m guessing,” Mizore said as she motioned for another glass from me. The way she sipped was so sexy too, not too clean and she let the legs swish a bit too much. Hot as Hell.

“It’s SOOO foul! How can you drink this?” she said, blowing raspberries to get the taste out of her mouth. She sat on the rug like a child.

“Says the one who drinks blood. Gotta say, when you drank from me that night I decided to try some of mine myself. Never really got the kink, really. Just tastes like iron. Blegh,” I said, sipping the wine gingerly. 

It was a beautiful vintage, 1956 to be exact. And a rich finish with an oaky texture. At only 17, I knew my wines pretty well. And this one was really doing it for me.

“Oh but blood is magnificent! It has so many different flavors, rich, tangy, sweet, even a little spicy too. And it comes from everyone. I can drink Tsukune’s, yours, Mizore-chan’s, even my sisters!”

I almost spat out mine at that. She was way too eager to say anything now.

“Sooo, you’re into that kink too. Man, I feel sorry for Kokoa-chan then,” I sipped away, regaining my composure if only for a minute. I turned my head like I didn’t know what she’d say next.

She looked so angry when she got my meaning but her face was so red that she looked about to burst.

Adorable.

“OOOH IT’S NOT LIKE THAT AND YOU KNOW IT! *HARUMPH*”

She pouted, pulling a pillow to her chest and turning away from us. Mizore and I just laughed.

“Now that’s cute as hell,” 

“Now that’s cute as hell,” we said in unison, our faces turning as we realized we were on the same wavelength. And then we laughed it off.

“I love that about you Moka. You never let things get too serious,” I said, getting out the last of my giggles. She softened and smiled wide.

Mizore turned to me now, staring at me intently. The minute I noticed, it kinda freaked me out and turned me on at the same time.

“Hey...Mizore, what’s the pr-”

“You just called her Moka.”

“Yeah...so, what’s wrong wit-”

She scooted closer abruptly making me shriek a bit.

“I thought I was the only one you’d refer to without an honorific. Are you that close with MOKA-CHAN as well?” she played with her usual monotone tone but I heard a bit of jealousy in her delivery.

“Oh c’mon, Mizore. We’re about to-”

“I know that. But...who’s it gonna be? Me or Moka-chan?”

I felt Moka’s stare now too, hers more confused but just as intent now.

“Whaddya mean Miz-”

I felt both of them gang up on me now, like I was about to be devoured.

“Yeah Kurumu-chan, who’s it gonna be?” Moka chimed in, seeming like she didn’t really understand what she was saying. Still her face was lovably sweet.

“Ok, I guess we’re doing this right now. I was gonna finish this bottle first but I guess if you’re both in the mood…”

“WHO YA’ CHOOSING?!”

“WHO YA’ CHOOSING?!” they said in unison, now inches from my face.

“I...uh-uh”

“WEEELL?”

“...oh fuck off, you two.”

I pulled them down onto the bed with both my arms and laughed while they looked at me speechless.

“Both. Both, yeah both is good,” I said grinning.

_

That night was one I wished to replicate a thousand times over, finding our new companionship renewed. 

_

Eventually it came up.

“We should invite Tsukune in next time,” Moka said and lunch the next day.

I was all for the idea at first, probably make one hell of an evening, but I declined it in the end.

“As much as I’d love to, I don’t know if Tsukune wants that.”

Moka and Mizore both looked at me across the table dumbfounded.

“Who are you and what have you done with Kurumu?” Mizore said jokingly. 

She had a point, though.

Moka laughed but I felt an earnest answer was more appropriate now.

“I don’t know. It’s like...what you said before Mizore. Like, I get this feeling I’ve never felt before with...you now. It’s not that I don’t love him...it’s, it’s complicated, ok?”

“Seems it,” she said sly as a fox, circling the lollipop around in her mouth. Geez, and I thought I was the tease..

Moka, seeing the tension rise in the air, tried to lighten the mood. 

“It’s ok! It was just a random thought, ya know~ popped in my head like *POOF*. Nothing to take so seriously. Don’t sweat it Kurumu-chan.”

Still I felt the need to further this hole I was digging myself into.

“Mizore, how do you feel about me, right now?”

“Well, considering that just last night we had the wildest sex ever, I’d say pretty good,” she responded, forever nonplussed.

I knew what she was getting at last night, about how it was either her or Moka. In no time flat our entire relationship had changed. But I wasn’t about to play her game.

“No, I mean me. As a person. I know what you’ve been thinking. Like, I put you under a spell that day. Like, I wanted you to love me so that you wouldn’t consider suicide ever again.”

“The thought may’ve occurred to me but it’s not like you’d tell me anyway,” she said, irritatingly unmoved by my daring statement. I was annoyed now, angry at how lax she took this into account.

I had seen such emotion in her that day, emotion I’d never seen before. She cried her heart out because of what that man did to her. Our cute stalker, always spying from one scene to the next.

Unraveled, just like that. I’d NEVER let that happen again.

I slammed my fist on the table, frightening Moka.

“WELL IT’S NOT LIKE THAT! I don’t have a charm for women! Never have! If a girl has any interest in me that’s cause it was born of her accord! Her own preference! I’m not some...hussy that would sidle my best friends to me just for my own gain! I’m NOT using you! How...could you that thought ever occur to you, even?!”

I had to get this off my chest now or it would never happen.

Mizore was slightly moved by my outburst, the most I’d seen her before. I wanted her to get angry, sad, happy, just...something to show she wasn’t going to ignore this.

Just, not the way she actually did.

After about a minute of silence she spoke up.

“So? How am I supposed to know anyway? I’m not like you Kurumu. I’m not versatile in these things. This accepting love. When I’m asked at home and by peers who I’m going to marry soon they expect him to be a worthy, rich man. What are they gonna say when I say you’re the only thing on my mind now?

I wanted Tsukune cause he seemed different, the farthest thing away from a preferable choice for my family. And now of all people, you pop in my mind. You keep popping in like a bad tune, replaying your image, over and over again. I tried embracing it at first, just to stop the noise of you plaguing me everyday but now...you look at Moka-chan the same way now. I wanted to tear her apart last night. 

I want to go back to Tsukune where at least I know I can make sense of my world. 

You are like a bottle of lit oil tossed into my calm lake. 

You saved me from Miyabi. His...vile rape of my soul. And I thank you for that. But now...

If what you say is true and that I’ve had some sort of “lesbian epiphany”or some shit in the last week, how do I even go on? I can’t tell anyone, cept you two. I can’t act on it with Moka-chan here. I feel like I'd freeze the both of you solid just so I don’t have to see you anymore. Just so you’d leave me and I could forget...this change. This change. This change...I...I CAN’T STAND IT!”

“I can’t. I Can’t. I CAN’T. I CAN’T! I CAN’T!!! I CAN’T!!!

I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE!”

She got up from the table and left without another word.

I never expected, in all the years of my long life, THAT to be her response.

_

I felt the need to console. So badly.

But I couldn’t begin to tell you where she went.

As she was an expert at hiding, the places she could be were endless. I was lost even attempting to look for her.

I figured maybe she was Tsukune, trying to “stay away the gay”, ya know. I mean, I wasn’t shallow or anything, i just thought that it didn’t matter. Maybe it was cause it was who I was, how I was brought up and all, but guys were just toys, unless they were my destined one. The girls in my life were either my friends or enemies. It was that cut and dry.

But I never had a problem with the idea. I mean, it sounded fun. Guys were sustenance and when you got bored of that you wanted to see a girl. I knew plenty of my mothers’ friends back home had their open affairs with all kinds of Yokai. The incubi never cared, most thought it was just as hot. The really religious guys though, they were assholes about it. Tried to sanitize that kind of thinking.

I didn’t mind. If a girl wanted me, I’d let her, as long as I liked her too.

But the idea of a girl as my “destined one?” That was new to me. New to most of us. All the girls around school were more interested in guys so if they found out I, the haughtiest of them all, was falling for this little shy bean, I’d be ruined, right?

Maybe.

Maybe, I’m overreacting.

Maybe what we all need is to grow a pair. Fucking move on, ya know? It’s way too far in the future to be worried about such...transgressive discrimination.

_

I ran into Moka a little after school, still searching high and low for Mizore. Earlier I got some looks when I landed from my flights over the school, the students wondering what I could possibly be looking for. I even had the jocks offer to help, of course implying a “reward” from me as compensation, but I politely turned them down. It wouldn’t end well for either of us.

They looked visibly discouraged by my rejection, apparently really wanting to help me.

Still, I felt if one of them found her before I did it would just be even more of a hassle. She may have even gotten angrier.

Moka assisted me the best she could, running up to Tsukune so he could tear off her rosary. The light swirled around her as she glimmered into her silver, bustier form.  I remember my first flight with her the night I fought her inner self a year ago. But now, this silver Moka just gave me stern glances and talked very measuredly. No malice, just...resolved.

“Where was the last place she saw you?” Inner Moka said, no lilt to her voice anymore.

“Lunch, about 6 hours ago.”

“Where does she usually go?” Inner Moka took in her surroundings, like a tiger let out of its cgae finally.

“She...has her usual hiding places in the gym and near the inner courtyards but I’ve checked all those.”

Inner Moka put her hand to her chin, thinking of a solution her ditzier counterpart couldn’t come up with.

“I...think she’s being aided by someone. I...don’t think her presence is here anymore.”

“You, mean she’s left school?” I exclaimed, perturbed that it had gotten this far so quickly.

“Yes. And I have a good idea who helped her.”

Moka sniffed the air as if she picked up on something, and then grinned. I heard her say barely under her breath, “Magic…”

_

Yukari.

Yukari was easy to crack, really too easy, in most situations.

But when we came to yell at her for disappearing Mizore, she wouldn’t say a word. Now I knew it was her, or rather she was the first step.

Inner Moka slammed her foot on the table in front of Yukari. I didn’t want to scare the poor girl but she was certainly a pain right now. 

“WHERE. IS. SHE? Yukari-san, if you don’t tell me there’s going to be trouble. You know that, right?” 

Inner Moka demanded, the atmosphere thickening around her momentous form.

It was still so fascinating how dispiriting this Moka was in comparison. She was a completely different person altogether. 

Yukari wailed in the corner, backed up against the classroom wall as she slumped down and cried. 

“IIII’M SOOOORYYY MOKAAA-CHAAN!!! SHEEE MAAADE ME TO DOOO IT! PLEEASE DON’T HURT ME!!!”

I pulled at her shoulder, motioning her to back off. She obliged, but only just, still glaring at Yukari.

“Yukari-chan, we understand why. It’s just that, you don’t have this level of magic for the teleportation spell you used. Where is Ruby, you gotta tell us.”

Yukari sniveled in front of me as I laid my hand on her head, trying to keep the mood a bit lighter.

“She, she helped me. Mizore wanted to go back to the cliff. You know, the one where she...B-But Ruby, she refused. So Mizore threatened me. Ruby and I were just walking alone, that’s all. I didn’t even know Mizor-”

“YUKARI! When did this happen?!” I yelled, knowing full well I was out of time already.

“Uh, about an hour ago!” she responded, horrified by the whole situation.

I took off without another word, running down the hall and slamming a school window open. 

 I took to the skies with a speed faster than I ever had before.

It was now or I’d never see her again.

_

She had to be.

There’s no if, ands, or buts about it.

She had to be the one.

Our frequency, our wavelength, it was there from the very beginning.

Sure we argued endlessly about who would have him first but it was never meant to be.

He wasn’t meant to be, for us.

When I pushed myself onto Tsukune I was only trying to ignore these new thoughts in my head. I didn’t want to accept them and instead felt comfort in the easy slot I was placed in. This, society. These people. They could be whoever they want to be, love whoever they want to love...without being ridiculed. If I had just listened to myself. If I had just been true to myself.

Then none of this would've happened.

_

“MIZORE!”

I called out to her as she stood, arms out, ready to jump once more.

She hesitated at my call and looked back to me, tears in her eyes.

“MIZORE! Please, just...hear me out, ok?” 

She fully turned to me now, saying nothing with a frown on her face. Her sucker was out of her mouth, stuck to the rock of the cliff’s edge on the ground by her feet. She must’ve been scorching now.

“...”

“Mizore, please I-”

“I’m listening, aren’t I?” she waved her hand about, still her monotone self with her tears drying on her face.

“Mizore, I want you to know. You are my one. My only.”

“How cheesy, really Kurumu.”

“No I mean it. YOU are my destined one. Not Tsukune.” I stepped closer, slowly approaching her.

“Please, please don’t reject me, Mizore. You know what would happen, don’t you?” 

If I am rejected by my destined one, I’d die.

“If it’s true and I am your “destined”...then you can’t have anyone else. Not after what you’ve done to me. I don’t care if it’s the hottest guy or girl on the planet. If you choose me, you can ONLY choose me.”

“I…”

“TELL ME YOU UNDERSTAND! NOW!”

“I-I DO! I CHOOSE YOU! ONLY YOU!”

I was only five feet away now, the ground shaking slightly under me. Was it...the weight of my wings?

I retracted them slowly as I closed the distance between us now.

“Now and forever, no Moka, no Tsukune, no anyone. I am your only love,” she said, meaning every word.

She sounded selfish to anyone who didn’t understand her meaning but I got it. It was my kiss that day. I had no lure for girls but she had feelings for me before. Locked away, like mine all this time. Feelings she didn’t want to act on. Feelings she felt ashamed of. Feelings she thought would ruin her.

That kiss...just to save her life.

It completed her and now she had to let it all out.

Completely.

“Please, Mizore. Come back with me.” 

“...ok.” She tentatively reached out her hand…

*CRRRRRAACK*

The ground gave way in an instant, the cliff side breaking off and sending us both plummeting. 

I saw as Mizore fell, her eyes wide open in fear. That day, she looked sad, relenting herself to her death. But now, she wanted to live. To live with me. And this would not stop me.

I spread my wings as far as they could go and flew down to grab her, her hand still out, reaching for dear life. I took it with amazing speed and pulled her into my arms.

“You’re safe now.” I cradled her, bridal style as the debris from the cliff fell into the depths below.

