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Chapter Text

The Vampire's Curse (R. Kazuki)—Prologue

You who are unlucky enough to be afflicted by vampirism will never understand what it means to be alive again.

You will be forced to lurk in the night. Sunlight will bring you immeasurable pain; as such, the shadows will be your only place of comfort. Do not walk the streets during the day alongside humans, lest your body will be inflicted with boundless agony.

Humans will despise you, for you must feed upon their blood. Do not deny your body that which it craves, lest your mind will slowly be devoured by its own insatiable hunger.

You will not die. Despite having no heartbeat, no blood, and no soul—in essence, you are a walking corpse—you will never be allowed the mercy of death. Your cursed existence will persist for eternity.

If the cursed one falls in love with a human, you will face the most wicked torment of all. If one afflicted by vampirism falls in love with a human, they must face further anguish:

(i) Your suffering shall be redoubled, for the object of your heart's desire will become the sole source of blood that will hold your hunger at bay. If you deny yourself the thirst for your beloved's blood, you shall fall into hunger-induced insanity;

(ii) If your beloved returns your love for them, they will take pleasure in you feeding off of them. They will crave to provide sustenance to an eternally damned creature of the night despite the danger of doing it;

(iii) Your immortality will slowly be stripped from you. All the years you've persisted in this world shall fall upon you and age you, and the process shall not be halted until one of two things happens: until you wither up into a skeleton who can neither die nor save themself, or you drink every drop of your beloved's blood from their body and steal their life from them.

You who are cursed by vampirism shall dread most of all to fall in love with a human, for this is the most despicable fate for one like you. Let this curse bring you unending suffering, for you shall never know the warmth of human love again. You who are cursed by the night, spend the rest of your countless days lurking in the darkness alone, lest you suffer a fate far worse than only eternal loneliness.

*

ACT I.

"Isagi?"

"Isagi?"

"Hellooooo! Isagi!"

Isagi, who'd been caught up in a daze, blinked out of it at the other man's probing. His friend was standing on the other side of the counter, arms crossed, looking a bit perturbed by Isagi's space-out.

"O-oh... Reo. Sorry. I was just..."

"Spacing out. Got it. Anyway, Isagi, I don't have much time to talk right now. Did you finish up the necklace I commissioned?"

"Ah..." Isagi nodded, "Yeah, I did. Let me go get it for you, just wait here a minute please."

Isagi shuffled off and away to the back of his shop where he kept all of his commissions sorted alphabetically by last name.

This commission in particular was for Reo's mother, who's birthday was apparently coming up soon. It was a necklace with an elaborate gold setting embracing a 2.5-carat oval sapphire as the centerpiece. Stuff like this was expensive as hell, but if there was any family in the town of Duskvale that could afford such a thing, it was this one: the Mikage family, who were undoubtedly the wealthiest.

Isagi Yoichi worked as a jeweler in Duskvale. He's 25-years-old and lived by himself, dedicating most of his time to his trade. His family had passed this jewelry shop down to him, along with the trade. The Isagi family was well-known in Duskvale for crafting the highest quality jewelry and watches.

The jeweler retrieved Reo's special order, made his way back to the front of the shop, and passed the box off to the wealthy violet-haired man. Reo nodded hastily down at the black velvet box Isagi had selected for the piece, before he removed the cover to examine Isagi's finished product.

"It's... Well, I don't know what to say." Reo touched the sapphire inlay gently. "This is gorgeous, Isagi. Stunning. Probably your best work yet. I know she'll love it"

Isagi smiled thinly. "Thanks Reo," he replied curtly. "This was really fun to make, honestly. I hope your mom loves it. I'll give you a discount if you want."

"No, no," Reo waved the idea off right away. "I'm the rich one here. Take all my money!"

The Mikage heir rifled through his pockets and removed a cheque book. He then began to scribble on a blank cheque, punctuating it with his signature at the bottom. He ripped the top cheque off and passed it over to Isagi hastily.

"Thanks again, Isagi. I gotta hit the road now but I'll see you some other time, okay?"

"Of course." Isagi paid Reo another smile as the other hurried off and out of the jewelry shop. Once he was alone again, he let out a sigh.

He'd been a little too distracted today and he knew all too well why. Isagi pulled his ticket out for the mysterious violinist's next showing for later that night at 7:00 PM at the local theater.

*

The first time Isagi had witnessed this violinist named Itoshi Rin play, he'd been immediately and wholeheartedly captivated before the musician's bow had even made contact with his violin strings. So when he'd finally been graced with actually hearing Rin's music, the man had completely spellbound him with it.

Isagi was a huge fan of music, any and all music really. And this guy was no different; a talented violinist like Rin was, of course, someone Isagi greatly looked up to, but there was something about Rin that was different from other musicians. His music was nothing short of stunning. Captivating beyond belief. But something about it was just different. As if the very fabric his music was woven from was somehow a different material than other musicians. He couldn't figure out how such a thing was even possible, but each and every time he fell captive under Rin's melody, he was always reminded of just how possible it really was.

So that night, with his ticket to Rin's next showcase shoved into his pocket, Isagi closed up his shop for the night and hurried off to catch Rin's 7:00 PM show by himself.

When he arrived at the theater, Isagi took his place in the fourth row from the front and gazed up at the blackness of the closed curtains in waiting. He anxiously checked the time on his watch, which read 6:47 PM. He groaned quietly; seems he was a little early.

As time continued to pass by, the theater around Isagi began to fill up with people. Such a show was a great place to go out on a date, so it was to no real surprise that most people who were sitting around him were in pairs. He shifted in his seat nervously as the time approached 7:00 PM.

When the lights began to dim and the theater grew darker, the shadowed curtains slowly parted, sliding to the sides to reveal the silhouette of that very same beautiful and mysterious musician.

Tonight, he was wearing a flawlessly fitting black tuxedo, his bangs slicked back off his forehead. Sitting atop his face as usual, concealing his features, was an ornately decorated mask dotted with black and red gemstones. A stunning piece of jewelry, to be sure. His eyes could be seen, glowing an eerie teal green, from the other side of the mask, panning the crowd slowly, not fixing on one point particularly, though he did seem to pause the briefest moment on Isagi (he thought he was probably imagining that). Then, he raised and readied his instrument.

As soon as the show began, the entire room was forced into silence. Rin's music demanded your undivided attention, and each and every person present in that amphitheater gave it all up to him right away. The sorrowful tune his violin placed into the darkness of the theatre air reverberated across the walls, filling each person's ears with his unique song that spoke to his prodigal talent with his instrument.

As always, Isagi couldn't manage to take his eyes off Rin for a single moment. In fact, he was so focused on the man this time that he barely had the presence of mind to even remember to blink for the entire showing of 12 songs.

*

Following his show, as Rin packed his violin up and departed the theater, he was followed by swaths of curious fans, as usual. He had no interest in speaking with any of them so he hurried off through the crowd, only one of those many fans being bold enough to follow after him down the street.

He knew he was being followed, so when he rounded the corner and glanced back, the pursuer stopped dead in his tracks, skidding to a halt in the snow. The two of them locked eyes right away as if they'd done it before.

"Why the hell're you following me?" Rin asked the person irritably.

"I... I just wanted to say... I love your music. You really are the most talented violinist I've ever seen out here." The blue-eyed man's gaze was sparkling with an all-too-familiar adoration that made Rin's gut twist into a knot. "But I just wanna ask... Why Duskvale? It's such a small town, y'know... Your talent would be better recognized in a larger city."

"Duskvale may be small, but there are... Things... That keep me here, nonetheless."

"Things...?" Isagi's head cocked to one side confusedly. He narrowed his eyes, gazing at Rin through the icy winter air.

"I've seen you at all of my shows." Rin said out to him calmly.

"I can't help that your playing draws me in."

"Of course you'd say that," Rin replied coolly, Isagi's frown only deepening at this.

"I just wanted to ask about your playing. It's just so... Unique. What is it that makes it so unique?"

"You already know the answer to that." Rin replied to him right away, without a single beat of hesitation.

Isagi only stared at him silently, seeming even more confused, to no surprise to Rin. He intended to hurry off and down the road after this, but as he was shrugging his violin case further up his arm, Isagi began to step in closer to him.

"That mask you're wearing... The craftsmanship. It's so..."

Rin bowed his head down and back to look at Isagi once more.

"The finest craftsmanship went into this mask."

"And why do you wear a mask, even out here?"

Rin only shook his head at the question. "You ask me something I can't answer right now."

Isagi's about to say more. He wants to say more. This exchange has gone in such a bizarre direction, and Rin's confusing and cryptic answers were beginning to annoy him. He was about to speak when Rin began to hurry off down the street again without any warning. Isagi couldn't explain why, but he didn't want Rin to just leave like this.

"Rin! Wait!"

Hearing his name froze Rin in his tracks, as if his body had suddenly formed a capsule of thick ice along every inch of his skin.

"You're... A vampire, aren't you?"

If Rin had a pulse to speak of, it'd certainly've been racing at this point.

But he didn't.

"If you think I'm a vampire, why the hell are you still following me?"

After a short pause, Rin continued to walk off down the road hastily, choosing to ignore Isagi's persistence and nagging questions, knowing all too well that those two deep blues never left the back of his head. If he looked back now, he knew he'd be finished.

The image of Isagi's bright blue eyes staring at Rin through the frozen night air is painted into Rin's mind like a work of art—such a beautiful sadness. No matter what happened, he could never forget.

Isagi was the first person to enter into Rin's cold world. He was back then, and it seemed like even now, after everything, he still wanted to be the only friend Rin ever had to speak of in his long, cold, and horribly lonely existence.

Chapter Text

Itoshi Rin's shows continued once a week at Duskvale's theater, and Isagi continued to attend each and every one of them.

The guy seemed to be making an effort to avoid him after his shows, and Isagi knew it was for a good reason. If Rin really was a vampire like Isagi theorized he was, then he had every reason to be avoidant; a vampire's curse is a dangerous one, after all. The nature of the Eternal Curse of the Night made it such that a human and vampire crossing paths was incredibly risky. In essence, it was the worst sort of taboo imaginable.

One evening as Rin wrapped up his show, Isagi left the seating area in the theater early. As Rin made to take his hasty adieu, Isagi snuck backstage and headed him off in the hallways behind the stage.

Rin regarded Isagi calmly, as if he'd expected to see him. "You're still following me around." he stated.

"I wanted to talk to you alone."

Rin glanced behind him quickly, around, then back to Isagi to assure they were, indeed, alone before proceeding.

"Well, here you are."

"Tell me. About yourself, that mask. Your music. All of it. I can't take my eyes off you. It's almost like..."

"You're drawn to me." Rin conceded. "Of course you'd say that. You always do."

"And what do you mean by that? Why are you talking as if we've spoken like this before?"

From the other side of Rin's mask, Isagi could see his eyes closing as his head nodded downward in defeat.

"You're beginning to ask questions," Rin said back to him, "Now is the time. When you start to question things is when I'm supposed to tell you to talk to Reo Mikage."

"Wha... Huh?"

Rin began to pace in closer to Isagi. When they stood face-to-face, Rin only frowned down at the shorter man quietly with a pensive expression hiding beneath his half-mask, which was concealing his nose and eyes.

"Rin...?"

"Be sure to check the back of your neck," Rin added, further making a point in ignoring Isagi's confusion.

"Ah...?" Isagi reached back and brushed the backside of his neck with his fingertips, feeling the edges of some small bumps there. He'd felt them before, but had just assumed it was only a birthmark or something he'd just been born with. "Sure... Um... Okay, I'll talk to Reo, as you've said. Will you at least tell me what's so unique about your music?"

"You already know," Rin blurted out, repeating exactly what he'd said the first time Isagi had asked about it. "You've already figured it out. Think about it a moment and you'll be able to answer your own question."

Isagi's eyes narrowed as he thought about this. There was one other thing that made Rin unique from other musicians, and that one thing was that, if Isagi was correct about him, he was a vampire. Finding human musicians was easy, they were as numerous as sand grains littered along the seashore. Finding vampiric musicians was about as rare as finding a diamond nested in a riverbed.

"It has to be because you're a vampire, then. But why?"

"Vampires and humans were not meant to cross with eachother. Before the Eternal Curse of the Night was lain upon those of my kind, it was merely taboo to do so. After the curse... Well, you know. Day dwellers do not cross with night dwellers, for we are, at our cores, too alike. Too similar yet too different, always drawn into eachother even if it's a danger for us. This curse has doomed us to always have some distance of separation, yet something like music... It can act as a bridge across those muddied waters. Can it not?"

"A bridge, huh? So you mean you enjoy playing music because you wish to connect with humans somehow?"

"A vampire will always long for that which they cannot have. We will never be human, nor are we anything even remotely close to them anymore. Our senses are very different than a human's, so the sound of my music is unique to the ears of both humans and vampires alike. Vampires normally choose not to produce music to perform for humans because of the nature of our senses. Music that sounds nice to us is normally mostly unenjoyable for humans; but when a vampiric musician's skills are honed in such a way to suit both human and vampire ears, the product is a beautiful melody captivating to both parties alike."

"That's... That's incredible. I didn't understand it before, but now... I think I get it. Do you miss your mortality, Rin?"

Rin paced in even closer. To Isagi's surprise, he reached one hand around and cradled the back of his head gently, fingers running delicately along those odd little bumps he'd told Isagi to investigate earlier at the base of his neck. His eyes on the other side of his mask seemed to soften.

"I don't long for mortality, nor do I long to connect with humans as a whole. There's only one I care for. All I long for is to be freed from this despicable curse."

"R. Kazuki's curse... It's a truly awful thing. Does that mean there's a human you wish to love?"

"There is one I wish to love." Rin repeated hushedly.

Rin's tender touch is relented, and with that, he pushed his way past Isagi, proceeding down the long and dim lit stretch of hallway toward the building's exit.

"Someone you wish to love...? But—"

"Enough questions. Do as I've said and go see your friend." he called back to Isagi.

As Rin continued walking, Isagi watched him leave, wordless and breathless as if Rin had stolen the very air from his lungs. He squinted at a flash of silver in Rin's hair that he'd never noticed on the back of his head. It was an odd thing to see on a vampire.

Isagi brushed this encounter aside. As Rin had told him to do, he decided he had to go pay a visit to his friend Reo.

*

It was after eight-o-clock at night when three sharp knocks sounded on the Mikage mansion's doorway. The household was well equipped with staff, and one of them who'd been nearby answered the door.

The man standing on the other side of the open entry was panting heavily, clearly out of breath. The housekeeper cocked her head, regarding the unfamiliar man quietly as puffs of his breath clouded in the crisp night air.

"Need... To... Talk to... Reo..." the man huffed out.

"Are you friends with the young master?" she asked him curtly.

"Yeah... Tell him... It's Isagi."

She gave him a quick nod and gestured aside, inside the open doorway, inviting him to come into the warmth of the Mikage family mansion before she hurried off to find Reo. After she'd left, Isagi stood rubbing his hands as he tried to warm them up. He'd basically ran from the theater to Reo's mansion without going back home to grab any warmer clothes so he was quite chilled.

Not long later, Isagi noticed Reo walking briskly down the spiral staircase from above. "Isagi!" he called out as he jogged, "What's going on?"

When Reo finally reached him, Isagi looked the other guy right in the eyes, intending to cut right to the chase with no wasted time on small talk.

"I talked to Rin. He told me Because I'm starting to ask questions, it's time for me to talk to you. Or... Something like that."

Reo nodded once and looked down at his own feet, a certain seriousness suddenly possessing his features. "I thought it might be that. Ah... It's kinda late for this right now, but this is too important to wait on. Follow me."

The Mikage heir spun round on his heels. He didn't wait for Isagi and simply started walking off to the left, proceeding deeper into his mansion. Isagi kicked off his boots and followed close behind.

"Can you tell me what this is about?"

"Most of your questions will be answered here pretty quickly. All I'm gonna say is that... Well, your life is not what what you think it is."

"Huh?"

Reo opened a random door and gestured inside. Isagi looked into the room. It was some sort of plain guest bedroom with nothing but a neatly made single guest bed in the corner and a couple random pieces of art on the walls for decoration.

The two men walked inside. Reo pointed at the bed and at the same time crossed the room, where he pulled the folding closet doors open.

"Sit there for just a sec while I grab something." Reo grabbed the oil lamp off the nightstand, blew some dust off it, and struck it alight.

Isagi obligated, shrugging his jacket off and seating himself on top of the mattress as he waited for Reo. After a couple of minutes shuffling through the closet, Reo stood and turned to face Isagi with a wooden box in one hand and his oil lamp in the other.

"Alright, Isagi. This is for you to look at and you alone. Or... So I'm told to say to you." He walked back across the room and placed the box and lamp on the bed beside Isagi carefully.

"Told?"

"Well... Yes. That's all I really wanna say for now. Just look inside and you'll understand."

"Um... Okay."

Reo left him there by himself in confused and unsettling silence. Isagi scratched his head vacantly and stared down at the box Reo had pulled from the closet.

He couldn't explain why, but this situation was already starting to make him feel uneasy.

Weird feelings and out-of-place sensations had been a thing for him lately, though. Especially since he'd started going to Rin's violin concerts. Without giving it too much more thought, Isagi unlatched the wooden box and flipped the lid open to see what it was Reo had been supposedly hiding for him.

On the very top there was a paper-covered book that simply read ISAGI YOICHI READ ME in huge block letters, so Isagi listened to the loud and clear instruction and pulled that out first. He smoothed his hand along the surface of the book before he pulled it open to the first page.

It appeared to be some kind of letter, the date old. He squinted down at the familiar calligraphy, feeling a tightness beginning to form in his chest as he pinched a placemark closer to the back of the book between his fingers. He flipped back to that placemark, which also had his name written on it, right away.

It was another letter, this one dated to only four months ago. His breath caught and heart jumped as soon as he began to read the letter.

Isagi Yoichi,

Let me start by saying outright that you have amnesia. This is the 96th time I've written this same letter to you... To myself.

That's how it started. He gasped and flipped the book shut, keeping his fingers in place as a bookmark so he wouldn't lose his place.

Ninety-six times? There was absolutely no way this was possible, was there?

That was what Isagi thought at first... Until he decidedly swallowed his nerves and kept on reading.

This amnesia of ours is not medical amnesia. It's caused by a curse.

I know you remember certain things but not others. That's because the curse that's been placed upon you erases anything about and involving the one you love from your mind. The jewelry shop you currently own... It wasn't your family's. Reo bought it for you and he promised to hire a hypnotist to have you believe you're living a normal life until you find your way back around again. Reo is a friend we met on round 93. He's a good friend to be sure, always helps us out every time he can just like this.

Let me start by telling you more about yourself. First of all, you are not 25 years old. That's another thing the hypnotist placed into your mind. You're actually 99 years old. I'll get to why that's possible here in a moment.

Isagi had to take another pause here. This was just too much for him to hear all at once. Everything he was reading all felt so surreal to him and he was starting to feel dizzy with all these questions that were beginning to pop up into his mind with each line he read.

But this was a long letter, so he made the decision to continue reading with the hope stored in his heart that his many questions would all find their answers. He took a deep breath and continued to read his self-composed letter.

If you didn't guess by the 99-years-old thing, all your living family members are now dead except for one.

You know of R. Kazuki's Eternal Curse of the Night, but what you don't know is the story behind it. Or rather, you did know but you've forgotten it again. Forgetting everything about these curses is another part of the amnesia that comes along with the second curse.

Rukia Kazuki is actually a long-lost relative of yours. She was the most powerful witch ever known to walk this planet, past or present, even to the current date. At the time when Rukia was alive, humans and vampires co-existed peacefully. Vampires were proud creatures who walked in the daylight alongside their human counterparts. They were quite different than humans in many ways, including having an extremely long lifespan, abnormally astute senses, and high levels of physical strength, whereas humans did not live for very long, were far more fragile, but were stronger mentally and possessed highly logical brains.

Rukia fell deeply in love with a vampire, Isagi Yuzu. Sorry to tell you this, but you do, indeed, have a vampire's blood coursing through your veins. You are a 99-year-old 1/8th vampire-human hybrid, the only one I know of who still lives and breaths.

Rukia and Yuzu loved eachother and lived happy and faithfully for many long years, but sadly, as Rukia grew older, Yuzu grew bored of her and began to seek solace in younger women because he aged so slowly. He did this for a long time, effectively pushing the love of his life away and sealing his own fate in the process.

Rukia took her own life as an old lonely woman, using her own soul as a catalyst in amplifying her curse's power. The Eternal Curse of the Night she cast upon all those possessing vampiric blood was her way of spiting her vampiric lover and all the generations of vampires after him: a human and vampire would never again live happily together because of her curse.

Furthermore, she cursed those of our bloodline. Vampires cannot love humans for fear of the Eternal Curse of the Night, and those possessing human blood of our bloodline fear to love vampires because Rukia cursed us with amnesia. Each and every time you fall in love with a vampire, all your memories of them are wiped the instant you come to realize it and only then. If you're wondering... Yes, it has happened to you 96 times in total now. I've perfected this journal system to communicate with myself so you do not forget who you are.

In this box I've included all of your notes and research from your 99 years of life. You are blessed with Rukia Kazuki's talents, and you've chosen to use them for the good of humans and vampires alike. You are now the lone descendant of Kazuki, and the sole person alive who has vowed to break the Eternal Curse of the Night and free humans and vampires alike from it. Only you, who possesses both vampire blood and the blood of the woman who's cursed them, can save us all.

Lastly, I'm going to tell you about Rin, since I'm sure you're more than just a little curious about him by now.

You were 25 when you met him. Yeah, we're old, but he's way older than us. In fact, he's 487 years old, and he's one of the first vampires who was afflicted by Rukia's curse. I know a 487-year-old vampire sounds terrifying, and usually they are, but trust me when I tell you that you have no reason to fear him.

Rin has never left your side since you were 25. Not even one single round of amnesia did he leave you on your own, and no matter how many times you lose your memories of him, Yoichi, you always seem to find your way right back to him while he patiently waits for you to return to him. Rin always was, from round 1 to round 96, the vampire you've chosen to, and continue to fall for, over and over and over again. And no matter how many times you forget him, you always manage to find your way right back to him.

The mask he wears, the one that looks like a raven decorated by black and red gemstones, was crafted specially by you for him. It's a curse-cancelling cursed object that you've designed to protect him from Kazuki's curse, so he can continue to come back to you and love you freely if he wishes. His music, carefully crafted for the ears of both human and vampire alike, is the perfect harmony for your ears, Yoichi, the human-vampire hybrid. No matter what happens, you have to remember. Rin will always be on your side. You will lift the Eternal Curse of the Night and save your love for him from the cursed fate it is doomed to.

The scars on the back of your neck are in such a place where no one else can see them, especially not you. This is because they are bite marks. We have, in the past, allowed Rin to feed on us, but not to satiate his hunger. A vampire is undead and cannot partake in any normal sort of intimacy with a human. They don't have a pulse and know nothing of bodily warmth or expressing proper human love. If the time comes when you feel ready, allow him this one thing. The only bit of intimacy a vampire is capable of partaking in with a human lover is drinking their blood and feeling their pulse.

Keep looking deeper in this box to find blueprints for a weapon you're currently crafting. This weapon will be the one you eventually use to slay the first cursed vampire, and your distant-removed relative, Isagi Yuzu, who undoubtedly still walks. Find him. Kill him. End the curse.

And Yoichi, make sure you take this book and copy this letter down right away into your next draft, adding anything onto it you think might be important as soon as you figure it out.

That was the end of the letter.

Isagi clapped the book shut and sat in stunned silence, his pulse now absolutely hammering in his chest. Given that Rin and Reo had both pointed him in this direction, Isagi felt like he had no other choice here but to believe all this insanity.

A 99-year-old vampire-human hybrid, huh? It almost sounds too crazy to be true...

Isagi took up Reo's oil lamp in one hand and got to work removing everything else from the wooden box. There were several other, smaller books, all which contained pages upon pages of notes that did, indeed, appear to be research notes. And sure enough, there, in the very bottom of the box, was a mostly completed blueprint for a cursed weapon that could kill a cursed vampire.

*

Isagi didn't know where Rin lived in town so he had to wait to see him again. A week later, when he was sitting in the crowd watching Rin's show once more, he found the entire thing so much more beautiful, yet all the more sorrowful, now that he knew what he knew.

Rin's silhouette, shrouded in darkness with only the feeble light of a single weak spotlight outlining his lonely figure, gave him a solitary guise that was befitting for his musical style. The anguish-tinged lilt his violin sung into the night, carefully made for Yoichi's ears and his ears alone, spoke to the many long years he'd spent in waiting for his lover to break his curse. The vampire's song, sad and lonely, touched many hearts particularly strong that night, but as his final note rang stark in the amphitheater, there was only one person's tears flowing that really mattered to him.

As silence took over, hanging dull and suffocating in the air following Rin's final song that evening, his violin and bow fell down at either of his sides. He cast his gaze off into the crowd, meeting the eyes of that one person he always hoped his song would carry to no matter how many times they forgot him.

Rin loathed that he'd spent 487 long years in this lonely existence of his, and that nearly 74 years of them he'd spent in waiting. Yet he knew he no longer had any other choice but to do so.

All those many years of sadness gripped themselves strong on Rin's heart as he gazed across the amphitheater, eyes resting upon the beautiful, shimmering lines of Yoichi's tears that had painted his face that night, exactly like they had countless other nights before.

Chapter Text

Rin had faithfully remained by Yoichi's side through each and every one of his 96 bouts of amnesia, yet it still wasn't an easy thing for him to do. He was still so deeply conflicted with his own feelings.

He wasn't stupid and he sure has hell wasn't ignorant. A 487-year-old vampire was anything but ignorant when it came to this curse. He'd tried to reason with himself so many times that he'd lost count, to tell himself to just find the courage to get up and leave Yoichi behind for good. If he could, once and for all, turn his back and leave, that would probably be the best thing for him. After all, a human and vampire, simply knowing what the Eternal Curse of the Night meant for such a relationship between the two, should know better than to risk falling for eachother. And it was worse yet that Rin had to go through the same excruciating pain of having his love wiped from Yoichi's mind over and over and over again. It was madness.

Yet he couldn't help himself. He just couldn't stay away, and amnesia bout 96 really was no different than all the other times. He was so hopelessly in love that he'd been completely paralyzed, his world totally frozen in time, trapped here in this tiny town in a prison of his own love's making. Each and every time he could see Yoichi beginning to fall in love with him again, it was like being wrapped up deep in the grasp of an addiction of sorts and he was utterly powerless to it. Rin would've loved to have said he was better than each and every human a vampire should've put themself well above; after all, he'd lived seven of one of their lifetimes over.

But when it came to Yoichi, he knew he really was no better than they were. He was an absolute fool. He'd keep putting himself through the haplessly repeated anguish of being forgotten, only because he knew Yoichi would always find his way back to his side somehow if he just stayed close by and waited.

This time after his show, Rin had taken to cleaning and polishing his violin as he waited for Yoichi backstage. He knew what was coming for him. It happened every single damn time. So when Yoichi was finally standing in the dressing room doorway with his deep blue eyes still sparkling with tears, Rin wasn't surprised. He placed his instrument down into its case and calmly returned Yoichi's look.

"Rin..."

"You're going to thank me," Rin interjected, "You always do that first. Then you apologize to me for the curse afterward, because for whatever reason you feel responsible even though it has nothing to do with you." Rin stroked his violin bow once, inspecting it closely for any wear-and-tear or damage, before he placed that into the case beside the instrument. "Then you get all teary-eyed and tell me I'm being stupid or that I should leave. Or something like that."

"Uh...?! S-screw you..."

Rin raised an eyebrow behind his mask and tilted his head sideways to rest his cheek against the knuckles on his closed fist. "Anger this time? It's been a while since you've skipped to getting angry with me right off the hop."

Yoichi bit his lip, his frustration clearly displayed on his face.

"Bastard. Why didn't you just be honest with me the first time I came to you if you knew about all this crap?"

"Right, I am a bastard. I definitely am. Let me have it, then."

"Argh! I just... All this really pisses me off. And I just don't get you at all."

Rin closed his eyes and nodded, his demeanor still perfectly calm and collected.

"Listen. I've done this damn near a hundred times with you and it's never easy. This is the most painless way for you to find all this out. Whenever I try and explain everything to you myself, you just lash out at me and call me a liar. I have to act like this so you start to ask questions, then I have to point you in the right direction, toward reading your journal. The journal system seems to work best for you. Maybe the familiarity of your own penmanship or something. Having other people try and explain things always makes you angry and confused, then you end up running in circles until you finally come back around. Trust me when I say this is the most painless way for you to find all this out."

Yoichi blinked across the room at Rin, his expression pouty and incredulous for the moment. He remained silently like that for what seemed like forever before he finally sighed and relaxed the tiniest bit.

"Ah... Man... I've got no choice but to just trust what you're saying, I guess. Doesn't all this get old for you?"

"It got old after the tenth time it happened. By now it's ancient history."

"Then... Why?"

Rin closed his eyes. "You already know the answer to that, don't you?"

He reached up and placed his fingertips along the edges of his mask. With his other hand, he pulled the head strap off the back of his head. He removed the article from his head and placed it on the table beside him, next to his open violin case.

The instant the curse-sealing mask was removed from his body, he could feel his hunger twisting back into the curse's hands. He shook his head and brushed his fingers through his bangs frustratedly. Seems things really hadn't changed, after all.

He could already practically smell Yoichi's blood and taste it pooling on his tongue. Drinking the blood of the human he loved was one of the only real pleasures Rin had ever found in all his many long years, and the desire to do so was only compounded on by the curse's affect. He could hear Yoichi's pulse berating his ears like the sound of a drum pounding in his head endlessly.

He still loved this idiot of his, after all. Perhaps even more than he had the last time he'd removed his mask.

Rin is old, though, and a vampire's age is directly correlated to his strength, including his strength of will. He's well-fed and knew to keep himself as such to stave off that hunger, especially so when he was in Yoichi's presence. The desire to feed was always there, whether from a hunger standpoint or otherwise, and he was always sure to err on the side of caution when it came to keeping this in check.

"Ah...!" Yoichi remarked. He looked genuinely a little nervous. "You took it off..."

"You have nothing to worry about. The full effect of the Eternal Curse of the Night takes time to work. Months, or so I've heard. I never take this thing off. A couple of minutes at a time like this doesn't mean I'm going jump up and eat you."

"Eat me...?! So... That means...?"