“Am I? Did-did you mean what you said?” her eyes still widened from the ordeal she just went through.

“Every word,” I saw her now, in my arms as my own, my other half.

She smiled at me and I felt such wonder from the way my warm body felt with her cold skin on mine.

With nothing left to say, we kissed, as the sun set.

_

The days afterward were admittedly...awkward at first.

I mean, we had to come out to everybody, otherwise it would’ve been treated as a scandal.

Course, it was treated as such anyway. That’s just how people are. But the vast majority either accepted or didn’t care one way or the other. The newspaper club published it as, “Queens Come Out!” and it was actually quite positive. I even remember a couple other girls and even some guys came out after that, publicly even. One couple “came out” and then was found having an affair with a male teacher a week later, but you know, that kinda shit always happens. Eventually. Least the small number of homophobes who jeered at us were more interested in that story when it came out. 

Our parents…”came” around eventually. 

Mizore’s mom, Tsurara was quiet like her daughter but she also gave her blessing saying she was fine with it as long as Mizore was happy. She was so elated that her mother was the voice of reason now she embraced her as hard as she could. I think she passed out in Mizore’s arms from the squeeze.

Her dad didn’t see the point. When he finally spoke up about it he said, “So, who’s gonna make my son then?” Tsurara punished him dearly for that. I thought it was funny, honestly. She beat him enough times to make him bleed out and who knows what she did to him downstairs. A couple days later he spoke to us again and offered his blessing in a very weak squeaky voice. Now that was even funnier.

Mom was all for it from the beginning, no doubt in my mind that my mother had her “experimentations”. She wanted us to have a baby though, asking Mizore to be the “father.” She declined, monotone as always.

Tsukune was very supportive, no doubt due to his “liberal” views in his world. Well, that was what he called them. Moka already knew but when she saw we wouldn’t even consider Tsukune anymore, she took her chance. She claimed as her own and when I saw it finally happen for the first time, I was overjoyed. 

I really had changed, it seemed. We both did.

_

Chapter Text

Kurumu

_

“Do you remember, Mizore, the first day we met?” I gave into her chilly cuddle, my spine used to the goosebumps she gave me now. The bed was plenty big for the two of us but due to how cold her house was, I always wanted to cuddle. Least she was warm in the afterglow.

“Like it was yesterday,” my wife, still as lovely as ever gazed past the window, deep into the icy snow outside. She gave me a contented smile, relaxing into the pillows as the blizzard continued. 

We had holed up for a bit, the snow too heavy for us right now. Well, for me. The cold never bothered her anyway. I wanted to rent an apartment, closer to my home where I could still visit mom but she said it was best to remain with her mother for the time being. I had a job now, as a, you guessed it, model but she was still kind of a yandere, irritated that I would flaunt my figure for beauty and health product commercials. She once even threatened to castrate the director if he so much as looked at me wrong. I assured her there was a side they’d never see that was hers forever.

That got her.

Her job was less “glamorous,” well to me, at least. She was a bookkeeper part time for several local companies, starting out as a temp and then moved up the ranks very fast over the last few years. I wasn’t aware at all during school that she was so good at math but lo and behold, I had a nerd for a wife. 

And honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

_

“WHOOOO’S HUNGRY~?” a tall woman in bat stockings came trouncing into the room, a sultry bounce to her steps. She had a full course breakfast for us, we wouldn’t get up from our nighttime “fun” so she brought it to us in bed. How thoughtful.

I had seen her often now, she was a welcomed guest and just happened to stay with us this time, with her sister, Lilith, as well.

Morrigan.

She had a thick accent , not one from Japan like...Tsukune...had. It was what they called, “European,” wherever that was. I remember venturing outside this world once or twice but really I knew nothing outside the Yokai world. 

So to see Yokai from this other place was still taking time to process for me.

_

Mizore always tried feeding me now, even if we were both adults. I accepted but it still made me feel a little embarrassed even now. Course if I resisted, there’s no telling what she’d do to me.

“Say “ahhh.”

“Really? Right now? Can’t we like, just eat like nor-”

“NO. Now, open your mouth.”

God, she could be so insistent at times.

_

As we came down the steps to the large living room and kitchen, I saw Mrs. Shirayuki aka Tsurara, run up and hug me.  She’d been like this ever since we got married, a fact she had now completely reconciled. Something about our marriage being official here really got to her. That’s one thing I heard Tsukune say once. That although he supported us, he feared his society didn’t and did not have a “law” in place for same-sex marriages.

Thankfully, Yokai were very open people and there was no mandate that marriage had to be between only the opposite sexes. As such, we had ours together at a resort where all our friends and family gathered. All save for Moka and...Tsukune.

_

We didn’t know where she went after all this time. We sent a card with some flowers too. I figured there was nothing I could say to a woman whose heart had been so viscerally broken so I just wrote about how we missed her and wished she’d visit us. I have no idea if she ever even got them.

I met her mother about a year after his death and our graduation, mostly just to say what a great friend she was and how important she is to us…

but all I saw from her was despair.

Her mother, her mirror self, could barely speak to us and choked every time we mentioned her.

I felt awful, I wanted to see Moka again so badly. But then her sister came to their mother’s side and said, “She’s gone. She left us without another word.”

That was that, then. I would never see Moka again. I felt a similar depression that week after, one akin to Tsukune’s passing and Mizore did her best to comfort me. But the truth of the matter still rammed into me like a knife. Cutting deep.

_

“It sure is blowing out there, huh…” said the smaller of the two siblings, Lilith, laid on the couch watching TV. The wind howled outside and I heard a gust blow open the back door.

“Oh dear! Let me get that...geez,” Tsurara said, hurrying to shut and bolt it shut, the wind heavy on the frame. “THERe...WEEeee...GO!”

*pant* *pant* Tsurara looked winded herself from locking that thing shut.

“It is a howler today, aint’ it? Guess you two will be working from home again, then?” She said, regaining her icy breath.

“Mom, you klutz, it’s Sunday,” Mizore said, deadpan as ever.

*SLAM*

Everyone in the room froze, knowing who was coming down the hall.

“Hey, Don’t speak to my honey that way!” My mom, Ageha, suddenly came in from the shower, not at all disturbed by the fact her massive chest wasn’t covered at all. The fabulous view was the catch of every woman’s eyes.

She came over and kissed Tsurara, bath towel still wrapped around her perfect figure. Well, as perfect as I was. She bore me, after all.

_

I found it so hilarious how both our moms were so alike us now. It only took the stupidness from their male suitors to find a reason to hang out with each other. After being rivals during their academy days, to acquaintances, to allies against the uprising, they mellowed quite a bit when we got married. Tsukune’s passing really destroyed any sort of rivalry they had as well, realizing that we all had to support each other now.

It started out as “girl’s night,” where they just hung out and drank, complaining about how stupid men were. Tsurara’s husband was never heard of, and she hadn’t seen him in years. Ageha admitted she had no idea who Kurumu’s father was, a humorous thought indeed.

In the end it made sense. Who were they to trust in if not each other?

_

They invited Mizore and I one time and that’s where things got a bit heated. 

Ageha sat right next to Mizore and I next to Tsurara. Tsurara would have white sake and Ageha, straight bourbon. I saw how entranced Mizore was at how large my Mom’s knockers were. They were taking up a good portion of the booth, I know that. I felt Tsurara gently brush my hand under the table. I was so intimidated by her but she really was quite soft. I let my hand graze her kimono and she looked down and gave me the slightest of smirks. Oh, dear…

They talked endlessly about silly men they dated before and how many they could get through in one hour, Ageha holding the record at 24. Tsurara not too far behind at 18.

I chimed in at one point, ordering a wine, a cabernet specifically, wanting any reason to change the subject.

Man, did it change.

They asked how many times we’d done it yet and how often we did. Mizore just sat there cold as ice, well as cold as she usually was, but frozen...agh...fine, you get my meaning. 

I answered cleverly that we would need help moving into a new apartment. This was about 6 months ago and still hasn’t happened unfortunately. We’ll get there though.

They agreed on the condition they could check on our “progress.” Mom still very much wanted a grandchild and I understood it wasn't really a joke as much anymore. Once we got to that point, I’d adopt, I promised her. Of course she offered instead several methods for Mizore to, “make it official.” She said she had plenty of potions from back home that could do the trick. Maybe Mizore would take her up on her offer after enough coercion. I wouldn’t though, least not yet. 

Tsurara was less worried about such things. She was just elated to see her daughter so happy now. She did wonder how her daughter kept up with me though, and always went on about she’d need more stamina. I’d never seen Mizore so red.

In time I was coerced into the heavier stuff, taking a couple shots of bourbon and one of sake. That was enough to make me want to pass out but I stood my ground and held my own pretty well, that is...

until Tsurara got handsy with me. 

I felt her grope my chest very roughly, and I was not expecting at all. Then again, we were all drunk so what was I to expect? I looked over to see Mizore doing the same to Mom, who was surprisingly ok with it. She seemed ok with anything right now.

Then Tsurara leaned into me and Mizore leaned into Ageha.

And my mom and I got kissed at the same time,

Me by Tsurara and her by Mizore.

And I gotta say, Tsurara tasted good. Like Iced strawberries. And fire too, but that was definitely the sake. I dare say, maybe even a teensy bit better than her daughter. I’d never utter that aloud though.

They separated after a long uninterrupted and honestly welcome kiss and passed out in our arms.

Oh it was a fun time explaining that one to them the day afterwards. 

Mom did pull me aside though and say simply, “Good choice, dear.”

Mizore, ever vigilant in her love for me, was adamant in saying she felt nothing for Ageha. Ageha was a little brought down by that, thinking she was a perfect lay for anyone, let alone her daughter’s wife. That said, Tsurara assured her daughter she was not going to take me for herself. I felt completely weird in this incest love square we had going on now. But it was wholesome, all the same.

No one was getting hurt, jealous, angry, abused. Just...love.

It stopped registering that Tsurara was my Mother-in-law. I mean, we were all beautiful, mom and Tsurara not looking much older than us anyway. They had us at such a young age, they just looked like upperclassmen. If you did some real mental gymnastics, they just looked like us a little older. It was hilarious to me.

_

Something clicked with them. Mom didn’t hide the fact she liked Tsurara now. 

I asked mom one day if she’d given up on men and she just responded, “Never. 

I just think, if you two are together why can’t we? I hope Tsurara actually feels the same.”

She made her point.

They went on outings with us all the time, mostly beauty spas and mani-pedis. It got more and more sexual as the year went by, as I figured it would. The onsen was the last straw. It happened only two weeks ago, near Mizore’s cottage.

_

“This heat is going to melt me you know.” Mizore said, not having any of the hot spring, instead laying by the snow on the rocks' edges. Had we picked one nearer to my home I’d worry my wife would be gone in seconds next to the sweltering heat of home. Mom really liked it hot for…”obvious” reasons.

“Well dear, how are you going to get anywhere with her if you don’t try something out once in a while?” Tsurara was pretty much immune to the hotspring, her bodies’ construct able to withstand heat much more effectively than her daughter. 

I saw Mizore tepidly dip her toe in the water and then yank it out in pain, curling up in a ball in the snow. I felt awful seeing her like that so I rose up out of the water and held her tight, trying to avoid the effects of the heat I created.

I had been with her enough now to realize I had grown a bit immune to cold. Not mom though, even as much as she’d grown infatuated with Tsurara, her touch caused Mom to recoil. I couldn’t imagine them making love, as it were. Mom would just keep screaming at how cold she was. It would actually just be hilarious to see. I, on the other hand, had gotten used to Mizore’s -4C temperature. It took a bit I’ll admit but it was worth it.

“Now there’s a lovely sight. Our daughters, spooned, naked, together in the glistening snow…” Tsurara let out a contented sigh as she sunk into the water.

“Yeaaah, sure it’s adorable...but...h-HONEY! Aren’t you cold?”

I shook my head no as Mizore lay in my arms, I spread out against a snow covered rock. I grazed my fingers through her hair, loving the way it felt. Like strands of velvet ribbon.

The snow didn’t feel cold at all. It was like a blanket. I...loved being with her now, in any state.

“You know, Ageha, um...can I call you Ageha?” Tsurara spoke up, motioning herself closer to mom.

“...Yes…?” she seemed surprised by the sudden interest in her, even though she craved it like sex.

Could she, be...mom’s...

“Ageha, you know, I’ve seen the way you look at me. It’s not the way you look at other men. It’s not the way I’ve seen you look at any man before. Or even any woman. Don’t think I don’t notice it.”

Ageha was strawberry red now and I was sure it wasn’t the heat of the water.

“I...uhhh, umm, I mean, you know, I uhh,” she stammered. I’d never seen her so frazzled.

She sidled up closer to mom, her breasts now pushed next to my mother’s own lovely pair.

“Oh, don’t get the wrong idea,” Tsurara said, her voice becoming more alluring than before.

“Ummm…” Mom looked like a frightened school girl and Tsurara was looking ready to pounce.

“I like it. In fact I like it A LOT,” Tsurara’s velvet eyes took in Mom's as if she were eating her alive with her stare alone.

She grazed mom’s cheek and she shrieked from how cold Tsurara must’ve been.

“EEEEEK!!!”

“Now THAT you’re gonna have to get used to, like your lovely daughter has. No matter how hot you get me in bed, I'm gonna be cold to the touch, ALWAYS.”

“Wait...does this mean?” Mom’s eyes lit up like sparklers, her tone matching that off a wanting child.

“Yes, my god are you as dense as that Moka girl? I accept your...interest in me and...am “open” to reciprocation.”

“Huh?” Ageha was gobsmacked.

“Listen, you dolt. Do I have to spell it out for you? Oh, I know. You understand thiiiis, don’t you?”

She leaned up and kissed Mom, right on the lips. If I wasn’t cuddling Mizore right now, I’d have been in shock from the sight.

I heard Mom moan after a minute, knowing from experience her lips must’ve been...heavenly.

They were also the warmest part of her. Well, second warmest. Then again whenever I got that far down on Mizore...well, I’ll get to that later too.

Finally they separated, a long string of saliva coming from both of them. Wow, they really got into it after that.

“So, there you go? Was that…”specific” enough for you?”

Chapter Text

Kurumu

_

Again, this was something new.

I was worried they’d kick us out with how crazy I was getting.

And really, sex with my own mother? Like, how do I even, where do I begin?

Mizore on the other hand, she was fine with it, acting like she had plenty of practice. 

_

We were in our room now, naked as the day we were born, as we settled in for what would quite possibly be the night of my life. 

Oh, I had sex, with men and women before, but never with an older woman (well not that much older) and NEVER with my own mom.

But I suppose at this point, I was up to it.

_

Mizore got into her usual position, always wanting to be the bottom as I trailed my fingers past her slit. Her breasts hitched against the sheets, whimpering only slightly at my bust pressing against her. I made my way inside finally, my middle finger slipping in her sweet cunt. She started screaming now and I had to stick my other fingers in her mouth to keep her from bringing in unwanted company. She liked it when I did that, most of the time anyway.

I glanced over to Mom and Tsurara getting to it. Tsurara was the bolder of the two, pushing Ageha between her icy legs. By the moans of appreciation Tsurara started emitting, there was no doubt the famous Kurono tongue was being put to good use. She thrashed gently as Mom gave her a lashing down south. Man, this was weird as hell.

I felt a slick coming from my beautiful and took my finger out of her gingerly. Oh, how I loved when she came. It was like ice cream, really it was. Always a slightly different flavor. She collapsed on the bed, only turning her head to look at me, delighted by her taste. I grinned as I sucked away every last drop of her quim on my fingers and saw her blushing at me. I stayed coy to the end, making a show of licking my fingers clean as well. Not that anything that came from her could ever be dirty.

She looked enticed by my tongue and motioned to where I should put it next. I giggled, obliging immediately. Though, I needed my kitty quenched too.

I laid on top of her, my most precious part of me pointed right at her face. She got the message and dug right in, her freezing tongue touching my melted core. A year ago I would yipe when she did this and jump out of bed, patting my pussy like it was on fire. I hated the look she gave me when I did that, so sad and dejected. She blamed herself, her body for not being compatible. That was when I’d embrace her, make her understand we were one, it would just take some time to get used to.

Now. Now, I felt ecstasy when she lapped at me. I likened it to a wet, smooth metal ball one that knew exactly where I wanted it. But then it was her expertise on the subject. How she’d become a master of bringing a girl to climax. No metal ball could be as thorough and loving as her. 

I used my own expert succubus tongue to give her a tongue bath like she never had before. Course, she and I had had sex together more times than I could count now, so I always had to ramp up my work. I looked over to Mom again, now in a mirrored opposite arrangement.

They laid in a 69 as well but Tsurara was on top, dominating my mom completely. She licked at her with such skill I felt ashamed to even be in the same room as her.

I was not worthy of such sexual prowess.

Still, mom was whimpering now, every lick probably driving her wild and freezing the fuck out of her pussy. She had a hotter core than me so to her, Tsurara’s tongue must’ve been the quench to her molten steel clit. 

Still, mom was not one to leave her partner high and dry. She licked at Tsurara just as much, probably balancing the heat of Tsurara’s cunt with with how frozen her cunt must’ve been now.

She’d get used to it. Just needs more practice with our snowflakes.

“Hey baby, are you going to stare at my Mom or get me off already?” Mizore stopped her wondrous rhythm and yelled to me. 

“Well, I already did, sweetcheeks. I was figuring maybe you could return the faAAAAAAAVVORR?”

She did just that, doubling her efforts and working my flower over till she bloomed brightly.

Mizore knew me so well. I laid into the comfort of the mattress.

I saw that Tsurara was panting hard on top of mom, most definitely creaming right then and there. My mom was looking spent too, an achievement to be sure.

There was no way I could even consider...well I mean, they’re right over there.

Yup, no going back.

I’m gonna fuck my mom.

_

After my afterglow, I prowled over to the other bed, raring for round two. Looking down at her, giving her the best bedroom eyes I could muster, too sex addled at this point to even think of the logistics of fucking her. To me, right now, we were just two young women who fancied girls more than men. 

Out of the blue, she leaned up and kissed me. MY OWN MOTHER KISSED ME, ON THE LIPS! Of her own accord too. Sure, she may’ve been a bit lucid due to the spa and her orgasm but she still kissed me. And...it was fantastic.

I felt no shame. I wanted to do this. Maybe not all my life but in this moment, I did. Why would this be wrong if it felt so right?

Mom stuck her tongue down my throat, not even asking for entrance. I couldn’t keep up with her so eventually I just let her control our kiss, which she led in a way only our species could.

“Wow, I guess I have to kiss you too dear...come here Mizore…” I heard Tsurara say, recovering from hers as well and beckoning Mizore over to the bed.

With all four of us on the bed now, it was getting kinda crowded. It was large, yes but with four fully grown women in writhing sex it felt tiny. Ah well, we’d just have to make due. And honestly, my wet hole was wanting to sit on her so bad right now. To save space, might as well combine.

“Mom, can I please sit on your face?” I asked as sultry as I could. I saw how she lit up when I lifted my hand as sexyily as I could muster and simply nodded, licking her lips in anticipation. 

I got right to it, making sure my plush butt caressed her as I laid down. She was an ass woman after all. 

Gotta say, the minute I felt my mothers tongue on my pussy, oh it was perfect. So perfect I felt I could die right there. The amount of nerve firing in me was incalculable. And mom didn’t just randomly touch and go. She had a method. A method that would have me coming in her mouth in no time flat. 

Suddenly, I felt Mizore lock lips with me once more. She had apparently taken my route and her mom was doing the same thing mine was. I could only imagine how wonderful that icy strawberry tongue felt inside my Ice Queen but then again, my mom was making my pussy purr like a siamese god. It felt like a volcano down there, the heat surely was the surface of the sun if not hotter. Oh mom, was getting me there quick, sooooooo quick now and I moaned into Mizore’s mouth hard. Mizore, in turn, moaned into mine as well. Tsurara was probably working her over like magic.

But I wanted to return the favor now. To her, for bringing this icy sweet gumdrop into my life. For raising her to be my true, my one. I had to give it back tenfold.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. Mom was so darling in her soft, luscious licks, I just had to reward her for all her hard work. Oh, and when she licked me clean too I felt like I’d cum all over again.

But now was the time to ask. Mizore was surely creaming herself again, a nice icy sunday for Tsurara. So I spoke up, panting.

“Hey, Mrs. Shirayuki. Can I...eat you out? Please?”

I saw Tsurara slowly detach from her daughter's crotch and lick the slushy spray from her lips.

 “I thought you’d never ask.”

_

A daisy chain was the only way to go out.

We had all had some sort of taste of each other and figured the favor would be all the more intense if we all indulged at the same time.

You feel kinda weightless you know. My tongue inside Tsurara, her’s inside Mizore, Mizore’s inside Mom, and Mom’s inside me. Round three was the weirdest so far, but the best as well. Her icy core was different than my wife’s, less sweet but more tangy. I’m sure her ice cream would taste just as good though. I felt Tsurara’s legs clench harder around me, a sure sign I was doing something right. I glanced over at times, to mom lapping away or Mizore making nice strokes down Mom’s slit. I suppose she's getting pretty used to the cold now.

As I hoped we all went at the same time. Perfect synchronization.

A shower of quim all diligently cleaned up by their respective party.

_

We laid down together, cuddled in a loving embrace, dozing off to slumber slowly in each other’s arms. I felt like the luckiest girl ever, with three powerful, beautiful girlfriends by my side.

If...if only there were a fourth though.

If...if only Moka was here.

_

Chapter Text

Kurumu

_

I got right to it.

Doing my shoots in the studio we had set up in the basement, my mother as the photographer. She knew my best sides really, better than any two bit AP knew and she didn’t leave a single shot to chance. She had em’ all planned out, especially the gravure shots. Those were for my more, “exclusive” fans. And mom knew just the poses to use. Ah, she was perfect.

Mizore was upstairs in her booking office. She did everything by computer now, switching from screen to screen like it was nothing. She was a wiz at it though I could never tell for the life of me how she moved so fast. She handled multiple books at once, using some sort of software to manage everything quickly and succinctly. I only wish I had even a modicum of interest in knowing what she did everyday to support us. Then again, she didn’t really know what I did. I’m pretty sure she’d slay half of my audience if she saw some of the more “risque” stuff my publisher put out.

Such is the life of a model.

Still, Morrigan and her sister hadn’t found their place yet with us. Lilith was lazy, never trying to help out around the house in any way and Morrigan was the opposite but it seemed her help was unneeded. She’d often try to take someone else's job, like Tsurara who was always content doing the laundry by herself. Morrigan would put the colors in with the whites and fuck everything up. At least Lilith didn’t make trouble for us. I knew it wasn’t really her fault but we had normal clothes that needed washing every week. Suffice to say, Mizore looked like she was about to kill her the first time she mixed pink with her striped sweaters. She also bleached my jumpers, something I was not too keen on.

Eventually, mom sat her down and as succubus to succubus tried to figure out what she was good. Turned out she was half decent cook, not as good as mom or Tsurara but decent enough. Better than us, I’ll tell ya. I couldn’t cook for shit. She’d start with an easy morning breakfast, making omelets and the like and then worked her way up by Tsurara’s tutelage.

We had a couple mishaps but nothing major.

Our little unit worked well, for the most part. I felt sometimes like there was something missing, something that would really complete us, but for the most part, I was happy.

I was...for awhile.

_

Katherine

_

She was...how should I say...not my “preferred” choice. No, not at all, far from it actually. I hated her with a passion when I found out what happened with Vincent. That is to say, when I thought it was just her charm that would make a relatively honest and faithful man become such an irredeemable asshole. And then there was the lies and how he would ignore my calls in favor of hers. How, when I checked my messages they all went unanswered. How he would run out during our meetings at the cafe and stray further and further away from me. He told of the nightmares he had been having, how he would wake from them thinking he just escaped death. REAL DEATH, he’d say. I mean, what was I to say, to that end? Oh, I’m so sorry Vincent, honey. Let me get you a crib and a blankie and make it all go away. You know, like how we should've been preparing for the unborn child in my uterus these last few months?! Christ, he was ridiculous. Now I have two babies to deal with. But, I went along, like Skyler to Walter White, lest he be the adulterer this time. I finally asked him about it and he got very defensive. Like, I know you’re sleeping with her. That girl you meet at the bar. It’s so obvious. You can’t hide it from me. When I confronted him, I saw that hussy by his bedside and it enraged me so. He said I shouldn’t be in his business, said I shouldn’t be butting in all the time, nagging him about his actions in life. He was quite rude and I had to believe in my heart it was her deceptions and manipulations that caused to act this way. This way, so unlike him, so unlike any man I had ever known. I could see the twitch in his eyes from how fervent he was in this Devil's path he took. I couldn’t stand it anymore. This man would not care for my child. I broke up with him but he tried to pull me back, physically grabbing my arm and I would have none of it. I slapped him and ran out, never looking back. No more of his evil would be upon me.

That’s when I saw her. The real her.

She knew where I lived, oddly enough. Completely unbeknownst to me of course, Vincent had shared every secret he knew about me to her. Knowing his treachery, I was compelled to call the police, have a restraining order placed on him to get him out of my life forever. It was pouring outside, adding insult to injury. God, what did I do? Seriously, are you really punishing me more after making this the worst day of my life? And when I saw her running up to my door outside I wanted to pay her back tenfold. What, bitch? You’ve ruined my relationship and now you’re here to rub it in? I never knew a man could turn so heartless so fast from such an allegedly heartless woman, so when I saw her panting, knocking at my door rapidly, I had half a mind to open it myself and give her a bruising she’d never forget. I hated even thinking of violence as the answer but she had done too much to me to be let off the hook so easily.

Unfortunately, she already had more than a few. Bruises, that is.

Her pretty mascara was all jagged now, splattered about her face in a blurry black mess. Her lipstick smeared with bloody busted lips, red colliding together in agonizing displays. The blush she had on did nothing to fade the scars on her cheeks. Her hair was tied and twisted in unnatural forms. And what I thought would be a shit-eating grin was very much the saddest face I had seen in a long time.

I was horrified. Did...did Vincent do THIS? Really?

She just stood there, sniveling in the rain at my doorstep.

As a fellow human being, I couldn’t just shoo her away. I had to show at least some semblance of empathy, however misplaced it was on my part.

_

I took pity on her and drew a bath. She removed her soaking wet garments, not that they were covering up enough to begin with and I threw them in the dryer. 

She refused to go in alone, so I went in with her, washing the abrasions cleanly and working to get her looking somewhat presentable, or at least enough so that I wouldn’t have the guilt of what I was looking at deter me from screaming my heart out at her. I felt like I was washing a child in a way. I saw the grease in her follicles, the matted salt of the rain droplets ruining her admittedly beautiful hair. I saw she had even more bruises on her torso and legs, some even bleeding. Still she never screamed or winced when the soap hit the cuts. She never cried or whimpered as the water washed the infectious areas away. She sat still in the tub, like stone. 

Silent, like a mouse. 

And those eyes never looked up at mine.

_

I lathered and rinsed about 7 times, doing my best to keep the hair untied and under control. When she was thoroughly fixed up with cuts and bruises bandaged up, I felt that need again to just stand up and tell her to get the hell out of my house. But I said nothing, One because it was still raining out and two, because I couldn’t believe Vincent did this. Sure he was an asshole for the last week or so but not an abuser. No, it...could be true. It could. I wouldn’t want to think of it like that, not ever, but now? From another’s perspective? It had to be awful what she went through. I had to find out the truth.

_

I left her in the bathroom, finally able to leave her to her own devices, if only for a moment. I walked downstairs and went to the kitchen to pour myself a drink. Goddamn, did I need one. 

I reached the counter and opened the cupboard for a glass. Next to it was a vintage label, scotch I had been saving for special occasions. I reached forward when I felt something. The slightest pulse, from within me. It was my baby. 

I slammed the cupboard door shut immediately. How dare I. How DARE I even THINK of doing such a thing? I can’t believe the thought even came to my mind, to drink while pregnant? Ugh. 