"Are you dense? Think about it. Why the hell else would I still be here?"

Now, Rin could see Yoichi noticeably relax and his expression soften. He'd been waiting for that.

"Yeah... That's true..." Yoichi sighed deeply. "I know it's predictable and I've probably said it a million times over to you by now, but... Thank you for being here, Rin."

"It's pointless to thank me now. Just keep doing what you can to end this curse. I have no other choice but to keep waiting for you like this."

Yoichi slowly advanced himself across the dressing room. He took to standing in front of Rin, his eyes flickering with curiosity now as he examined Rin's facial features up close.

A vampire's skin is smooth and ivory-white, beautiful but eerie. Rin's dark hair, which was styled, was falling into thin tendrils framing the smooth porcelain of his face and added a deep contrast to his features. His eyelashes, dark and thick, rimmed his eyelids in such a way that he almost had the appearance of wearing eye makeup. The most striking feature of his, though, were without a doubt his eyes.

His irises were a blue-green that would match the color of warm tropical beach waters, a color existing in contrast to the ice-cold undead they were contained within. Perhaps a better comparison would've been that they matched the frozen-blue of a massive and ancient glacier. A faint glow of illumination contained by each iris, like stained glass refracting sunlight, spoke to the curse filling him that sustained his eternal life.

The vampire's appearance always was, and still is on bout 96 of seeing his face freshly again, so enrapturing to Yoichi that it completely stole is breath away.

Rin blinked at Yoichi as the other stared at him, his lips parted only the slightest bit indicating his awe. He always looked like that every single time he saw Rin's face for the first time after his amnesia had wiped it from his mind. Despite everything, even after 96 times of being wrapped up in this very situation all over again, the sight of Yoichi's awe only made Rin feel deeper depths of fondness for his hopeless part-vampire beloved.

"Idiot," Rin mumbled fondly.

"At least I'm a young idiot. You're just as much an idiot as me, except you're old as hell."

Rin flipped the violin case shut and swiftly locked the metal clasps to hold it closed. One of his silken-gloved hands donned his mask back over his face, then he grabbed his violin case off the table and stood up.

"So..." Yoichi scratched his head, "What comes next?"

"Come with me," Rin offered, "I can help go over your notes with you. I understand the workings of your cursed weapon's design, but only you, who possesses Kazuki's blood, can create the weapon."

*

That night, the two of them met at Rin's place to begin going through Yoichi's research notes together.
Yoichi also noted the blueprints to another object in his wooden case of things: an amulet that, when he wore it, would protect him from the curse of amnesia.

The intricacies of the amulet's design were quite different than those of the mask he'd designed for Rin. It seemed, through all his many years of research, he'd come to realize that protection from the amnesia curse, which was placed upon a select few people of his bloodline on Kazuki's side (all of whom were now dead except for Yoichi himself), was a lot more difficult to accomplish than protecting one single vampire like Rin from the widespread effect of a curse like the Eternal Curse of the Night. The strength of the curse was greatly diminished due to being stretched out along so many vampires, which was why Rin's mask was the easiest item for him to finish.

"Maybe I should work on finishing this amulet first?" Yoichi pondered, shuffling through old pages of notes.

"That's usually the first conclusion you come to. If you didn't have to struggle through this amnesia repeatedly, this process would only be half as difficult."

"Right. Yeah. So... Why don't I?"

"Well..." Rin seemed to be searching for the right way to respond. "I can't really put this nicely, so all I'll say is that it's because you're an idiot."

"... What?!"

"Every time you come to that conclusion, you always end up changing your mind."

"But... Why?"

Rin closed his eyes. "Because you're stupid."

"Stop insulting me! If you think I'm so stupid at least tell me what for?!"

"I shouldn't."

"And why not?"

"You'll be embarrassed."

"I won't be! Just tell me why!"

"Well..." Rin fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve.

"You always declare something like This time I won't fall in love with you! But it's idiocy to say, because whether it's sooner or later, you always do, in fact, end up falling for me."

Yoichi fell completely silent, and when Rin glanced over at him, he was certainly beginning to blush a little.

"I told you it's embarrassing."

"Okay, okay... Damn... That is embarrassing..." Yoichi placed his notes aside. "This time I'm going to work on the amulet first instead of the weapon. If I can finish this, then this damned amnesia problem won't be an issue anymore."

"The plan is solid, but that amulet of yours... Well, there's another reason you put it onto the backburner. It may not be so easy for you to finish quickly. You've put together the strongest curse-cancelling curse recipe," Rin placed a finger on top of the blueprint, "But the list is unfathomably long, with several extremely rare ingredients that you aren't even sure of where to find them."

Yoichi grabbed the amulet's recipe and took a look at his ingredients listed along the side for his amulet's curse.

Camella root (5 oz.)
Werewolf's blood (90 oz.)
Black dragon's scale (x1)
Nightlilly (10 oz)
Raven's feather (x10)

He kept on reading, down, down, down the page... There were just so many things.

"Some of those things you've found already and others you haven't. Reo is storing all the ingredients that you've found so far. There are some things that have been impossible to locate though, like a black dragon's scale. I'm unsure of where a person would even find a black dragon these days. That one thing, though, there at the bottom..."

Yoichi glanced down at the final ingredient on the list.

Ancient cursed vampire's essence (1 flask)

"Essence? What is that, exactly?"

"It's there in your notes. To shorthand it, a cursed vampire's essence is something you'd have to extract out of them magically, directly from their eyes. No one knows why it's contained in there but it is. The process would be excruciatingly painful and would leave the vampire without their sense of sight. The only ancient vampires that I know of right now are Isagi Yuzu, and... Well, myself."

"No way..."

Yoichi's heart sank. Such an obscure ingredient, and if he didn't find it then he couldn't finish crafting this amulet. He sighed and placed all his notes down on the table in front of him, shaking his head as he did so.

"This is making my head spin." He glanced down at his wristwatch to check the time. 12:39 AM. He laughed.

"Apparently spending time with a night-dweller might turn you into one yourself. But I... Just wanted to ask for one thing out of you before I go home, if that's okay."

"And what would that be?"

"I want to hear about how we met. How things went before that first bit of amnesia hit me. And how we... Well..." Yoichi fidgeted, his cheeks flushing the tiniest bit. "How we ended up, y'know... Falling in love."

"Hm... It's been a long time since you've asked me to tell you about all that."

"I'd really, genuinely like to know. If you've the patience to tell me."

Rin nodded slowly. "I have nothing but patience, luckily for you. I'll tell you. Get comfortable. If you'd like to make yourself coffee or tea, there's some in the kitchen. I always keep it stocked."

Yoichi smiled. "Just for me?"

"Don't get cocky now." Rin gestured toward a specific cupboard in his kitchen, which was bare-bones and plain as can be.

Yoichi went into the kitchen. There were a few things there—a blender, a microwave, a toaster. Basic things really. And some non-perishable foods in the freezer and cupboards, too. Vampires had no need for any of those things.

It was then that Yoichi realized, these little things were placed there specifically for him.

How much of Rin's life was like this? How many things did he place about his own home just for him? As Yoichi scanned the rest of the place around him, he noticed a lot of little things that would be useless to vampires but would be nice for a human to have.

Yoichi's heart felt heavy for Rin as he pulled some ground coffee out of the cupboard. The coffee pot was clearly in a state of disuse. After all, it'd been 4 months since his last bout of amnesia. As he made himself some coffee, Rin got to work on telling their story.

"The first time you forgot about me, we met the same way back then as we always do..." Rin began.

Amnesia Round 0.

"Your playing is so unique!"

Itoshi Rin, the ancient vampire, turned around to investigate who exactly had the audacity to approach him after his show.

It was a human, or so he appeared to be, though he smelled a little off-human and the rate of his pulse was a little slower than a human's should be. Odd.

The guy appeared to be a young adult, probably somewhere in his 20s if Rin had to guess. He was of average height and bodily size, his hair raven-black that glinted azure in the dressing room lights, and his eyes... Sapphires. Round, cerulean, vast and beautiful and multi-faceted as the sky at dusk, both the sun and moon somehow simultaneously encapsulated in this guy's curious stare that he'd fixed directly on Rin.

"Are you an idiot?" Rin replied as he packed his things up.

"Probably," the guy responded, shoving his hands into his pants pockets. "An idiot who's a fan of yours, I'll have you know."

"Great. Now piss off, Idiot-Fan-of-Mine before I really give you a reason to."

The guy only tossed his head back and laughed heartily at this. Irritation twinged in Rin's chest.

"Actually, I just wanted to ask you something. Why is your music the way it is? Vampiric musicians are, well... Few and far between, and for good reason. Usually vampires don't produce music that's enjoyable for a human's ears. But I'll have you know, I'm a human-vampire hybrid, and I find your music to be far more compelling than any human musician I've ever heard up on that stage."

"I'm old. And bored." Rin toyed with his bangs, brushing them aside and out of his eyes. "And I like the violin. So I've worked at honing my musical style to be widely enjoyed by both humans and vampires."

"I can tell it's still a work in progress, but so far it looks like you've succeeded. I'm a huge fan of classical music, and I've gotta say, you're probably one of the best violinists I've ever had the pleasure of listening to!"

"Great," Rin replied, a little too much sarcasm peppering his tone. "Now go away."

"Nope. I haven't even gotten to why I really came back here." The stranger crossed the room, and when he was beside Rin, he cocked his head to the side so the two of them could make eye-contact.

The beautiful expanse of the dusk sky was now staring directly at Rin. He blinked, awaiting as the annoyingly pretty stranger proceeded on to their point.

"Tell me, Rin. Is there someone you wish to love?"

The question caught Rin completely unaware. It was ridiculous, and something no human, hybrid or otherwise, had ever had the gall to ask him. He couldn't help when his nose wrinkled.

"Vampires are incapable of love," he replied plainly, "Or at least, I'm almost certain we are now. Because of the Eternal Curse of the Night, we choose to avoid contact with humans. I'm just over 400 years old and I've never felt it myself, so it only makes sense."

The other man smirked. "Four-hundred?!" he whistled, "Man that's old. Having avoided humans for so long, it's no wonder you'd think that. And vampires don't normally feel love towards eachother, only towards humans, isn't that right? I can see why you'd think that, but do you actually believe it to be true?"

"Everything about a vampire is cold, including his emotions. Is a corpse even capable of loving a warm-boded creature? Before the curse, probably. But now? Your question is absurd."

"I don't think it is."

To Rin's surprise, the blue-eyed man touched one fingertip against the small line of exposed skin on Rin's wrist between his glove and sleeve. Rin himself flinched, whereas the curious stranger did not. He kept his finger there for a few short moments before removing it.

It was so... So warm.

Vampires had to feed directly off of humans, so Rin did know how warm they were, but touching one had never felt quite so... Pleasant. He could still feel his lifeless skin tingling where the warm fingertip had touched him.

"I've never touched a pure-blooded cursed vampire before," the man remarked, "Your skin really does feel freezing like ice."

"Of course it does. Are you stupid?"

"Probably."

To Rin's dismay, the man only seemed to smile wider.

"This stupid man is fascinated, though. With the curse. With your music. Well, with you, to be completely frank. And I'd like to ask that you reconsider your mindset. Just because you're cold doesn't mean your emotions are. Some of the most beautiful things in this world are cold just like you. Snowflakes and ice are beautiful, but can't survive in the warmth. Hell, even the most beautiful and majestic reptiles known as dragons are cold-blooded creatures."

The stranger grabbed Rin's stage mask, which he'd removed and placed atop his violin case, and examined it. It was a plain black mask that appeared to be modeled after a crow or raven.

"See, even in just this short little time we've interacted, you've expressed a wide range of emotions towards me, even if they're mostly negative for now. Is a cold-hearted being truly capable of a wide range of emotions except for love? I'd like you to open your heart up to the idea of love. It's probably scary for you to think about with this curse you possess, but please, just try it. Think about it. And while you do that, may I borrow this mask for a while?"

Rin stared at his raven mask. It was his favorite one for sure, but he had others he could don in its stead. He only nodded his assent slowly, having been stricken into silence.

"Right, then," the guy made for the dressing room's exit, "I'll see ya next week, friend."

The mere mention of that word friend made Rin wince. Because there was no way this moron ever actually believed he could be Rin's... Friend?

The ancient vampire only shook his head and grabbed his violin with the intent to leave. Humans (even hybrids, apparently, though this guy had been the first hybrid Rin believed he'd ever met) always seemed overly interested in vampires, so this really wasn't much of a surprise to Rin. Normally they didn't end up interested in him for too long, though, especially if he kept insulting them and showing them how inferior they really were.

The idea this guy had suggested was off-putting, though, and the more Rin thought about it the stronger he could feel his distaste beginning to burn him.

He had never opened himself to the idea of love for even a single moment after he'd been cursed all those long years ago. This person was a fool for even thinking he would ever do such a ridiculous thing.

*

The stranger (who's name was Yoichi, apparently) continued to attend Rin's violin recitals regularly.

At first their little meetings were only after his shows in the dressing room. After a little while, though, the guy grew more comfortable with him and was following him home, spending time with him at his place of residence in Duskvale.

Rin had purchased this little place just for himself, mainly as a way to keep himself isolated. In short it was for privacy. A cursed vampire had no need for much sleep, didn't eat human foods, and generally had no social life, but it was still nice to live in a place that one could call their home.

He'd never intended to stay in Duskvale for very long. Because of his long life, he grew bored of places and things easily and moved a lot. But soon enough, weeks dragged on by, Yoichi's company seeming to make the time go a little faster than it usually did. Then months passed, too.

Yoichi was a curious man, more bright and inquisitive than most people Rin had ever met in his many long years. The thing that really set him apart from others, though, was his resilience and persistence. Rin wasn't used to people brushing over his insults and threats as if they were basically nothing. The guy's nonchalant nature seemed to be ruled over by his curiosity toward Rin, and with time, Rin began to slowly grow more curious about Yoichi in kind.

One night, as Yoichi was laying back in the couch rambling on about something, Rin was spacing out and was simply staring out the window at the night sky. He hadn't noticed how badly he'd actually been spacing out until Yoichi was standing right beside him calling his attention.

"Something on your mind?" Yoichi asked him with a thin smile.

When Rin looked into his eyes, he could hear it right away. Something he'd noticed before but didn't know exactly what it meant. Yoichi's pulse was usually a low, slow, steady thrum, but it always seemed to beat a little harder and faster when they made eye-contact just like this.

He couldn't help that it was in his nature to keep a strict eye on a human's pulse. A vampire's senses were all highly in tune with a human's body, after all. Not only could they sense pulse rate and strength, but they could also tell things like skin temperature and respiratory rate too. What was it Yoichi's body was trying to tell him, exactly?

Despite being able to read all the signs, Rin had no idea whatsoever what they meant.

In answer to Yoichi's question, his gaze drawled downward along Yoichi's neck, watching as his arterial pulse beat there. There was no malice behind Rin's action, and Yoichi figured this. An old vampire was a strong one, after all, and Rin had certainly looked at him like this on more than just one occasion. This time, rather than just quietly observe Rin's stare, Yoichi decided to try something else.

He unbuttoned the top button on his dress shirt and carefully pushed the collar off his shoulder, exposing his neck.

"You want to try me, don't you?" Yoichi asked him.

Rin squinted at the slender curvature of Yoichi's shoulder and neck, his jaw clenching at the mere idea of taking Yoichi's offer.

"Don't be stupid," Rin muttered, "Offering yourself up to a vampire like that could get you killed. You're lucky I know self-restraint."

"It's only because it's you that I'd make such an offer. I wouldn't even think of offering a younger vampire to feed on me. But you, Rin..." Yoichi's pulse was fluttering even faster now. "I trust you. And I've honestly always wanted to know how it feels... Like a morbid curiosity of sorts. I want you to feed on me so I can experience it once. Will you?"

Rin closed his eyes and sighed. "You're an idiot," he mumbled, though he couldn't deny how his instincts were starting to take over now.

If a person offered their neck up to any vampire just like this, even an ancient one would've been tempted. Rin certainly was.

He fixed his sharp eyes firmly on the exact place on Yoichi's neck he intended to bite and made his approach. The smooth skin there looked so tender, so tantalizing. As Rin walked, he could hear Yoichi's pulse growing ever the more rapid.

"You should sit down," Rin told him, "It's not uncommon for people to pass out when a vampire feeds on them."

Yoichi did what he was told to do quietly and seated himself on Rin's couch. His heartbeat was now absolutely hammering against his ribcage as Rin sat beside him, grabbed him by the waist, and turned him over so his neck was totally forthright.

"Does it hurt?" Yoichi asked. It seemed as though he was trying to keep his voice steady, but it was trembling the tiniest bit with nerves.

"No," Rin replied, "Maybe a pinch, but a vampire's fangs contain a natural analgesic that's meant to calm the human donor. Fear-clouded blood tastes sour."

"Ah... I see..."

Rin, with one hand around Yoichi's waist and his other against the back of his head, pulled the other in closer. He tilted his head sideways, bared his fangs, and sank them into the soft tissue on Yoichi's neck. Yoichi flinched, but shortly afterward relaxed, the tapping of his pulse now sending a hum along Rin's tongue and into his mouth. He didn't spend very long with his fangs inside the other man's flesh and was careful to avoid nicking Yoichi's aorta. Once he'd drawn sufficient blood, he retracted his fangs and cupped his mouth against Yoichi's smooth neck.

Rin couldn't deny there was a unique taste and texture to Yoichi's blood. There was little to no fear in him, which was surprising as normally most humans were a little afraid of a vampire feeding on them, even people who worked as professional blood donors. But Yoichi wasn't afraid at all. His blood did not taste bitter or sour whatsoever. Rather, it was smooth, silky, and decadent, almost something of a delicacy to bless Rin's tastebuds. He cupped his lips against the bite marks and pulled the last bit of free-flowing blood off the surface of Yoichi's neck, pulling away afterward.

Yoichi's skin was warm and flush, both his breathing and pulse quite rapid in comparison to his resting state. It was then that a thought crossed his mind about why Yoichi tasted so impossibly good. The faintest grin pulling at the corners of Yoichi's lips all but confirmed Rin's suspicions.

This freak actually liked it.

"What the hell are you smiling about?" Rin asked him forthright.

"Well that was... Different," Yoichi said, grinning slyly, "Keep going. Y'know, if you want to."

It could always be said, you never had to ask a vampire twice to drink your blood. He tipped his face back against the base of Yoichi's neck, nuzzling himself back into the sweet aroma that was forming an unfamiliar feeling inside of him. He continued to drink, though not very quickly, listening as Yoichi made the faintest little sounds. He wanted to savor every lick of this taste.

No, it wasn't just the taste. He wanted to savor this entire moment.

It was that night that Rin found a new type of solace in the taste of Yoichi's blood, something that began to transition into a budding desire. A hunger that blossomed not from a primal instinct to feed, bur from an indescribable, carnal want.

This was something Rin had never, in his 413 years of life, ever experienced before. For once in his cold life he actually felt... Warm. The heat of Yoichi's blood was filling him with new life and energy, making him feel almost human.

"Wait," round 96 Yoichi interrupted Rin's story, "So you're telling me I actually like it?"

"I know. It's weird. I'm old as hell and even I think it's weird."

Yoichi frowned and felt around for where Rin had said he'd bitten him for the first time. The scars there were so old now they looked only like blemishes on his skin, but still. He could see them.

"So I taste so good because I'm not afraid of you?"

"I think it's a combination of that, the fact that you actually like being fed on, your hybrid blood, and... Well..."

"Well what?"

Rin flickered his eyes upward, their gazes locking steadily. "You finished your mask a few days later and gave it to me, but not long after that... Well, you forgot me for the first time."

Which means... Yoichi finished the though, I tasted so good because I was falling in love with you.

Chapter Text

Yoichi continued to review all of his research notes, both by himself and with Rin. It seemed he'd spent a good chunk of his adult years studying vampires, curses, and all-in-all was fascinated by the predicament posed by the Eternal Curse of the Night.

Given that his hybrid blood was so diluted, the curse did not impact Yoichi himself at all. In fact, his notes indicated that he was mostly human save for a few small things about him. Firstly and most prominently, he aged a lot slower than a human would. A pure-blooded uncursed vampire could live to be well over one-thousand years old. Because of this, there were only three generations of purebloods that existed pre-curse, with Rin and Yuzu being some of the very last of the purebloods born without the curse, who were cursed shortly later. Yoichi predicted his own lifespan would be somewhere around 600 to 800 years.

Unlike pure-blooded humans or vampires without the curse, who are omnivorous and carnivorous respectively, Yoichi's canines were a tad bit longer and he had more of an affinity for eating meat, so in this regard he was a bit more vampire-ish. His resting pulse was a little bit slower than a human's, too. Aside from a few small things, it seemed he was much more close to being a human than a vampire.

Pre-cursed vampires were capable of producing offspring with either a human or another vampire, however, their biology was just barely different enough that a pure-blooded vampire, more often than not, would struggle to conceive just one child. Because of this, vampires had been a dying breed, even prior to the Eternal Curse of the Night being inflicted upon them. Now, it seemed, through Yoichi's research, most of the pure-bloods left were either in hiding or had gone missing altogether.

Yoichi noticed the numerous gaps in his research notes. Despite how he wanted to deny why this was, he couldn't.

Remaining in Duskvale like this, stuck in an unfortunate loop of amnesia, was severely holding him back. Not only was a lot of his research incomplete, but it also seemed like he ended up running into a lot of dead ends that were very slow for him to work himself out of.

Yoichi's heart began to grow heavy with time. After three months, he came to the solemn realization that something about this situation of his needed to change otherwise he'd never be able to accomplish anything he'd set out to in the first place.

*

"This time things'll be different."

Upon hearing Yoichi's declaration, Rin glanced at him sidelong with narrow eyes.

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Well for as long as I've known you, things really haven't changed. What makes you so sure of yourself this time around?"

"I just am," Yoichi said. He was in Rin's kitchen eating something, shuffling through his research notes. Rin, who was sitting in the darkness of his living room with every curtain around him shut tight to block out the sunlight, only stared at Yoichi with silent skepticism. He'd heard Yoichi say something like this on numerous occasions, yet the moron had never seemed so sure of himself as he did this time.

Yoichi glanced across the room at Rin with a mysterious light forming in his eyes. Rin, who'd been reading a book, noted Yoichi's pulse was beginning to pick up its pace and so closed the book in his lap to focus better on it.

Now what, exactly, was that about?

Yoichi's heartbeat, normally slow and steady, was beginning to flutter. Rin scrambled with all his 74 years of knowledge he'd gleaned since he'd known Yoichi (not really a terribly long time for an ancient vampire, but it was long enough that he now knew Yoichi about as intimately as an old friend) in search of an answer to his own blooming curiosity. It wasn't too early on for him to be developing feelings for Rin, so that becoming a thing again was always a possibility, but Yoichi's other vital signs didn't really seem to match up that well with that theory.

"This time I want to test something new out."

"Test what? Out with it, then," Rin replied, the thin veneer that was his patience already beginning to weaken a little.

"In a minute," Yoichi turned over another page of notes, "I'm just gonna finish reading this section. It's about vampires and the full moon. I think there may be a page missing, though..."

Yoichi flipped back and forth in search of something, Rin watching him do this with a calm and careful gaze.

"It cuts off right—"

"Before talking about the blood moon," Rin added, both his tone and demeanor a little more guarded than usual.

"Yeah... How'd you know?"

"Because that page is missing. It has been for a long time."

"Odd..." Yoichi pondered this briefly before closing his notebook. "Alright, then. Do you know anything about the blood moon in connection to vampires?"

"Of course I do." Rin closed his eyes. "The legend states that a full-blooded vampire born underneath a full blood moon shall be bathed in crimson. They will be plagued by this curse of theirs that happens once a month when the full moon shines bright in the night sky, and especially so when the moon is red. The curse will transform them into a monster, who will ruthlessly rampage with a bottomless hunger tearing them apart from the inside, until the night is over." Rin paused and fidgeted. "Or... So I've heard."

"Bathed in crimson, huh?" Yoichi nodded as he pondered this, one fingertip tapping against Rin's tabletop. After another few moments ticked by in contemplative silence before Yoichi conceded defeat against his stacks of notes.

"Alright, I'm going to try something out now. Take off your mask for a minute and close your eyes for me, please."

"Don't boss me around," Rin grumbled, though shortly afterward he did obey Yoichi's bossing around by removing his mask and closing his eyes as he was told. He didn't have to wait for very long before he heard Yoichi approaching him from across the house. A short pause ensued after Yoichi seemed to have stopped in front of him, the sound of the other's beating heart now a fever pitch in Rin's cursed ears. The sound and feel of Yoichi's pulse was so all-consuming to him, it was as if the man's vital organ was beating in his very own chest.

Even well-fed as he was, he felt his fangs lengthen in his closed mouth at the mere thought of the taste of Yoichi's blood.

He hated this curse more than anything for stripping him down to a sub-human creature that couldn't even properly experience love without simultaneously experiencing the cold grip of his thirst. And the curse was still barely affecting him. He was about to say something, but finally, Yoichi got to his point.

At first Rin didn't know exactly what was happening, so when Yoichi's scent filled his nostrils and he felt something warm and soft touching against lips, he flinched right away and flickered his eyes open.

Yoichi was actually... Kissing him?

He was shocked, his expression showing this immediately, but the kiss was only just a brief little peck on the lips. After Yoichi pulled out of it, he smirked right afterward at Rin's clearly written expression of disbelief.

"Well... How do you feel?" Yoichi asked, to Rin's further confusion.

"Feel?" Rin touched his own lips as he still felt the faintest tingle there.

A kiss. Not an unusual thing for humans and even uncursed vampires to enjoy, but an undead cursed vampire?

Well.

Because of how much he avoided people, Rin had only ever been kissed like this once before, and suffice to say, he did not exactly feel much from it. Because of the strange nature of how the curse had distorted his state of being, typical human forms of intimacy or affection were basically lost on him.

"I feel nothing," Rin replied, his nose wrinkling.

"Aw, well. It was worth a try." Yoichi sank onto the couch beside Rin and sighed. "I didn't see much in my notes about vampires and kissing so I just wanted to try it. Y'know, with all those fairytales about true love's kiss saving the princess."

"Princess? I'm no princess. Don't refer to me as such."

Yoichi laughed softly at this. "I'll be adding that into my notes. Rin is not a princess, definitely doesn't like being kissed like one, and he certainly has no sense of humor."

"I have no patience for this right now. Enough of your rambling."

"-And Rin has no patience for you so don't ramble too much-"

Much like many other things that had been lost on a cursed vampire, humor was another such thing. As such, Rin only stared blankly at Yoichi as he smiled and laughed since it didn't really make much sense to him. However, if he had learned one thing about himself since meeting this idiot, it was that he wasn't at all as emotionless as he'd always believed himself to be. Just because he didn't feel typical human levels of fondness or joy, even love, didn't mean he couldn't feel them at all.

"You're a buzzkill," Yoichi nudged Rin's arm playfully, "Anyway, I'm bored of this right now. Why don't you tell me more stories. Actually... There is one I'd really like to hear." A smile formed on Yoichi's lips. "Now I know I've fallen for you ninety-six times over, but would you mind telling me about how you fell for me?"

Rin nodded once, toying with the pages in his book briefly before he placed it aside.

"Let's see... It was after your thirty-second bout of amnesia. About twenty-three or so years after we met."

"Twe-what?! You mean to tell me that I fell in love with you thirty-two times before it was reciprocated?! That's... That's pretty embarrassing..."

"There's a lot about you that's embarrassing, really," Rin combed his fingers through his hair and replaced his mask over his face. He fixed his gaze steadily against the flame on his stove top, which was now alight to boil some water for Yoichi's tea, as he sorted through his memories, thinking of the best place to start the story.

"You and I were here, actually. That bout of amnesia was the longest one, I think. It took you just over a year to forget me that time..."

Amnesia Round 32.

Twenty-three years is a long time for a human, but for a vampire pushing half a century old, it wasn't nearly so significant.

Rin had spent 23 years with Yoichi falling for him and forgetting him, and he couldn't explain anything about why he was still so stuck in Duskvale the way he was. Perhaps he was entertained by this amnesia (Rin himself was the one who'd looked into Yoichi's amnesia) or perhaps it was more of a fascination with Yoichi always falling into the same cycle no matter how many times it was repeated.

He was confused for a long time. Until one day, everything seemed to fall into place.

That night, Yoichi was humming to himself as he went about, his pen scratching at a dizzying pace as he added things into his research notes. The house had fallen silent like this—it did a lot of the time really—and they were both fine with things being like this. The pair of them were both introverts who could get lost in their own thoughts.

Rin was completely absorbed in reading what he'd been reading at the time, until Yoichi spoke up.

"I have a question for you," Yoichi called over to him absently.

"What is it?" Rin called back, equally as absently.

"Why won't you bite me?"

Rin darted his eyes across the room right away at this odd line of questioning. "I already told you why."

"You don't like how I accuse you of brainwashing me into being your next meal and forgetting about it, or something. Wasn't that right?"

"You always come at me throwing bizarre accusations like that. You're the only vampire I know of out here, but I don't even remember meeting you! Did you brainwash me or drug me? What did you do to me! Stuff like that. Even when you always end up curious about it again later. It's annoying. I don't know about your preconceived notions about vampires, but we do have dignity. Most of us aren't just vicious beasts."

"Right, right... No, I get it..." Yoichi trailed off for a moment before he finally finished his thought.

"So, like, what if you just... Bite me where I can't see the marks?"

Rin pinched the bridge of his nose, irritation bubbling up in his gut. He was internally conflicted about this, for obvious reasons. It was in a vampire's nature to feed off humans and Yoichi's blood tasted so damn delicious, but on the other hand, if Yoichi did end up seeing the marks and got angry with him again and again, there was a chance that...

Wait.

What, exactly, was he so afraid of?

It was in that very moment that Rin began to realize something, especially so when he glanced at Yoichi from across the room. The sound of the man's pulse had grown so comforting to him at this point, he hadn't even realized how much he would truly and deeply miss hearing it if it left him for good.

What, exactly, was this feeling?

It was then that he realized, this was actually a genuine fear he had of losing something—someone—and this relationship they'd formed. Yoichi was more than only a blood donor or a fleeting encounter, but a person who genuinely cared for Rin as if he wasn't a monster unworthy of love.

As the full realization of his feelings began to wash over him, Rin could feel his hunger twisting, morphing into something new.