I took the scotch and poured down the sink drain. No, I need to be sober. I can’t let this weakness...ugh, I need to fix this. Whatever THIS is, it NEEDS to be fixed.

_

I sat in my armchair, waiting with bated breath for the abused harlot to come down. I had a glass of cranberry juice next to me, close enough to sate me now. It’s bitter taste soothed me somehow, making my head clear and ready for what was soon facing me. I had only one light on, the corner lamp, low hanging and dimmed slightly. Across from me was the sofa Vincent and I used to watch old westerns on. The John Wayne types, you know. Some obscure Italian ones too, the B-Westerns. When I was in a particularly romantic mood I’d put on “Casablanca” or “Double Indemnity.” Classics, you know? I liked classical things, classical touches, classical music, classical art, classical clothes. Vincent was about the now. He’d play those video arcade machines and focus way too much on his online world. Didn’t make a lick of sense to me. 

Who would bother with such trivial things when the fruits of life are those that stand the test of time?

Classic was where it was at, to me. 

...

But there was one thing about me that wasn’t so classic. That wasn’t something I wished classic had.

Or rather, that the classics are often maligned as perfection. 

They aren’t.

 There are so many awful things born from the classics that we often set aside. They go unnoticed. They go unsaid, unwelcome in conversation. They go unexamined, never fully understood. They go un-investigated, never explained. 

They go the way of the Aztecs. Ancient ideas born since the beginning of time itself.

They are the ancient ideas that must now be expunged so that future classics are not infected by the same disease.

That of abuse, of misandry, misogyny and chauvinism. That of hierarchical fascists and racist propaganders. That of the forceful dictators and their manipulative reigns. That of unchecked greed a plenty and lusts never virtuous. That of the patriarchal society bent on giving due every whim towards men.

That of the ills of life.

THAT is classic. Ohoho, the most classic thing in the world. And how I LOATHE it.

How I wish to cut it out with a knife myself.

_

She came down the stairway, still dripping. The towel wrapped around her looked two small even for her dainty figure. She was shivering slightly, probably still frozen from tonight's storm and cold air. She had to have walked all this way. I saw no car outside or any indication she drove here at all. She was simply running, full throttle, to MY doorstep. She had to have had a reason. 

She sat down on the sofa, still covered enough so that she wasn’t indecent but I could not talk to her this way.

Quickly I went upstairs and grabbed some garments for her, a nice pullover sweater and night clothes which she surprisingly took without issue. We still had not spoken a word to each other, communicating only through gestures and nodding. I wasn’t sure what my first word would be to her, after seeing her like that.

I fixed up some tea, chamomile, which she accepted and then sat across from her.

Her frail body, only now sore from all those hits she had taken sipped the tea gingerly as she had her down cast in her seat. Just who is this women who was so proudly fucking my to-be-fiancee only two days ago? This doesn’t look like her. Not at all.

Finally, I broke the ice.  

“Who...who did that to you? Was it Vincent?”

She paused from her sips and looked up at me, her eyes entrancingly cerulean as they watered again once more. She shook her head.

Oh, Thank God. I was so worried that it was h-

“It wasn’t Vince. Least, not the Vince I knew. I thought I knew.”

My face went pale. IT WAS HIM!

“Please, don’t hurt him. I-I didn’t mean to...for things, to go this far,” she continued, the tears still coming down her face.

“What do you mean, “this far?” I inquired, now determined to get to the bottom of this.

“I mean, he was nice and all at first but when I found out he was engaged, I didn’t want him any more. He was just a “fling,” just another notch, you know? But then he got possessive of me. Told me he didn’t think much of his lover, always telling him what to do and all. He told me all about you how you had shattered his dreams and are always keeping him awake at night. How he’s the man and you’re the woman, how you should do what he says,” she was crying again now, a huge departure from that smirk she gave me when I found them sleeping together.

I sympathized with her. I felt her pain. And I sincerely didn’t want to. I didn’t want anything to do with this woman, really. It was in my best interest to leave her out to dry and forget the fact that she existed in the first place. It was...against my better judgment to even try and console her.

Which I ended up doing anyway. Damn my pathos.

She was smooth and soft, my arm wrapped around her as she murmured, legs held up to her generous chest currently stretching my sweater, no bra for her size that I owned anywhere. Her face, when I looked past all the makeup that was washed off and the cuts she had, was quite fetching. I saw what Vincent saw in her. I was amazed at how radiant she was now, catching my eye as she looked up all teary eyed at me, almost pouting now. 

Ok, this is getting weird. Since when were you attracted to girls, ESPECIALLY her?

I muddled the thoughts around in my head, the idea didn’t disgust me. Certainly not. 

As a manager, I had to oversee many walks of life, especially in those of an international conglomerate. Those of different backgrounds and different ethnicities. Those of varying structures of life and varying ideas of fruition. Those of all sexes and all races. I needed all those to create the things of beauty we see today.

The luxury of discrimination was not afforded me.

And yet, when I opened a Vogue, a Madame, a Cosmo, I never thought, Boy, is she hot! 

Well, maybe sometimes. But, like, as an appreciative gesture. 

Point is, I was straight. No problem with gays, no problem with anyone really. Just, I am a heterosexual.

So, why was I feeling this way? Why would I care for my worst enemy?

_

She slept in the guest room as I could not just let her lay on the couch. I mean, it felt wrong you know? It was so full of memories, memories I used to look back on fondly too.

Couldn’t now. Now they were just vestiges, festering in the night. And so I laid down to rest, hoping tomorrow would take it’s oh-so-sweet time to get here. Letting me dazzle myself with spectacular light shows or walk them down the runway without a care in the world. Become a Milan spokesmodel or travel the Earth in search of the hottest new designers, legends and gods of the world’s fashions.

Or just take me out entirely, and become anew in a dream of unending splendor.

_

I could never have expected THIS.

_

Chapter Text

Catherine

_

Oh, he was my toy, my toy to do with as I will. As I pleased. For daddy’s dearest deserves only the finest things in life. Unmarried suckers, galavanting around like they own the place. Never thinking of tying the knot so wound tight by their significant other. Only freemen, lascivious in nature.

The meal of a lifetime had begun.

_

He was the fifth, maybe sixth in this district. I...think. Lost count. ANYWAY, he was the dopiest looking one. Sure, he wasn’t a fat slob or some disgusting pig. But he wasn’t a looker, I’ll tell ya that.

Daddy gave me a good look at who I was up against. Right, prim and proper bitch that’d suck all the fun out of him before me. Perfect, just what I wanted. Last one was quite a slaughter, killed 11 in one go and making him number 12? Something just fit right with him. 

So I made my rounds, saw that waitress bouncing about her chest around for all to see. I’d lay her if she was at all interesting, what with her constant idle chit-chat and flirting about the regulars. How shameless, that I like. But I wasn’t here for some useless fanservice.

Oh, no. I had a job to do.

He sat there with his buds in the booth,  going over their far more fabulous lives as he sulked into the fray. On one side, successful men with wonderful wives and beautiful futures ahead of them. The other? A loser who had nothing to lose.

The perfect target.

_

I waited for them to leave by his lonesome, figuring her would stay a bit and think over his life’s choices. I mean, this was my job. Daddy counted on me to make my quota, send these guys down spiraling into the deepest pits of Hell for their infidelity and indecisiveness and really? Who was I to go against that? Just the way the universe works, right? We all gotta play our part.

_

I sat down across from him, figuring my sudden appearance would be enough to shock him out of his stupor. And turns out, I was right? He was fixated on me, and I mean, who wouldn’t really? He talked about his misgivings, whining about his girlfriend’s marriage proposal and the like. Real baby, this one yet...pliable enough it seemed.

Easy to use at the very least.

_

Suffice it to say, getting him back to the apartment was too simple. He had not fought temptation at all. To think he’d be dead in one night, no chance of redemption? Oh it was so lovely a demise I almost came at the thought of it.

_

And yet HE SURVIVED!!! AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIIIN!

URGHHHHH!!!

Night after night, climbing his way past my deadly phantasms, trying so dearly to stab him dead! It was tiresome, this man’s endurance. I was sick of it. Yet, it was my job. 

Every day I would tempt him further, further beyond the bounds of morality and sanctity and yet still he persevered. He’d lie, cheat, steal from her even and yet still have an iota of dignity at the end of the day.

How fucking pathetic of me.

It was all fun and games though, to me at least. He’d lose soon enough they all do. It’s just agame. Just a game, like usual. And they ALWAYS lose, eventually.

I remember that man, the man who sought to end us all in order to face his brother in death defying combat. He lost too. Lost the will he had before. It was passed to his brother’s son, the one man who felt he could destroy the king of us all.

Nero and Dante. 

How I wished I could kill them too for their transgressions against father.

There would be no salvation going further. None for the likes of these masses I preyed upon.

_

But he got up. He went out. He talked to her , becoming more angry every day. Her constant bitching tearing him up inside. And yet, I was feeling something. Something corporeal. Maybe it was how he worked so hard in the nightmares, how he avoided the grasp of sin just enough to pull away.

He was...charming in a way. I...liked him.

_

And then it happened. He called me in and broke up with me. Apparently the guilt had gotten to him so bad he wanted me out, out of his life. I suppose this is where I should've just left, you know? Oh, I get Vincent. You want to go back to the stiff bitch who doesn’t appreciate you. You deserve a gold star! or some shit. Yeah, I suppose that’s what I should’ve done. It would be proper, you know? To face the music and admit he had passed the trials I had laid out for him. Surely now, he was going to march straight back to her and renounce his infidelity. I mean, that was the job. What Mutton and I set out to do for Astaroth. But... 

It was the way he said it. The way he told me we were through. 

I had half a mind to bash him in the face for talking to me like that. 

I mean, who needed her? I...thought WE had something. Really, I did. And now you’re gonna throw it out the window, toss me aside like that useless woman you’ve led on for years on end? Hell, she may just end up just like me. Who says you’re even a match for her. I’m not as shallow as they would like to think but the very idea of abandoning... 

ME?!

Whooohoho, you just don’t go there.

We’re through when I SAY we’re through. 

I tossed him into his end. My ultimate nightmare. The world I had made just for scrawny pipsqueak limp dick douchebags like him. The one where I’d slice and dice him into a million pieces for crossing me.

And then, she walked in the door. She had entered into a nightmare of my own concoction BY HERSELF and was furious! She had spunk, I’ll give her that but I wasn’t going to go down easy. I was impressed though.

I spoke of how I drove them apart and how they were always designed for failure.

How she would amount to nothing without him by her side. Really, why was she even here? I won, you lost, honey. Simple as that. 

“Don’t blame yourself babe, you’re only human.”

Oh, that cheesed her off.

We tussled for a bit but she threw me to the floor and then she bashed me in the face. Geez, woman, I wasn’t gonna do anything that bad! You’d think someone who found out they were being cheated on would just leave or flip us off. Not try to murder the cheat in cold blood!

I punched her off, screaming at her not to mess with me.

“You’ll die too, you know that right?”

She grabbed a kitchen knife and started swinging at me. The awkwardness of my situation and the size of the room made it difficult and she eventually tripped me up.

I felt the knife plunge into my chest in an instant. Guess I lost in the end, huh?

My eyes went black and I fell still.

_

And then I felt it. Him.

He woke up from the nightmare I had created and he started STRANGLING ME!

How was this possible? I looked to my left and there she laid, unconscious, but him? How?! 

I screamed in pain I had not known for centuries.

You disappoint me, my brood.

Was that...Father’s voice? 

I have taken control of this man so that his latent abilities may teach you something. Something you have sorely forgotten.

Vincent’s grip grew tighter and tighter, his fingers burning my skin. Only Father would be so cruel.

“What Father?! What did I forget to fall out of your good graces?!”

You fell in love with a human. Now really, how could you be an illustrious daughter of Nergal and Erishkigal if you fell so easily to the impotence of men? I already have one of our clan doing something so heinous as to fall for a snow woman, but that’s besides the point.

“What?”

Never you mind. This is your punishment, not hers.

He tightened his grip further and I had no way of escape. 

This is it. This is how I finally die.

No, you will be spared.

“Father? Really? You will, really let me go?” I was pleading with him now.

You will be spared. But, lest you forget again, I found the most appropriate of actions was to show you the folly of such things. A human with a succubus? How laughable.

And how dare you sneak behind back, with that whore Astaroth? Did you not think it wise child that you consult me on such methods? It’s quite embarrassing to have two of you out there now, ruining my families’ name with your “pandering.”

“Two of us?” I knew of my sisters and brothers back home but to think I wasn’t the only offender...

Yes, that bombastic woman and her offspring. Need she be reminded of her place as well, I will send my wife to handle her. That blasted Alucard and his…*sigh*, never-mind.

This was all far beyond me. Whatever daddy referred to was old family stuff, things I wasn’t remotely privy to.

Mom, of course, was out there. Somewhere.

But that was not my main concern right now.

“Daddy, please. Father...I…”

SILENCE!!! I will hear no more of your nonsense!!!

Vincent took me by the throat and slammed me against the wall. His eyes were blackened, daddy’s power coursing through them. All I could do was wait for him to bash me to death, my existence waning every second. He slammed my face and chest straight into the bedside wall and I felt like I was going out cold.

*SHUP*

His grip loosened. It was very slow, like time had finally slowed down for me just when I needed. I looked over to the side to see...her. She had taken the knife, still embedded in the ground from the nightmare somehow, and stabbed it into his foot! I was completely confused by the sight until I looked into her eyes. 

They were still shut!

But HOW?! How in the world was she in the nightmare and reality at the same time?!

He howled as the knife went straight through him. Vincent keeled over immediately, falling straight off his bed and onto the ground in horror. She removed the knife from his foot, and I peaked over the side to see it oozing blood but I heard no screaming from him.

I gripped my throat, trying desperately to sooth the marks embedded on there now.

Just what was that?

Then, I saw her climb up on top of the bed, knife still poised for attack. Her eyes frozen shut but her mouth was screaming. So, this woman would get her revenge after all? Fine. I’ve resigned myself. I couldn’t kill you before as you climbed Babel, so be it. You win.  

I closed my eyes and waited for the end.

*SHUNK*

_

The blade stuck. 

But not in me this time.

It was left, to the side of my face, fixed in the wall, her whitened knuckles gripping it violently. 

And scariest yet, I felt her lips on mine.

Whaaaahhhhhhhh?!!!

Just what is going on?!

They both collapsed in a heap. 

My porcelain beautiful face, battered and bruised and her lying motionless on top of me. I saw Vincent on the ground, now sleeping soundly with no knife wound to be seen. 

No blood anywhere, cept me.

I sat there for a minute and let the events that had just transpired soak in. I had this blank look on my face, one that couldn’t fathom what just happened to me.

I mean this was just another job, right? I did sorta fall for this guy but still...why would Father…

I had to leave, NOW. I couldn’t stand being here another second; NO MORE!

I bolted out the door without a second thought.

_

Turns out, being invisible to all had its perks. Perks I was just now realizing I took way for granted. 

When I left the apartment, I was still nude. Still stuck in my dreamstate. 

I had to find some clothes. Whatever happened, whatever Dad did to me, I was naked now, in more ways than one.

_

The hotel was quiet at night, completely barren for the most part so this was my best chance.

I thought about going back into the room and grabbing my clothes but who knows if they would discover me there? I was already bleeding and these scrapes I had were now on display. I bet I looked like some battered housewife, desperately looking for a way out of this place.

I’d get clothes eventually, but I had to escape this hellhole?

N________________d, C______ne?

N_____________________ry o___________ty…?

I thought I heard a faint voice, something so quiet a pin drop could be heard, and yet still, it was far too soft to make out. So I looked forward, focusing on the task at hand.

_

Aha! The laundry would have some sheets, maybe even a uniform! I could escape that way!

*SHINK*

“THE FUCK?!” A saw the kitchen knife in front of me, stabbed deep into the wall beside me. I turned around as fast as I could, seeing an unknown attendant stalking towards me. They looked possessed and completely beyond the realm of any human.

“Dad...is this you doing?” I backed up at the attacker when they sprinted towards me, another knife at the ready.

Oh, CATH-E-RINE~ You aren’t going ANYWHERE!

“What the FUCK is GOING ON?! I dodged just in time, narrowly missing my torso.

I hastened faster than ever down the corridor, fearing for this life I had no confidence was immortal anymore. I looked up and saw the sign for Laundromat. 

“What Luck!”

I had to escape but I wouldn’t get anywhere without something on. Maybe...I could hide! Yes, it had to be dark in there and with enough space and places to hide, I could wait out these killers out of nowhere.

I kicked the door open as hard as I could and slammed it back just as fast. I locked it quickly and groped about for a nearby hamper to brace the door with.

No way I was dying, NAKED, in some shitty ass hotel! 

I couldn’t see a damn thing, the room completely dark from all sides. As long as I’m not found though...I mean if this is Father, all he can do is what the mortals he controls can do. The extent of his power is only by the strength of the controlled.

He is limited in using mortals. I backed up and waited in the dark for them to give up. 

As if to refute my thoughts, the knife plunged deep into the door and RIGHT THROUGH the wood, gleaming a slit of pure light through the hole they created. They stabbed and hacked at the wood, tearing it apart with no remorse.

No, NO!!! I will not let this end this way!

As they stabbed through the door, destroying the entire structure, I stayed close to the side, waiting for the only chance I’d have.

Once that arm goes through the hole and the blade is in reach…

It’s my ONLY chance.

They tore. And tore.

THEY TORE THROUGH.

And then…I saw it. The blade falling onto the sheets.

NOW!

I GRABBED THEIR ARM! And…

*SLISH* 

I turned the blade back and slashed right through their neck!

_

The hamper was covered in blood in seconds. All the whites inside stained deep red.

Their body fell through the jagged hole they bore through, slumping into the hamper.

I sighed a sigh of relief, my entire being frightened to my core. I was painted from the neck slice, still naked.

But it was over...for now.

I grabbed a nearby sheet from the shelf, the light of the hole now illuminating the blackness.

I wrapped it around my bloodied body, still fatigued from the beating Vincent gave me.

I grabbed the knife, still dripping crimson, JUST IN CASE .

I...don’t even know how to BEGIN to process this.

_

As I walked down the stairs towards the lobby, 1:30 in the morning now, I saw the last person I expected to see. 

It was her, walking about now! She looked fine, not possessed by Dad...at least at that moment.

I hid behind the wall leading down to the continental breakfast, staying away from her sight. I heard her audibly sigh and the automatic doors slid open as she headed out.

I heard the pitter patter of rain outside, the harshness of the fall daunting me now.

But...that means…

I can go back up to Vincent’s! At least...to get my clothes. What would he say now? Does he even remember? How would I even explain this to him? All beat up and bloody with a fucking knife in my hand? I look like a serial killer right now.

I figured it was all I could do, my non-corporeal form gone and as I pinched myself now I felt the fragileness of a human body. I froze in place at the thought of my inevitable death on this mortal coil now.

Dad...why? 

_

I went up to grab my clothes, planning to head out immediately afterward. Fuck the plan now, by this point I’m useless to Mutton and Ishtar. I can’t enter the underworld and I can't prey on him anymore.

I might as well see what happened to her, see if she even remembers my presence.

NO ONE SHOULD KNOW I EXIST. I had to deal with her.

_

As I opened the door, I saw Vincent through the crack, sitting still on the bed with his back towards me. He felt cold, the atmosphere ice.

“Uuuuh, Vincent? Are you, uhhh ok?”

This was sooooo weird. Not even an hour ago his foot was stabbed through by his ex-girlfriend. How it is he is not only perfectly fine now but his presence was like…

...Like him. Like Vergil.

“Catherine, we’re through.”

I realized this was something I couldn’t argue anymore. He’d break it off and go back to her. If the knife through my chest before wasn’t enough of an indication then the state of my body now, was.

“Uh Vincent, do you remember what happened? I mean, what happened here?”

I walked over to my slinky nightgown in the sheet around me, trying to put it on without too much difficulty.

“Yes. And you are not to speak of it to Katherine. I understand who you are now.” He faced away completely, ignoring me.

“Vincent...I didn’t mean for it to go that way really, I just-”

“NO! NO MORE OF YOUR LIES, YOU HARLOT! YOU WILL NOT TOUCH ME AGAIN!” He bellowed, his voice so commanding it shuddered my bones.

“Vincent...do you still love me or her?” I gave him an ultimatum before I headed out, my eyes tearing up now. Tears that never before graced my face.

“...Leave now. And never come back.”

*SLAM* 

I left without another word.

_

Do you understand now, Catherine?

Do you understand the misery of humanity?

_

Chapter Text

Catherine

_

But I fell for it.

The knife was gone, gone like the wounds inflicted on Vincent before. Evaporated from my hand. 

“Was this the dream still? Was I still not able to wake up from this?”

Her house was only a few blocks away, in tandem with the Chronos Cafe they visited. I couldn’t give away the fact I am a succubus, or rather was, seeing my current predicament and the nightmare should've wiped all memories she had of our “fight”. I’d have to stall for a bit and wait till her guard was down. Then I’d make my move.

_

She opened the door slowly to see me dripping wet from the downpour this night had been.

My entire look, gone and smashed to smithereens. She looked ready to kill me right then and there but I saw in her eye the kind of weakness that comes from mortality.

Kindness. Kindness given to another who looks like you. You sympathize instantly, without knowing the depths of evil that come from that “sad” individual. Me, I wasn’t ready for another shock, another nightmare like I just had. I wasn’t ready for retaliation, the feeling of confusion to what reality was to me at that time. All I knew at that point was I was now connected to this woman, forcefully, like a string binding us forward. And I had to slice her up like any other who got in my way.

_

She led me, grabbing my arm out of the monsoon outside and leading me upstairs. She brought me into her bathroom and without any verbal exchanges asked me to undress. I did so, hoping I could find a weapon somewhere to take her out of the equation. 

“Anything really…” I thought to myself.

I refused to let her leave, thinking she’d head out somewhere or go see Vincent, Hell forbid. She scowled at me with those glassy commanding eyes and drew a hot bath. I honestly appreciated the gesture, figuring the blood was sticking to my hair and skin now. It was also confounding why she wouldn’t speak to me or even wonder why I was covered in blemishes and scars. I dipped my toes in the water; scalding hot as it was, I felt a comfort that I had not enjoyed in quite awhile. But she pushed me in, roughly rubbing my back with a washcloth. My wounds would not close up like before so I felt every sting and burn from the disinfectants. But I dared not show weakness. Much as I was thankful for how she treated me, this was a feint. All part of the plan.

To her it seemed I was just a cheat, another woman in the way of her and Vincent’s happiness. And I needed to keep it that way for the time being, She doesn’t remember stabbing Vincent and she doesn’t remember “killing” me. And in a little while she won’t remember anything at all.

After she washed me an inordinate amount of times, she let me get dressed. Oh, you could bet I wasn’t about to let her leave but she slammed the door in my face anyway. I figured I‘d get dressed and head down to see her, maybe stopping by the kitchen to grab a knife for myself. Pay her back for fucking me up the way she did.

_

I headed down, dried and covered, the most modesty I had ever felt. I was cold, irritated by how viscous the air was tonight. That, and the storm didn’t help. When I reached the bottom step, she took one look at me and walked right upstairs again. 

“Geez, soooorrry I got bashed in the face by your boyfriend.”

She came down a minute later, clothes in hand and threw them onto me. I got dressed, grumbling about the size of the sweater to myself as she sat down with a glass of red wine beside her.

I sat down across from her on a couch, livid from the whole ordeal.

She offered me tea which I wanted to decline at first but said nothing and accepted.

“Cheeky,” I said to myself. Just you wait, when I’m through with y-

“Who...who did that to you? Was it Vincent?”

Oh now I KNOW she’s oblivious. That was the power of the nightmare. She may have succeeded in avoiding my wrath then but because she can’t remember exactly who I was, she’s vulnerable.

I shook my head no.

“It wasn’t Vince. Least, not the Vince I knew. I thought I knew.”

She looked horrified at the thought of him doing something so awful. It was my nightmare though, the nightmare that formed as reality. All the pain he inflicted me with was brought from a metaphysical realm to the physical world. Only Father would do something so cruel...though to me it still felt undeserved. That wasn’t Vince, that was Father, punishing me. The real Vince hates me now, he’s pondering if she’ll ever come back to him…

WAIT! This is PERFECT! I can’t kill her just yet. NOOOO, suffering is what she deserves. And so does he, for abandoning me the way he did. This won’t end well for either of you.

These scars, I can put them to use. Lie to her, say he’s an abusive man bent on controlling his lover by any means necessary. Oh, that would just break her heart. She wouldn’t be able to recover. The despair, the loneliness she’ll feel. Just a taste of the misery I’m in, but it’ll suffice for now.

“Please, don’t hurt him. I-I didn’t mean to...for things, to go this far.”

Bet she didn’t expect that from me, huh? 

“What do you mean, “this far?” 

Of course she’d ask like that. She’s skeptical of me from the beginning. Time to drop a bombshell on her.

“I mean, he was nice and all at first but when I found out he was engaged, I didn’t want him any more. He was just a “fling,” just another notch, you know? But then he got possessive of me. Told me he didn’t think much of his lover, always telling him what to do and all. He told me all about you how you had shattered his dreams and are always keeping him awake at night. How he’s the man and you’re the woman, how you should do what he says.”

I forced myself to start crying, using the aid of the scars on my body to fuel the fake emotion.

These crocodile tears go a long way with women of her emotional capacity.

I laid my head into my knees, scrunched up in the fetal, trying to get her to the same emotionally wrecked state I was in right now. But instead, I felt her sidle up next to me on the couch and put her arm around my side.

_

I froze. What. Is. Going. On? I am so confused...this woman, who wanted to kill me, not even two hours ago, is now giving me the pleasure of not only being “invited” into her home but being comforted as if she were my doting mother?

Still, that primal part of me took over. Wanting to fall deeper into her embrace, whatever the reason she had. She looked down into my eyes and I pouted, wanting her to stop but at the same time asking her to continue. I felt the gentle caress take me and drive me done this path of wracked uncertainty.

Manipulation goes both ways, I guess.

_

She offered me the guest room, a clear misconception on her mind of my intent here. But maybe that’s just what she wanted. Maybe she didn’t care. Maybe she had already figured me out and was plotting to kill me as well. I couldn’t conjure nightmares for her to scale fruitlessly and I felt even if I did, she’d somehow kill me again. And this time, it would be permanent.

I had to invade her somehow. 

_

Chapter Text

_

Katherine

_

1 week passed.

She had been so horrified by the break-up she barely said a word to me. Yet, she wouldn’t leave the house without me. I had to escort her everywhere and oftentimes she’d just stay home. I’d go out grocery shopping and she’d just stay back, 5 feet at all times. Not saying a word.

She was like a little kid and, for some reason, I didn’t want to abandon her.

_

Oh, Catherine...you can deny your Father your fealty all you like. You can sequester yourself with this low woman if you so choose. But, know this child. You are not welcome with your brethren any longer.

_

Where...am I?

There was this...“weird” substance below my feet and a very organic look to my surroundings. It was like the walls to a stomach. Sheep sat, drunk in stupor by these barely stable tables. There was a confessional ahead of me, complete with two spikes jutting out from its interior. And then, oddest of all, the entire place was in darkness with only this fleshy platform illuminated.

What kind of dream is this?

“Agh, FI-NA-LLY~!”

A woman with curled pigtails dressed in a rather...provocative looking nightgown made her way to me. She put her arms around me with a familiar smirk on her face.

I recoiled and stepped back. “YOU. You’re the one Vincent’s hanging around, aren’t you?!”

She just placed a hand on her hip with a knowing sly grin.

“Oh pooh, you noticed. And here I thought we could have some, FUN~.”

“What are you...I’m...not interested. I don’t swing...that way,” I was too befuddled, I mean this was a dream as far as I could tell, yet it felt SO REAL . And yet surreal too. Anyway, this woman was what caused Vincent to cheat on me. I should hate her... But...isn’t that really Vincent’s fault? Not hers? I mean, he had to accept it right? He had to agree...in the first place.