He'd spent many long years on his own, and many of those recent years pondering a question he'd never thought he'd ever be given a chance to take seriously: Is there someone you wish to love?

Such an innocent question from a curious young man all those years ago. Despite how Rin had brushed it off at the time, he'd still kept the mask Yoichi had altered for him that would, apparently, protect him from the curse advancing itself on him further if he ever did fall in love.

Twenty years is a long time by human standards, but for something as vast, beautiful, and devastating as a vampire's love, it was only befitting for it to develop slowly.

If there was one thing Rin was coming to realize about himself, it was that he still did long to sink his fangs into Yoichi's flesh. This, for him, had grown into something that he didn't only desire to satiate his hunger, but something he simply wanted. He wanted that heat, that pulse, that flavor, that person. All of him, all the time. In every way imaginable.

Rin, having been lost in his own thoughts, had fallen silent, and didn't notice Yoichi had taken a seat right next to him on his couch.

"You didn't answer my question," Yoichi said to him, a little half-smile forming on his lips.

"Because your question is stupid," Rin blurted out, though this was only a feeble attempt at masking how he was actually starting to feel a bit frightened by his own feelings. After all, falling in love with a human was dangerous for the both of them.

The tone he chose to use was a dead giveaway, though, and Yoichi was nothing if not astute. His smile only widened.

"You're nervous," Yoichi said to him, effectively calling him out.

He was, indeed, starting to feel a little nervous. Despite being ancient, this specific situation was actually very new for him. He waved his hand at Yoichi vacantly, though a tightness was beginning to form in his chest that was stripping him of his usually quite calm and collected demeanor.

"Why not try it here, on the back of my neck? I don't think I could see back there even if I tried to look..."

Rin, who was now actively avoiding eye-contact, slowly dragged his gaze back over. Yoichi was looking at him so innocently, his unwavering conviction filling his azure blue eyes. The curse possessing Rin was undoubtedly telling him, he'd definitely fallen in love with this man. Yoichi was never afraid of falling in love, yet Rin felt nothing but fear alongside his own love.

After all the time he'd spent avoiding humans, the lone person that had managed to consistently worm his way into Rin's frozen existence and fill him with life, showed him the answer to that terrifying question. He was more than capable of love. He was capable of such boundless love that would burn the world to the ground or freeze every body of water solid, and now that he knew this...

He was all but finished.

What's done is done, though. The curse affects a vampire who's fallen in love with a human, but there is no stipulation regarding amplification of the curse's strength in correlation with the strength of that vampire's love. So to that end, Rin decided in that very moment, if he was going to love this man, he would do it right. He would love him in every way imaginable, upside-down, backwards, to the end of the universe and back.

After conceding himself to absolute defeat over the powerful grasp of his love, he simply responded to Yoichi by saying "Turn around," which the other man did right away.

Rin placed his arms around Yoichi gently, pulling him across the sofa into his lap. The lover's embrace, though cold, sent goosebumps along the back of Yoichi's neck and his heart into a frenzied pace in his chest. It always seemed so strange to Rin how Yoichi had this bizarre fascination and even enjoyment with being bitten and fed on, but he really wouldn't have it any other way.

He sank his fangs into the back of Yoichi's neck, about as tenderly as he could. As he drank, he felt Yoichi relaxing into his arms.

"After the initial pinch, it kinda just feels like you're kissing me, honestly," Yoichi said, "Or maybe something more like giving me a hickey. I just can't believe how cold your skin is."

Rin finished by licking the last bit of what he wanted off Yoichi's neck. Yoichi then spun around in his arms, cradled himself against Rin's chest, and cupped his cheeks in his hands.

For about an hour after feeding, a vampire's skin will flush with their human donor's life force. Yoichi gazed upon him fondly, for his face was dusted with the pink of Yoichi's blood and he was a little bit warmer than he normally would be.

Given the nature of Rin's state of being, he was never physical with Yoichi at all outside of what he'd just done. Yoichi, however, is warm, his touch tender, so this time he displayed his own form of affection as a human by straddling Rin and kissing him right then and there.

Such a thing was not something Rin had ever had any desire for, but loving a person, human or vampire, is, at its core, to understand them. So Rin, glowing with Yoichi's life force, took his beloved in his arms and kissed him back the way he deserved to be kissed.

Yoichi would forget Rin the very next day. The next time he would find Rin, he'd be wearing the mask he'd given him to protect him from the curse's advancement.

Chapter Text

Present (Amnesia Round 96).

As another month since Yoichi's last bout of amnesia approached, Rin began to grow more nervous of the inevitable coming their way.

He could always sense the slightest changes in Yoichi's vitals that would indicate his beloved's feelings transitioning from fondness or adoration over to fully-bloomed love, and this time was really no different. Despite the odds being stacked against them, the two were ceaseless in pushing forward.

One evening, the pair were going through Yoichi's notes together tirelessly as they always did. Yoichi unrolled a parchment, the weathered material crackling as he did so, and smoothed it out against the surface of the tabletop.

What was spread out on the table before them was a map. Rin didn't understand why Yoichi had brought this out at first, but when he examined the blue-eyed man's expression more closely, he seemed to have a familiar twinkle beginning to form in his eyes. It was clear he was onto something.

Rin glanced back down at the map to where Yoichi was looking, the mountain range that expanded north to south on the eastern length of their country. Yoichi gestured at a red circle he'd placed around one mountain known as Crimson Peak.

"It looks like I had a feeling about this before, but must've lost track of where I was going after forgetting about it. I tried to find what I was looking into in my notes... Finally think I did find it, here..."

Yoichi placed one of his notebooks beside the map and began to read out what was written there.

"The last twelve remaining pureblood vampire families and known locations/general information about them.

(i) Isagi - Isagi Yuzu, whereabouts unknown. No other living family members known of aside from myself (hybrid).

(ii) Itoshi - Itoshi Rin, Duskvale. No other living family members known of.

(iii) Yorozu - No living family members known of for 50+ years. In hiding/missing?

In essence, I've listed them all out. Most of them seem to be missing, but the one I wanna highlight right now..."

Yoichi pointed at a passage located near the bottom of the page.

"(xi) Akako - Akako Chise, Akako Sato (twin sisters). Whereabouts unknown. No other living family members known of. Last seen in Redville, just south of Crimson Peak (100+ years ago). Family manor location unknown, family were well known for being secretive about it."

"Okay..." Rin said, squinting back down at the red circle on Yoichi's map, "What's your point?"

"I read somewhere in my notes the other day that the last black dragon sighting was in the northern part of that mountain range... It's been many years since then, but..."

The two fell silent at this and were both staring at Yoichi's red circle. The silence lingered in the air between them, growing heavier and heavier which each passing moment, until Yoichi broke it.

"Anyways, let's take a break from this. What do you say to a little star gazing on this lovely evening?"

"Star gazing?" Rin paused and thought about this for a moment. Most of the time they spent together recently was done reviewing Yoichi's notes or speaking about them in some way, so this suggestion felt a bit out of the blue.

"Yeah. Thought it might be fun to take our minds off all this doom and gloom stuff for once, y'know. How does that sound?"

Having lived for such a long time, and having spent many of those extensive years of his in an ungregarious manner, Rin had basically experienced everything Yoichi could have fathomed up to some extent. Stargazing was really no different in this regard; a 487-year-old vampire was nothing if not experienced. Rin, who'd spent many of his painfully long years of life outside at night, now knew the night sky as well as he knew the backs of his own two hands.

By this fact, Rin nodded is assent. It was certainly something different they could do together, not that they hadn't done it in the past. He figured Yoichi was probably right. It'd be a good way for them to relax a bit and take their minds off of what they were working on.

*

The night sky is one of the few things that could be described as a comfort for a cursed vampire. Its expanse is vast, darkness stretching from end-to-end across the horizon, only broken by the smallest dots of the distant light points of dying stars. The silver of the moon casts a proud outline amongst those stars, holding such a powerful and unique light in comparison to everything else around it. It's undoubtedly one of the most beautiful things that any being, vampire or human, could gaze upon, but the thing that truly makes it a comfort to vampires is its familiarity. Even at half a century old, a vampire could look up at the night sky and still find an identical tapestry of stars as the last time they'd seen it. Because of their extensive lifespan, consistency was one thing most vampires never really grasped, so having something around like this that never changed was truly a bizarre, but unmistakable, form of comfort for them.

Despite having done this with Yoichi a few times before, the fool, to no real surprise, didn't remember anything relating to the night sky Rin had taught him. Because their fates were so intertwined, Yoichi always forgot the majority of these little things, such as identifying planets and constellations, with every bout of his amnesia. So as they'd done previously, Rin got to work patiently pointing out all the constellations in the night sky and explaining their meanings to the curious Yoichi.

Despite always forgetting, Yoichi's opinions never changed. And as was usual for him, he quickly found his favorite star again.

"What's that star called?" Yoichi gestured to the eastern skyline, "It's so bright!"

Laying on their backs side-by-side, Rin shuffled in closer to follow the path Yoichi's finger drew into the darkness. There were just so many stars, but even just the vague direction Yoichi was pointing in was enough for him to figure out which star it was Yoichi had found yet again.

"Vega," Rin said, "You always manage to find that one close to first on your own. It's always been your favorite star."

"Really?"

"Really. I'm not sure why," Rin gestured in a triangular formation, "She's part of a constellation known as the Summer Triangle. Despite it's name you can see it this time of year, usually starting in mid summer. The other two stars that form that constellation are Altair and Daneb."

"Is there a story behind it?"

"In a way. Vega and Altair are said to be star-crossed lovers. Theirs is a mythological relationship between a princess and a commoner, who were banished to the night sky by her disapproving father and are separated by the galaxy itself. They are only allowed to meet once a year."

Following Rin's explanation, Yoichi remained silent. The frosty air around them added an unusual weight to the pensive silence.

"I quite like that story," Yoichi whispered after some time. "But I think I'm starting to get a bit cold out here, I'm afraid... And a little tired. I think I'll head home for the night."

The two sat up and Rin nodded. "Fine. I suppose I'll see you tomorrow night after my show, then?"

With a sudden and unusual fondness, Yoichi beamed Rin a radiant smile.

"Of course," he agreed, "You can always count on me to be there."

*

The following night at Rin's show, as usual, he cast his eyes out into the crowd, panning it for that one person. When he spied the familiar face of his beloved sitting in the crowd, he nodded his head in approval, raised his bow and instrument, and began his show.

However, that night as Rin's show wrapped up and he looked back out at where he'd been sitting, Yoichi was gone before Rin's final note had been played. He felt a bit uneasy as he made his way backstage. Minutes crept by, but Yoichi did not show up in the dressing room as he normally would. He shook the feeling off, though. This was unlike Yoichi but not entirely unheard of for him to do. Sometimes the man fell ill or simply succumbed to exhaustion early. So he proceeded to change out of his tuxedo and donned his casual attire. At the end of it all, he made to pack his violin up, but something he noticed completely froze him.

There, in the violin case, was a single envelope. Scrawled upon the front-facing side of the envelope was Rin's name.

He snatched the envelope up as quickly as he could, unfolding the letter inside. He began to read, his hands beginning to tremble the tiniest bit.

My beloved,

I'd like to call you such a thing, but I haven't quite fallen in love with you yet this time. However, if 96 times over wasn't enough times, Yoichi who's approaching round 97 would like to say, he really does see why he's fallen in love with you so many times over.

You are a gentle vampire who's heart is thrice the size of any human's. Yes, I do believe you still have a heart, however dilapidated it may be. I'm deeply indebted to you for being so patient with me. I hate that this has been our fate, Rin. My Vega. My star-crossed lover. You are so wonderfully dedicated to our love. I only wish I was capable of that same dedication to you.

If there's anything I've learned about myself, it's that I really am a damn fool. I shouldn't have waited this long to make a change, but I know deep down in my heart... There is an engrained fear resting so far inside of me I've lost sight of it. One that, despite everything, is absolutely terrified more than anything to let you go. But really, is letting go of you 97 times over really easier than saying farewell just this one time, just for now?

My heart is heavy with this decision, my beloved, but you are safe here for now. Yoichi Isagi, your Altair, has taken a vow to save you from your curse, and whether it be sooner or later, I will do this for you. I will do everything in my power to save our love from this cursed fate it's been cast unto. The galaxy, perhaps, separated our Vega and Altair, but there will be nothing to stop me from loving you eventually.

I have many leads I can follow up on, but I can't possibly reason with myself to stay in Duskvale any longer. I cannot allow myself to fall for you again, thereby forgetting your beautiful face once more. Our fate is written in the stars: heed my vow. We will be together. I will make sure of it, I would stake my very life on it.

While I'm gone, be sure to keep Duskvale safe for me.

Goodbye for now, but I swear to you, not forever,

Your Yoichi.

Rin, completely in denial about what he'd just read, tore his mask from his face. As his gut began to twist and contort with his insatiable cursed hunger, he reread the letter. Then a second time. And a third. By the fourth reread, his hands were trembling so violently he could barely manage to place the letter back into his violin case.

This can't be... he thought, a torrent of panic beginning to rip into him. He must've slipped this into my violin case right after the show. He's probably not far away now... I could... Still catch up to him...

74 years ago, Rin would've never fathomed himself feeling so horribly afraid of a single thing. If Yoichi had shown him anything, it was that, despite being frozen down to his very core, he was still capable of feeling things. He could feel things as deep and vast as the ocean, but especially so when it came to feeling love.

Without thinking much about what he was doing, Rin threw his violin and bow into the case, shutting it as hard and fast as he could. Trembling fingers worked at fastening the golden clasps that would hold it shut.

"Why hello there."

Rin whipped around, startled. It was impossible to surprise a vampire, given that they could hear a human's pulse coming from at least 25 feet away. However, as Rin gazed upon the person who'd approached him this time, his eyes narrowed disdainfully.

Humans were basically incapable of sneaking up on vampires, but other vampires, who lacked a pulse, could.

"You?" Rin snarled.

"Yes, me," the other vampire said jeeringly, grinning, "We've managed to avoid eachother for quite some time, Itoshi, but alas..."

Piercing blue eyes, harnessing that same ominous glow as Rin's, flickered down to Rin's violin case, then back up to Rin's face. The vampire's features, though different than his hybrid relative's, still possessed many striking similarities to the one Rin loved.

But this was not Rin's beloved.

"You were right to avoid me," Rin snapped, "Damned bastard. Curse-bearer. Every vampire who's ever lived hates you more than anything else in this world. Why the hell are you here?"

Yuzu laughed at this. "You're as crotchety as ever. I can't blame you, really. It's in our nature to be territorial, and here I am, intruding in on your territory. You know damn well I've been watching you, don't you?"

"Watching is fine, but you should learn to keep your fucking distance you swine."

Yuzu, despite Rin's vicious tone, only laughed again, this time harder.

"Our dear Yoichi has left and now I shall grow bored again. Watching you two in your little predicament has been oh-so-very entertaining, but now that he's gone... Well."

"Then go find another thing to hold your interest."

"Or what?" Yuzu cocked his head, placed his hands into his pockets, and slowly approached Rin. "You'll drain my essence? Should I still fear you, Itoshi, despite how seemingly soft you've allowed yourself to become?"

Rin's nose wrinkled. When the two were standing face-to-face, they locked eyes.

"Soft as I may be, I could still fucking destroy you in an instant," Rin spat.

"Oh, I believe you. After all, it's you who's absorbed the essence of hundreds of our kind, Blood Moon Berserker. Tell me, does Yoichi know?"

Rin's eyes darted away, but Yuzu sidestepped, swerving his head over to hold firm on Rin's avoidant gaze.

"Yoichi, once-upon-a-time, did know, didn't he? But now? Ah, you must've stolen his notes on the blood moon. How clever of you. After all, what sort of person could bring themself to love such a monster? Perhaps once was possible, but more than that? The legend of a vampire born under the full blood moon, he who is bathed in crimson. How many full moons did you spend rampaging, stealing every vampire's essence who crossed you and absorbing it into your own, thereby stripping their immortality from them with your savage curse? Ruthlessly tearing apart humans, overindulging yourself on their sour blood as they begged for their lives? No wonder Yoichi tastes so good to you. Tasting a human who's fond of you, who isn't afraid of you, truly is such a delicacy for any of us. It must be especially wonderful for you, the one who could've never hoped to be loved by a human before him. I wonder, did Yoichi somehow foolishly believe love is what could save a reprehensible creature like yourself? Is that why he altered that mask for you?"

"All that is behind me now," Rin hissed defensively, "It has been for over 200 years."

"I can see that. Yet you've only bided your time, awaiting sweet Yoichi to finish his cursed weapon. Sigh. How romantic. Unfortunately for you, Yoichi finishing that weapon is a threat to me. And I do not wish to die."

"You're better off dead for what you're worth anyway, you wretched scum."

"How typical of you. All bark and no bite, because you know it as well as I do. The first curse-bearer Yuzu can be killed by Yoichi's means and his alone. If you were to drain my essence, you'd only be taking the burden of the first curse-bearing vampire into yourself, and of course you don't want that! Who would want that?" Rin's frown deepened as Yuzu pressed on, "You two have spent so much time researching curses and vampires, yet you're both still so unbelievably ignorant. Did you ever think to research what was sitting right under your very noses?"

Rin sneered at this. "...What the fuck are you on about?"

"Hm," Yuzu grinned, "It's a good thing you're fond of him, Itoshi. You, the vampire bearing both the curse of the blood moon and the Eternal Curse of the Night, could never have even hoped to be saved. There is but one born who's capable of such great things. Yoichi Isagi, the child who possesses my former beloved Rukia Kazuki's blood. The one who was born under the solar eclipse. A child born under a solar eclipse shall be bathed in radiance. Only Yoichi, who was born with that fabled blessing, has the power to banish both of your curses from your essence, Itoshi. Such a shame. Sorry I ruined everything for you. It seems you two really are eachother's destinies."

Rin glanced down at his violin case, stunned into silence as he thought through Yoichi's letter to him. Distracted as he was, he didn't notice Yuzu's lips begin to move, whispering an incantation, inaudible to even his sharp ears.

"Born under a solar eclipse...?" Rin muttered. He'd heard of such a legend, yet another thing that was only a fable. Then again, so was the supposed myth of the Blood Moon Berserker. The supposed blessing of the solar eclipse would grant that being immeasurable magical power, making them the most powerful magical being ever to walk the planet.

And if this really was true, Rin knew Yoichi had yet to realize it.

Yuzu finished up what he was saying. He inhaled, exhaled, and closed his eyes, feeling as the delay in his incantation passed through his essence. After a short pause, Yuzu smiled eerily.

"Well, given that my dear Yoichi poses such a strong threat to me, having left you behind, I have no choice but to do this. Alas, I do feel bad for doing this"

The next moment, Yuzu reached out his right hand and snapped his fingers, thereby putting his incantation into action. Rin, who hadn't noticed what Yuzu was doing, didn't know what was happening but could physically feel something making the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. Rin heard a cracking sound and glanced down at his mask, fear beginning to swell inside of him.

"It's such a shame," Yuzu cooed, "But I can't have my dear Yoichi coming for me. I do still enjoy this haggard life of mine, after all, however stagnant it's become. The Blood Moon Berserker had even found his way to peace within this quaint little town, having realized the sound of the violin being enjoyed by many is the only thing that calms his curse's fury. But you know as well as I do, suppressing both curses within your essence is straining on your immortality. That patch of silver hair on the back of your head is all the evidence I need to see to know it is."

Crack.

Snap.

Yuzu, who was once in love with a powerful witch, had learned a thing or two from her about magic. Including an incantation that could destroy a cursed object. Including curse-cancelling cursed objects.

Rin stared down in disbelief at his precious mask, the one Yoichi had altered to hold the Eternal Curse of the Night at bay for him, which was now shattered into pieces.

"What will you do now, Berserker?" Yuzu called back to him, waving one hand back at Rin as he paced away, toward the doorway. "If you stay here, you'll surely run out of time before the Eternal Curse of the Night overcomes you, transforming you into a monster who will ravage this world in search of your sole source of sustenance that is your beloved. If you leave, you won't be able to suppress the curse of the blood moon by performing with your violin without an audience. I suppose the choice is yours. I'll be off now."

Rin touched the fragments of his mask. The one object he had remaining in his possession that was holding everything in his cursed existence together by a hair's breadth. He felt like a complete fool.

Yuzu was right. The bastard had all but doomed him. And Yoichi, for that matter.

Without his mask holding it at bay, the Eternal Curse of the Night would slowly creep up on him. Which meant his hunger would eventually transform into a ruthless need to consume Yoichi's blood and his alone. The curse of the blood moon, his second curse, which Rin had found out 215 years prior could be staved off by playing his violin for a crowd of people to enjoy, could not be kept at bay if he didn't have an audience to play for.

He didn't have time to think about what he was doing. The next full moon was a mere three weeks away, and if he hesitated any longer, the Eternal Curse of the Night would begin advancing on him.

Everything Rin and Yoichi had worked at for 74 years was suddenly falling to pieces around him.

Chapter Text

Amnesia Round 88.

Normally it was impossible for Yoichi to surprise Rin.

Any vampire could hear a human’s pulse approaching from a great distance away; however, on this night in particular, the sound of the rain outside was clouding Rin’s sense of hearing. The soft pattering of raindrops formed an invariable static in his ears, blotting everything else out. As he hyper focused on that sound, another sound suddenly jerked him back to reality.

Knock knock knock.

Rin glanced across the living room at his front door, a little more on edge because of the fact that, for once, he’d actually been startled.

He closed the book he’d been reading, placed it aside, and answered the door.

Of course, it was Yoichi.

Now that Rin had stopped hyper focusing on the sound of the rain, he could hear Yoichi’s heartbeat very clearly. It was racing at an alarming pace. Yoichi’s skin, hair, and clothing were all soaked. It appeared to Rin that he’d ran here from home.

Rin stepped aside, allowing Yoichi to enter the house. The man did so, panting as he moved inside, proceeding right down the hallway toward Rin’s closet to fetch himself a towel.

“What’s going on?” Rin asked him, giving him a calm but skeptical side-eye as Yoichi dried his hair and clothing.

“Nothing’s going on. I just felt like visiting, that’s all.”

“It’s,” Rin glanced at his wristwatch, “It’s after three in the morning. What do you mean just visiting?”

“I knew you’d be awake.”

“Me being awake isn’t the surprise here, I’m literally nocturnal. You, showing up at this time of the morning, soaking wet and—”

“Don’t overthink it. I just couldn’t sleep, that’s all.”

Yoichi smiled at Rin, leaving his towel draped over his head. He then made his way over to the living room, seated himself on the couch, and wrapped himself up in one of the blankets Rin had laying around.

Rin, still standing in the kitchen, squinted across his small living space at Yoichi. He promptly got to work, without wasting a beat of time, on filling his kettle with water to boil to make Yoichi some tea, without asking the other if he wanted any.

“You couldn’t sleep, so you ran over here, soaking yourself to the bone in the process. Seriously, are you stupid?”

“Probably.”

Rin stood over the edge of the couch, and Yoichi, who must’ve heard him, craned his head back to rest it on the headrest behind him. He smiled up at Rin, and his heartbeat, which had begun to calm, began to thrum a little faster again when their eyes met.

Rin lay the back of his hand gently against Yoichi’s forehead. The cold of his skin may have chilled Yoichi, but the hybrid man didn’t show any signs of discomfort He only closed his eyes, wearing that same gentle smile he always seemed to wear around Rin.

This round of amnesia in particular, it had been just over five months since Yoichi had forgotten him. There was never any surefire way for Rin to predict when Yoichi would fall for him again; sometimes it took only a month, other times it could take over a year.

But the signs were always there, and they were always there early. This time was really no different.

Despite the cold of Rin’s hand against Yoichi’s forehead, the moron only smiled and closed his eyes as if this gesture was relaxing somehow. How could such a cold touch bring a person a warm feeling such as comfort like this?

Rin never fully understood, and to this day, he still doesn’t.

When the kettle in the kitchen began to squeal, signaling that the water was ready, Rin silently prepared a cup of tea for Yoichi, with a teaspoon of honey just the way he knew Yoichi likes it. With the hot cup of liquid in his hands, he plodded back over to the living room and set it on the coffee table for Yoichi directly in front of him.

“Chamomile,” Rin muttered.

“Thank you.”

For some reason, things felt a little bit… Awkward. He was about to ask Yoichi what’s on his mind. Perhaps the man had sensed the question was coming somehow, though, because he spoke up first.

“I was wondering something.”

“Wondering what?” Rin asked.

“What does love feel like for vampires?”

He was about to sit beside Yoichi, but the man’s question halted him.

“Is this why you’ve come out here at this time of night? Dumbass. Questions like that can wait until tomorrow.”

“Nah… I really couldn’t sleep. That wasn’t a lie, and it’s not because of that question. I was just thinking about this just now, actually. The way you touched me when you checked my temperature, it felt… Almost human. Or rather, it felt like a human gesture. But I know for a fact, vampires can sense skin temperature without actually making any skin contact.”

Rin closed his eyes and nodded calmly.

When having conversations like this, he always did prefer to feel… Normal. Not cursed. So, he promptly removed his mask and placed it aside as he made to formulate his response.

“You’re right,” Rin said, positioning himself so he’s standing directly in front of Yoichi, “There are certain gestures I’ve learned that you seem to like, so I do them for your benefit. I’m nothing close to a human being so I don’t understand this sort of thing. My skin is cold, but you never seemed to mind it. In fact, you seem to prefer skin contact, despite my lack of warmth.”

Rin then reached out and gently placed his fingertips along the base of Yoichi’s neck, touching at where he could feel Yoichi’s pulse the strongest.

“To answer your first question: I think, perhaps, the way we feel love is similar to how humans feel it. I also believe there are some differences, too.”

“What sort of differences?”

“I can’t say for sure because it’s been a long time since I was alive. But it wouldn’t make sense for Kazuki to remove our ability to feel love the way we did when we were mortal. When we first met, I believed I was incapable of feeling love. That was only because I’d never actually experienced it. But if that was the case, all that drabble about You who are afflicted by vampirism shall dread most to fall in love with a human from the original cursed text wouldn’t make sense. If she wants us to suffer the most, then she wouldn’t alter our ability to feel love. I only believe the way we actually perceive love has been distorted by this prolonged odd state of our being. Or at least, that’s how it is for me.”

He ran his fingers along Yoichi’s neck, feeling the flow of blood in Yoichi’s artery beneath his fingertips. At the same time, the frigid touch of his skin sent lines of goosebumps all along Yoichi’s skin, up and down his neck, even raising the hairs at the base of Yoichi’s neck.

Rin had always appreciated this one thing about Yoichi the most. No matter how cold his touch, Yoichi never flinched away from it.

“We feel love like humans do. However, because we’re undead, we lack any biological connection to our feelings. Our feelings are instead linked to our instincts. The instincts we have to feed, which are essentially all we have left other than our emotions.”

Yoichi tilted his head to the side, locks of his damp hair sliding sideways along his forehead with this motion. His eyes are glistening with fondness as he listens to Rin’s words, seemingly enjoying Rin’s touch.

“I think I get it now. So, for us mortals, who are… Who are capable of being physical with one another, we possess a sort of loyalty to eachother’s hearts, and also eachother’s bodies. That sounds sort of corny, I guess, but I don’t know how else to describe it. And as you are now, incapable of physical attraction and many ways of displaying physical forms of affection, your connection to my body is an instinct-driven desire to feed.”

“Correct.”

“That’s…” Yoichi flickered his eyes away, smirking coyly, “That’s kinda… Kinda hot.”

“… What?”

“Nothing. Can you explain that to me more, though? I want to understand your inner workings better.”

“Well, it’s like… I can hear you breathing, feel your heart beating, sense your skin temperature, and all that… It’s linked to a vampire’s predatory nature, but we do not possess any link to our former state of being other than this. Because of the curse, we can only prey on humans to drink their blood, but we can also only love humans. The two things are intertwined. It’s a bit twisted, but that’s all we have left. With you, when I look at you, when I gather information from all of your vitals, to me it’s just… It’s just you. It’s familiar. And it’s all mine. When I feed on you, it feels like your body belongs to me. It would make me sick… I feel sick to my stomach at the idea of any other vampire feeding on you.”

“So, you want me all to yourself…” Yoichi whispered, his voice fresh with an unfamiliar silkiness, “Is that it?”

Rin’s fingers, which had been resting along Yoichi’s neck gently, shift and wrap around the base of his neck. At this, Yoichi moves his head aside, as if baring his throat. Rin’s eyes narrow, examining the throb of Yoichi’s aortic pulse, as he’s done many other times before this.

He can’t help but have the fleeting thought that Yoichi is a fool. A fool for never truly fearing him, because if he so wanted, he could snap Yoichi’s neck like a toothpick or tear his neck open and drink every last drop of his blood in mere minutes. And he’d be helpless to stop it.

But Rin would never do that to him. Rin knows it. Yoichi knows it.

“That, to me, is no different than how humans are with eachother. Once we get a taste of eachother’s bodies, many of us feel loyal to that. Some even become possessive. Also, vampires are territorial by nature. I’ve read that in my notes. So that brings me to the point…”

“What point?”

“Everything I’ve learned about vampires since I’ve started researching them leads me to believe they’re loyal to humans. To a staggering extent, really. Mortal vampires, when they would take another vampire mate, may mate multiple times, but… When they took a human partner, multiple sources have said that they'd remain loyal to one human. They mated for life. So then… How did the Eternal Curse of the Night come to be, if it goes against a vampire’s very nature to be unwaveringly loyal to one human, and that human alone?”

Rin squinted and nodded faintly at this. Through the persistent sound of the rain on the rooftop above, and the even louder sound of Yoichi’s pulse thumping in his chest, focusing on their conversation was proving to be a bit troublesome for him.

“Yes, I do suppose you have a point…” Rin replied vacantly.

Yoichi’s gaze flitted, not focused on one thing particularly, equally as distracted as Rin was, though at this point it was only on his own thoughts.

Everything in my notes about vampires would seem to say that they’re loyal to humans… And they seem to feel the same love humans do. They aren’t heartless monsters, and most importantly, they don’t just get bored of humans. So then… What really happened between Isagi Yuzu and Rukia Kazuki? Was this just some one-off of a freak occurrence, where a vampire forsook their human lover?

Or… Is there something else afoot here?

“You’re hungry,” Yoichi said, glancing back up at Rin, who’s hand hadn’t moved an inch from his neck, “I can tell. Especially when you take the mask off.”