  “The Hell YOU DON’T~! You were plenty susceptible up top. And just look at you, all dressed up in your work attire even in Babel. How positively riveting, I love an office babe. Rarrr...How you are even able to keep your individuality...it’s impressive, I must say. You’re quite the charming woman.”

I’d have thanked her for the compliment had I not been perturbed by her very appearance in my life as of late. And her constant hitting on me, however creepy, felt almost good natured from how honest she was. She was not a prostitute, she enjoyed this for the fun of it.

“Listen, I gotta get going...can you tell me where we are so I can…?”

Her lips curled into the sultriest of smiles, with her wanting voice seducing me just from her tantamount lilt.

“Why~ we are in Babel, of course. The pleasure of sin unbridled can be enjoyed here forever. You can so choose to walk away from me and risk falling off the tower to join the hordes of dead below or come lay with me in my palace of comfort and give in to your Earthly emotions.”

It didn’t come off as a threat for every word she said made me dizzy with lust I never knew I had. Yet, I, not as a particularly Christian woman but a proud and noble one, least I think, would not give in to these temptations of the skin.

I stood in defiance but not scorn, as it seemed her nature to possess her prey. 

Simply her nature yet I would not abide.

“No, tell me the way out of this place.”

She frowned, not unlovingly, but out of pure disappointment, a being driven solely by her id.

“Oh pooh~ It’s no fun if you’re not willing. And I could’ve really rocked your world, more than anyone else in your life, guaranteed.”

I remained unchanged, save for a faint blush upon my cheeks.

“No. Where is the exit to this place? Is this a dream? Do I need to-”

She burst out laughing, holding her sides in a much less graceful fashion than before.

“BWAAHAHAHHAAHAAAA!!! A DREAM?! HAAHAHAHAAA! OH, YOU’RE FUNNY! *heh*

*sigh* That really cracked me up! Thank you, I needed that. Specially’ after the week I just had.”

Hmmm...was she referring to...was this actually her? Was my mind not creating this strange place? Knowing how odd her presence in Vincent's life was to begin with and how I woke up in his apartment, I was thinking along the lines of something possibly supernatural. Yet still, I wished to stay on the side of science and logic, however difficult that may be now.

I inquired with the phantasm, against my better judgment.

“Would you be referring to what Vincent did?”

“Vincent? Hah! That wasn’t Vincent! That was my father, Nergal! He was mad that I had fell in love with a human, that humanity is beneath us as a whole and how we shouldn’t think of them as anything but livestock. So he punished me. Now, I admit that it was pretty harsh what he did, but when he took control of you, YOU fought it, you didn’t stab me, I had to run for my life from his control, killing a human in the process, but you. You broke free. Maybe he let you go, I dunno, I’d have to ask him, not that I’m going to. The prick. Buuuut, I appreciate you actually. Not just for this kiss, which by the way, was pretty top notch. You got good technique. But also, he was wrong about you. You know, Vincent always said you were snobby, always giving him shit for his indecisiveness and your boring, tawdry look. His words, not mine. So, I tried to seduce him, like anyone who fell into my trap. I mean, I’m a succubus. Gotta eat, like everyone else. But, he was more than food. He was so delightful, really I was surprised how quick it was. Yes, I tried to shove you away, but you persisted, showed you were more than just a pretty face with a nagging persona. And then you tried to kill me! Ooooh, now that was fierce on my part! I totally got where you coming from! You see, there are two sides to this and yet still, when I staged that nightmare, the nightmare you don’t even remember now, I think I loved you both. And now, she’s we’ve had a week with you, seen your kindness in the face of an affair and what’s more you haven’t abandoned us. You care, a truly admirable trait.”

I was thoroughly confused now. I had no idea what to even say. If this was the same woman I just met tonight, this one was FAR more open than I’d ever been.

I just started with the most prudent of points to address.

“...Suc-cu-bus…?”

“Oh? Not familiar with us, sweetie?”

She was inching closer and closer to me now, as if she thought just her presence unleashed would change my mind. Had to say, it was sorta working, if only to make me more lucid in the face of her all encompassing aura.

“No, I am. I know what that is. It’s just..”

Now I felt the need to laugh a bit, just at the incredulous nature of the whole thing.

“ *hehehehe* I mean...really? You’re some kid of sex demon out to steal my to-be fiance? Heh. Listen...sunshine, if you’re going to lie to me, please make it a bit more believable than that.”

Even as I said this, I felt the entire area I was in placed much more credence to her tale than I cared to admit. But then, this was a dream, right? Couldn’t be anything else…

She was in front of me now, only slightly less than a meter away, but I saw her in a whole new light. She radiated an un-godly atmosphere now, making the air heavy and saturated, the humidity around me felt pulsing, like flesh as wind, and the ground I stood seemed to sink me in further, just a bit.

“Oh honey, if you doubt me now, how ever will we get anywhere later? You see, up top, she’s quite careful, cunning, and honestly immorally ruthless. She cares not for her victims and is quite prideful, unable to show weakness unless she's literally brought to tears. YOU, you saw a rare side of her that night, a side she seldom shows anyone, and still she planned to murder you in cold blood. 

I think you humans came up with a term for it, but I prefer that wonderful film from 1941, oh what was it? 

Ah! Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde! That’s it!”

She was bringing a hand to my shoulder but I saw from the speed of her movements she was not intending anything further, yet.

“You see, I play Jekyll while she's Hyde. You may think it’s the other way, what with my boastful sensuality abound here but up top, she kills whatever gets in her way. You were lucky, she could've skewered you. But I can intercede with her. I can tell her to call off the hit she has on you. Wouldn’t you like that? To live longer than...hmm, I’m guessing 35? Tell me if I’m in the like, ballpark there?”

She sniggered a bit at that, which irked me further.

“32. I’m 32.”

“So, I was close then. Yay!”

I turned it back around on her, figuring this wasn’t going to end the way I intended but that I would come out on top regardless.

“You know, I usually do the killing in my dreams, who’s to say I don’t get her before she gets me? Who’s to say...I don’t win myself?”

She made a slight gasp at my sudden swagger, obviously excited.

“I’d...like to see that. Course, you kill her and I die as well. You don’t want that do you?”

_

I gotta turn the tables on her.

_

I grabbed a hold of her waist and spun her around, clasping her hand in mine at the end of her spin.

“No, not necessarily. But yet, you crossed me and entered my home with such thoughts of murderous intent. I don’t like violent conflict but you must atone somehow. Let’s see how you fare in a game of elegance, dear “Succubus.”

Her eyes lit up in joy at the sight of my proposal and immediately took side of the waltz I invited her in. We spun by, rhythmic, with nary a problem in our steps nor our movements. They were graceful and she kept up with me, showing prowess in the art. I felt lighter on my feet than ever before.

_

But then, this was a dream, was it not? If she were to commit violence against me here, I feel I could not overpower her. So I must best her, at MY own game.

Being a practitioner in things of the highfalutin, waltz was taught at an early age. Such as piano and violin, a master of none, but still, a challenger. A force to be reckoned with.

Things I’d never ask of Vincent. Things I’d never even consider in his presence. 

I could now do, 

with her.

_

As we twirled, I heard exclaim happily, somewhat overjoyed by the emotions she had felt now.

“Does this mean you’ve accepted your heart and given yourself to me?”

I felt the knee jerk response to yell “NO!” and push her away, but the sheer magnitude of this dance we were in kept me forward. She was shining, brilliantly now, a far cry form that loathsome visage she came in with. All battered, wet with sorrow. No, this was a different her. More confident, more full of life.

A true rival.

We began more complicated moves, pulling each in and out by our clasped hands and began a plie, bringing the waltz into a ballet, but not yet separating.

It was difficult outside, in reality, to do such moves unpracticed and without choreography, but through this realm of the unknown, this purgatory of the mind, I felt invincible.

I moved without the slightest hesitation, bringing her grip forward in tandem with mine and then back again ever so gently. It was fulfilling, and oh so real to me now.

The crowd of sheep began hollering, cheering loudly at our performance. Their silly dispositions did not phase me in the slightest and I kept up my game.

“Is your silence the answer I so desire? Is it the solemn notion of your approval in this venture we undertake?”

It seemed she had dropped the sexual tone of her voice and opted for a more operatic, thespian feel. As if she were acting on stage. And like again, I responded in kind.

I pulled her back in, hand by the small of the right side of her waist while hers on the gentle left side of my lower back.

“I think not to ascertain my speechless words as acceptance of your oh so lurid proposition.”

She sneered at me, our steps nearly entwined but just far enough from each other to show our distance.

“Oh you’re cute. Seriously, I could just eat you up right now…”

I assumed my dominance with a smile of victory.

 “Oh, but then...would it not be YOU who had lost in this battle, hmm? You giving into your inhibitions with reckless abandon. Surely, I am nor more human than Vincent. If you fell in love with me, for instance, a human just as low as Vincent, you’d be no better than her. Just a whore for the degraded degenerate species of sapiens.”

She smiled so at this, leaning a bit more, the husky sound returning to her voice.

“Maybe I like you degenerates a little more than that of my own kind. All those incubi and succubi care about is supremacy over all. Even the Nosferatu. Such folly, really. I can’t fathom ever being so arrogant.”

I scoffed at this, thinking her narcissism boundless, as she leaned up to my ear, her toes on tip as I was quite a bit taller than her.

She whispered, lascivious…

“Would you not fall into this pit of lust with me?’

That did it. My cheeks felt redder and redder as the waltz went on, time ceasing in my gaze of her pure beauty, and all restrictions were lifted in this freed state of mind. I pulled her back and gave her a more honest smile than I had this entire time.

“Maybe, if you want to be despicable like we humans. It’s best to learn by doing.”

And our lips met in time.

_

Catherine

_

“OK, WHAT. THE. FUCK?!”

I burst into her room, my borrowed clothes disheveled on me with the blanket haphazardly wrapped around my body, screaming at her to wake up. 

“Whaa...whaaatt… Wahat iss it?”

She drowsily came to, staring at me upright and sitting in bed still with the covers covering her.

She sleeps naked. How surprising for one so proper.

I could wait no longer and jumped on her bed, throttling her wrists while shaking her out of her stupor. She was stunned silent, eyes wide open now as I rained down my insanity on her.

“YOU! WHY DID YOU KISS ME JUST NOW?!”

“K-kisss You? What, you mean, in like the dream?”

“NO, THE NIGHTMARE! THE NIGHTMARE SHE-...she put YOU UNDER!”

She was startled, her replies out of character in their ramshackle tone.

“The Ni-Nightmare? What, do you mean? It was just a dd-dream, right?”

“IT WAS HER! Why were YOU with HER?! WHY DID YOU ENTER MY MIND?! HOW?! WHY?!”

I was a mess above her, hardly able to maintain any semblance of composure past the unnatural emotions I was now forced to live with.

“Enter your mind? It was just a dream. Not like I’d- 

what does it matter?”

I stopped, my hands still gripping her wrists tightly but my face went stone.

“Can you kindly get off me now?”

I did so, slowly walking out of the room I barged into only a minute ago, and headed downstairs.

I can’t let this go on, I need to finish this.

I went towards the cupboard, sure enough the knives stocked in the drawer below. I’d kill her and then myself. That’d ruin him. Both of us, gone forever. Serves him right for rebuffing me.

He’d probably end his life just to meet her. The bitch, I’ll send her to Hell with me just so I could watch her bathe in my misery.

_

I heard her come down shortly after, probably dressing, as I bided my time behind the wall of the hallway, waiting to plunge the steel straight into her. The steps approached, one after the other, getting closer and closer, and as she rounded the corner to the doorway I…

“Catherine , I-”

*SHING*

“WHOA! Be careful with that!”

I slipped and missed, Dammit!

The knife stuck right into the wall behind her, but I pulled back, readying another swing.

“Catherine, are you ok? What are you...HEEEY!!!”

I swung again but she grabbed my wrist! 

All too quickly, I might add! Geez, it was like I’d never had a chance.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

She squeezed on my wrist hard, digging her sharp nails into the side. The pain was piercing and I yelped, letting the knife go. It fell and embedded itself deep into the floorboard.

“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!” she screamed in my face, as I was fully restrained and daunted by her rage.

“BECAUSE...YOU FUCKED ME UP! 

I HAVE TO KILL YOU JUST TO GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD! Because... YOU KISSED ME!”

She looked steeled at me, still angry but more firm than vengeful.

I started crying, bawling in my tears while restrained in her hands. I just closed my eyes and waited for whatever she would wrought. But I felt her embrace instead. She wrapped her arms around me. I couldn’t move just out of emotional overload. 

I sobbed into her shoulder, feeling like I’d never stop.

_

Katherine

_

I sat her down on the couch beside me, our distance mitigated now from her previous attempt on my life. I asked her this first, something so forward, I wouldn’t have asked anyone but she seemed a special case now:

“Do you love me?”

She was crouching now, head in her chest and knees pulled close, worried if she let go she’d just unravel on the floor. She heard my words and looked up to me, trembling still.

“...Y-Yes.”

“Do you love Vincent?’

“...yes.”

“Who do you love more?”

“...I... You.”

“Why do you love me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you want to stay here?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to love you back?”

“...yes.”

“Are you okay if it takes some time?”

“...some...time?”

“Time, to love you back.”

“?’’

“Are you okay if it takes me some time to love you back?”

“...ok.”

Her tears began drying, the emotional toll tearing her from being anything but truthful. I really, truly believed no one could lie in the state she was in. She almost melted me with how earnest she spoke next.

“Will you...stay with me?”

“Yes.”

I hugged her close, wanting her to just calm and soothe her frozen soul, healed by my light.

_

Time passed slowly now. Our reconciliation, however moving it was, was just that and nothing more, yet.

I suspected she wished for me to make a move or be given permission to make a move on me but I would not let it escalate too quickly. I went shopping with her, showed her my office at work, lunch, coffee breaks, I even took some time off to go out on dates.