Rin’s eyes flickered. Though he always tried to hide his hunger from Yoichi, it was a pointless endeavor when his face was exposed. Yoichi is terribly good at reading facial expressions, even the most minute ones.

“Please, go ahead,” Yoichi said to him.

Rin’s eyes narrowed.

Truthfully, at this time, his emotions felt a bit sour, and despite the gnawing feeling of his cursed hunger, this conversation had him feeling as though he would rather just ignore it right now.

He didn’t want to admit it aloud, though, that Yoichi’s comparison of a human’s love to a vampire’s stung him. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t aware of this distinction. Yet, for some reason, it still hurt him to hear it directly from Yoichi’s lips.

So, as Yoichi tossed his damp shirt onto the floor and sat in waiting, Rin sat beside him and pulled him across the couch, pulling him sideways between his legs as he normally would before biting him. This time he pulled Yoichi in very close, the smell of his beloved’s skin and the sound of his pulse deafening in his ears in the best way possible.

He lulled his head forward. It was here that, rather than sink his fangs into the back of Yoichi’s neck as he normally would at such an offer, he instead did something else. Simple, yet sweet.

He planted a single, open-mouthed kiss at the base of Yoichi’s neck, instead.

Yoichi gasped and flinched. It was more of a reaction he’d ever given to actually being bitten, a fact which was mildly amusing to Rin.

He planted another kiss right beside it. And another. And another. Despite his hunger, he did not want to feed right now. Instead, he only embraced Yoichi from behind and pulled the blanket Yoichi had been wrapped in before, up and around his bare torso to keep him warm.

Rin can see, feel, and practically hear the goosebumps forming all over Yoichi’s upper body. He’d formed an odd fascination with these bumps. They’re only a muscular reaction to the cold, but for him it’s almost as though they are, despite the simple explanation for them, actually proof to Rin that Yoichi acknowledges his love.

As if Yoichi’s body would whisper to him: I know you’re cold, but I know your emotions aren’t. I’m not afraid of you.

Rin knew he’d be hungry for the rest of the night, and that night, he decided he didn’t care. They leaned back into the couch cushions, and Yoichi would fall asleep that night just like that.

The next day, Yoichi would add a passage into his daily research notes.

Lunar year 3609, calendar day 77.

All of my personal research, previous notes, and even anecdotal evidence I have in speaking with Rin, conflicts with the story of the Eternal Curse of the Night.

This curse was supposedly afflicted upon a vampire, my distant-removed relative Isagi Yuzu, who was unfaithful to his human lover. But this doesn’t make any sense to me. Vampires, by nature, are always loyal. Books and texts relating to vampire and human relationships all corroborate on this as a fact. Hell, I’ve forgotten about Rin 88 times over, and he’s still waiting for me patiently here in Duskvale. I’ve never found a single case of disloyalty between a human and vampire from the vampire’s side of the relationship… Only Yuzu’s.

The original script of the curse, which was supposedly drafted by Rukia Kazuki herself, is apparently missing. If I ever find this scripture, I must investigate this myself.

When I meet Yuzu for the first time, I believe it will be important for me to speak with him. Don't try and kill him right away! I believe the Eternal Curse of the Night may be more than what meets the eye.

We need to know the full picture before we know if killing him really will reverse the curse, or if this is only a front to lure you into trying to kill him.

Proceed with caution.

*

Present (Amnesia Round 96).

It was after 9:30 PM that night when a knock sounded at the Mikage manor’s door. The man of the house, Reo, was upstairs in his study busying himself with his family’s monthly finances. He hadn’t heard the knock and didn’t notice one of the household servants answering the door until he heard her scream piercing through the silence of the manor.

At the sound, Reo left his study swiftly and arched his upper body over the wrought-iron balcony from atop the manor’s spiral staircase to look down at the front door and investigate.

Then he smiled and broke out into laughter.

“Ah, she’s new here!” Reo called down to the frankly miserable looking vampire who was standing in the doorway, “Suki, don’t run off…!”

It was too late, though, as the servant had already fled the scene. The vampire visitor moved himself inside the house despite his lukewarm welcoming.

“Ah, oh well. I guess there isn’t any reasoning with her. Anyway, Rin, what’s—”

“Library. Now.”

Without any further elaboration, or much of anything else including even a look up at Reo, Rin stormed into the manor in the direction of the Mikage family’s library, a place he’d been many times before.

When Reo met him there, the vampire was sitting in the library with his violin case placed on the table beside him. Reo noticed something else right away that immediately chilled him to the bone.

“Where’s your mask, Rin?” he asked the vampire nervously.

Normally quite calm, the ancient vampire’s demeanor was not anywhere close to his usual. He flitted his fingers through his bangs fitfully, one of his shoes tapping against the hardwood floor rhythmically.

“Something’s happened… No, not just… Something…” Rin shook his head and passed a slip of paper Reo’s way, “A… Couple of things happened.”

Reo grabbed the note and opened it. His violet eyes quickly scanned the letters on the page, darting along each line, taking the whole thing in.

“So Isagi’s…?” Reo muttered in disbelief.

“Yoichi’s gone,” Rin finished for him, “And that isn’t the only thing. That curse-bearing bastard has been watching us. He confronted me not an hour ago and destroyed the mask.”

“Curse-bearing… You mean Yuzu…?” Reo mumbled, “Wait. Why would he do that?”

“Yes, him. I don’t know what the hell that wretch is playing at. He claims to want Yoichi dead, yet he only destroyed the mask and doesn’t seem to be going after Yoichi himself. He seems weary of Yoichi, and yet…”

Rin’s train of thought trailed off as he remembered the latter part of his conversation with Yuzu, about the child born under the solar eclipse. Rin had only ever heard of this specific blessing, though he didn’t know there was a child who’d ever actually been born with it.

“But for some reason, he seems to be scared of Isagi?” Reo pressed him.

“I think I may have some idea why. I need to do some reading to better understand this predicament.” Rin got to his feet and began to pace as he thought. “Have you seen any books in this library about blessings?”

“Blessings… No, I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

“Yuzu said something even I was unaware of. Supposedly, Yoichi was born under a solar eclipse and possesses some blessing of fables. I’ve heard of it but don’t know all of the details. Perhaps, to find out more about this blessing would explain why Yuzu seems to be weary of him now, even without any sort of weapon crafted yet.”

“A solar eclipse blessing? Huh. Never heard of that one before. Let me see here…” Reo pondered this question momentarily, “Not sure about a book about blessings specifically, but I do think I might have something else that could put you on the right path toward finding what you need.”

*

1 week later

In a small town like Redville that’s sparsely populated, there isn’t much for a person to do.

There’s a library: of course, Yoichi had spent much of his time there since arriving in this odd little place by train. A library, by every right, is a vast bank of knowledge, especially for information on things like curses, vampires, and ancient bloodlines.

Redville’s library proved a surprisingly bountiful resource, though the more he thought about this, the more this wasn’t a surprise to Yoichi.

It was believed that the last kin of the Akako bloodline resided somewhere near Redville, which meant they most likely had to go to into this town for their feedings. Vampires often brought along with them ancient texts and ancient knowledge, and it wasn’t an unusual thing for a library to have a surprising book or two on its shelves that said ancient vampire may have forgotten about.

Tonight, though, Yoichi is not in the library.

He’s in Redville’s only local pub. It was more a dive bar, to be sure, though it did have a certain charm to it that would tickle any curious person’s fancy. The lighting is dim though not dreary, with flickering neon signs lined behind the bar’s countertop, outlining bottles of varying shapes, sizes, and in all manners of fullness. Some empty, some halfway, some closer to being full.

With a book spread out on the table in front of him and a mug of beer in his other hand, Yoichi had been working away at reading through this specific text, though it was a tad bit tricky for him to see in the low lighting. Truthfully, he wouldn’t have normally chosen to come to a location like this for reading, he just wanted a change of scenery. Despite living by himself in Duskvale, he’d never felt quite this lonely in quite a long time (as far as he could remember, that was, since his amnesia had wiped a lot of his memories).

He closed the book he’d been reading and took another gulp from his drink, sighing and wiping the froth from his lips shortly afterward. Based on everything he’d found in his research, including everything he’d read since arriving in Redville, Yoichi had a pretty decent idea of where he could go to find the illusive Akako twins. In his mind, there was no way those two didn’t know where the fabled black dragon of Crimson Peak was located.

Yoichi, who’d been spacing out, didn’t notice the figure of a person approaching him until they sat down beside him. He looked at the mysterious person quizzically.

“Um… Hello?” he said to them.

The person’s face was shrouded beneath the hem of a black cloak. At Yoichi’s greeting, they pushed the hood off their head, revealing their features. A pair of red eyes blinked at him curiously.

“It seems I’ve found him, the solar eclipse. Oh, he truly is magnificent, indeed!” the person waffled.

“Solar… What? Sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met before.”

“We most certainly haven’t,” the stranger snickered, “Yoichi Isagi.”

Yoichi stared at the person calmly. “But you know my name.”

“I’m what's known as a mist walker. All those of my kin know every name of importance in this world.” The man’s red eyes, expressively unhinged, widened into two hypnotizing spheres, touched with an unspoken madness. “And you are more than just important. You, the blessed one, are a singularity."

“You’re a… What? I’ve never heard of that, and I don’t understand your riddles. What're you on about?” Yoichi sipped from his mug again, though he couldn’t deny this weirdo’s way of speaking was intriguing to him somehow.

“I’ve sought you out for a purpose. You, the embodiment of radiance, seem unaware of your own brilliance. However, none of that is why I’ve sought you out right now. I only wish to provide you with a… A warning.”

Yoichi blinked at the man evenly, confused beyond belief at basically everything this dude was saying to him, but also morbidly fascinated with him, too.

“Alright, then. Warn away.”

“You don’t seem to understand the weight of your situation. The solar eclipse and the blood moon have made such a beautiful love with one another, but their love can bring about ruination for the both of them if not handled properly.”

Yoichi raised an eyebrow at this. “You called me the solar eclipse earlier. Are you somehow implying I’m in some sort of danger?”

“Danger. Yes. Your love will be received by the cursed one, but only you may free that blood-red soul from its fate with your love. You, Yoichi, are cursed by your destiny, bound by the red chains of the blood moon you’re doomed to love. You posses a light more powerful than any other being in existence, but a darkness exists within that light. Take care now, else the darkness within you will swallow you whole.”

“Cursed one will receive my…? Wait, are you talking about Rin?” Yoichi froze at the mention of Rin.

“Now you’re on the right track. You, solar eclipse, posses an unimaginable strength. You are the key to saving him, and he is ultimately the key to saving you, too.”

“I know I have to save Rin from the Eternal Curse of the Night. That’s what I’ve been working towards for all these years, but… Blood moon? The cursed one? I don’t understand all of this. What do you mean he’s the key to saving me, too?”

“Only the moon understands true darkness when it’s eclipsed by the sun; he is the sole person in existence who may save you from the darkness locked within you. You must save him so that he may save you in return.”

“Riddles! More riddles… Why won’t you give me a proper answer, damnit?!”

“The mist is difficult to see through, but the light of the moon may guide you through it, Yoichi Isagi.” The man who called himself a mist walker… More of a creature, really. It pulled a few books from the folds of its cloak and placed them onto the surface of the table in front of Yoichi. Then, it stood.

“Heed the darkness, oh radiant one. I may not speak plainly with you, only like this. These books are all texts that exist within the mortal realm that I’ve found for you myself. The answers you seek may lay within them. And one last thing: death will give birth to a new life, the night is at its solstice before the twilight of dawn. Don’t fear death, least of all by his cursed hands, for he is your destiny. Only fear the darkness, that is all.”

“Wait. What—“

Yoichi could only watch on in an ever-stronger state of confusion as the thing that called itself a mist walker disintegrated into nothingness, almost like a phantasm of mist, before his very eyes. He continued to stare at the place where the mist walker had been, in disbelief that this odd creature had just approached him and disappeared almost as quickly as he’d appeared.

“Solar eclipse? Blood moon? What the hell…?” Yoichi had no context to any of what this creature had just told him, which was frustrating. It was then that his eyes darted down to look at the small stack of books the mist walker had left for him on the table.

The title of the first one read Blood of the Verthor. It wasn’t a very thick book. The cover, leather treated black, worn and cracked with age. He placed that aside and looked at the next book in the stack. This one definitely interested him more. Listing of all the Pure-Blooded Vampire Families and All Known Information About Them. This one was larger, the cover treated crimson red with gold accents along the spine. The last book also had an odd title: The Many Blessings and Curses of the Celestial Bodies.

But this creature had also made reference to a solar eclipse and a blood moon in relation to him, and also Rin for that matter. Yoichi’s curiosity got the better of him and he cracked the last book open to scan its table of contents.

Chapter 2: Blessings and Curses Related to the Moon

He flipped out to that chapter and began scanning pages for anything of interest. Of course, when he found the passage about the blood moon, he tackled that first.

The blood moon, though beautiful, holds a great and terrible magical power. A child born under a blood moon shall be bathed in crimson. The one unlucky enough to be born with this curse will be possessed each month on a full moon, transforming them into a creature with an unfathomable bloodlust that shall not be quenched until the dawn swallows the moon in the sky.

The one born under the blood moon will also receive unimaginable destructive power. There is no being, mortal or immortal, who is safe from the destructive power harnessed by the blood moon.

The blood moon’s affect seems to be sealed by the sound of the violin, this sealing affect grows stronger in correlation with the violinist’s skill—

Yoichi shut the book swiftly, remembering how his own research notes had strangely lacked his own passage on the blood moon. He couldn’t recall when he would’ve read about this in the past, but for some reason, this made him feel very uneasy.

If this creature was referring to Rin as the blood moon, then did this mean… Rin possessed this curse?

This thought made Yoichi feel sad. A wave of this sadness poured over him as he recalled Rin’s guarded explanation of the curse of the blood moon. If Rin was attempting to hide this from him, that only meant he must’ve felt shame or embarrassment over harboring this curse at all.

He pushed this budding sorrow aside for the moment, as well as his thoughts about Rin. More reading would need to be done on this subject for the full picture to be painted. Then, he opened the second book in the stack, Listing of all the Pure-Blooded Vampire Families and All Known Information About Them. Sure enough, its contents consisted of 129 chapters, of varying lengths, which detailed each and every vampire bloodline that had ever lived. Of course, despite his own family name being listed in there, Yoichi’s eye was first drawn more to the name Itoshi.

The few names listed in the chapter ended with Rin Itoshi at the bottom. His eye caught on the middle of the page, where it described Rin’s bloodline and what’s known as its inheritance. Apparently, the Itoshi family’s inheritance was an ability which gifted them with magic nullification capabilities.

Rin should've known these things about himself...Shouldn’t he? But then why had he never mentioned this before?

Was it possible… Rin was hiding even more things from him other than this blood moon stuff?

He sighed frustratedly, closed the book, and downed the rest of his drink, which was now lukewarm.

This was going to be a very long night of reading for him, it would seem.

Chapter Text

Lunar year 3324, calendar day 151.

The sun overhead was sweltering, pouring heat and light down into the bustling city streets. A cloaked figured shoved its way through the thrumming crowd, making its way through the merchant's district of Lyra, the merchant capital of the province.

"Mulro's Music... Mulro's Music... Mulro's..."

The person's sharp eyes swept the streets, in search of one particular shop. Dust swirled in the air around them, stinging their eyes. It was always dry in these parts at this time of year, but this year had been more dry than usual. They blinked, rubbed their eyes, and pushed through the crowd.

After about another 30 minutes of searching, they finally found what they'd been searching for. Mulro's Music. A music shop. Though they were not in search of an instrument specifically, but the actual owner of this shop.

They moved inside the shop, letting out a hefty sigh at the brief reprieve granted by the shop's shelter from the heat of the afternoon sun. They shrugged their cloak from their head, revealing their features.

The woman's skin is smooth, mahogany brown. It would've been more an olive hue naturally, but she chose to spend a lot more time outside than the average woman, and so her skin was blessed by the sunlight. Locks of dark, thick ringlets fell down to just above waist height, the edges of the midnight cascade that was her hair was dyed chestnut by the sunlight. Her eyes are deep, forest green, glinting with curiosity and intelligence, and her garb is simple: loose, light clothing which allows her to move swiftly and with ease, while also providing comfort in this savage summer heat. On her right hand middle finger she wore a chunky, silver ring, cast in the shape of a scorpion.

She grinned wide, eyes searching the music shop. She spied someone standing behind the shop's counter and approached them.

"You Mulro?" she asked the man, leaning against the counter.

"Yup, that's me. How can I help you?" the man asked, looking her up down. When he spied the scorpion-shaped ring she wore on her right hand, he immediately frowned at it.

"One of you. What are you doing out here?"

"Oh, y'know. Just answering my summons," she smirked, leaning forward, tapping one fingertip against the shopkeeper's countertop, "From Jynskoldr."

"... What? Why would The Citadel within the walled city summon a... One of you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" she smiled even wider. "Truthfully, Mulro, I haven't come to your meek little music shop to discuss little old me. I've been lead to believe you may have some answers to some questions I have."

"What sort of answers?" the man asked, frowning deeply.

"I'm curious about an instrument. The violin, specifically. As part of my research on vampires, I've heard it's one of the most difficult instruments for a vampiric musician to learn. And that it may have a curse-sealing affect when used in a certain way."

Mulro glowered at her, an expression she was used to receiving from men. She only smiled ever wider at his reaction.

"Why should I speak on this, woman? Your kind is not welcomed in these parts."

"Oh-ho? Alright, then, tough guy."

"Are you in cahoots with that vampire that was in here not long ago?"

She cocked her head, her curiosity suddenly piqued. "Of course I am," she replied. A straight-faced lie, of course, but finding a vampire lurking around in the streets of Lyra was an unexpected, though thoroughly welcomed, surprise.

"Well, he was in here not long ago... Just asking because he also happened to purchase a violin. Maybe around fifteen minutes before you rolled into the shop."

"Ah. Okay okay, that makes sense. Yeah, my friend, he's been searching for a violin for a while," another lie, "Did you happen to see which way he went?"

Mulro pointed down the street, to the west, and she nodded.

"Thanks, shop-keep," she waved back to him as she made to leave, pulling her cloak back over her head to conceal herself once again.

Once outside, she headed down the street, in the direction Mulro had pointed her toward.

A vampire... In these parts? They have no tolerance for the heat... And purchasing a violin? Even more interesting! I need to find him!

As she proceeded further west, the bustling crowd thinned out. This end of town was quite quiet, and run-down, it seemed. Based on the direction he was headed, it seemed like he was probably making to leave town.

As fearless and carefree as she was, she didn't notice she was being pursued. A group of bandits had taken note of her finer clothing, and were in close pursuit.

One of the bandits, once in a more secluded area, lunged at her. Despite not seeing the man's attack, she dodged it swiftly, as if it was second nature for her to do so.

As the bandit fell face-first into the dirt, she spun round to take note of the rest of them. There were at least ten more of them who'd been following her.

"Ah... Looks like I'm sorely outnumbered here."

She cracked her knuckles and grinned at the flock of bandits.

"That'll make things more interesting."

The thieves surrounded her on all sides. They lacked coordination, and as each one lunged at her, she dodged them easily. One-by-one they fell into the dirt at her feet, and she threw the occasional punch or kick, laughing at them as they all failed miserably in their assaults.

One of the thieves at her feet grabbed her by the ankle, pulling her down into the dirt. She yelped in surprise as she tumbled into the dusty ground. A few of them crawled toward her, their hands reaching greedily for her coin purse that was strapped at her hip, though she was less concerned with protecting that and more concerned with guarding what she had in her backpack. She launched a few well-placed kicks, clutching her backpack in her arms as she did so, wearing a shit-eating the entire time.

Suddenly, a commotion seemed to break out. The few remaining thieves who were still standing were all knocked to the ground. They tumbled into the dirt almost instantaneously, as if their attacker had struck them all so fast that they'd all received the same blow.

A figure was standing in the middle of the ruckus. Hooded, just like she had been before tussling with these bandits, so she couldn't see their face. The stranger was holding a violin case, which they placed onto the ground beside them gently, before moving toward the rest of the bandits who were scattered on the ground around her.

Rather than attack, the person reached down to one of the incapacitated thieves and placed their hands on either side of the person's head. Everyone else, even the other bandits who'd been trying to rob her, were all motionless as they watched the hooded person. Their hands glowed blue as they muttered:

"You were in a bar fight, got too drunk, and blacked out. You've forgotten the face of the woman you attacked, and everything I'm saying to you right now. "

They moved on to the next unconscious thief and did the same thing to that one as well, this time time saying:

"You actually cheated on your wife. She sent someone to beat you up in the streets. You've forgotten the face of the woman you attacked, and everything I'm saying to you right now."

Her green eyes widened and a smile spread broad between her cheeks as she watched this person continue to work. They had to restrain a few of the conscious bandits, though that didn't seem to be much of a problem for them. Once they'd done this to each and every one of the bandits that had attacked her, they turned round to face her.

Her nose was bloody, not that she cared. She wiped the blood from her face and gazed up at the person who'd seemingly come to her aid.

She already knew who this was before they showed their face, so when they did finally push their hood off of their head, her smile spread into her widest one yet.

"Thanks for the help," she said to him, baring her right hand to show her silver scorpion ring.

The sigil of the witch's guild.

"I hadn't expected to receive any aid. Ahhh, I just wanted a good fight, y'know?"

The person calmly gazed at the silver ring she was presenting to him. "Apologies, missy. I thought you may have been in a bit of trouble. It seems I was mistaken."

She smirked at this. "Mistaken, indeed. No worries, though. I'm just happy to have been lucky enough to run into you. I know who you are. Striking blue eyes. Pale skin. Dark hair. Strong for your size, though that's not surprising for any one person of your kind." She dusted her clothes off and stepped closer to the person, holding her hand out to him to suggest a handshake.

"Inheritance: memory alteration. You're the progenitor of one of the great vampiric houses of our time. It's a pleasure to meet you, Isagi Yuzu."

He returned her smile as he continued to stare at the shape of her scorpion ring on her right hand.

"You're a clever one, aren't you?" he said, taking her hand to shake it, "I was going to alter your memory as well. Somehow, I think, you wouldn't let me do that to you. Now who from the witch's guild do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

The evening sunlight caught on the shape of her scorpion ring as she lowered her hand. She wore the same confident smirk she always did after getting into a fistfight.

"Clever is an insult to my good name, sir. I'm a scholar as much as I am a witch, and studying your kind is my life's work."

She placed one hand in the center of her chest and flourished, bowing mockingly at Yuzu.

"Rukia Kazuki of the witch's guild, as I live and breathe. Now what's a vampire doing in Lyra, purchasing a violin of all things?"

*

"Don't get me wrong, I like a good steak and all..." Rukia raised an eyebrow at Yuzu's meal, "But that... That's just plain old unsightly!"

Yuzu stuffed a slice of his raw steak into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, and rolled his eyes at her.

"If my diet is such an insult to you, then please, by all means, take your leave."

"You know I'm only playing around with ya, of course." She leaned back into her chair and threw her legs up onto the tabletop in front of her. Yuzu scowled across the table, though he didn't say anything in protest to her seeming lack of manners.

"I'm heading to Jynskoldr, by the summons of their royal majesties. Or whatever their title is. Those dudes who rule within the walled city. The prophet, the seer, the sage... Etcetera, etcetera. To be honest, I could care less about the Verthor as much as I'm actually just excited to make use of their arcane resources. None of my sisters seemed eager to go. I wonder why?"

"I think you do know why, miss. The Verthor are known for being a bunch of cold, calculating, robotic freaks. And the mind control they're capable of. Honestly, it sounds like you're throwing yourself into a den of wolves to me, as a plain old human. Those weirdos make vampires look like fairy princesses."

"Ahhhhh, it's probably fine. They wanted someone from the witch's guild to help them in their arcane studies, so hey! I get this once-in-a-lifetime invitation from them. I'd feel stupid to turn it down, as a scholar and all."

"Suit yourself." Yuzu finished his food and shoved the empty plate aside.

"It's rare to find a vampire in these parts. What are you doing out here, Yuzu?"

"Well..." he placed one hand on top of his new instrument's case, "I'm sort of working on something right now. I need to be away from the north for the time being. It's dangerous at the moment, you see, and this little instrument right here may be just what I need to fix my problem."

"Is that so?" Rukia pressed him. "Now, I've heard of violins having some sort of curse-sealing property. Do go on, I'm very curious."

"I'm sure by now, given how knowledgeable about vampires you seem to be, that you've heard of the Blood Moon Berserker?"

Rukia twirled a dark ringlet of her hair in her fingers, nodding slowly. A twinkle of mischief had formed in her eyes.

"Of course I've heard of him. The progenitor of the Itoshi family’s bloodline. Though he's still relatively young... Around two-hundred, if I recall correctly? I've heard he's growing to be quite the problem, nonetheless. Do you believe the curse-sealing properties of the violin are going to somehow help with this particular problem?"

"Perhaps." Yuzu nodded. "It only works if the one bearing the curse plays the violin, and they need to actually be skilled with it. So I need to plant the correct memories into his mind to make him want to play the violin."

"Not to sound crass or anything, but why not just... Kill him?"

"I wouldn't benefit from doing that. I have far more to gain in helping the Itoshis with their problem child than I do in simply killing him."

Rukia was nodding along her understanding. "I get it. Pretty smart cookie, you are, Yuzu. So you want to augment his memories in such a way that would make him want to play the violin. Now, how do you propose to do that, exactly?"

Yuzu's eyes narrowed. "I... Don't know just yet. That pesky null-magic inheritance of his makes things slightly problematic for me."

"I do see why'd you be worried about that. Think about it for just a moment, though. Much like your own inheritance, it must be used willingly. If you catch Itoshi unaware, you can alter his memories before he can retaliate. You'll just need to restrain him somehow."

"Right..." Yuzu nodded evenly. "Why do I feel like you're getting to some kind of point?"

Rukia grinned.

"I'll help you. I'm a powerful witch with a lot of utility at my disposal. You could use a hand with this, amiright? Restraining him should be no problem for me at all. I'll help you with this, then I'll get you to help me with something important to me."

Yuzu’s eyes narrowed. "And what would that something be?"

"Research, of course."

"Research?"

"If I help you in this dangerous endeavor of getting the Blood Moon Berserker's curse under control, you come with me to Jynskoldr where I'll study you. Is 6 months a fair amount of time?"

"6 months? You expect me to give up half a year of my time to you for this?"

Rukia pursed her lips and nodded confidently.

"Vampires get bored easily, I know that much. Once that problem of yours is remedied, how else do you plan to pass your time?" Her gaze lingered on Yuzu's face in the dim pub lighting. His expression remained strangely neutral.

"Alright. You have yourself a deal, miss Kazuki."

The two then shook hands to finalize their deal.

Present (Amnesia Round 96).

The next full moon is only 2 weeks away.

Rin knew he had no other choice now but to pursue Yoichi, but the main issue with this was that he honestly had no idea where to even start looking for him.

He was running out of time.

Performing closer to the full moon would benefit him in sealing his berserk state, but this far out from the full moon wouldn't control it completely. The problem of the other curse, which the violin did nothing to deter at all, was just as pressing. The longer he chose to wait, the further the Eternal Curse of the Night would advance on him.

Was 2 weeks even enough time to find one person in this vast world?

Rin did have a place he knew he could start looking, though. The night before Yoichi had gone missing, he'd seemed to have expressed an interest in Redville, a quaint and secluded town which had several leads the man could no doubt follow up on.

So after performing one last show in Duskvale, Rin began to pack some things with the intention to leave.

He'd been living in Duskvale for a long enough time now that his territorial instincts had kicked in. Leaving now felt like he was going against his nature, and really, he was. But in a list of a bunch of shitty choices he could make, going against instincts like that entailed the least shitty consequences for him. He'd have to endure this discomfort to ultimately save himself from an even worse fate.

It was just after 9:00 PM and the night was still early, so he was going through his things and tidying the house, readying it to be in a state of disuse for who even knew how long.

He gazed into the empty living room, suddenly feeling quite sad. This place was, for him, the first place he'd found any sense of normalcy since he'd been inflicted with the Eternal Curse of the Night all those years ago.

This place was a place where he'd discovered that he wasn't a cold or heartless monster, but actually a being capable of loving someone else, despite what he'd always believed.

As waves of nostalgia and sorrow washed over him, Rin paused what he was doing to remember all the special moments he and Yoichi had spent together, in this very living room. There were just so many memories. 74 years of them, to be precise.

74 years of memories, and they were all carried with him. The burden of protecting these memories, this love, felt like a weight that could easily crush him. Yet, still, he knew, it was up to him alone to protect them, and he couldn't let that weight run him down.

There were countless memories, and each and every one of them was precious to him in their own way, but as Rin stood there clutching them all as close as possible to his heart, there was one in particular that stood out to him.

Amnesia Round 92.

Yoichi was always asking questions. That was a given with him. However, this particular night, Yoichi had seemed especially... skeptical. He'd been pouring over his notes practically all day, and Rin, who tended to be relatively inactive during the day, had felt his energy returning to him as the night approached.

As the sun set below the horizon, Rin turned his attention on Yoichi. His eyebrows were knit together, showing his clear frustration, though he'd been silent for quite some time so Rin didn't exactly know what it was that was frustrating him so much.

Rather than bother Yoichi while he studied, Rin simply opted to boil water to make some tea. As Rin prepared the teabag and teacup, Yoichi finally spoke up.

"I don't understand."

Rin gazed across the kitchen. "Understand what?" he asked calmly.

"Many things. A good many things. But there's one particular thing I don't understand at all. I have three... Well, almost four notebooks filled with notes on it, actually, but I still don't get it at all."

"And what would that be?"

Yoichi shut the notebook he'd been reading, locking eyes with Rin shortly afterward.

"You."

Rin stepped across the kitchen, placed a hot mug of tea onto the table in front of Yoichi, and seated himself in the chair right beside him.

"Thank you," Yoichi said to him curtly.

"You've asked me a good many questions. You've always been so curious about me, but you've also said this more than once, too. That you don't understand me."

"All these questions are all documented in here. All of them. Like this, here..." he flickered the notebook back open to a passage near the beginning, "Today I asked Rin what would make him happy. He said he didn't know. What kind of answer is that?"

"I wasn't lying."

"Wonderful. I love that for us. Chasing some life for you where you still don't know what would even make you happy."

Rin frowned at Yoichi from across the table, watching as he flipped his notebook open to a different passage and began reading that one aloud.

"Today, Rin played the violin for me. He's such a gifted musician, and I simply adore his music, but I can't help how his music saddens me so. It gives me the same kind of goosebumps as when I feel his cold lips on the back of my neck. I don't understand how he makes me feel."

Rin didn't know how to respond to this one, so he only sat in silence, staring across the table at Yoichi. This particular passage honestly saddened him deeply to hear, although he did understand why Yoichi would write something like that.

Yoichi shut the notebook, took a deep breath in, and exhaled it slowly.

"All this stuff about the Eternal Curse of the Night. All this time spent studying vampires. Studying you. And here I am, just going through my previous notes on you. Over and over again, and I still don't feel like I understand you at all."

"You may not understand me until this amnesia curse is banished. I can see how it would be confusing to try and understand someone simply through notes, having to read about them each and every time you forget about them."

"You're right, but I..." Yoichi trailed off breathlessly, "I want to understand you. I want to so badly."

Rin watched as Yoichi stood and walked away from the kitchen table. He positioned himself behind the couch and placed his hands on the back of the piece of furniture, gazing up at the ceiling-mounted light fixture above it, which was dimmed so as to not be strenuous on Rin's eyes. He seemed to be in thought.

Rin watched the back of Yoichi's head calmly. Doubt wasn't an unusual thing for Yoichi to feel; this particular obstacle had come about more than just a few times for them. Having to reassure Yoichi, truthfully, though it was pretty well a fact of his life he now had to live with, was also the one thing that really made Rin feel the most hopeless.

"Rin, please help me... Help me understand you." Yoichi fidgeted with the hem of his sleeve. "How do you know how you feel about me? How do you know what love feels like? Can you explain it to me?" He took a sullen pause and shook his head. "I don't understand. I don't understand. Maybe... Maybe I'm even doubting my own purpose right now. This amnesia... It's terrible. How can you even bring yourself to love someone who keeps forgetting about you before they can even properly love you back?"

Silence.

Yoichi closed his eyes and drew another deep breath in, exhaling it, expelling every last bit of breath from his lungs. Rin seemed to have fallen silent, so he spun back round to face him.

Though a human is almost incapable of sneaking up on a vampire, the opposite could be said for a vampire's ability to sneak up on a human. Their movements are swift and stealthy by nature, and a human's senses aren't nearly as in tune with the world around them as a vampire's are. As such, Yoichi hadn't noticed Rin was standing right behind him.

He jumped because he'd been startled, his heart skipping a beat in his chest. It seemed Rin had also removed his mask.

"Rin...!"

"Your questions are all foolish. Still, I'll answer all of them, since reassuring you is a task I find myself caught up in regularly."

Rin touched two fingertips gently along Yoichi's wrist, gliding them underneath Yoichi's sleeve to enjoy the feel of his pulse. In those moments, he can feel the goosebumps on Yoichi's warm skin raising along his arm, and Yoichi's heartbeat begin to flutter the tiniest bit faster.

Yoichi smiled the faintest bit as he studied Rin's face. As always, despite his confusion and frustration, he was still not afraid at all.

"How do I feel about you? How do I know what love feels like? I could ask the same thing of you. Realistically, I think you only find yourself asking such questions because you don't understand the mechanisms behind how I feel love. Unfortunately, there isn't a way I know of for me to show that to you. But it seems you're frustrated in being unable to understand me as a whole, which extends into frustration over not being able to understand how I feel love."

"Right..." Yoichi whispered. Rin brushed the back of his free hand along Yoichi's cheek, gentler than the caress of moonlight on the dark surface of a placid lake's waters. Another gesture he knew Yoichi liked. As expected, Yoichi couldn't help but smile, though it was faint and tinged with a bit of sadness.

"How can I bring myself to love someone who keeps forgetting me before they even have a chance to properly love me back? There's a very simple answer to this. I don't get to choose who I fall in love with, nor have I ever had a choice to stop loving you since the moment I realized I did. And if you ever doubt what I feel, just remember the curse. If I leave that mask off for too long, the love I feel will be twisted and warped into the curse's grasp. That in and of itself should be proof enough."

Yoichi's smile flickered the tiniest bit wider. "Yeah... That's a good point..." he whispered "Have you... Ever been in love with anyone before me?"

"Never. Even before the Eternal Curse of the Night, I was still... Troubled."

Rin leaned forward and rested his face on Yoichi's right shoulder, with his left hand still grasping the feel of Yoichi's pulse contained within his wrist.

"Sometimes... I'm not sure if you're even real..." Rin whispered, "I don't know how you always seem to find me again. This many times, and always without fail. At this point, I find dealing with your amnesia just another thing that comes along with being in love with you."

Rin in the present is standing behind his couch, in the exact place they'd been standing in this particular memory, recalling the feel of those precious moments. He recalls how it had felt, with his hand wrapped around Yoichi's wrist and his face nestled into Yoichi's neck. Feeling the comfort of the heartbeat of person he loved filling his empty body, enjoying the warmth radiating off of Yoichi's body, being reassured by each and every one of his vitals that he was so deeply, maddeningly, sickeningly fond of, that if he ever lost them then he feared he would also lose himself, too.

Right now, he's lost it all.

Yoichi's pulse is not present. Not in the kitchen, the living room, nor anywhere else in his house. He can't hear or feel Yoichi breathing, can't hear his little hums as he concentrates on what he's reading. There is no warmth of his body heat to be sensed anywhere.

It's feels so desolate. So devoid of life. Rin's never felt more alone than he ever had in all his 487 destitute years.

"Should get going..." Rin mumbled to himself.

He was almost fully packed and ready to head out. He took a step away from the back of the couch, but he felt something ticking on his face and he immediately froze dead in his tracks.

"What's... This?"

He reached one hand up and brushed his cheek nervously. There, on his fingertips, was a sight he'd never seen before, and never thought he would ever see. Highlighted by the dim glow of the lights above, his fingertips were stained with palpable proof that he was, indeed, capable of feeling everything he would have felt when he was still alive.

Tears.

Chapter Text

Lunar year 3615, calendar day 180 (6 months after Yoichi left Duskvale).

Moisture dripped from the dilapidated ceiling above. Despite the time of day, the room was kept dark. It's damp, cold, and there's a figure of a lone person laying in the corner.

The door creaked, open then shut again moments later. Someone entered. The person laying in the corner sat up and squinted across the room at the intruder.

"Did you know," the person said breezily as they made their way toward their captive, "This place was made for holding vampires captive? Isn't that great?"

The captive only stared across the room at their captor. "It's not like I care," they replied quietly.

"Right, right. How... How insensitive of me, really, to say something like that to you."

The captive blinked at their captor slowly, their expression unmoved.

"Now, let's cut right to the point. Tell me the truth about the Eternal Curse of the Night."

The captive kept staring up at their captor but remained in tense silence.

"Ahh... Still not gonna say anything, huh?"

"You know what the original cursed text says. It says everything. Why are you—"

"The original text is a lie," the captor interrupted, "Stop playing stupid with me."

"I'm not playing stupid."

The captor withdrew a weapon from their hip—a dagger—and placed it against their captive's neck. The cold of the steel did not bother the cold of the captive's skin, though they did flinch, knowing what this weapon was.

"Oh but you are. I know you are. See, you're just an absolute shit liar. You think you've fooled everyone, but you haven't fooled me."

The captor only looked down at their captive for a moment before they sheathed their weapon and stepped away. The captive squinted at this person, unsure of what they were doing until they reached the window on the far side of the room, which was obscured by a pair of blackout drapes.

"Sunlight will bring you immeasurable pain. A curious line, isn't it? Sunlight hurts cursed vampires but you can't actually die from its effect, isn't that right?"

The captive shrunk against the wall beside them, fear beginning to place a stronger grip around their heart.

"Wait—"

Shunk.

In one swift motion, the captor unleashed the wrath of the sun on their vampire captive. The scream that erupted from the vampire's throat was as shrill as a siren's tone. He shuffled himself into the corner, but there was no shelter for him to be found from the sunlight there, which was now burning his skin like fire.

The next instant, the room was blinked back into darkness. The captor turned round and smiled an eerie smile.

"How did that feel? Not very good, I'd wager."

"Y-you're... Crazy... You've lost your mind?" the vampire hissed at them.

"Probably."

Tap. Tap. Tap. The captor stepped back across the room toward their vampire captive.

"Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid. Tell me the truth about the Eternal Curse of the Night."

"N-never..."

The captor knelt in front of their captive and swiftly grabbed locks of his hair, yanking his head so their eyes locked. Blue eyes now stared into blue eyes, which looked much like his own.

"You really are a dead ringer for me, Yuzu. Or rather, I'm a dead ringer for you. Aside from my favorably darker complexion, I'd say the vampire genetics in my heritage still seem to run strong... So that begs me the question... How did Rin not recognize me as your relative when I first met him? He does seem to know you, after all."

Yoichi grinned ominously at this, the expression unsettling his vampire relative deeply.

"Your inheritance memory alteration does devious work, doesn't it? It's a shame I don't have access to it because of my mixed blood. You've altered Rin's memories. And mine. I was trying to figure out why you might do that..." Yoichi's smile dropped from his face in the blink of an eye, "It's because you're trying to hide something, right?"

Yuzu shook his head and darted his eyes away. For the first time in a very long time, he actually felt afraid.

"What happened with Rukia?" Yoichi asked, noticing the fear unfurling in Yuzu's eyes, which only intensified at the mention of Rukia's name.

"You see, the witch's guild aren't secretive. Every witch that comes and goes from their ranks has a detailed profile within their texts. Of course, my curiosity got the better of me. Rukia Kazuki, 28 years old when she effectively went missing. She was described as spirited, carefree, passionate, intelligent, inquisitive, and most of all, gifted. The most powerful witch in living history at the time. I saw her portrait, too. She was also quite beautiful. But everything I've learned about her only reinforces my theory that everything we know about the Eternal Curse of the Night is a lie. Why would such a promising young woman end up killing herself over something as trivial as loving a wretch like you? No... She wouldn't. Her life's work was to study vampires and the arcane. It doesn't make any sense because it didn't happen. The story of old lonely Rukia was all a damn lie."

Yuzu shook his head, his gaze remaining avoidant. "Y-you're wrong..." he said weakly.

"Your reaction tells me the opposite, really. I'll get the truth out of you no matter what."

Yuzu turned his eyes back up to look at his descendant's face. Yoichi's eyes were wide and unblinking, blue irises swimming with a vast unknown like the night sky. There was undoubtedly a bit of madness hidden within them as well.

"What... Happened to you?" Yuzu asked hoarsely.

Yoichi hooked the thumb of his free hand around a chain he wore on his neck, yanking an amulet out from the folds of his sweater. He then tapped on the piece of jewelry.

"I designed this amulet to rid me of the curse of amnesia, and hell, it worked. Not only am I capable of falling for my vampire beloved without forgetting him, but I also have access to all the memories that were ripped away from me before by that very curse."

Yuzu stared at the amulet, eyes wide.

"But... It wasn't without a cost. The memories also brought along with them unexpected repressed emotions. It was... A bit much for me. But that's really only a part of what happened." Yoichi then smiled again, another unnerving smile. If Yuzu was physically capable of shuddering, he certainly would've at the sight of this smile.

"How do you think it feels to die at the hands of the one you love?" Yoichi whispered into the vampire's ear.

Yoichi released his grip on Yuzu's hair and stood. He shrugged, blue eyes still locked on his vampire captive's.

"Nevermind. Silly me asking silly and pointless questions. Let's talk about you, Yuzu. The vampire who fell in love with a human, and doomed every other vampire and human couple for generations thereafter. You're still loyal to her, even now. Aren't you?"

Yoichi cocked his head, his eyes a shimmering pair of miniature oceans, beautiful and equally as terrifying as its depths.

"Vampires remain loyal to humans after they fall in love with them, for that human's natural lifespan. How sweet. Isn't it sweet? Beautiful? Wonderful?" Yoichi studied Yuzu's reaction carefully, grinning when he took note of the sadness sweeping along the vampire's facial expression.

"Why would Yuzu look so sad right now? Aww, I think I know why." Yuzu shook his head fitfully as Yoichi tossed his head backward, laughing raucously. The sound of the laughter was arrogant, dry, and completely humorless.

"Poor Yuzu fell in love with a human woman. How silly of him. You two even had a child together. But sex, even procreation, does not equate to love. I'd know that better than anyone else. Poor Yuzu, how sad for you that she never even loved you back."

Yuzu was deathly silent and completely unmoving, this reaction very telling to Yoichi. He threw his head back and laughed again, this time harder.

"Hahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahaha!" His laughter barked out, loud and mocking, causing Yuzu to wince. He placed a hand on his abdomen and took a moment to catch his breath.

"Wow, I... I can't believe how ridiculous this situation is. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA! HA! HA! You're so pathetic, Yuzu! So pathetic I can't help but laugh at you! You've been acting to protect her for all this time, because she's somehow still alive. Hell, I'd even wager the key to ending the curse somehow lies with her, not you. But here you are, trapped by the love and loyalty you feel for her, but it's hilarious because she never even loved you back!"

Yoichi turned round to face the door. He threw his hands out on either side of him as even more laughter erupted from his throat, the sound a vicious mockery to Yuzu's years of suffering.

"HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Yuzu remained quiet and shrunken into the far corner of the room. Even just this one small interaction with Yoichi had him feeling completely broken. Not that he wasn't before, but now...

He wondered how long he could endure being held captive like this before he was broken for good.

"I promised Rin, over and over again. I swore to him I would end the Eternal Curse of the Night, and that's exactly what I plan to do. I'll torture a hundred wretches like you if that's what it takes for me to free him. We will be together eventually, no matter the cost."

Yoichi chuckled, which again burst out into full-blown laughter. His laughter did not cease as he departed the room, the sound of it still ringing sharp and painful in Yuzu's sensitive ears as Yoichi locked the armored door behind him, laughing all the way down the hallway.

Each time he laughed it was like the relentless waves of the ocean crashing hard against Yuzu's broken heart, damaging his fragile spirit a little more as each wave of it coursed through him, chilling him to the bone.

Chapter Text

Lunar year 3615, calendar day 10 (2.5 weeks after Yoichi left Duskvale).

The manor of the illusive Akako family wasn't exactly easy for Yoichi to find. In order for him to track it down, he had to question a bunch of locals in Redville until he came across someone who may have known where it was.

Vampires are relatively secretive by nature, the curse only making them more so than they already were. This meant that the manor in question was no doubt located in a secluded area. Yoichi figured it would be somewhere not far from Redville, since vampires did need to feed off of humans.

The only locals who'd seen anything remotely close to an ancient vampire's home was actually a young woman. Not her, to be precise, but her children. When Yoichi was finally given a chance to speak with said children, who were teenagers, they explained that they'd snuck out once late at night on a thrill-seeking endeavor and had ended up miles away from Redville in the middle of the forest.

That was where they'd found it.

The locals knew better than to go looking for it. After all, human-vampire encounters were better off kept to a bare minimum, given the nature of the curse. Which meant that anyone who'd been lucky enough to see it at one point was either gone from Redville or long dead.

Yoichi had gotten the general directions from the teenagers and had made his way out to the family manor that had supposedly belonged to the Akako family. Sure enough, when he'd arrived at roughly where the kids had said it would be, there was a huge, secluded manor in the woods.

He'd been nervous about making the trek all the way out to this place; after all, even if it had been seen in recent times, that didn't mean there were any vampires left inhabiting it.

His nerves began to dissolve and replace with excitement when he gazed up at the manor, its walls sleek and stylish, clearly old but kept in good condition. The wood paneling looked to have been recently stained and the roof sported fairly new shingles. A promising sign.

It was late in the afternoon when he'd arrived, so when he knocked on the door, he wasn't sure anyone would answer. From his time spent with Rin, he understood that a vampire's circadian rhythm was quite different from a human's. They tended to be dormant for most of the day and didn't come out until after the sun went down. However, to his surprise, someone did answer the door.

It wasn't a vampire, but a human.

He stared at Yoichi blankly after answering the door. Even if this place didn't get many visitors, the guy didn't really seem surprised to be seeing one now.

After Yoichi had introduced himself and explained why he was there, the guy had only stood in the doorway blinking at him, not saying a word. After a prolonged pause, the servant shut the door in Yoichi's face.

He stood there in disbelief, shaking his head before he knocked on the door again. When it swung open once more and the servant stared at him again, Yoichi looked him in the eyes and said:

"If you close the door on me like that again, I'll make you regret it."

The servant continued to blink at him silently, completely unmoved.

"Let me come inside. I just need to speak with—"

The servant went to shut the door in his face again, but this time he reacted in time and stopped the door from being shut. Now the servant was noticeably annoyed with him.

"Stop closing the door on me! I need to speak with the twins. Immediately. It's about the Eternal Curse of the Night."

At the mention of the curse, the servant paused. His gaze, calm and careful, swept Isagi from head to toe before he finally stepped aside to allow him entry into the manor.

"The curse, you say?" the servant asked him.

"Yes. They'll want to hear what I have to say."

Isagi walked inside, listening as the household servant closed the door behind him. "This way," the man said curtly, guiding him inside the vast and mysterious home of the Akako family.

That was about thirty minutes in the past. Now, Isagi was waiting for the vampire sisters in the dining hall.

Every window was obscured by thick, blackout drapes, to no real surprise. Upon closer inspection, the fabric the drapes had been crafted out of was thick black velvet, the tassels hanging on either side of them also a similarly dark shade. The manor did appear to have modern light fixtures installed, though the dining room was actually being lit by the tiny flames of countless candles placed all over the room, instead. In the center of the room there was a massive dining table stretched around fifteen feet long, crafted from oak and ornately carved with decorative patterns along its edges and legs.

Given that he didn't know how long until the twins would come to meet him, he instead opted to let his curiosity get the best of him and left the dining room to explore the rest of the manor.

The place did have some human servants working in it, which was to no real surprise to him. If he had to guess, they probably all lived in the manor and worked there full-time. None of them seemed to have any bite marks anywhere in plain sight though, which was a surprise. If the twins kept humans working in their service, he wondered why they chose not to drink any of their blood. It could've been the case that because of the curse, the human servants didn't actually choose to interact with their vampire employers much, which made sense.

There were countless doors running along the manor's main hallway, the place already feeling vast in size, and quite frankly, daunting to him. He continued walking down the dim-lit stretch, listening as floorboards creaked beneath his boots. The walls were littered with paintings, all of which seemed to have been crafted by professional artists. He stopped in front of one painting particularly to admire it. Depicted was a winter landscape, each and every tree and mountain painted with white plumes of snow decorating them. In the center of it there was a vast expanse of a lake, reflecting the light of a full moon... But not just any full moon.

A full blood moon.

The piece was mesmerizing, a captivatingly beautiful scene to be sure. As he remained standing in front of this painting admiring its beauty, a door beside it suddenly opened.

Another servant exited the room. She stared at Yoichi for a brief moment before turning away and walking off, leaving the door behind her wide open.

The room she'd just departed from looked intriguing to him. Despite how he felt as though he didn't really have much right to snoop around in this mansion without its owners' permission, that overwhelming curiosity of his got the better of him and he went inside.

The room was quite large, littered with many bookshelves and display shelves. Vampires, given their extensive lifespan (now eternally perpetuated because of the curse), were known for collecting odds and ends. It would seem this family was no different.

Yoichi walked inside, eyes panning his surroundings curiously. He approached one shelf in particular, something there catching his eye. There was a glass orb, or something that looked like a glass orb, though it wasn't transparent and the material it was made from was dark and murky.

He stared at this odd trinket contemplatively, feeling some strange fascination with it building up inside of him. This object's strange attraction was most likely sourced by the magic the item had been imbued with, though what that magic was, he didn't know. Within the darkness of the orb he could sense a storm of magic brewing, not really visible to the naked eye, but still detectable, nonetheless.

"Do you like it?"

Yoichi whipped around, startled by the mysterious voice.

Two women dressed in long and elaborate lace-trimmed nightgowns were standing there. Identical twin sisters with midnight black hair and two sets of glowing fuchsia eyes that spoke to their eternal lives.

"Ah... I was just—"

"Why don't you look at it a little closer?" the twin on the left said to him, cocking her head and smiling faintly.

The two began to step closer to Yoichi, their bare feet hardly producing a sound as they made their way over to him.

"He's nervous," the twin on the right said to her sister, "Why are you nervous?"

Yoichi had become so comfortable with Rin, he'd essentially forgotten how dangerous... How intimidating vampires really were. And the two who were now approaching him were complete strangers to him. Despite having read about their family bloodline, he knew next to nothing about them as individuals.

"Look." The twin on the left said to him, her voice calm yet stern. She grabbed him by the back of the head and spun him around to look back at the sphere of darkness he'd been taken with only moments before.

Yoichi did as he'd been ordered without a word, though the twins could hear the pattering of his heartbeat begin to quicken with his growing nerves.

"I'm assuming you don't know what this does..." the twin on the right, now on his left side, said to him quietly. "You'll find out soon enough."

The other twin's hand held his head firm in place, giving him no other option but to keep staring at this magic orb of darkness. Yoichi felt waves of magic begin to pulse out from the sphere the longer his gaze was fixed on it, swirling into his mind, pulling him off into some kind of vision.

When his eyes opened in the vision, he could immediately tell something was off.

It was his eyesight. As if everything around him was only two-dimensional and lacked a certain depth that he couldn't quite explain... Until he tried to open his left eye and couldn't. His left eyelid wouldn't open, and it would seem he couldn't see anything out of his left eye whatsoever

As he took in his surroundings in this vision, he felt himself being swept up in awe. At his feet there was a gargling river rushing through a small inlet, and above him, there were clear blue skies dotted with clouds and specks of flower petals. It seemed to be a radiant spring day, and all around him there were countless trees in bloom, covered in beautiful pink petals. It was nothing short of spectacular, completely stealing the air out of his lungs the longer he stood there admiring it all.

"What're you doing?" a familiar voice called to him.

Yoichi began to turn around slowly. Though he wasn't sure why, he felt himself already begin to fight back waves of emotions that were beginning to rush into him.

It was Rin.

Yoichi only stared at him with his one eye wide, tears beginning to flood his right cheek.

It was really Rin.

"Rin...?" he whispered. "Is... Is that you?"

Rin narrowed his eyes. They were still the same striking teal-green color Yoichi was used to, only they lacked the magical glow they'd been filled with by the curse. It was then that he began to piece things together.

It was daytime. Rin's eyes were not glowing. In fact, his skin was not deathly pale, either. His cheeks sported a rose-colored dusting that was uncharacteristic of a curse-bearing vampire. He was wearing some traditional clothing that was common for people in Japan to wear, though Yoichi didn't know enough about the culture to say what the garb would've been called, having never been there himself. In his left hand he clutched a bamboo and paper umbrella that he held above his head, blocking the harsh rays of sun that were bearing down on him from above.

Rin held his right hand out for Yoichi to take, scowling at the tears he saw coating Yoichi's cheek.

"What's got you upset?" Rin asked him. Yoichi took Rin's hand.

It was so warm.

"I... I... I don't understand... Are you a dream? You're... You're alive? How is that possible?"

"Don't be stupid," Rin said, leading them along a path between the blossoming cherry trees.

"Of course I'm alive. The curse is no more. You ended it, remember?"

"I... I did?"

Rin swiveled, giving Yoichi a side-eye with a raised eyebrow.

"Have you got amnesia again, or are you just dumber than I always thought you were?"

Yoichi pushed himself underneath Rin's umbrella and leaned against Rin's shoulder. He decided in that very moment, if this was some sort of vision or dream, he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

"The petals are beautiful..." Yoichi whispered, smiling up at the picturesque sight of the cherry blossoms dancing in the wind above them, weaving themselves into the clouds and the sky.

"They are," Rin replied, "You're avoiding the subject, though. Why're you upset?"

"I'm not upset, I'm just... Happy. Sorry, I just think I got a bit overwhelmed in the moment. I'm fine now."

"Hm..." Rin hummed, "Understandable. It's been a long road for us to finally make it here."

Yoichi hugged himself against Rin's arm a little tighter, fondness beginning to fill him at the unfamiliar feel of Rin's pulse thumping there, slow and steady to be sure. But still there, nonetheless.

They continued to walk, silently enjoying the beautiful spring day together. Yoichi had realized exactly what this vision was... It was a world in which they were allowed to be together, without the presence of an amnesia curse or the Eternal Curse of the Night holding them back. A world in which they could finally, unapologetically, love eachother with their whole beating hearts, as he knew they were meant to.

Yoichi smiled and closed his eye. As he did so, the vision world around him was torn out of his mind, and the next instant, when he opened his two eyes again, they were fixed firmly on the sight of a black orb that was swirling with magic.

"Ah...?" he remarked quietly, hoarse with confusion. "What was that?"

As he came back into awareness, he recalled the cold feel of one of the Akako twins' hands on the back of his head, forcing him to stare at the magic sphere.

"Aw, he's crying, Chise. Would you look at that. How sweet."

"Indeed," the one on his right side, apparently Chise, agreed.

"You see," the one who Yoichi appropriately surmised was Sato began to say, "This is an Oracle Sphere. This one here is special. I can understand why its power would make you emotional, little man. After all, it would show anyone who looks into its depths the future. Not just any future, though. It would show you the future your heart longs for the most."

"Yes, yes," Chise continued her sister's explanation, "Not just any old future, but the one future your heart desires above the rest of them. You see, it knows all of your many futures, no matter how likely or unlikely they are to come to you, but it will only show you the one you long for the most. Remarkable, isn't it?"

"Remarkable, indeed," Sato agreed.

Yoichi closed his eyes and pulled himself out of Sato's strong grip. If the vision he'd just seen was a plausible future for him, and the one he longed for the most, that meant there was a chance he would succeed in foraging a future for him and Rin that wasn't doomed.

That meant there was, indeed, a plausible future where Rin is finally free from the Eternal Curse of the Night.

He knew what this meant, even if his heart longed to return to the vision to see this beautiful future again. He had to focus on the here and now to bring them closer to this future. Yoichi, freshly determined, spun round to address the vampire twins properly.

"I didn't come here to play around with you two. I came here to discuss the terms of a deal."

"A deal?" Sato asked, glancing aside at her sister. At the exact same time, Chise glanced aside to look at Sato, too.

"If you knew anything about vampires, you'd know we do not meddle with humans outside of drinking their blood. There will be no deal." Chise said, and a the same time, they both flickered the same look at Yoichi's neck.

"There will be a deal, actually. Once I tell you why I've come here, I'm certain you'll be interested in it."

"You sound pretty confident," Sato said harshly, "For a human who's just waltzed himself into our home. The home of two vampires who could kill him faster than a split second."

"You won't want to do that," Yoichi said calmly, "Not unless you want to lose the one chance you have to be freed from the Eternal Curse of the Night."

The twins froze. Their eyes snapped upward simultaneously to look upon Yoichi's face.

"What?" they remarked in unison.

"My name is Yoichi Isagi. I'm the man who's vowed to end the Eternal Curse of the Night. You see, there is a vampire I wish to love, but under our current circumstances, we could never hope to be happy together. You two know as well as I do. Human-vampire relations are terrifying and strictly forbidden. Both the human and vampire will be met with unimaginable suffering if they choose to fall in love. I wish to end that suffering for everyone. I will end the curse. Don't you want that? To know how it feels to love again?"

The twins gave eachother a look of quiet skepticism before glancing back at Yoichi. He didn't really blame them for being apprehensive.

"Isagi. I've heard the name. So you're a hybrid, then. Why should we believe you?" Sato asked first.

"You told me the Oracle Sphere allows a person to see the future their heart desires the most. Well, the future I just saw was beautiful. It was a future in which the Eternal Curse of the Night is no longer. In fact, my beloved and I were strolling through a park admiring cherry blossoms, in broad daylight. I have no reason to lie to either of you. You're right. I'm stupid for basically sitting myself right into your laps, offering you a free meal if you wanted. What I offer instead of that is something far better, something every vampire longs for deeply and equally. I will end the curse. I just need a couple of things from you two before I can finally start working towards that goal."

"And what would those couple of things be?" Chise asked.

"I've been plagued by an amnesia curse. Because of my magically gifted bloodline, I'm capable of countering curses with certain anti-curse curses and cursed items. The object I've designed to rid myself of the curse of amnesia requires two extremely rare ingredients which I haven't been able to locate as of yet. The last two ingredients, in fact. You two are no doubt the key to me finally getting my hands on both of them: a black dragon's scale and an ancient cursed vampire's essence."

Chise leaned on her sister's shoulder and Sato put a hand on the top of her sister's head, stroking her hair affectionately.

"An essence? What, exactly, is that?" Sato asked.

Yoichi gestured with both hands at the twins' eyes. "It's contained within your eyes. Through extensive research by the witch's guild, it's been proven to have immense magical power. I believe you'd both be old enough to be considered ancient by human standards. Since you're identical twins, I believe your essence would also be identical as well. Any other vampire would have to give both eyes to give up their essence, but the two of you would only need to give up one eye each. The only drawbacks are, well... Firstly, pain. Lots of it. It would probably be about thirty or so minutes of excruciating pain, and the both of you would be left blind in one eye."

"Blind?!" Chise exclaimed, scowling. "Why would we ever agree to such a thing?"

"I suppose you don't have to if you don't want to. I can't force you to believe me."

The twin sisters stood, blinking slowly at Yoichi.

"We will accept the deal," Sato said. Her sister looked up from her shoulder incredulously.

"Sato! This deal... What if he's lying...?"

"I don't really believe he is," Sato said evenly, apparently a little less emotional and more level-headed than Chise, "However. Yoichi Isagi, we will not offer our essences to you unless you sign this deal under the conditions of a blood pact with me."

"Sato! Why–"

"Shhhh. Quiet now, dear sister. If I enter into a blood pact with this Yoichi fellow, that means he wouldn't hope of going back on his word." Sato smiled at Yoichi thinly. "The terms of the blood pact: we give Yoichi what he needs to end the curse, and Yoichi agrees to end the Eternal Curse of the Night. Simple yet effective. If Yoichi's intentions are clouded by ulterior motives, then the blood pact will simply kill him. If and when the terms of the blood pact are met, he will be naturally freed from it."

Yoichi had heard of a blood pact before. It was essentially a sort of contract that bound a vampire and human to their word. Intention of breaking the terms of a blood pact from either side would mean certain death for that side.