Platonic still...but it didn’t really look that way. She’d lay her head on my shoulder at the park bench or dress with me in the changing rooms. She’d share ice cream with me on outings and look at art in museums together. She always wanted to hold my hand, and in an effort I made for her sake, I accepted every time. She was timid outside at first, a characteristic I’m sure her kind was not known for. She showed bright now, the darkness pretty much lifted from her. She would talk normally now, more used to her life with me. And I was happy, honestly.

I saw her porcelain face now in the new day glow. How it was no longer fragile with hairline cracks about its surface, but fired to perfection, in a kiln of wondrous beauty. She was strong with me by her side and one day we’d be equally strong together.

But...I still had an attachment to Vincent. One I thought would go away with my time with her, her heart mended only through me. When I dared mention his name afterward, each day made her angrier and angrier at his presence. It was like she had fully detached herself from him, and wanted instead to bond with me. I’d call or text him sometimes, just to see if he’d respond but nothing. I was her way out, way out of this servitude she had with these people she sometimes spoke of. Asmodeus, Mutton, Nergal… odd Biblical names to be sure, but I had to believe at this point she wasn’t even a succubus anymore. She seemed no more human than I. If there is a God and she was the Devil, then I wonder if I was her Messiah in waiting. That prodigal daughter she never knew she needed till now. 

And I felt the love growing. Seeing her try new things, try to begin a new life. It was enough for me to throw away these heteronormative chains that bound me for so long and try to love her the same. After all, her entire being was engineered for a man. If she had warmed up to a woman as well I would do my best to meet her there.

But as her Messiah, I needed to be there for her. I couldn’t leave to see Vincent, that would only bring her misery now. 

And yet, it wasn’t my choice…

_

“Katherine?”

I froze coming out of Mumi’s, seeing his face and that odd beige blazer he always wore. Same damn t-shirt though, never changed it. And his pants were still that slight shade of black. The kind that sparked nothing in me. I always hated that color. The “sorta” black. It’s more of a blue anyway, it’s just the light, you can’t really tell…Same stupid hair, too...

“Katherine? Is...that you?”

I knew Catherine was just checking out, buying a nice pair of spaghetti straps actually. I thought they looked good on her, specially’ the color: teal with a bit of turquoise accent' to em’. You know, sexy but modest enough. And then that halter top, whooo! She killed it with that halter top! Top notch! I’d be the first to say, she looked good in basically everything. 

“Katherine...it’s...been awhile. *heh* I’d of seen you sooner, but you know, stuff came up and…”

Now thinking about it, she shoulda’ got that nice jean jacket too. Maybe I’ll go back in and pick it out for her. I like that look in my head. It fits her outgoing feel, least the way I hope she’s feeling now.

“Hey Katherine, you know...I wouldn’t mind having coffee again sometime, you know like we did by Chronos every other day. I mean, it’s only been like a couple months or soooo…or maybe more than a couple...”

And then, well...summer’s coming too. We should go to a community pool sometime. Have her get her mind off things that ail her. Really work at it. I mean, I don’t even know if she knows how to swim. I gotta teach her if she doesn’t! It’s such a relaxing thing to do, she’d get the hang of it real quick too! I’d love to see her-

“Is this about me not responding...well ya know, I got a new phone cause my old one broke actually, and I didn’t know if maybe you’d moved out of your mom’s old house or gotten an apartment but I couldn’t find you at work so…”

Then again, she’d be really adept at anything she put her mind to. She has such spunk, willpower galore! I’d love to see her really throw herself into something she enjoys, maybe archery or fencing, or waltzing! Duh! She’d be great, so light on her feet! Or maybe an instrument to-

“Hey, KATHERINE!”

…

…

“What, Vincent?”

“I was trying to talk to you for like, the last five minutes but you just froze when you saw me, like I stunned you or somethin’. I mean, sorry if I scared ya but…”

“What do you want, Vincent?”

“Hey...ok, no need to be so hostile right? Like I know we may have gotten off on the wrong foot but I was just thinking about this and..I mean, if you’re busy I completely understand a-”

“Say what you’re going to say, Vincent.”

“I uhh, so how about we check out some possible ministries? I was just browsing and I saw a really nice one, super clean and pristine, you know, your parents would love it, guaranteed. Real nice steeple and not too pricey. I mean, I’d need your help a bit but I can definitely pay my share...”

“Vincent...what are you asking?”

“Well, you know I didn’t expect to meet you here, ya know, today, just shopping but, well…”

He reached into his blazer’s pocket and pulled out a tiny box. 

His face had such determination now.

“I...always carry it with me now, just in case.”

“Vincent, are you asking what I think you’re asking?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, we talked so long about this and you were obviously annoyed by my non-commitment, and I TOTALLY get that, but I...I wanna make up for it.”

“Make up...for it...”

“Well, yeah. Make amends, you know…just…”

“Make...amends..."

He got down on one knee and held the box forward.

“Katherine McBride, will you marry me?”

...

“I-

“HEYYY KAT~♥️ LOOOOOOOVE These new halter tops you picked out! They are THE BOMB! I mean, just look at the satin finish! Oh, and they breathe like Egyptian cotton! Fucking great picks, I’ll tell ya, I-”

“...Kat?”

I just looked, staring down at him. The ring was brilliant, with a pert shining diamond, at least a few karats, atop it. He had to have taken out a hell of a loan to pay for it on his salary. And yet…

I pulled Catherine close to me, her bags shaking in her hands and she made a yelp of surprise at the suddenness of it. 

Vincent realized who she was and was immediately stricken with a hateful glare.

“Hey Kat~ what’s Vincent doing he-”

“YooooooooOOOOU! YOOOOU BITCH! What are YOU doing here?!
WITH HER, NO LESS?!”

Like a mother to her child, I pulled her in, protecting her from his anger.

She seemed confused as all get out, glancing back to the store’s mall entrance and then back to me and Vincent. But I stayed steel. He was already creating a scene but I wanted my stance known.

“Katherine! What is the meaning of this?!”

“Vincent, did you forget?”

I held Catherine closer, kneading my fingers through her hair to not allow Vincent any misinterpretation. He was obviously shell shocked by what he was witnessing.

“Did you forget how you cheated on me? How you grabbed at me when I tried to leave? How you left me with an unborn child and didn’t call or text or respond to anything I sent you?”

He stood up now, sputtering at me, trying to find words for what I’m sure he never expected to ever see.

“Oh, and what’s more, how I BROKE UP with you? You know, that old chestnut?”

“I-uuh--I, well…”

“Are you done? I have other things to do today so if you would kindly leave u-”

I saw his anger flare again. Oh, no Vincent, don’t you dare cross that l-

“YOOOOOU BITCH! After ALL I’ve DONE FOR YOU?!”

Ok. 

Yup. 

Bury him. Bury him so deep he’ll never leave the hole again.

“Excuse me, did you just call me a “bitch?” Did I hear that right? Well, Vincent Brooks, let me tell YOU what you’re going to do. You are going to get up and walk right out of this mall and then we’re never going to see each other again. Got that? EVER.

And excuse me, “all you’ve done for ME?” Vincent, you haven't done A GODDAMN THING in your life worth mentioning. It’s a testament to how much of a fuck up you are that the girl you cheated on me with is now my girlfriend. 

Congratulations, you’re an asshole.”

He looked me dead in the eyes like he was going to do something unforgivable. I felt fear actually at his stare and decided to just call over security.

“Hey, EXCUSE ME! I DON’T KNOW THIS MAN! I THINK HE’S TRYING TO HARM ME AND MY GIRLFRIEND! PLEASE, HELP!”

He moved to try and stop me but that only sealed his coffin.

Immediately, several mall cops came over and moved in to restrain him. He was awestruck and tried to move away but they took that as resisting arrest, and slammed him down onto the tile below.

Ouch.

I decided enough was done and turned, walking away with Catherine by my side.

She seemed perturbed, even traumatized by his actions.

We headed back to the car, as she gripped my shoulder more tightly than she ever had before.

“Vincent...he’s going to-”

“No, we don’t know that man. That wasn’t Vincent. 

Vincent has been gone for a long time.”

_

Chapter Text

_

1 Month Later...

“It’ll be loads of fun when you get the hang of it, trust me.”

She brought me to a swim meet today. She had been talking about this non stop now, completely fixated on getting me into it too. Apparently she is very adept at swimming and passionate as well. I, on the other hand, was very unfamiliar with swimming. It never really occurred to me. In Hell, we had lakes but only a few swam and I much preferred the spas and baths we were treated to in the more luxurious areas of Pandemonium. I felt the coldness of mortality literally sink in when I entered the water’s surface, the horrid feeling surrounding me. She said it would pass, just get used to the water's temperature, blah, blah, blah…

It was fucking cold.

“C’mon, the faster you move around the faster you’ll warm up.”

I held my arms to my chest in a vain attempt to retain any warmth my body could sustain but somehow it only made the chill worsen. I looked at her gallivanting down, wishing so desperately to join her. She was very distracting to me now, as she breaststroke and butterflied through the water with these other women, unrecognizable to me. I almost felt a tinge of jealousy at how in sync they were. I gazed at her sultry curves, a woman of such grace now before me that her mere presence teased me something awful.

“Now, now, If you just stare ahead, you’ll only get colder. You gotta move, Catherine.”

The softness of my name from her tongue almost invigorated me to move to her, but my first tentative step in the water was met with icy shivers down my spine. She was down by the 11 feet marker now, obviously enjoying the freedom that came with this activity. She waved to me, a serene smile upon her face, one I wish I could return. But all I thought of now was the freeze creeping up my body...

“N-n-n-n-nnnooo F-f-f-ff-fu--cccc--c-cckinnngg Wa-a-aa--a-ayyy, Kk-k-kk-k-aat--t-t-t…”

I looked down to see my skin had turned a bluish tint and became a ghast at how my complexion felt cooled. I lost my peach color and became a ghost, gasping slowly while the water froze my veins at agonizing speeds. The ceiling became pale and I felt amiss, like the world that spun around me no longer existed. My eyes became hazy while the water's cruel laps at my bare skin began burning, piercing cold to the touch. 

“Oo--o-o-o-ooooooh Kk-k-k-k-k-k--aatttt--tt---t--t-ttt, p-p-pp--lleee-”

I couldn’t speak much more, as my throat was closing on its own now, the last bit of heat leaving my body. Black out and then submerge in a watery casket…feel the tines sharp points like daggers on your mortal skin. Know I always see you. And I know what you do to spite me…

You’ll pay one day for such insolence.

“CATHERINE!!!”

She looked at me fraught with worry, coming down from the deep end to my aid and hoisting me up to the ladder on the side, getting me out as quickly as she could. My brain was addled, frazzled by the lack of air left in me and my head felt close to bursting.

“K-k--k-k--aaatt…” I saw her blurry by the side, climbing to my rescue.

“Hey, ELENA! Co-Could you get Catherine a towel, QUICKLY please?!?”

Her friend came down the side, briskly walking towards me and draped the towel over my shoulders. I sat shivering on the tile, the numbing nature of the water taking its toll on me...till she arrived. The droplets glistened vibrantly as she came to my side. Her arms wrapped around me and I instantly felt the warmth I had so craved. Like a mother to her child, though I suppose we were much more than that now…

“It’s okay, Catherine. It’s ok, we’ll...we’ll head out now. C’mon…”

_

She escorted me to the car, a ginger grip to her hand as I tried to compose myself once more. I was riddled with fright, the coldness not fully gone from me as she gilded me forward still. I felt that her hand’s absence would be all it took to bring tumbling to pieces.

She was so concerned she barely dried off and still had her swimsuit on. But she didn’t care. Not at the perturbed looks she got as we made our way down the lobby or the trail of water she left from the speed she coursed through.

We reached her car and she made haste, only stopping to gently 

“You have to tell me when it gets that bad. I was so scared; you looked like you were going into hypothermic shock. Has...this ever happened to you before?”

She didn’t break her gaze with me, pure fear in her eyes. I saw her tarry a bit, the keys in her still soaked hands fumbling around for the ignition. But she made no effort to turn her attention to anything but my answer. I felt like a child, frozen still in the face of their caretaker.

“N-nnn-no...n-never, th-that was...d-death itself…”

She immediately turned the car on and drove towards home with not another word spoken between the two of us. All I could do was drift off to sleep, where I knew there would be some semblance of placation in the midst of this trauma.

_

“You...why are there two of me now?”

Looking up the tower of Babel, the climbers falling to their deaths around me I saw myself, another self, who matched my old look now.

“HEY! WHERE THE HELL DID YOU COME FROM?! THIS IS MY TURF!”

She just flashed me a sly grin and began approaching me in a violent cat walk.

“Why, I’m you of course. I came about because of the disassociation you had when the nightmare was turned back on you. In reality, of course, I’ve been dormant, lying here from the beginning, waiting to spread my wings…

And devour you whole.”

I looked at her spouting off at me with disgust. To see myself like that...it was more akin to what I was before. I shallow nothing in a sea of turmoil. Moving from man to man like an assembly line for no purpose other than my overseer’s. But I had moved on from that now, to the kingdom of light and song, to the last place Dad would ever let me be:

Heaven on Earth was her and she was my goddess now.

“You say these things about our Father but you know deep in your still black soulless heart you haven’t left that life. Don’t kid yourself, hon. Once a demon, always a demon,” she mused so effortlessly, her words tainting the already foul air.

“I remember this place...it has been a couple months now and the memory still lingers lightly in my head...but, why am I here again?” I looked about the area some more, seeing it ever so slowly morph into her, “Our” apartment.

“Whaaa...what is going on?”

It was a carbon copy really, down to the last corner fixture. I almost felt like there wasn’t a dream world and I was simply home. Just then, Kat rounded the corner, a beautiful silk dress with a bouquet of flowers in a bonnet hat upon her lovely head. Oh, Kat looked so grand in anything she donned. And, as I had become accustomed to now, she opened herself up to me. She stepped forward on the grand carpet of the living room and smiled.

I reached out my arms to her, aiming to melt away in her embrace…

*SHING*

“Recognize THIS? ”

Kat was impaled through the heart in an instant. Her body fell limp to the ground, my Salt of the Earth dead at my feet. I didn’t even have time to register the utter shock that went through me. 

The knife fell bloodied to the ground, ever pearlescent in its sheen of horror. Never forget.

“ You see? This is what’s gonna happen to her, guaranteed!”

My assailant before me was my face, my skin, my body. Yet she couldn’t be me. Not after what she just did. NEVER.

“HOW DARE YOU!”

“ You just don’t get it, do you? You can’t walk off to your happy ending after all the killings you’ve done! You’re a Murderess, plain and simple! You’ll never be truly human no matter what Father did to you!”

My alter ego penetrated my psyche like a spear, viced in my head, wrenching it violently without control. But to give in to my emotions would mean becoming the monster she says I am. Solidifying her falsity. No, never…

“Deny it all you like, tart! You’re not going to tear yourself away after all we’ve been through!”

“WE?! YOU...YOU’RE JUST A FIGMENT, A POINTLESS IMAGE IN MY HEAD TO KEEP ME FROM MY HAPPINESS! A THORN I SHOULD CLIP OFF AND BURN!”

I ran towards her vicious now in intent I had tried so hard to suppress these past months. Thinking of her, wishing she’d stay with me all of my unnatural long life. It was enough. But now…

I grabbed the knife and started stabbing. I didn’t know when I’d stop or if I even could. I just went at her. 

_

After more strokes than I cared to remember, all that you could use to even remotely identify her was her earrings, still gleaming, reflecting the crimson pooling below her corpse. They were ruby like mine, exactly the same though now stained with blood so red it soaked through the carpet to the floorboards. The room was painted with her now as I sat, straddled on my beloved’s waist, waiting for this nightmare to end.

You haven’t changed, I’m glad you are still you no matter what I made you.

_

Katherine
_

“AIYYYYYYYEEE!!!”

“CATHERINE, WHAT’S WRONG?!”

I pulled over to the side just as I heard her wail out of her slumber in the car.

I had glanced over often at her still shivering body, the towel doing nothing to help her through this ordeal. Had I known...no, she never would have told me. She’s too trusting now, too enthralled with me to even say anything otherwise. I felt horrible. To have escaped this long term abuse by this man so manipulating in his every step only to know traumatize us both further…

How could I live with myself now? 

I quickly grabbed her shoulders trying to shake her out of what terror she must have been dreaming about. She wouldn’t wake, only screaming further, louder and louder now.

It brought my heart to my chest seeing her like this. Desperation took me.

*SLAP*

I struck her with all my might, my sole purpose only to cease her cries before she lost her breath.

Her eyes flew open and she let out a yelp of unbridled pain at my actions. I was just glad to see her awake.

“OOOOWWWWwwwww!!! KAAAAAT, THAAAAT HUUURT!!!”

I was elated to see her back to her normal self. It seemed I had an inkling of worry ever since I brought her out of her comfort zone to this community center but still I pressed on thinking it was nothing to be concerned about. She’ll be fine, she can swim, she just doesn’t know it yet…

No, I should’ve paid more attention. All this time has made me grow numb to the thought of losing her, when she’s just as fragile as a lily dancing in the wind. And I’ll be damned if I let her get hurt again.

_

I wrapped my arms around her as she rubbed her cheek, whimpering a bit.

“Kat, that really hurt you know…” she whined, slowly returning the embrace as her shivering actually began to subside.

“I know, I‘m so sorry I had to do that. It was the only way to get you out of that...that trance you were in. I’ve never seen you like that, even when you...nevermind.”

Better to stay as far away from the past as possible now…

"It's ok...thank you Kat... I'm just...just glad you're here from me..."

"Always Catherine. I'll always be here for you."

Through the thickest of thin, I'd die a thousand times in her blood soaked arms to save her...from herself.

_

Chapter Text

Katherine

_

I felt heavier than ever now. The thoughts rained in my head on what to do next if such a tragedy were to strike. Screaming, convulsing like a deranged animal. I could scarcely think back to the times that I had been the same. And yet, there was such comfort in how we were now. Were it to end, so suddenly...I’d lose myself and never come back.

Nothing could keep me out of the hole but her now.

_

15 Years Ago…

“Soooooo...what’s he like? I mean, he’s a pretty weak guy but still, you like him right?” Erica said, snickering a bit at the end.

I looked over to her, body toned and already for the regional track competition this friday. I was jealous, if only just. She had such spunk and positivity and I still felt down now and then. Depression never truly waning. She was...a light I could look forward to at the end of the day.

My light in the darkness.

“He’s...how you’d say “rough around the edges,” I guess. You know, when he hung out with those bullies back when we were kids he was always the one they forced to steal my lunch money. Really lame I know, but maybe that’s what it was all about, ya know? How well the two of us could bear an uncomfortable situation,” it would feel entirely too embarrassing to tell this to some of my other classmates but her? She was the easiest to talk to. I stretched my toes out as we headed to the changing room, the lockers and stalls all empty around 17:50, usually. Maybe the teacher comes by every once in a while, but Erica and I always hung out after practice like this. It was always nice whenever she’d come by after hours, helping me work on my form and posture while in full sprint. It was hard, yeah but I got a lot out of it. I felt whole...with her.

“I don’t know, it’s weird to see him like, “fawn” over you,” her mischievous tone everlasting in her endless list of quips. And just to get a rise out of me? I wouldn’t make it that easy.

“Fawn? Hardly, he’s a slacker to the core. And that’s why I have to find some way to get him on the right track. He’s never gonna get anywhere in life the way he’s going now. The guy is hopeless without me.”

At this she giggled, profusely. It warmed me inside but I still felt the tides of irritation at her meaning.

“Geez, hope he’s got a mommy kink cause you are one grade A Mother bitch right now. Hahahahaaa!”

She was leaning back on the bench now, laughing her ass off. And I had to protest.

“I...AM NOT! He’s just...you know, HEY! Stop laughing! It’s not that funny!” she always teased me like this and whenever she actually got me to give in I always felt so ashamed.  

“Re~lax! Ya know I’m just teasing ya!” she pulled me closer, wrapping her arm around my neck in one of her trademark “Hey Gal!” gestures. Had me pushed against the side of her larger than normal boobs...

“Yeah, you always tease me Erica...when are you ever going to grow up?” I responded a little annoyed but not in anger.

She held me there, the velvet feel of her shirt still kinda sweaty even after she showered. I could see what I said got to her in a way I didn’t necessarily intend.

“Grow...up, huh...I never really thought about it...AH WELL! Who’s got time to grow up anyway~! No fun just being a stick-in-the-mud all the time, Kat!”

Kat...she called me that ever since I met her. She was the first. When you hear a name like “Katherine Mcbride” you’re almost obligated to say it word for word. Same inflection, as if I were some royalty from Scotland or something. I hated that, really. I grew up in Cambridge actually before we moved here but I don’t have a lick of an accent left. All Japanese. So why they’d feel the need to patronize me...it was just racist to me, really. 

And then Erica came along and said “HI, KAT~!” and that was that. Never went back to that same naming convention, that tired honorific. 

“Kat”; it was beautiful in its simplicity.

“You know, you’re still the only one who calls me that. No one else gets the memo that I don’t want to be referred to as some duke of York. Even Vincent,” she smiled when I said and I felt the tiniest blush go through me at the position she still had me in.

Geez, wasn’t enough she handled me like this, now I was getting all blustery around her in the last few months...

“Weeee~LL, that’s cause you’re my Kat~! I oughta put a little bow and collar on ya sometime! My, wouldn’t Vincent be jealous!” I knew how she meant it but still, the words she said tingled my heart ever so slightly.

“Your Kat?” I’m not some...“thing” to be owned.”

“Oh, c’mon girl, ya know I don’t mean it that way. You and Vincent are great together, you know I...I support you all the way.”

It was her turn to be embarrassed. She spoke earnestly, yes, yet her words betrayed the feelings she truly wanted to convey. This has been going on for a while now. This...avoidance.

“Erica, please tell me what’s really on your mind. You’ve been like this ever since you broke up with Jonny. You know I’ll listen.”

She let go of me and I felt the tears in her eyes well up in mine. We were connected...almost.

“It’s just that Kat, you see, with Jonny I mean...well with almost anyone really…”

She was quick to sobbing but she was trying as hard as possible to maintain composure in front of me.

“It’s ok. You can tell me anything,” I reassured her, putting my hand on her back and rubbing small circles around her shoulder blades. Such a physique she had…

“It’s just that…*sniff*, I don’t think anyone accepts me for who I am. No one knows who I really am because...I’m so afraid of what they’ll say or what they’ll do to me if I…”

“You”...what? Please, I’d never hurt you,” I knew in the very depths of my mind there was nothing she could truly say to make me feel disgusted by her. But those were just my thoughts; I was a cage in a way, a welcoming barred sanctuary to hide from the atrocities on the outside, committed with no remorse. But I knew, I knew what she was finally trying to say.

“I feel like, ya know ever since I transitioned, no one cares, except you... Jonny, he…”

I couldn’t believe for a second he’d ever lay a hand on her...but he must’ve...been well upset by something. Something I did, I don’t know or something that was wrong with me, he just...called it off.”

“Called it off?” Like, how? He dumped you? I thought it just didn’t, like, work out between you...”

She seemed close to bursting now and I felt every motion of self-loathing she had now, cause I had often felt the same.

“He...said it was like looking in a mirror. I know he didn’t mean it like that but it still...it was a horrible feeling. Especially with how forward he is...I feel helpless now. But with you, I...”

I was appalled Jonny’d even dare think that way. I mean, he was very particular in love; that we ALL knew but still...for Jonny to even choose Erica, I thought he was different. I thought he could give her happiness. At least, I hoped somebody could.

“He said that? That’s...oh, Erica, I’m so sorry…”

I embraced her on-instinct, wanting desperately to quell these feelings of despair that had surrounded for who knows how long now. If only to be the solace she needed.

“You will get through this. I know you; this isn’t enough to defeat the great Erica,” I saw that her eyes had changed from ones of the downed soldier to that of the hope of young sister; still bound to her faith in what she’s somehow cherished all her life.

“*sniff* Please, Kat. This is...hard for me.”

I rubbed my hand over her athlete’s back, the contours like a dune sea and just as durable.

“I know, Erica. But you must keep goi-”

“No, THIS is hard for me.”

I separated, slightly confused. “Wha-”

“I need you to trust me. Please,” she was uncharacteristically serious now. I felt like I was looking at a completely different person, or at least it was a side of Erica I had seldom seen, if ever.

“I trust you, Erica. You know that,” I reassured her even though I felt I didn’t fully understand her meaning. The way she was looking at me now had an intensity to it, one I wasn’t used to. It almost frightened me in a way.

“You trust what I’ll do next?” 

She held my wrists now on each side, tightly but with a gentle iron grip,  straddling the bench, feet hitched on both sides by the stilts holding us two, the muscles and tendons freezing, her eyes boring deep into mine as the sunlight crept further down, seeing the locker’s dark shadows return and then fall away, swallowed by the absence, bidding the day adieu, becoming glimmers, waning through the windows panes like a stain everlasting, becoming heated seminal euphoria, whereas its next rise would not be as joyous as the last, as I, looked back at her, steeled a bit from the radiating aura of pure virility that came off of her, her taut wings of light, spread fluidly through the room, wondering where and what wondrous glow she gave off now, blooming eastward and west, my gaze faced south as she faced me, my true north, and then she…

She kissed me.

_

Oh you’d think it’d be sudden and just as contrary. But it wasn’t; I felt it a mile away. Ever since she put her arm around me. But really, I wasn’t liable to back away from her. After all, what good would that do? So I stayed, no emotion, no reaction, no recoil. Just still, waiting for it to end.

She separated silently from me, no attempt to further this. She spoke monotone now, all life gone from her voice.

“So, that’s your answer?”

“...”

She stood up and walked out with not another word exchanged between us. I never knew that would be the longest I’d go without seeing her now.

_

Chapter Text

Catherine

_

Dark. It was dark around her now, seeing as every time I saw her sitting on the couch knitting or nursing a cold drink down I thought of the knife entering her back, unceremonious. That blade of the reaper, so merciless and torn like Death itself. I couldn’t unsee, looking as far away from her as I could.

She was like a grandma in taste, something I still had yet to get used to. Seeing all these old LPs litter the bins, unsorted due to the sheer size she had collected now...it felt alien to me. I mean, it was as prevalent to me I guess now as to anyone. I could not lay with my sisters watching these vengeful serials from America like down in Pandemonium.

No, they were the vices the past-man had created. And as much as I was a being of lust, my life now was no different than a child, wandering around the world already created for them. Eden gone, an Earth fallen, I was but another worm, wrought with these horrid human emotions, unable to return to my apathy and life of want and willful desire.

She only anchored me further, binding me to the depths of this mortality that had been forced on me...and yet she had become a comfort, a reef of protection and love here to guide my life tethered to her string of fate.

Though now I feel our cultures clashed. While I had the luxury of living for hundreds of years in multiple planes of existence...she was a mere human woman, pregnant at 32, father rejected and other mother...let’s say, “un-equipped” for childcare.

But I couldn’t dare leave her. Not if I wanted to, I needed her. And soon she’d truly need me.

“Soooo, are we going to talk about this? You can’t keep avoiding me. You can’t avoid talking about this, it’s really important you’re completely honest with me.”

She stood now, stone in the doorway, staring at me trying desperately not to look at her. I said nothing.

“Why do you do this now? When we had just begun seeing eye-to-eye...I thought...I thought we had something…”

I could hear the creeping melancholy in her voice and I felt the need to heal with her again... but would that action make that nightmare come true?

I had to respond somehow but I hadn’t the words nor the diction to say them.

“Kat...I...I-you see-I...uhh…”

“Catherine, speak to me, please. You know I love you.”

“...” I thumbed through the records in front, so hating myself for denying her the respect to tell her what was on my mind, what was drilling deep into my newly formed psyche.

“Catherine, I have a baby coming in 6 months. I never once thought I’d do this alone, I always thought Vincent would stick with me. But he’s too dangerous and...he’s not the man I knew in grade school. No, I need you Catherine. I can’t do this alone. I love you, really I do and I need you to help with th-”

“Do you really love me or do you just think you do?”