"Not that I'm against making a blood pact to seal this deal, but I have to wonder, since you're immortal, what repercussions would you suffer if you broke your side of the pact?"

"Who knows?" Sato replied. "Something unpleasant, I'm sure."

"Right..." Yoichi mumbled. "Fine. I have no issue with that, since I have no ulterior motives. If this is what I have to do to get your help, so be it. I'll enter into a blood pact with you."

Sato grabbed a dagger off a shelf beside her and flipped it, hilt facing Yoichi.

"The terms of our blood pact: Akako Sato and Akako Chise will assist you in any way you require to end the Eternal Curse of the Night. Isagi Yoichi will do everything in his power to end the Eternal Curse of the Night in exchange. If you accept the deal, cut your palm with that and shake my hand."

Yoichi took the dagger in his left hand and stared at it, considering making the deal only for another brief moment.

He had no other choice. The first step toward ending the Eternal Curse of the Night was putting this amnesia curse behind him and getting his memories back. It had to be done.

He glided the blade along his right palm, wincing at the sharp pain. Shortly afterward, when the cut began to bleed, he held his hand out between them.

"It's a deal."

Sato took his hand and they shook hands to seal the deal. The vampire appraised the stain of Yoichi's blood on her own palm calmly before she licked it clean from her skin, a flash shining in her fuchsia eyes.

"Very good," she cooed with a smile.

The three rendezvoused in the dining hall after a short break, in which the twins got themselves dressed for the night. Similar to their nightgowns (more appropriately called a daygown for them), the clothing they chose to wear was elaborate and lush, though unlike the nightgowns the twins chose to wear different outfits. Chise wore a dark blue high-necked gown with an a-line skirt that fell just below her knees, whereas Sato wore a dark green fitted silk gown with a slit that trailed up her right leg. Both wore heels and were a little taller than Yoichi in them.

"I'm hungry," Chise mumbled as she sat in the dining hall with her sister. Yoichi had been waiting for them and was watching them enter the dining hall.

"Tomorrow is feeding day, dear sister. We don't go into Redville more than once a month on the last Friday. That's all we really need. Don't forget it."

"Right..." Chise replied with a sigh.

"The black dragon you seek, Isagi Yoichi, does indeed reside within Crimson Peak. Creatures of the ancient world, like vampires and dragons and werewolves for example, are a bit of a dying breed within this modern world. The black dragon knows better than to leave his home, as do we. Humans are some of the most terrifying and ruthless creatures that walk this planet, but the most frightening thing about them is their ability to procreate. The human population has more than doubled since Chise and I were born and it continues to grow at such a rate, even to the current day. They're clever and ruthless in their pursuit of knowledge, feared by every other race that inhabits this planet. If not for the Eternal Curse of the Night, humans would be far more powerful. Human and vampire relations may have even dominated the world and hybrids like yourself would be present at every corner. Now, I've gotten off track a little... The black dragon. He's in hiding, in his cave in Crimson Peak. If you must confront him and ask him for one of his scales, be weary. Dragons are smart and devious creatures. Furthermore, even though they shed their scales once every ten or so years, they hoard them as if they're precious treasures. He may not part with one of his scales easily."

"I see. Is there anything you can think of he might accept as a trade deal for one of his scales?"

"Maybe..." Sato replied, "Not that people normally choose to approach dragons with trades for their scales. It's a dangerous notion for you, to be sure. But if he'll accept anything for one of his scales, I believe it would be another scale. Luckily for you we do have a golden dragon scale here in this very manor. I suppose we have no other use for it. You may take it with you."

"Ah... Thank you," Isagi nodded, "I appreciate your help. Now, about that other thing I need from you..."

The sisters shot eachother a look at the same time and nodded. Then, they turned back to look at Yoichi.

"Sato and I have already discussed it. Vampires have exceptionally astute senses, far moreso than humans. We'll be fine without one eye each." Chise fidgeted with her hair nervously and looked over at her sister again. Sato was still staring across the table at Yoichi with ominous serenity.

"Yes. We're willing to accept this as the cost to regaining our freedom," Sato agreed.

"Good," Yoichi nodded briskly, "Since I understand dragons are nocturnal creatures, I'd like to extract your essence right away and head out to Crimson Peak tonight. If there's anything else you can give me to aid me on my journey, now would be the time, since I may not be returning here after going to see him."

The twins nodded their silent assent to this. And with that, the ritual to extract their essence was underway, and Yoichi departed from the Akako family an hour and a half later.

*

The trek up to the black dragon's cave in Crimson Peak was a long one, to be sure. It took Yoichi about five hours and it was after midnight when he finally found himself at the mouth of the cave. Its entrance was surprisingly small and unsuspecting, not exactly a cave one would think to find a black dragon lurking in. But by the directions the twins had given him, this was undoubtedly the place where the creature resided.

Yoichi pulled a torch from his backpack of things from the Akako manor and lit it. The light it produced was a great help for him to see, so with that, he proceeded inside the cave.

The space was dark and musty, littered with skeletons of varying species, some even appearing humanoid. His nerves began to peak as he proceeded deeper into the cave, his pulse thumping harder and more frantically in his chest.

After about a half an hour of walking, the cave walls began to expand around him and give way to its end. A huge cavern, riddled with charred bones which were collected in a huge pile near the middle of the room.

There was some sort of organization to the arrangement of things, Yoichi realized the longer the looked. Separate from the bones was a pile of objects, probably things the dragon had stolen or found on people he'd eaten. Most of the things were shiny: metal objects like armor and weapons, jewelry, or the odds and ends like silver cutlery, vases, or high quality tools. Then there was another pile.

At first, he couldn't quite make out what it was, so he stepped closer, holding the torch out in front of him. Once he was beside it, he made out the details of this pile more clearly.

It was a pile of scales.

They were definitely black scales, too. A smile parted Yoichi's lips as he reached down and picked one of the scales up to examine it under flame light.

The item, though pitch black, glittered silver and gold faintly in the light. It was equally as beautiful as any gemstone Yoichi had ever seen before. He stared at it in awe for a moment and thought things through. If he just took this scale now and left the golden scale behind, would that be good enough to satisfy this dragon?

He didn't know, and turned the scale over in his hands, feeling its weight as he considered his options, only the sound of water dripping from somewhere in the black distance punctuating his thoughtful silence.

For a time.

Yoichi hadn't seen him. His scales and form had blended in flawlessly with the far cave wall, but if Yoichi had looked a little closer, he would've noticed the dark outline of the cave's dweller. At first, the only noise he made was that of scales shifting along his body as he moved, lithe as a panther. Then, a crackling sound erupted from deep within the creature's belly as it began to curate flames within it.

It didn’t take Yoichi very long to notice the approaching dragon, and when he did, he dropped the scale he'd been holding and started to back away, holding his hands out on either side of him to show he was only holding the torch.

"Hello there!" he called to the dragon as it approached him, faster and stealthier than a creature its size had any business being. As its features blinked into the light of Yoichi's torch, he took note of a pair of massive yellow eyes with reds and oranges dancing around the vertical slits of black pupils, which narrowed in the firelight.

"I just came to speak with you, nothing else. I promise. I know dragons are intelligent and can speak many languages, so you must know the common tongue, correct? My name is—"

"Silence!" the dragon's voice hissed, booming razor-sharp across the cave walls.

"You've tarnished one of my scales with your filth."

"I-I'm sorry... See, I just—"

The hulking shape of the dragon loomed so close to Yoichi now, cutting him off. As he made to formulate some sort of decent argument to calm the beast, it instead lashed out at him with a massive, clawed hand, catching him completely off guard and sending him flying into the far wall.

With a sickening slam, Yoichi's body thudded against the stone, knocking him unconscious instantly. The cave-dwelling black dragon was in no mind to hear him out about his problems, let alone make any sort of deal with him. It slid, scattering bones and scales as it moved across the cave and took its place beside Yoichi's unconscious body, flames writhing out from its lips as it considered burning this human for his next meal. One of its eyes caught on the shape of a golden scale that had slid from Yoichi's bag of things, and it smiled a toothy, unsettling smile.

Yoichi hadn't noticed he'd been pursued into the cave. A sudden flash of red energy sparked in the mouth of the cavern, bleeding hot with both anger and unbridled destruction.

The dragon's head snapped around. Even this powerful, ancient creature knew he was smart to be afraid of what harnessed the cursed strength of the blood moon's destructive power.

Without the violin holding the curse of the blood moon at bay, Rin could harness the full strength of the destruction magic that came along with the blood moon's curse, which grew more and more intense with the lunar cycle. It was only three days until the next full moon.

And right now, he was angry.

Chapter Text

Rin was hot on Yoichi's trail.

Not long before Yoichi had left Redville to search for the Akako manor in the woods near the town, Rin's train had pulled into the local train station.

He hadn't known where to start his search, but one thing he was quite certain of was that Yoichi would be headed for the Akako family's manor first. It had been a couple of weeks since Yoichi had left, so Rin had held onto hope that he would somehow get lucky and wouldn't have lost his trail already.

As luck would have it, the timing of his arrival was nearly perfect.

As uncertain as he'd been when he began his search, he simply started to ask around town. He asked the front desk worker at the local motel, who had said he was forbidden from discussing the identities and rooms of patrons of his motel. He'd moved on to speaking with the town bartender, shopkeepers, and even people who worked as professional blood donors. Most were rather secretive in what they knew about the Akako twins, and were probably a little frightened of him, too, but Rin did eventually get something.

A drunk stumbling around town had overheard him questioning people. The guy had apparently seen someone matching Yoichi's description leaving town, even pointing out the direction he'd seen them heading in before he stumbled away.

This may have been a good enough starting point for him, Rin thought as he made his way toward the end of town the stranger had pointed him in. Sure enough, when he arrived at the edge of the forest rimming the town, he found the faint outlines of footprints leading inside.

He figured there wasn't any point in hesitating; this seemed like more than only a mere coincidence. A person matching Yoichi's general size and description had been heading this way, according to the drunk guy (not that drunks were always a reliable source of information, but right now this was the only information Rin had to go off of at all).

Rin didn't really need to bring much with him. Unlike mortals, he did not need to eat or drink water, nor did he have to worry about temperature fluctuations caused by the weather, so at this point in time he simply began his trek through the woods.

He's a great deal faster than Yoichi, and the other had spent a short few hours in the manor, which had given Rin time to catch up. By the time he arrived at the Akako manor himself, he was only about an hour trailing behind Yoichi.

When he'd knocked on the door and threatened to kill the manor's servant if he didn't let him inside, the man had swiftly done so and fetched the twins for him.

Rin's family hailed from the northern part of the country, whereas the Akako family hailed from the south-central area, so the three of them had never met before. When they finally did, however, he all but knew that Yoichi had already met with them.

"And who might you be?" one of the twins asked him as the two approached, side-by-side. They were completely identical in appearance save for the clothing they chose to wear.

"Yet another unexpected guest, Chise," the one on the left said, pulling a chair from their dining table and seating herself into it. Her twin mirrored her action and leaned against her sister's shoulder after seating herself.

"Who I am isn't important. I'm after the human who was just here tonight. I can tell he was here..." Rin looked side to side at the twin's eyes, surmising that their appearance was a confirmation that Yoichi must have extracted their essences from one of their eyes each. One eye on either twin's face was fuchsia, emitting a familiar cursed luminance, whereas their other was completely colorless and lightless.

Rin approached them slowly, but as he got closer, a familiar scent began to waft into his nostrils. He froze only a couple of seats away from them beside the dining table, staring at them with intensifying ire.

"That Yoichi fellow? Yes, he was here not an hour ago," the twin who was leaning on her sister's shoulder said airily, twirling a lock of hair with her pointer finger.

"You drank from him," Rin said, though not intentionally with any sort of hostility, it certainly did come off that way anyway.

The sister wearing a tight silk dress looked up at Rin who was standing beside her, calmly and curiously studying the look of anger he was trying to hide, though completely failing at doing so.

"So what if I did?" she asked carelessly, without even realizing who she was speaking with.

Rin stepped the last few paces to close the distance. When he was standing right beside Akako Sato, he darted a hand down fast as lightening, gripped her by the golden necklace she wore around her neck, and hauled her up to standing.

"Speak plainly. If you did I'll fucking destroy you."

"Is that so?" Sato replied bemusedly, smiling wryly at the threat, which was not exactly something she was used to hearing. "I'm not sure destroying me is possible."

Little did she know, this vampire was currently the one person in the mortal realm who was actually capable of stripping another vampire of their immortality and ending their otherwise perpetual life.

Of course, Sato had heard of him but had never met him before, so she didn't at all expect what happened next. His eyes, narrow blue-green shards that glowed with the curse, began to swim with the color red as he channeled the energy of the blood moon's destruction into himself with his growing rage.

Sato frowned, immediately understanding what trouble she'd just gotten herself into. She grabbed Rin's hand and pried it off of her necklace.

"Okay, okay... I get it. It does appear I've decided to be a bit too playful with a stranger. Forgive me, o' cursed child of the blood moon." She fixed her hair and straightened her necklace.

"You love him. What is love for us, though, if not simply an illusion?"

Rin looked away, the placidity of cool green returning to his irises about as quickly as the red had polluted them.

"Is this what we perceive as love does to us, who are cursed to be damned creatures of the night for eternity?" she asked, "Or is this just the hunger speaking on your behalf?"

Rin's eyes remained narrow, staring off into the far corner of the room at a candle that was burning low. Truthfully, it was nothing like hunger. Not right now, not for him. The curse hadn't hurtled him into its infernal grasp just yet. It was simply a matter of Rin's nature, that he was a short-tempered individual, though Sato wouldn't have known that without having met him before.

"Relax. He's fine and healthy, I can assure you that much. We didn't touch his neck. The blood you smell is on my palm. I simply entered into a small blood pact with him." She held her other palm up for Rin to see clearly. "Is that what you wanted to hear?" She then placed a hand onto her hip and leaned into it. "I do wonder, though... How someone as far gone as you, Berserker, ended up letting your guard down this much? I haven't heard a single thing about you in quite some time."

"None of that matters. Tell me where he's gone before I really lose my temper on you."

Sato chuckled at this. Her sister stood and took her place beside her, and once again Rin found himself facing the vampire twins.

"He's gone to find the black dragon in Crimson Peak." Chise said. Sato nodded her silent input. "Head north. About an hour to make it to the base of the mountain, and a few more hours of hiking to make it to the mouth of the cave. That's where you'll find him."

Rin stood for a moment thinking this through. It did seem to align roughly with the map Yoichi had shown him in Duskvale, from what he could remember.

"It seems we got off on the wrong foot," Sato held her hand out for Rin to shake, "The Yoichi fellow does seem determined to end the Eternal Curse of the Night for you, which makes him my begrudging ally. And by extension, you as well. I'm Sato Akako and this is Chise Akako."

Rin flicked a look down at Sato's hand, though he didn't move an inch to accept her handshake. He instead spun round and made to leave the manor.

"I have no use for pointless camaraderie with scum like you. Don't waste my time again," he called back to them, though his tone of voice was entirely devoid of any of its previous hostility.

Sato laughed softly. The twins looked aside at eachother, both wearing the same thin smile on their painted lips.

"Men. Am I right?"

Chise laughed and nodded her agreement.

*

Rin had made up the rest of his time on his way to the mountain. Fatigue wasn't much an issue for him... Not on a journey that could be considered short like this one. By the time he was at the mouth of the cavern where Yoichi had found the black dragon's hideout, he'd arrived just before the beast had attacked.

It slid right past him, its predatory eyes fixated on Yoichi and him alone. Vampires are stealthy by nature so the creature hadn't noticed Rin at all. Rin watched the creature move, listening as it spoke, and a voice answered it from not far away.

He looked over, eyes widening at what he saw.

It was Yoichi.

The relief that began to wash into him tightened heavily in his chest when he watched what happened next. As Yoichi spoke to the creature, it lashed out without a beat of time nor a second thought, sending him flying into the wall.

Yoichi's body tumbled into the stone of the cave floor, completely unconscious. As the rage and panic of seeing his beloved put into immediate danger like this took hold of him, the throes of the cursed blood moon injected destructive energy into his body.

His vision began to blur as licks of energy shot out from his body. These powers that had been endowed upon him by the curse of the blood moon, for better or worse, were extremely difficult for him to control this close to the full moon, far more so when his emotions flared up.

The beast, which was now standing beside Yoichi, whipped around to face the enraged Rin. Its face contorted when it saw him, wearing an expression indistinguishable between fear and malice on its scaled features.

Wrathful as a thunderclap, Rin unleashed the full force of his destruction upon the dragon. It may have been a fair match for any other vampire...

But not for this one.

It could barely see Rin move and didn't react fast enough to even defend itself. In a flash he was beside it, with one arm brandished like a weapon. His hand disappeared into the dragon's chest, the strike swift as lightning and fell as the grim reaper itself. When the blood red strike of Rin's hand had shorn through scales and flesh, he uttered a low growl under his breath to finalize his single strike to end the beast's long life:

"Die."

Fire and electricity, hot and bright, coursed out of Rin’s body as an extension of his arm. The dragon was instantly lit up in an inferno of destruction, and it was thrown forcefully to the far corner of the room, crashing down hard on top of a pile of treasure that clattered and squealed as it was crushed beneath the dragon's weight. The force of the dragon's weight sent shudders throughout the entire cave, and in the distance, Rin could hear the sounds of rocks being dislodged from the cave's ceiling and piling.

Rin collapsed onto his hands and knees, energy pulsing through him, overwhelming all of his senses and his rationality. His hands closed into fists around chunks of charred bones, crushing them to dust. Every muscle in his body tensed as the curse's power surged through him. Desperately hoping this one thing would help him calm down, in a last-ditch effort to save himself from completely losing control, he glanced upward.

As soon as he gazed upon Yoichi's unmoving body not far away, he felt himself beginning to relax.

"Ahhhhh..." he exhaled hoarsely. Though curse-bearing vampires did not need to breathe, even having been cursed for as long as Rin had been, it was still something he found himself doing reflexively and in instances like this to calm himself down.

He could hear Yoichi's pulse, and the sound, as soft and comforting to his ears as a lullaby, sapped the energy that was threatening to overtake his body out of him with each beat it made.

Only a couple of minutes of focusing on both reflexive breathing and Yoichi's heartbeat, and Rin had almost fully pulled himself back together. It'd been a very very long time since he'd channeled the blood moon's energy in full force like this, and it was clear that his mind and body were not used to it. Even just the short little bit he'd used it had his limbs feeling heavy as lead weights.

Rin stood and staggered over to Yoichi's side, dropping to his knees there. He cupped Yoichi's head in his hands and turned his beloved's face over to gaze upon him.

He looked so peaceful.

The fondness he felt for this person all rushed back into him in an instant. It was so overwhelming, he had to bite his own lip to bite back the waves of emotions that were crashing into him.

"Idiot..." Rin said down to him, "Why would you leave me like that without saying it to my face? What would've happened to you if I hadn't shown up just now?"

Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound and feel of Yoichi’s pulse, still steady, was the only response Rin received, but he didn't mind. He could hear Yoichi's breathing, similar to how he would breathe when he was sleeping, though there was the faintest crackling sound coming from his chest that indicated he may have been injured.

This was not the time for him to be dawdling, though, and he knew it. Though he was not sensitive to temperature, he could already feel the heat emanating off the black dragon's corpse, which was swelling with its own fire each passing minute. There was already a thin line of sweat beginning to coat Yoichi's forehead.

As quickly as he could, Rin grabbed Yoichi's bag of belongings, stuffed a few black dragon scales into it, and flung it onto his back.

He then picked Yoichi's body up, cradled him against his chest, and turned to leave. He felt unimaginably weak, but he pushed through the discomfort of his trembling arms and sore body, carrying the unmoving Yoichi from the cavern and out harm's way.

*

When Yoichi finally came back to, at first he sat up and only blinked slowly at his surroundings. It was fairly dark and completely silent.

It didn't take very long for him to remember what had happened, and when he did, he felt himself starting to panic. As he moved, he reflexively clutched at a sharp pain that suddenly stabbed into his side.

"Ow..." he mumbled, holding his torso as he glanced around. It was clear to him he was no longer in the dragon's cavern. Right beside him there was a huge pile of rocks and boulders that went right to the ceiling, and from between cracks in the stones there were rays of orange sunlight seeping through. It appeared he was at the cave's entrance, and it seemed dawn was blossoming outside.

"What...?" he groaned, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. His forehead was thick with sweat, and now that he thought about it, it was a lot hotter in this cave than he remembered it being.

Then, he saw him, and his face immediately lit up.

"Rin...?" Yoichi whispered, his eyes widening as he gazed upon the vampire's silhouette in the far corner.

Rin was sitting with his back shoved into the very corner of the area between the pile of boulders and the wall, avoiding the sunlight that was permeating through. His eyes were closed and his limbs were sprawled out around him. He seemed to be resting.

Yoichi crawled across the cave toward the sitting Rin, who seemed to have heard him moving and cracked his eyes. His irises glowed faintly, as they always had before.

When he was beside Rin, he placed his hands on either side of Rin's face and cradled his head, turning their gazes to meet. All at once, it was like dawn and dusk colliding when they looked into eachother's eyes; as if the universe itself made sense all over again.

Yoichi shook his head with a fond smile pulling his lips. "What're you doing here?" he asked quietly.

"Saving you. Dumbass."

The comment made Yoichi laugh softly, though he had to stop and clutched at his abdomen again. Rin stared at him, eyes narrow.

"You're injured. I watched that dragon fling you 20 feet into the wall."

"Hnnghhh... Damnit..." Yoichi grumbled, "I remember now... Hey, wait a sec, the scales-"

"Don't worry about that. I grabbed a bunch before hurrying out of there."

"Ah..." Yoichi sighed relief at this. "Good, I'm glad..."

Rin, who'd already put the thought out of his mind, only really had one thing on his own mind. He placed his hands onto Yoichi's shoulders and said: "Turn around."

"Okay, sure... Wait, why?"

"I need to check you for injuries."

"Right... Okay..."

Yoichi flipped himself around and felt as Rin pulled him in closer between his legs. As unabashed as one could possibly be, Rin didn't even hesitate before he slid his hands under Yoichi's shirt, touching his fingertips gently along the skin on Yoichi's upper body.

"H-hey!" Yoichi shot Rin a backwards look nervously from over his shoulder.

"What?" Rin frowned at him. "I'm checking your injuries."

"Are you rea-"

"You have a fractured rib." Rin's touch paused in one position, glided a little down and to the side, before he added, "Two fractured ribs."

"Owch..."

Yoichi felt Rin's hands, deft and thorough, panning the rest of his torso and abdomen. He then removed his hands from underneath the cloth of the hybrid man's shirt and slid them along Yoichi's neck, up his chin, and onto his head, where he felt around Yoichi's scalp.

"No injuries to the clavicle, neck, or chin. No skull fractures, luckily," Rin said, running his fingers through Yoichi's hair.

Yoichi only replied with a "Hmmmm."

"Hmmm what?" Rin mumbled, finishing up his search of Yoichi's head for injuries.

"Nothing..." Yoichi replied half-heartedly, though it was a lie.

In truth, he was enjoying how Rin's cold hands felt on his skin, which was burning up from the heat of the cave.

Rin draped his left arm over Yoichi's left shoulder and touched the base of his chin, tugging the other man's face gently up and to the side. Yoichi's left eye, deep blue and dazzling as a sea's waves catching rays of sunlight, widened as he blinked at Rin, slowly yet fondly.

The hand was removed from Yoichi's chin, and with his pointer and middle finger, Rin pinched Yoichi's earlobe. He only did so to wipe a bit of blood from it, but to his surprise, Yoichi uttered the faintest gasp at the touch.

"You were bleeding from the ear," Rin said, "A concussion, perhaps. Or just inner ear damage."

"Hmm... Yeah..." Yoichi's response was short and distracted. Rin could hear his pulse fluttering in his chest, and that, paired with a bit of mildly irregular shallow breathing, told him one thing.

Yoichi was enjoying this.

Humans were an oddity to him. Or maybe vampires were the true oddity between the two species... Rin didn't really know for sure, but skin-ship was not something he'd ever really fully understood. He didn't get it, but that didn't invalidate what he knew.

Yoichi enjoyed skin-ship. Physical affection, in the case of Rin, was something he'd never understood much but had at least attempted to for Yoichi's sake. Although he still didn't fully get it, he thought that maybe there was a part of him that was starting to... Maybe the tiniest bit.

He was well aware of the fact that it probably wasn't in the same way humans enjoyed it. The reason behind his physical attachment to humans prior to meeting Yoichi was only merely due to hunger. And what was it now?

With the doom of the Eternal Curse of the Night looming in his near future, Rin was beginning to realize, in those very moments in that cave for the very first time, that there was a part of him that had begun to long for this skin-ship, much like Yoichi did. The very same longing he felt to be close to the one he loved, which was strong and hot-burning, was also tinged with a faded blue sorrow, and undoubtedly with the building heat of fear.

He'd never experienced true fear before... Not until until the moment he realized he was in love. He was absolutely terrified, deathly afraid of losing what he'd found.

Fear and its devices were different for Rin than they were for Yoichi, though. A mortal, no matter how powerful, always retained the primal nature of their fear, which was a fight-or-flight instinct to protect themself from harm, and especially from death. This fear could also be extended to those the mortal loved. In this way, fear could be manipulated to protectiveness, even if the mortal was in love with someone immortal.

Rin's fear, on the other hand, was not much like this. He felt no real fear of injury or suffering no matter how severe, even though, at this point, he was in direct peril having lost the curse-sealing mask. The Eternal Curse of the Night had advanced about a month or so on him in total, and he still didn't really feel much from it except for more of a lingering hunger. Rin had never witnessed how the curse rips a vampire apart from the inside out, but he could assume it probably wouldn't be pleasant. In his present state, he could fight the curse's affect on him without issue; he wondered how long that would be true for. In a few short months, he realized he may be faced with the daunting task of fighting off the curse as it overwhelmed him, an effect that grew in magnitude with time. Alongside this, he now also had to worry about the curse of the blood moon being thrown in the mix.

The inevitable doom that awaited him: let the curse destroy his body until there wasn't anything left of him as he fought the ravaging hunger to the bitter end, or let the curse overtake his better judgement and steal Yoichi's life force from his body, thereby perpetuating his cursed life, in essence resetting the Eternal Curse of the Night on him.

Despite the former option being something he should be equally afraid of as the latter, the latter was the thing Rin undoubtedly feared the most. Losing Yoichi was an outcome he would never consciously allow to come, even if it meant his own eternal suffering was the thing that would protect Yoichi's life the most. He'd do anything and everything to protect Yoichi from this curse, even if it meant locking himself up in direct sunlight and incapacitating himself with pain until he withered up and could no longer move.

This was Rin's fear.

The choice wasn't a difficult one for him. He'd long since chosen to give up on himself if it meant he could keep Yoichi free from harm.

After Rin had finished checking Yoichi's body head-to-toe for injuries, they sat in silence for a few minutes, with Yoichi leaned back into Rin's chest. The silence and stillness was interrupted, though, when Yoichi spun round and looked at Rin's face with a sudden seriousness possessing his features.

"Wait... Where's the mask I made for you?" he asked.

Rin returned Yoichi's gaze calmly. "It's gone," he replied.

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

"Right after you left Duskvale, your relative paid me a visit. It would seem he's been watching us for quite some time. I suspect there's something going on with him, but what that something is, I don't know right now. The timing with which he found me and destroyed the mask after you left was certainly opportune..." Rin paused as he thought about this, staring off at a sunbeam in the far corner of the room.

"Isagi Yuzu destroyed the mask. He knew after doing that, I wouldn't be able to linger in Duskvale and wait for you like you wanted me to. That would have been the ideal case for us, but... Without the mask, I think we're better off working together to end the curse as quickly as possible. There's... Just one more problem..."

Yoichi simply sat, staring at Rin in disbelief. "What other problem?"

"The full moon..." Rin mumbled. Yoichi took note of his eyes darting away nervously.

"The full moon? It's only about two or so nights away... What are you getting at?"

Rin shook his head, feeling as nervous as he could possibly be.

"Something... Something else. Do you remember our discussion about the curse of the blood moon?"

"I do," Yoichi proceeded, "A child born under a full blood moon shall be bathed in crimson, cursed to transform once a month each time there's a full moon into a beast with boundless hunger and destructive power."

"Well, yeah... That's me." Rin conceded.

"I knew it..." Yoichi muttered, his eyebrows beginning to bow and his eyes, though showing clear frustration, also appeared fiercely determined. "Why would you hide this from me? You... You must have taken my notes. Why, Rin?"

"I was afraid. I always was afraid and I still am. I thought maybe, if you'd known about this, then one day things would change. You wouldn't keep coming back to me the way you usually do. That you'd be scared of me, maybe even disgusted with me, knowing what I'm capable of... Knowing the things I've done."

Yoichi continued to stare at him as he continued.

"The curse is suppressible by playing the violin, but it's taken me many years to perfect my skills as a musician to completely suppress it within my essence. It's been under my full control, and remains so for as long as I have an audience to play for. I had many fans in Duskvale who would continue to attend my shows every single week. People who've heard of my talents would even travel to see me play. But now... I can't control it at all without that. Another thing that comes along with the curse is a destructive power, which grows with intensity along with the lunar cycle, peaking on the night of the full moon."

"You have no audience in Redville... No audience anywhere nearby, for that matter. So... In essence, two nights from now, you're going to transform."

Rin nodded, slowly and calmly, though he couldn't deny how it made him feel sad to finally admit this. Not only sad about the curse, but about selfishly and foolishly hiding it from Yoichi for such a long time.

To his surprise, though, Yoichi seemed to be calming down, not getting angrier. He remained unmoving and staring at Rin, blinking with an unusual sureness in his eyes.

"Well, this is just one more obstacle for us to tackle. We'll do it together. No more keeping secrets from me." Yoichi leaned forward and cupped Rin's cheeks in his hands with an unaltered fondness that made Rin's heart ache with love.

"We're a team, Rin. You and I have to work together, and part of that is being honest with eachother about everything." Yoichi smiled, thin and sorrowful.

"And that also means we don't leave this cave unless it's together. We will wait until tonight. I'll wait in here with you. We'll go back to my hotel room in Redville and finish crafting the amulet. The transmutation of the cursed amulet should take a couple of hours, and while we wait for that... We can talk about how best to deal with this blood moon thing, since that's our next biggest obstacle to tackle before taking on the Eternal Curse of the Night."

Rin nodded his assent, feeling overcome with emotions at Yoichi's words. Quite soon, there would be a time where Yoichi would be able to finally fully return his love, and that thought was filling him with the light of a new hope.

He cupped his lover's face in return, and it was here that Rin did something Yoichi never expected him to do... Something even Rin himself never expected he would do.

Rin kissed him.

This kiss... It held a startling, unfamiliar weight to it. It was surprisingly tender, and shockingly very human. Not a gesture in any way Yoichi would have expected to receive from Rin. As Rin felt Yoichi pull out of it slowly, the look on his face was that of shock.

"I... I thought you said kissing didn’t make you feel anythi—"

"I was lying." Rin interrupted, "Lying... Unintentionally. To you. To myself."

The dusky light in Yoichi's eyes intensified with awe as he listened.

"I couldn't stand what I am... What I've always been. Because nothing I feel is what I want to feel. Damnit... I disgust myself, I really do. But I don't care anymore. I'm not human. I'm nothing close to human. I can't want you in the same way you want me but I don't care. I love you the way I love you and I want you the way I want you."

Rin gazed softly at Yoichi's lips. Fondly.

"And I do like kissing you. It doesn't make me feel nothing. I can't lie to myself anymore... I've been lying because I've been scared. Scared of feeling too much, because if I let myself give into it then I have to face the even greater fear I have of losing you..."

Yoichi was shaking his head, the gesture minute. Small specks of glittering tears had shaped in the corners of his eyes.

The crushing weight of allowing himself all of this... It was a lot for Rin to handle. He'd tried to keep himself under control, but only just now was he starting to realize how much he'd actually never been in control at all. He'd been under the illusion of control, but blind to the true nature of his situation.

The reality was, he'd been slowly falling apart inside. Every single day of each and every of their 74 years together, he'd been spending in this slow and steady state of decay, with his frozen heart being chipped away at by this one man.

He couldn't help it. His composure, his control, his heart, were now all in tiny pieces; fragments he had no way to grasp. There was nothing he could do to reverse how Yoichi had managed to fearlessly dismantle him like this, and he had no choice but to admit defeat to Yoichi once again. He'd relinquished himself partially for the first time, 51 years ago when he realized he was in love with Yoichi. Now he was completely finished.

"You're an asshole. What kind of person admits to a bunch of lies like this, then sugar-tops it with something so sweet?" Yoichi's mouth pulled into the smallest smirk as he said this. "You don't have to answer that. Probably an old asshole, with a lot of fears, a lot of secrets, and a lot of love to give."

In his present state, after channeling the blood moon's cursed destruction, Rin was unbelievably weak. Probably physically weaker than Yoichi. This mental and emotional strain was compounding onto that and starting to take a toll. He sighed reflexively, closed his eyes, and allowed the back of his head to thump against the wall behind him.

Rin heard Yoichi shifting and doing something, though he lacked the energy and presence of mind to open his eyes and investigate. He didn't do so until he felt Yoichi leaning back between his legs, snug into his chest.

He flickered a look downward. It seemed Yoichi had removed his shirt, and upon closer inspection, Rin understood why right away. His torso was thick with sweat and dusted rosy from the heat, his chest rising and falling as he labored with the high temperature in the cave.

Rin didn't think much about what he did next, and swiftly tugged the back collar of his shirt to remove it. His skin, no matter the external temperature, always remained cold, and at this time this annoyance was actually more of a blessing for them. Yoichi sighed deeply and relaxed, their skin sticking together from the man's sweat. A cold hand was lain against the bottom line of Yoichi's ribcage as well, keeping his injury cool. This would help with the swelling and healing of the cracked ribs faster.

As they lay there in this calm serenity and certainty of eachother's arms, they enjoyed these moments of tenderness with their whole hearts, despite the looming darkness of their future. Both put aside those thoughts for now, and opted to enjoy what they had while they could.

Rin's body did not require much sleep. A normal day of rest for him may only entail around an hour or so of sleep, but right now he was exhausted. He lay there, feeling the calming effect of Yoichi's heartbeat laying against his chest and the heat of his vitality against the smoothness of his skin, filling him whole with the life and love he's so maddeningly fond of; he'd never felt more relaxed, and more of a desire to let himself actually fall asleep.

"I saw the future..." Yoichi whispered, interrupting their silence, "I saw our future."

At this, Rin leaned forward slightly, cocking his head to look at Yoichi in surprise.

"What? How?"

"The Akako family manor has some Oracle's Orb thing in their possession. I... I looked into it. According to them, it shows any one person who looks into it, the future. Not only that, but the one and only future their heart desires the most. And guess what? That future, for me, was a future where we're together, and we've somehow ended the curse."

"Ended the curse...?" Rin whispered, with an abnormal softness and innocence replacing his usual tone.

"Yeah..." Yoichi responded softly, "Seeing that made me believe in us. In our future. The one we've been working at tirelessly for all these years. I don't care how unlikely that future is for us, I'm going to do everything in my power to see that we make it there."

Rin's eyelids fluttered shut again and he leaned back against the wall, for the last time that day.

"We were in Japan, looking at the cherry blossoms together... Doesn't that sound nice?"

"Mmmmh..."

The country of Japan had been closed off to vampires for countless years, so the idea of visiting there was an oddly foreign concept to Rin. Despite most people, even vampires, in their small region hailing from somewhere on the Asian continent, no vampires were allowed to set foot in those countries due to the dense population of humans. Rin had seen pictures of Japan and heard stories of the country's beauty, but he'd never dreamed in any of his long years that he'd ever actually get to go there.

Rin could feel one of Yoichi's fingers touching his arm, twirling in small circles that tickled his skin in such a pleasant way.

Maybe this really was something he enjoyed. This skin-ship. This closeness. Maybe vampires really weren't the things that had supposedly been broken by their years of being dead and prolonged forced solitude; maybe that's the precise illusion the curse wanted him to believe was the truth.

Both fell asleep in the cave like this, enjoying those sacred moments of their love that they were both working so tirelessly to protect.

*

Lunar year 3615, calendar day 195 (6+ months after Yoichi left Duskvale).

Yuzu heard his enclosure's door open and shut again. He felt dread immediately begin to fill him. Yoichi stepped over to him. When he was beside Yuzu, he slumped down onto the floor beside the vampire and looked over at him.

Yuzu had to look away. At this point, he was more than just a little terrified of the lengths Yoichi might go to, and on top of that, he was only a hairs' breadth away from his breaking point. He shuddered at the mere thought of Yoichi's cold voice and mocking laughter, which had been slowly, slowly, slowly sinking deeper into his bones, chilling him further and further to his core.

"Tell me, Yuzu, how did she protect you from the curse?"

Yuzu darted a panicked glance aside before looking away again. His fear was plain as day for Yoichi to read. A grim smile spread along Yoichi's lips at the sight.

"Since I figure the curse wasn't inflicted by Rukia herself, nor by you, but you somehow are still free from the curse's progression, that leads me to believe she's done something to protect you from it. Rukia is, by all accounts, an astounding woman. Near perfect if I had to say. She wasn't a heartless person, and I do wager she did care for you, to some extent. Isn't that right?"

Yuzu only blinked down at the floor dumbly as he listened.

"Show it to me." Yoichi demanded, his smile completely removed from his face. "Rukia, the most powerful witch in living history, was far more talented in the arcane than I could ever hope to be. It was her gift. She researched cursed items and how to craft them at great lengths. I was trying to figure out what she may have made for you to protect you... An article of clothing? An earring? An amulet? A ring? No, no... She isn't a rookie like me. She made you something more... Permanent. Show me now."

Yuzu was done with putting up a fight, so rather than argue or try and deny Yoichi's point, with two trembling hands he stripped his shirt off of his torso and tossed it to the ground in front of him.

"Ahhh..." Yoichi exhaled with marvel, "I should've known. She tattooed a seal onto your body with magic!" Yoichi clicked his tongue and snapped his fingers, "How clever of her."

Yuzu hoped this would be the end to their daily conversations, but to his horror, Yoichi simply got to his feet and, in the darkness of Yuzu's prison, stood in plain view for Yuzu to see him while he unsheathed his dagger.

With that same blank expression, madness and ruthlessness polluting the hybrid man's eyes, he swept the dagger along his palm and calmly held his hand out for Yuzu to see.

Yet another thing Yoichi had planned to use to torture Yuzu: his hunger. The vampire had been locked away in this cell for now over two weeks without having drank any blood, and his hunger was certainly starting to surface itself.

His blue eyes locked onto the sight of the blood seeping out of Yoichi's fresh wound and he stared at it hungrily.

"I can imagine you're getting hungry, Yuzu." Yoichi cocked his head and closed his hand into a fist, squeezing the blood from his palm with a squelch. Yuzu watched with wide, unblinking eyes, as droplets of scarlet tapped onto the floor in front of Yoichi, mocking his hunger.

"You can have a drink if you want. You'd better hurry, though. Can't drink that if it isn't warm from my vein with my life force," Yoichi offered with a devious smile, "At your own risk, of course."

Yoichi sheathed the dagger, and with his now free hand, he shoved aside the fabric of his jacket and tapped on a flask he wore at his hip.

"Another thing I found in Rukia's research notes: an anti-vampire concoction that, when ingested by humans, turns their blood toxic to any vampire who tries to drink it. I suspect this is how she kept herself safe from harm from all those vampires over the years she chose to live among them. No one would dare drink her blood, otherwise... What? I'm sure you've experienced it at least once."

Yoichi stepped across the dark room and knelt in front of Yuzu, holding his hand out between them.

"The blood that now runs through my veins is venom to you. If you drink it, you'll be able to sustain your cursed life, though barely. Your superhuman strength with be stripped to a mere fraction of what it used to be. You'll grow confused and your mental process will become slow. In short, you'll be rendered helpless against anything I choose to do to you, even more so than than you already are because of the magic in this place. Luckily for you, I've left out the ingredient Rukia had included in her original recipe that would bring the vampire pain... For now. You'll want to drink eventually, though, otherwise you'll go hungry. And every vampire knows to avoid hunger-induced insanity." Yoichi squeezed his fist once more. As the dribble of his blood dotted Yuzu's clothing, the vampire stared numbly at Yoichi's newest method of tormenting him.

"I suppose the choice is yours, Yuzu. Or you can simply tell me the truth about the Eternal Curse of the Night."

Yuzu stared at the blood, the sight and smell tantalizing him, filling his nostrils and tugging at his hunger.

Tap. Tap. Tap. With each droplet that fell from Yoichi's veins, Yuzu felt himself break a little more.

Chapter Text

Lunar calendar year 3516, calendar day 91.

When the glorious day the fable came true and a child was born beneath a solar eclipse at its totality, something shifted within the realm of mortals. The eerie twilight that existed in the temporary darkness created by the eclipse was completely silent, until the cry of a newborn baby tore that silence asunder.

That very night, the village the boy was born into held a celebration to welcome him into the world. Little did the people of that quaint village know, the radiance of the child that had just been brought into their world, would soon beacon a darkness of equal magnitude right to their doorstep.

* 

A mother clutched her newborn baby in her arms, rocking him back and forth to try and calm his screams. He'd only just been born earlier in the day, so she was still learning her way around motherhood.

For some reason, the baby wouldn't stop crying.

It didn't seem to matter what she did. She'd done as the crones had recommended and tried to feed the baby at her breast, though he wouldn't take to it. He did sleep a little, but only in short spurts that would end with him waking up and screaming even more.

He didn't seem to be too hot or too cold, she'd tried to dress him up and down to test his reaction to this temperature change but it made little or no difference in his attitude.

The boy's mother, at her wit's end, placed him into his bassinet, sighed, and left the screaming baby for a moment. She decided to make herself dinner, and her grandmother looked up from what she'd been doing curiously.

"He won't stop crying!" she said with an exasperated sigh.

"Hm, yes, newborns..." the old lady mumbled, gazing calmly out the window into the night sky.

"The full moon does odd things to people. Even babies."

"Right..." the baby's mother, named Iyo, replied quietly, "You did say that once before."

"Now Iyo... Take a break, dear. Go outside for a walk if you wish, the celebration will be underway soon. I can watch him."

"Ah... Thanks grams, I appreciate it..." Iyo nodded and smiled, sweeping locks of her hair out of her eyes. "Maybe just a little walk to the hill and back to clear my head would be nice, I'm still quite tired from the birth..."

"Of course, of course," the old woman waved her hand at her granddaughter, "Giving birth is exhausting. Being a new mother is exhausting. Let this old lady help, my dear."

Iyo smiled warmly at the elderly woman. "I appreciate it, 'grams," she said before she slowly walked out of their little home, into the darkness outside for a stroll.

The elderly woman placed her spectacles onto her nose and hobbled over to the baby's bassinet. To her dismay, the child had not ceased his screaming at all.

"What troubles you, my dear?" she asked him softly, reaching down with one hand to stroke his cheek gently. The newborn opened his watery eyes a moment, gazed up at his great grandmother vacantly for about three seconds, before he resumed his screaming, now even louder.

She'd been alive for a long time, but never had she ever met such a fussy baby.

"Hm..." the old woman squinted at the sound of his shrill cries, "Did Iyo name you yet, sweet child?"

More screams.

She clicked her tongue and waddled over to look outside at the glowing full moon sitting high in the night sky, listening to the sounds of their village outside as the celebration got underway. It would surely be a night of hearty food and boisterous drinking.

That's what she had thought.

*

Isagi Iyo, the human woman who'd married a vampire-human hybrid man, was grateful for her village's support, but was already exhausted with her life as a new parent.

She made it to the top of the hill behind her village's outskirts, a place she often found herself visiting when she wanted to relax. On this night in particular, she was especially exhausted, and as she stared up at the calming halo of the moon cradled within the darkness of the night sky, she found herself enjoying the settling silence (something she hadn't found all day since her son had been born), and soon enough she was falling asleep.

Then, she jerked awake, unsure of how long she'd dozed off for. Her tired eyes glanced around and back up at the full moon hazily as she came back to.

"Ah... I wonder what time it is? I had better get back to granny..."

She pushed herself up to standing and looked down at the village, squinting down at it wearily. When she'd left on her walk, there had been at least twenty people around the bonfire on the west side of the village, all merrymaking and getting the celebration underway. By now the party should have been in full-swing.

She made her way back down the hill, not really understanding what was so odd about what was going on until she reached the edge of the village square, where the celebration bonfire seemed to be burned down lower than it had been earlier when she'd seen it. It was then that she realized what was going on, and her heart sunk deeper into her chest as the frozen hand of dread grabbed hold of her.

There was no movement at all, though there were dark shapes around the firepit, barely lit by the flame's glow.

"No..." she whispered, backing away slowly, "No... No no no no..."

The outlines of figures on the ground were those of her close friends and family, all people she knew very well.

All unmoving.

The fitful flicker of the low-burning fire gave her snapshots of necks torn open and pools of blood. She instantly felt sick to her stomach, and as she turned around to face the direction of her home, she retched once and threw up into the dirt, collapsing forward as she did so.

Her mind began to race, her thoughts scrambled and incoherent. Shock was beginning to take hold of her, but the first clear thought she did have was that of a mother:

Her baby.

She sprinted back through the street, her legs feeling numb, stumbling along stones with cold toes and wobbly knees.

When she made it back to her home, she swung the door open as fast as she could. Gasping for her breath, she ran from the entry way, down the hallway, stumbling and falling to the floor as she reached the kitchen.

The adjacent living room was where her son's bassinet had been set up, though she realized right away... The sounds of the baby's cries had ceased.

She turned her gaze up, and what she both saw and heard plunged her into the deepest state of terror she'd ever been in in her life.

The full moon held an astounding, though frightening, power. It was always a dangerous time because it was a time for transformation. Werewolves specifically were dangerous creatures that prowled during full moons, and if Iyo had been lucky, it may have only been one of them that attacked her village.

This was no werewolf.

The outline of the figure she saw was humanoid, though its form was surrounded by tendrils of strange red and black energy—it was somehow difficult to look at, as if its magic sucked the light from the space around it. It's body was closely enveloped by veins of darkness that pulsed with grotesque dark magic. It was a baffling sight to behold with the naked eye, though anyone who did see this monster up close never lived long enough to even comprehend what they were looking at. Its appearance was only one of the strange things Iyo noticed.

It was standing at her baby's bassinet, and the baby, which had not ceased his wailing since he'd been born, was not crying at all. And she could tell he was still alive because she could still hear him making other baby sounds... Almost happy sounds.

Not far away, laying on the ground, Iyo saw her grandmother. The old woman's trembling hands had five things laid out on the floor in front of her, and she was uttering something under her breath.

Iyo's grandmother was actually not her biological grandmother, but her husband's grandmother, and they hailed from a long line of human-vampire hybrids who were descended from a witch named Rukia Kazuki. Her husband had been outside in the village square, safely assumed he hadn't survived the monster's attack.

"What're you doing?" Iyo whispered at her grandmother, ger voice trembling.

"That monster..." the old woman replied quietly, clutching a hand at the bloody wound on her neck, "It... Attacked me... As soon as it saw him, though... It left me here and went over to stare at him like that..."

The old woman coughed, spitting up blood onto the floor in front of her.

"I won't make it, sweetheart... But I'm gonna mess that thing up... For doing what it's done to our village... I know who he is... With this curse I'll spite him..."

Iyo's grandmother finished frantically whispering the last few lines to what she'd been working on, and when she did, she flourished her hand and let the magic spill forth from it.

She was sure the curse she'd cast upon the ceature would land, but was shocked when the light of the magic of what she'd cast onto it dissolved into its form, before being thrown down into her grandson's bassinet.

She gasped, though she didn’t understand the full weight of the situation. When the baby in the bassinet began to cry again, it was then that the monster slowly, menacingly, turned around to face the two women on the floor.

It was definitely a humanoid creature, though the distortion of the bizarre energy surrounding it gave it a monstrous form. Its eyes glowed an unsettling red and its tongue, dribbling blood and saliva from its mouth, was hanging out from between its lips like some feral animal. Its arms dangled at its sides, and when it gazed upon Iyo and her grandmother, its hands clenched into tight fists as the cursed energy surged into its mind. The static of the curse threw his mind into disarray, fueling his insatiable bloodlust, and when all the many things his killing instinct was whispering to him died away, there was only one final message being shoved into what little was left of his consciousness:

Destroy.

That was the last thing either of them would ever see. 

*

Later that very same night.

The manor of the pure-blooded vampire house Isagi was completely empty, save for only one.

The progenitor of this once proud family sat, one of his many long nights, by himself, gazing into the flames in the fireplace in the manor's living room. It was a full moon that night.

He heard someone knocking at the door not far away, though he did not care and chose to ignore it. They knocked again and again and again yet he still ignored it, along with the odd sounds his sharp hearing was also picking up.

Finally, he stood and answered the door.

It really was as odd as he thought it was. There, standing in the darkness, was a cloaked figured cradling a screaming baby. He did not greet the intruder and instead only stared at them dubiously.

"Isagi Yuzu," the person spoke to him.

"Go away," Yuzu spat, "I'm not in the mood for visitors."

"You'll want to meet this visitor, Yuzu," the person cooed to him before stepping past him and into his manor.

The person took the baby, who was still crying, and wrapped them in a blanket from one of Yuzu's pieces of furniture, placing the wailing child down onto the furniture gently.

"Get that... Thing... Out of here."

"He is no thing. The solar eclipse was today, Yuzu."

The baby's incessant wailing persisted, and Yuzu, who's sense of hearing was sharp, covered his ears to block the sharp thrill of the infant's cries.

"You know who he is," the cloaked stranger said to Yuzu calmly, "The mist has shown you. This baby is the next child born into the line of hybrids you sired."

Yuzu shook his head, his hands still held tight against his ears. He took his place back beside the fireplace and wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"I don't care about the hybrids. All these prophecies and fables, being thrown into my lap... Solar eclipses, blessings... I don't care."

"Oh, we know. All you care for is her, but you will never have her. Will you?" The stranger's voice remained calm and velvety.

"You agreed to father this line of hybrids because of how you felt about her, but to Rukia, this bloodline was only an experiment. Ah, how tragic. The future of yours I've seen in the mist is bleak, indeed. Only the light of the moon may guide this world out of the darkness."

The stranger stared down at the screaming baby for a few more moments before turning his gaze across the room, toward Yuzu, who was staring into the fire with his face contorted in rage and contempt.

"The hybrid bloodline has been eradicated, save for this child here. He is the radiant one that was prophesized, the one only you and your beloved Rukia knew would come to be. It's not of my kind to intervene in the happenings of the mortal realm, but in this I've been given no other choice."

Yuzu tore his eyes from the fire and looked across the dark room at the figure of this stranger, the one he now knew was a mist walker.

"I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself, but this is the truth of this world. This child was born with a purpose. He was brought into the world earlier this very day, yet something else happened. The monster known as the Blood Moon Berserker, the vampire named Itoshi Rin, who's memories you manipulated to seal his curse with the violin, transformed. The magic contained within the solar eclipse was too great to suppress, and likewise, the full moon that followed was one of the strongest ones that had ever come to be. For the first time in a very long time... He transformed."

Yuzu's eyes widened in shock as he listened. To his surprise, the baby stopped crying. The mist walker turned its eyes back down to gaze upon the newborn's reddened complexion and tear-soaked cheeks.

"The berserker headed directly for the village this baby was born in. It killed each and every member of this child's family without hesitation, as it always did, and yet, when he saw the baby in his bassinet... He gazed down at the baby harmlessly, and the baby stopped crying. His great grandmother, one of Rukia's descendants, desperately got together what she could to inflict a curse upon the savage beast, as her last act of spite against the creature for destroying her village, but the mechanisms of fate, twisted and cruel in nature, worked in the monster's favor. He also possesses a vampiric inheritance known as null magic. Though this specific inheritance isn't particularly useful against curses and blessings, which are not completely magical in nature, it can be used against a curse or blessing only during its casting, which must be cast using magic. However, in his berserk state, Itoshi Rin would not have had the presence of mind to use his inheritance willingly. I believe it activated on its own as some sort of primal self-preservation action that even he was not aware of. Being cursed once is strenuous enough, bearing two curses is doubly so. Bearing three curses would have surely thrown Itoshi Rin's mind into the fire and plunged him into madness... And the world as we know it would have been doomed."

Yuzu continued to stare at the mist walker in disbelief. "This is nonsense..." he muttered.

"You're right. Using something like null-magic to deflect a curse would have a very low chance of working. It just so happens that this baby was born with an uncanny ability to siphon curses into himself. When the curse was deflected by Itoshi Rin, it was taken up by this newborn baby. Such a strange and bizarre turn of events, isn't it? A beast of destruction, whose brain is little more than a primordial ooze when he goes berserk, with little in the way of conscious thought... And a newborn baby, with an equal level of conscious thought to that very beast... Somehow, even in their most simplest of forms, they worked together. The monster spared the baby's life, and the baby, who'd been crying incessantly since he was born, stopped the moment the monster stood beside his bassinet. Newborns don't have good vision, and he would have no understanding of how the world around him works, but something about that monster was soothing to him. And likewise, the monster's killing instinct was placated in the presence of this baby."

Yuzu shook his head. "What... Is this some kind of sick joke? Some kind of... Twisted form of luck?"

"Luck? Oh, no. It's nothing as simple as that. This is the prophecy you were shown in the mist, Yuzu. This is what I like to call destiny."

"Destiny..." Yuzu rasped.

"Neither will have any memory of this encounter, to be sure. The two of them must grow into themselves. When the time comes, they will need eachother at their best, when they're at their worst." The mist walker was interrupted by the baby's screaming, which resumed.

Yuzu glared disdainfully at the screaming baby from his place by the fire. Prophecies. Destiny. He hated all of it and wanted no part in any of it.

"You must raise the child of radiance yourself, Yuzu. You're his only hope."

"Nghhh... Why won't he stop that abysmal wailing?!"

"He's a fussy baby, or so his great grandmother had said." The mist walker turned round. "Try playing the violin for him. And when the time comes, Yuzu... Teach him to play the violin as well."

"Violin..." Yuzu whispered, "What... Why? Is it the curse you spoke of that troubles him?"

"Oh, no. The curse his grandmother accidentally inflicted upon him is an amnesia curse, but that won't be of any bother to him yet. It's simply a case that this one enjoys music, because for him, his senses are... Different. Hire a violinist to play for him and make sure you teach him to play, too. Trust me, Yuzu."

"Okay..." Yuzu was about to ask more questions, but surely as the mist walker had appeared at his doorstep, the creature evaporated into nothingness before the vampire's very eyes, leaving him alone with the screaming newborn baby.

He slowly stepped across the dark living room towards the infant. Once beside it, he gazed down at it. Perhaps he should have felt some sort of love, or at the very least some kind of fondness, for this baby, given that it was his own flesh and blood relative... But he really felt nothing for it at all. Only an intensifying ire when he looked upon its face.

"Guess I'm all you've got, little guy... How unfortunate for you. Did they give you a name?"

The baby kept screaming, and Yuzu stared down at its red and purple face bitterly.

"Your birthday... April first? I suppose then I could just call you forty-one. Or... Yoichi. Since we are of Japanese heritage, after all."

*

Lunar year 3615, calendar day 195 (6+ months after Yoichi left Duskvale).

Yoichi finished making another batch of the anti-vampire cocktail and took a drink from his flask, gagging at the bitter aftertaste that flooded his tongue. He then got to work on cleaning his work station and placing all of the ingredients away.

The main drawback for him was beginning to surface itself the more he dosed himself with this cocktail. For Rukia, a full-blooded human, it served at protecting her from hungry vampires. Extremely strong in the ways of magical self-defense and with blood like venom to creatures that would attempt to drink it, she was untouchable.

Yoichi, on the other hand, is a hybrid. The very obvious and glaring issue he was now facing was that the toxic nature of this anti-vampire cocktail was starting to impact him, with his part-vampire blood, as well. He felt tired and weak, and his face was growing to be pale and gaunt. He hadn't been sleeping good lately, either, since he'd taken up residence in this place. He moved to put a book onto some shelving in the corner of the room, but something caught his eye.

Or rather, someone.

He could hardly make out who they were, and he couldn't figure out where they may have come from. He glared at the person with ice-cold eyes as he placed the book onto the shelf in front of him.

"Who are you?" he asked icily.

The person moved, then shortly afterward made a sound. They uncrossed their arms and took a few steps toward him.

"You can see me? Wow, that's surprising. That's a good sign. My strength is finally growing."

"What?"

When they were finally close enough to him, Yoichi froze what he'd been doing right away.

He'd seen her portrait in the pages detailing the witch's guild's ranking members. It was her without a shadow of a doubt, her appearance almost exactly the same as it had been when they'd drawn her portrait.

"It's... You?"

"Don't look so surprised. You didn't actually think I was dead, did you?"

"Humans... Don't live longer than maybe 70 or 80 years."

"There are ways around that, of course. Sheesh, thought you would've figured that one out by now."

Yoichi stared at her evenly. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"I've been out and about for a long time. What you see now isn't me, only a magical projection of myself. This is the first time anyone's been able to see me in a very long time, though, which means things are changing..." she smirked halfway deviously, "Yeah... Means I'm getting stronger."

"So you were observing me but hadn't expected I'd be able to see you."

"You got it. And truth be told, you seeing me is not really a bad thing." Rukia looked around herself briefly before fixing her eyes back on Yoichi. "Kicking the crones that were what was left of the witch's guild out of their stronghold wasn't very nice of you, Yoichi. As your... What? Great great great grandmother? I should tell you, the witch's guild aren't to be trifled with."

"They can have their stronghold back when I'm done with it," Yoichi replied, "This is the only place suited to holding vampires captive, with the magic within the vampiric holding cells making them weak. It gives me the upper hand I need."

"Of course, of course." Rukia's arcane phantom stood beside the alchemical workbench Yoichi had been using and gazed at him. "It's all for your dearly beloved Itoshi Rin. The one you've vowed to end the Eternal Curse of the Night for."

Yoichi flicked a calm, cold look aside at his relative. She didn't look a day older than her recorded age of 28.

"Tell me the truth about the curse," Yoichi demanded.

"I was waiting for you to ask me that. Well, sadly, I have no real reason to give you any information on that right now. And there isn't any way for you to get it out of me in this form. You won't be able to touch me or attack me. Not unless you find my physical body." Rukia smiled an unsettling smile.

"I'm assuming you've been laying in some sort of magical dormancy or stasis for all these years. You don't want to end the curse, yet... Yuzu seems to be hiding a great deal of things. And for that matter, he's responsible for a great deal of manipulated memories. What the hell is your deal?"

Rukia pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't you like to know? I won't be telling you anything, tough guy."

"If you're of no use to me then go away. I'll figure this out on my own."

Rukia's phantom chuckled. "Your skills of logical thinking, deduction, and psychological profiling are truly unmatched, Yoichi. You've even managed to form an accurate psychological profile on me, without ever even having met me before. Truly fascinating!" She looked into his eyes as she continued to say, "Well... Mostly accurate."

"What?"

"Just another thing for you to figure out, I suppose. There are a few other things you really should be looking into, though. I feel as though your perception of vampires is a bit skewed. For example, your notes on their ability to feel love."

"And what about it?" Yoichi asked.

"Most of what you've learned is only from one subject, but do you honestly believe he's a good vampire for you to use as a measure for the rest of them? You know what he is, don't you?"

"Rin may have a side to him I don't understand... That no one really understands... But that doesn't mean his emotions are any different than other vampires."

Rukia cocked her head a gazed aside calmly, eerily, at Yoichi.

"Oh, but you haven't known him. Not always. Not truly. You don't know what he's done. And what he's capable of. He's the harbinger of death, a monster who was born into this world to destroy everything within it. Back in his day, cursed vampires would either seek him out in the mercy of his destruction, as he was the sole being capable of truly killing them, or they would run from him, fearing what he is. Each time he transformed, the world around him was stricken into fear. He would reap devastation upon this world the likes we have never seen, and if not for Yuzu and I, he would have continued to do so. His power would grow with age, and in turn, the destruction he brought along with him would also continue to grow, until this world would be reduced to nothing but a pile of ashes."

Yoichi narrowed his eyes, though he did not reply, he was listening intently.

"More than all that drabble, I think you should be asking yourself... Where have all the vampires gone? Where are the rest of the hybrids in your bloodline? Where is your family?"

"I... Don't have a family," Yoichi replied half-heartedly.

"A fact that was placed into your mind by altering your memories. Even after the fact, Yuzu simply told you that and you had no choice but to believe it. It wasn't that hard to do considering you only knew them for one day. But I think you've always had your suspicions about that, am I right? You're smart, Yoichi."

Yoichi glanced back down at the work bench in front of him and clenched his fists on its surface nervously. Rukia took a couple of steps closer to him so when she chose to continue talking, her voice was even quieter, and somehow far more terrifying.

"The truth is, in a world where Itoshi Rin did not exist, you may have had a happy life. A loving family, friends, perhaps even a significant other. Maybe even a child of your own. But in this world... You have nothing but confusion, anguish, and loneliness. You seek desperately to end the Eternal Curse of the Night because you want a future with him, but the reality is... This is a world in which Yoichi is completely alone, and you have nothing. All you have is him. This is the future he made. Vampires are loathsome, greedy creatures, and he happens to be the worst one of them all. Truly despicable. He's stripped you of everything that would have brought you joy, because this is the only world in which he would ever be given the opportunity to be loved—a future in which he's all you have left. How selfish. How vile and disgusting. Is this truly a future you want to fight for? Is this truly a man you wish to give your whole heart to?"

Yoichi shook his head to banish what Rukia was saying from his mind, though he couldn't stop the tears that were beginning to rip themselves out of his eyes, deep blue and swimming with sadness as they were.

"The prophecy Yuzu and I were shown... Somewhere within our bloodline, somewhere down along the road, a child would be born beneath a solar eclipse, and he would be the radiant one. Or something like that. All I knew was that you were born to oppose the darkness that exists within him... Whether that means you were meant to save him, or destroy him, I don't really know. No one does. I never expected what actually happened, though. You fell in love with him? In all your radiance, you're truly the most foolish man alive."

"No..." Yoichi snarled, his fists clenched so tight that the veins on his hands and arms were starting to bulge, "Screw you. You don't know anything about Rin. You don't know anything about me. All this... I don't give a shit about a damn prophecy. You and Yuzu are scum cut from the same cloth." He glared over his shoulder at Rukia, tears rimming his eyes, which were now wide and swimming with rage.

"You even got your memories back, yet you're still willing to torture him like that... The person who raised you. Don't you feel even a little bit guilty, Yoichi?"

"Get the hell out of here. I don't care if we're related. I'll fucking destroy you, Rukia. I'll kill you."

Rukia's phantom smiled wide at Yoichi's threat. She spun around and began to walk away from him, down the dark lit main hallway in the empty witch's guild fortress.

"I see I've upset you. Sorry. Guess I'll see ya later, Yoichi," she called back to him breezily.

"Get the fuck out of here! Don't come back here you bitch! I'LL FIND YOU AND I'LL KILL YOU!"

He tossed an empty flask after her and watched as it passed through her, shattering on the ground in front of her. Rukia's phantom laughed and continued to walk off and out of sight. Yoichi, panting heavily, was trying to suppress his anger at her words, which kept swimming around in his mind, adding fuel onto the ever-growing fire that was his fury.

He buckled forward with one hand on the work bench's leg beside him and threw up onto the floor. The stress of working on his own, paired with this anti-vampire concoction he'd been drinking, was all starting to take a compounding toll on his body.

He remained kneeling and cried, his tears pouring from his eyes and soaking his cheeks with palpable proof of his growing despair.

He'd been fighting on his own for a while now, but the burden of trying to remain strong was taking its toll. The strain on his mind was weakening him tremendously.

Yet another problem had now surfaced itself, adding more stress onto the already extreme weight that was suffocating his strength of will. Rukia Kazuki was undoubtedly alive, and she was definitely no ally to him.

In the strict silence of the stronghold of the witch's guild, a metaphorical timer began to tick as Yoichi's mind began to buckle beneath the heavy burden he had no choice but to carry alone.

Who's mind would break first? Isagi Yuzu's... Or Isagi Yoichi's?

*

Present day (Amnesia Round 97).

As dusk settled in and night began to overtake day, Rin stirred awake.

He hadn't slept for a very long time by human standards—maybe only a couple of hours—but for a vampire, who's usual sleep consisted of maybe an hour of rest, it was actually rather extensive.

The cave was silent and still, not a single thing within the dragon's cavern stirred save for Rin himself. A realization washed over him very quickly, a familiar one. Though this had happened to him many times before (96... 97 times now, to be exact), he didn't feel nervous or upset about it like he may have in the past.

"Amnesia..." he whispered to himself, shifting his head to gaze between cracks in the wall of stones beside him.

Yoichi was gone, and the cave was empty, save for Rin. He didn't know how long ago Yoichi had left, but the situation didn't exactly worry him for some reason. The only thing that really did bring him any concern was the idea that Yoichi was by himself out there, possibly scared and confused.

He got to his feet and stepped out of the cave, turning his face to gaze up at the night sky. It was always a comfort to him—a reminder to him of all the many long years he'd spent alone.

Pretty soon, this metaphorical prison he'd been trapped in by his own feelings would feel less cramped. The amnesia curse would be lifted. It was a daunting, unfamiliar, and strangely unsetting idea that things would finally start to look up for them, but he couldn't help how it lightened his heart the faintest bit when he thought about it.

Being born an apex predator definitely had its perks. One of those perks was that, unless a person actively made an effort to cover their tracks, they would be easy for him to track.

So Rin headed out into the night in pursuit of the one he loved, with the light of a nearly full moon guiding him along on his way.

Chapter Text

Yoichi wasn't a hard one to track or pursue, and after about an hour or so of following the man's footprints, Rin found himself at the base of a hill looking up at its peak. He began to ascend, already knowing what was waiting for him at the top of it.

No matter how many times Yoichi lost his memories, he never really changed. This was an endearing sort of familiarity for Rin, and this time, too, it really wasn't any different. Yoichi's love for stargazing was one thing he always retained.

When Rin did reach the top of the hill, sure enough, Yoichi was there. His eyes, such a deep shade of blue, appeared almost black at night time. With Rin's sharp vision and ever-attentive attitude toward Yoichi, he could see the smallest specks of silver light contained within the twin indigo abysses of Yoichi's irises; reflected drops of light from the moon, which was huge and imposing hanging in the darkness above them. When Rin stood by Yoichi, the other slowly looked up at him.

"You're that vampire from the cave. Should I be scared right now?" he asked, his tone of voice guarded and skeptical, "Why did you follow me?"

"We know eachother," Rin replied simply. If there was anything he'd learned over the course of 97 rounds of amnesia with the person he loved, it was, without a doubt, patience.

"I beg to differ. I don't remember anything about you."

"I know you don't. That's normal. You have amnesia."

Yoichi's eyebrows furrowed. "What?"

"I know it feels odd to hear that. You always react like this. It's never easy for me to convince you at first."

Yoichi frowned, and Rin, still perfectly composed, sat beside him in the grass a comfortable distance away, feeling dew against his fingertips. In taking note of Yoichi's skin temperature, he surmised that the dewy grass was probably chilling him right now.

"You're apprehensive and guarded around me, but I know you aren't afraid of me. That's normal."

"What? Why?" Yoichi's voice was growing more frustrated with each line of dialogue that passed between them. "I mean... Vampires... They're predators who feed on humans. What do you mean it's normal for me to not be afraid of you?" he asked incredulously.

"It's not that hard for you to figure it out on your own. You can easily ascertain the truth with the facts at hand. Think about where you woke up, what position you were in, what we were doing. I followed you here... Yes, what you've said is true. That's also not the full extent of human-vampire relationships, though, and you know it isn't."

Rin tossed a look aside at Yoichi. When their eyes met, Yoichi's blue gaze ticked away nervously.

"You told me you'd wait with me, so we sat like that in the cave together all day. It was a bit too hot for you, that's why we were shirtless. Also, you need to think about how I could've easily killed you if I really wanted to."

"Yeah... I mean, I guess that's true... Okay. So, like, what's the deal with this amnesia you seem to think I have, then? Why did it randomly happen? Did I hit my head or something?"

"No. It's not like that. It's brought on by a curse you bear."

"A curse? And what triggers this amnesia curse?"

"I don't really have to explain it. There isn't much time, and it's... Well, it may be a bit embarrassing for you."

"What? Just explain it. I'm sure it won't take that long."

Rin closed his eyes calmly. "I'm Itoshi Rin." He pointed at Yoichi. "I'm just telling you because I'm... Well, we've been something of a couple, for about 74 years. I don't know if I can even say that properly, though, because every time you've forgotten about me... Has been the very moment you fell in love with me."

"Excuse me?" Yoichi remarked, the blues of his eyes round with the usual shock. "74 years?! Now what the hell do you mean by all that? How the the hell is that even possible? Shouldn't I be a wrinkley old prune, then?!"

"No. You aren't a pure-blooded human. You possess both human and vampire blood." Rin explained. "I told you it's embarrassing."

"Eh... Embarrassing? It's... It's not that. I would hardly describe it as that. I mean, I know almost nothing about you other than what you've just told me, but... I somehow feel at ease talking to you like this. I can't really logically explain why that would be."

"I suppose, even when you forget so many things about me, there's a part of you that always feels a bit of comfort from familiar things like this."

"I see... I guess that does make sense."

The two sat in a few moments of persistent silence. Then, at the same time, they both turned to look at one another and their eyes met. To Rin's surprise, Yoichi already looked completely relaxed. The frustration and confusion had almost entirely melted away from his expression. Instead he simply looked calm, a fact that reassured Rin's state of mind tremendously.

"Before you showed up here, I just stopped to rest a bit. I looked up to the sky to enjoy the stars, but I can't remember anything about what I'm looking at. The night sky is beautiful, but so mysterious to me."

"That's another thing you always forget, unfortunately."

"Ah..." Yoichi sighed. He raised one arm and gestured up into the sky above them. "Tell me, which star is that one?"

"Vega."

Yoichi shot a quick look of dismay over at Rin beside him. "You didn't even look!"

"I don't have to. I know which one you're pointing at. It's always that one first."

Yoichi remained unmoving for several moments before he lowered his arm, snickering the tiniest bit.

"Man, I really am embarrassing..." Yoichi said lightheartedly, "But... Still, here you are. And you've... Never left? Not even once?"

The question stung a bit... Not because Rin had ever had the though to leave, but because Yoichi was actually the one who'd ended up leaving first.

"I would never leave you," Rin decidedly replied, leaving out the painful bit about how the feeling wasn't entirely mutual.

Still, even if it was a bit painful to say, Rin didn't resent Yoichi for it. In fact, it was only because of Yoichi's courage to leave that they'd made any real progress in getting closer to ending the Eternal Curse of the Night recently.

Calling Yoichi embarassing was a true-to-life insult, but really, Rin felt he was even worse. Worse because he'd always been so weak and so selfish... Yoichi was undoubtedly embarrassing, but he was even more embarrassing than Yoichi ever was or is.

"Okay, so... Where am I? What's going on here? Most of what I can remember is that I live in a town called Duskvale, with no family, I own a jewelry shop... I don't remember much else."

"This isn't Duskvale, and you aren't a jeweler. You did live there for a very long time, but because of the amnesia curse, we were trapped there together. I had certain things hypnotized into your mind so you wouldn't forget them... Though you still do end up forgetting a lot of things, you always at least remember that."

"Right... Okay, so if we were trapped together because of my amnesia problem... Then why didn't I just leave on my own?"

Rin stared down at the grass in front of him, the ensuing silence feeling razor-sharp in his ears.

"I don't know. Maybe you pitied me too much to leave me there by myself. I never really asked you that. But you did eventually end up leaving me, that's why we're here, not in Duskvale. I followed you."

Yoichi remained silent and unmoving for a few moments before he said:

"It's not that."

"What?"

"It's not pity." Yoichi looked at Rin, and as Rin looked back at him, he saw a sureness filling Yoichi's eyes.

"It can't be. I don't feel that way now, not at all. I mean... You've stuck by me for 74 years, even though I keep forgetting you? You've been patient enough to explain all this stuff to me... How many times? If it's been happening for this whole time, all 74 years... That's a baffling amount of times, really. I don't pity you at all, Rin. If anything I'm just genuinely grateful to you for staying by my side no matter what. I can't imagine how this would have felt for me if I didn't still have you here."

"Hm."

"... What?! Is that all you have to say back to me, then?!"

"No. I have a lot I could say, and reasonably would say." Rin reached one hand up and flicked Yoichi's forehead gently. Yoichi blinked as it happened, and smiled a thin but sweet smile at the odd, yet strangely familiar, gesture. Their gazes remained fixed on eachother's; though Rin's facial expression remained perfectly stoic, he felt his cold heart warming at the sentiment behind Yoichi's words.

There was so much he wanted to say, but now was not the time for him to be saying it. Each and every moment was fleeting, and he couldn't afford to waste their time on stuff like this.

"Even after all this time, you're still a complete idiot," Rin said gently, "But you're still my idiot."

Yoichi's cheeks flushed the faintest bit. Perhaps it was the cold setting a chill into him, or perhaps it was a bit of embarrassment. Or perhaps both. Rin didn't know for sure, but the urgency of his situation had never left the back of his mind. Now that he'd at least calmed Yoichi down, he pushed himself up to his feet.

"You told me earlier in the day you had a room at the motel here in Redville. We need to go back right away." Rin picked Yoichi's backpack up off the ground for him. "I'll fill you in on what's going on right now. You'll need to review your notes with haste."

"Ah... Okay..." Yoichi agreed, watching as Rin began to descend the hill with haste.

He turned his face back up to look at the night sky one last time. With calm and clarity filling him because of this vampire's words, he turned and followed Rin back to Redville.

*

Though Yoichi had completely forgotten his room number, with a few carefully placed lies, the motel's front desk worker didn't have any problem with divulging Yoichi's room number to him after seeing his personal identification.

It took a couple of hours of Rin's patient explanation, and Yoichi reviewing notes on his cursed amulet's crafting methodology, before he finally felt confident enough to begin the process.

He laid all the cursed amulet's many ingredients out on the ground around him in the array he'd drawn in his notes, and began to read off the lines to finalize the amulet's crafting.

It was a complicated curse, and took about twenty minutes of speaking the lines aloud repeatedly before Yoichi finally stopped. He then quietly reached out to touch the amulet he'd selected to hold his curse and nodded with satisfaction.

"It seems like it's worked... I think. Based on what I've described here in my notes. Once the transmutation is underway, you'll feel a bit different. You'll be able to tell by touching the amulet. If you feel a tingle and slight burn in your fingertips, that means you were successful. By my estimation, it should take about two or so hours for your amulet to reach completion, assuming all the ingredients are in the correct place and you didn't make any blunders in the vocal part of the transmutation."

Rin stared down at the amulet Yoichi had placed on the floor in front of him at the center of the array of his curse's ingredients.

"What should we do while we wait?" Yoichi asked.

Rin sighed.

"I guess I need to explain that to you again."

"That? What's that?"

"There's nothing about it in your notes so I'll just have to explain it to you. It's about me."

Yoichi fixed his stare directly on Rin. He had his full attention now. Having to explain this to Yoichi again so soon was an irritation, but at the very least, Rin didn't feel as nervous as he had to talk about it before.

"So when I was living in Duskvale, I was a performing violinist. Every time we met eachother was because of that. You always ended up coming to my shows, sooner or later, and you ended up curious about my music. In the context of musical instruments, it's extremely difficult for a pure-blooded vampire to produce music that's enjoyable to humans. I've worked for a long time to get myself to this skill level, where my music is enjoyable to those of both species. Because you're a cross-blooded hybrid, you seem to be the one who can appreciate what I play the most. Now this brings me to a point..."

Rin pointed at the window in the far corner of the hotel room, toward the nearly full moon in the night sky. Yoichi gazed over his shoulder at it, following the direction of Rin's gesture.

"Little is known about the powers of the violin, but some have figured out that it possesses curse-sealing properties. It seems to work on some curses but not others. In my case, I possess an individual curse that was inflicted upon me at birth. Because I was born under a full blood moon, when it was at its highest point in the night sky... I bear a curse known as the curse of the blood moon. In short, the curse has, for better or worse, given me the ability to channel powerful dark magic that gives me the ability to completely destroy anything. It also happens that the strength of this dark magic grows in correlation with the lunar cycle. If I was to channel it now, I'd be at my second most powerful time, however with its growing strength it also diminishes my level of control. And on the full moon... Without the curse-suppressing power of the violin... I always lose control to it."

Yoichi, unblinking, unflinching, unmoving, continued to look into Rin's eyes, even after hearing about such a thing, which would've probably frightened most other beings in the realm of mortals tremendously.

"So what you're trying to tell me is that tomorrow night, you're going to lose control under the full moon, and we need to figure out a way to stop that from happening?"

"Yes."

"Did you bring your violin with you? Why don't you just play it right now?"

Rin shook his head at this. "No, it doesn't work that way. The instrument's curse suppressing power only works when I play for an audience. I had a well-established fanbase in Duskvale, but out here, I don't think I'd garner much attention at all. Not right away, and definitely not enough to be of use to me."

"Okay..." Yoichi scratched his chin, clearly deep in thought. "Alright. I think we'd best go through some of the notes I have here and consider some other options, then..."

"Right. So—"

The train of their conversation was interrupted by a strange sound, loud growling and gargling... They both stopped what they'd been saying before Yoichi broke out into laughter.

"That's me... Sorry... I think I'm a bit hungry. I don't really know when the last time I would've eaten would be. Let me see..." he shuffled across the hotel carpet and cracked the mini fridge in his room, squinting at its contents. "I don't have much in here... I think I should go grab something. Do you mind?"

"Not at all."

"Alright." Yoichi replied calmly, though he didn't move. "What about you? Are you hungry?"

"I'm fine." Rin waved his hand dismissively.

"Okay then... I'll go look for something I can eat... I'll be back shortly, hopefully... Assuming I can find a place that's open this time of night, that is..."

"There's a local pub, probably ten or so minutes away that should be open. I'll come with you." Rin began to pack some of Yoichi's notes into his backpack for him. When he was finished, he threw the article over his shoulders. Yoichi grabbed a few of his things and left first, leaving the door cracked for Rin behind him.

When Yoichi was out of sight, Rin sighed a reflexive breath, the air hissing from between his teeth with the strained exhalation.

Truthfully, he was lying when he said he was fine. He was getting hungry. The way this curse had twisted his hunger was infuriating; he knew for a fact if he tried to drink anyone else's blood other than Yoichi's, it would not satisfy him much. Not anymore.

He noticed that his hunger wasn't as easy to ignore as it had been before. Not long earlier, when he'd passed by the Akako manor and had taken note of how he'd felt, it had still seemed manageable. After having expended so much energy when he destroyed the black dragon in the cave the night before, his hunger had deepened, and because of the curse, it was a lot more difficult for him to ignore than it used to be.

It was uncomfortable. Almost painful, in a way. But the even worse fate for him would be to admit to himself that he really was a weak-willed and despicable monster, exactly like the rest of the world believed him and the rest of his kind to be.

"Are you coming?" Yoichi asked, peeking through the crack he'd left in the doorway.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Yoichi's pulse, though still immensely comforting to Rin, didn't quite sound the same as it used to, knowing how it was affecting him now.

Rin only nodded once, internally recollected his thoughts, and followed close behind him.

*

They spent some time reviewing Yoichi's notes at the bar while he ate, though even after over an hour of this, and discussing some other options for how to deal with the upcoming problem, they hadn't yet found a feasible solution to it.

When the two arrived back at Yoichi's room, he attempted to flick the lights on, but the room remained dark, except for the light of the moon that was illuminating the desk and floor in the far corner. Rin took the lead and walked inside, making for the lamp beside the bed, since his night vision was far superior to Yoichi's. He felt the other man close his hands gently around his wrist for guidance, enjoying the feel of Yoichi's pulse traveling up his arm. He clicked the light on that was beside the bed, sat himself down, and threw the backpack back onto the surface of the mattress beside him.

The lamp didn't offer much help, but still, Yoichi's eyesight is sharper than your average human's, so he carefully knelt beside the amulet and touched it again. He nodded and said:

"It's ready, I think."

They both stared down at the piece of jewelry quietly. Despite how this should have made them both excited, and they both undoubtedly were, the unknown of what came next was also frightening the both of them a fair bit, too.

Yoichi picked the amulet up and looked at it closer, anxiously turning it around in his hands.

"Are you going to put it on?" Rin asked, sitting himself on the floor beside Yoichi.

"Yeah, of course. I'm just feeling a little nervous, that's all."

"Don't be. I'm right here with you."

Yoichi smiled at Rin, gentle yet sad. "That's true. I feel a lot better in knowing that."

He toyed with the amulet's chain for another minute before he lifted it, looped it over his head, and let the amulet and chain fall onto the front of his torso.

At first he didn't feel all that different... Then it happened. Like the weight of a freight train, it all came barreling down on him, and he gasped and clutched his head reflexively. Beside him, Rin watched closely, monitoring each and every one of Yoichi's vitals closer than he ever had before. His pulse seemed to be quickening at an alarming rate.

"Take a deep breath," Rin suggested, noting shallow and irregular breaths sucking in and out of Yoichi's lungs. Yoichi tried to do so, but it wasn't without a struggle. His skin was starting to go pale and cold and his hands were noticeably starting to tremble.

He's going into shock... Rin realized what was happening right away. He'd seen this particular thing happen on many occasions (it wasn't unusual for a human to go into shock if a vampire drank their blood too quickly). The best way to treat shock is to remedy the thing causing the shock... In this case, the amulet would need to be removed.

This was not an option, though.

Rin touched Yoichi's shoulder to try and reassure him. His blood pressure was alarmingly low and he wasn't breathing properly at all.

He draped a blanket over Yoichi's shoulders and tried to move him to a better sitting position to optimize blood flow to his brain, but he strangely wouldn't budge. He also seemed to be grinding his teeth together really hard.

There wasn't anything else Rin could do, so he just sat by in concerned silence, watched, and monitored. After a couple of minutes of his symptoms seemingly not worsening, Yoichi's entire body tensed, and he topped forward face-first. Lightning fast, Rin's arm shot out to catch him from falling onto the floor in front of him.

"Damnit..." Rin cursed under his breath.

One of Yoichi's arms drifted up weakly, trembling as if it weighed a hundred pounds. He pointed to his backpack.

"J-Journal..."

Rin looked up at the backpack, then back down at Yoichi's body that he was cradling forward with one arm.

"What? Forget about that. Right now—"

"Now, Rin."

Startled by the sudden nature of Yoichi's firm order, Rin slowly let his arm away. Yoichi buckled forward weakly, though he braced himself with his own arm instead.

"W-Write this down..."

"What is it?"

"I don't know... It's all just coming to me now, in spurts..."

Rin fished Yoichi's journal out from his bag and flicked back to one of the last pages. He grabbed a pencil in his writing hand quickly and waited.

"Violin... The violin..."

"You want me to write that? That's—"

"Shut up." Yoichi rasped. "The violin... It's more important... Far more important than we ever even realized. Write."

Rin did so without another word.

"I'm a violinist, just like you..."

Yoichi's voice flattened into monotone as Rin scribbled down what he was saying.

"Violin... Sun... Moon.... Lunar eclipse... One two three four five six seven eight. Nine. Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineteneleventwelve... Thirteen. Radiance. One eye. One ear. Tenth month. Third death. Fifth. See. Hear. Feel. Three years. Two violins. Repeat. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten. Eleven. Onetwothreefourfivesixseven. Eight."

Rin, though writing frantically, was barely keeping up with what Yoichi had been saying. He looked down at the page, placing a final underline beneath the words Yoichi had emphasized to place the same emphasis on them as Yoichi had when speaking.

"Where the hell did all this come from?" Rin asked, staring down at what he'd just written confusedly.

"Who the h-hell knows..."

Though Yoichi's vitals had begun to stabilize, his jaw remained clenched tight, the muscles on his neck taught with effort. He remained bowed forward, his body tremoring as his mind was assaulted with all the many memories that had been stolen away from him.

Though he possessed an immense strength of mind and strength of will, the repressed emotions that were hammering down on him were a lot for him to take. It wasn't as though they were negative emotions, they were simply intense because they were many.

Falling in love one time was intense enough for one person. But ninety-seven times?

The pressure of all those compounding, separate instances of love, coming together... They were a massive entity, beautiful but strenuous to bear in their amount alone.

*

The Rin Yoichi knew in present was a man who'd allowed himself be shaped by 97 rounds of Yoichi's amnesia; in the face of such a bizarre repetition of being so close to being loved, then forgotten all over again, he'd fought with it numerous times, but in the end had no choice but to submit himself to it.

The first time it had happened, Rin's reaction had been quite a bit different than the later times. He'd spent months with Yoichi during amnesia round 0, and after receiving a well-intentioned gift from the man in the form of a curse-sealing mask, a few days later... Yoichi would stop showing up at Rin's place altogether. Rin would not see him at his violin shows for weeks after that, until one day he would just appear again.

The first time Yoichi had approached Rin, it wasn't out of pure and innocent curiosity.

Yoichi Isagi, 25-years-old, had studied vampires and the Eternal Curse of the Night at great length. He couldn't help his natural curiosity when it came to them, especially not this one particular vampire.

He'd supposedly moved around a lot, though Yoichi eventually tracked him down in an odd little town known as Duskvale. It was exceptionally rare to find pure-blooded vampires from the greater houses out and about like this one, and even more rare to find them working as performing violinists with such skill. Yoichi's initial interest in Rin was anything but personal... It was more grounded in a curiosity to research and understand vampires as a whole... But after they met and got to know eachother better, Yoichi's fascination with studying this creature had changed. Over time it would grow from unbiased and objective fascination, to personal interest... Eventually, over the span of months, Yoichi would grow to care for Itoshi Rin deeply.

He never expected that he'd end up falling in love with the monster known as the Blood Moon Berserker.

The first time the amnesia curse would strike him, Yoichi would end up extremely confused, and would consult the local medical center in Duskvale about his gaps in memory (something he would repeatedly do in future rounds as well before his journal system was introduced). It was a very slow process at first, but Yoichi would find his way back to himself all on his own.

And eventually, inevitably... Back to Rin.

The second time Yoichi would approach Rin after his show went very similarly to how it'd gone the first time on Yoichi's part. For Rin, on the other hand... Things were different.

Rin was not born with a pleasant or sunny outlook on life, nor did optimism flow naturally for him. Even at over 400 years of age, he was still grouchy, antisocial, and entirely lacking in patience. As such, when the amnesiac approached him for the first time after forgetting him on amnesia round 1, Rin was not as patient as he would later learn to be.

"That was fantastic!" Yoichi had said, and at the sound of Yoichi's voice, Rin had shot a glare backwards.

"Tell me, what's the secret to your music? Many years of practice, I can imagine."

"You....?" Rin had stared at Yoichi, confused out of his mind.

He'd spent months of his time with this person... It was undoubtedly him. There was no mistaking it. Maybe he had a twin? But, no... That theory was quickly dashed aside when Rin looked at the bare skin on Yoichi's neck and saw a set of healing bite marks he'd placed there with his own fangs.

What the hell was this guy's deal?

"You seem a little off-put..." Yoichi observed, "Truth be told... So am I. I can't figure out what's going on. I found these bite marks on my neck, and when I asked around, the only vampire that anyone knows of who's been seen in this area in a very long time... Is you, Rin. Though if I'm being honest, attending your show made me forget about how weird all that was starting to feel for me. Your music... It's just so...Breathtaking."

"You don't remember?" Rin asked forthright. At the time he didn't know what was going on, nor would he have any way of knowing that asking a person with amnesia this particular question was completely superfluous.

"Remember what, exactly?" Yoichi asked.

In the blink of an eye, Rin crossed the room, many times faster than any human could ever hope to move. Yoichi gasped and took one step backward, but even someone with heightened reflexes like him was too slow to react.

At the time, he didn't know Rin, and Rin was not the patient or doting vampire he would later grow to be. He was quick-tempered and his patience always remained thin. As such, rather than continue on with the conversation, he quickly lost his patience with the situation.

Yoichi inhaled sharply as he felt the strong, stony grip of Rin's gloved hand close around his throat. His breath exhaled in a drawn-out sigh that spoke to something between fear and exhilaration, a nervous smirk playing out on his lips despite himself.

"Don't fuck around with me," Rin hissed, "Of course it was me who put those bite marks there. Do you take me for a complete fool?"

"N-No! Not at all!" Yoichi replied quickly, his eyes widening, "I'm serious! I really don't remember!"

"Did you hit your head or something? Idiot. I should snap your neck here and now for wasting my precious time." Rather than do that, Rin snapped his hand off of Yoichi's neck, instead.

Yoichi, whose body and facial expression had been filled with tension and anxiety, relaxed when Rin backed off, and he sighed relief. Though the action was meant as an intimidation tactic, as Rin took a quick note of Yoichi's vitals, the man hardly seemed afraid or intimidated at all. His heart was racing at top speed, though his blood pressure, skin temperature, and respiratory rate didn't match up with what Rin had grown to recognize as fear in humans...

Yoichi actually seemed excited.

"Leave my presence," Rin ordered. He was already back at his instrument, returning it to its carrying case.

He could hear the sounds of Yoichi's footsteps tapping away, slowly leaving him, though he listened carefully to the man's hammering heartbeat as he walked down the hallway.

Rin couldn't help how this bizarre situation was more than just a little intriguing to him.

Amnesia round 1 would play out much the same as round 0 had, though on Yoichi's part, it would take a longer period of time for him to whittle away at Rin's icy exterior and soften him once again. Their ensuing first meetings in the first 15 or so rounds of amnesia were a rollercoaster... Not as much for Yoichi as they were for Rin.

Rin would slowly grow angrier and angrier and angrier. With this whole strange repeating situation. With Yoichi.

And with himself.

He'd do everything in his power to scare Yoichi off. However, no death threat or physical show of intimidation would ever sway Yoichi from continuing to approach him. It never mattered how Rin would lose his temper... Sometimes he'd lose his composure completely and would shout or berate Yoichi, though he'd always end up apologizing for it later. He couldn't help how, even though he was over 400 years old, he still had so much to learn in the way of his own emotions. In vampire terms, Rin would've been physically equal to a human man in his later twenties, yet because of his past, in human terms, his emotional intelligence was still that of an adolescent.

This repetitive scenario would test his patience, though it would also teach his patience to grow. Time after time Yoichi would approach him, and he'd find himself stuck in this exact same scenario. How he chose to react would eventually start to change.

The thing that would ultimately sway him into staying in his position, and into acceptance, would be when he decided to start sneaking into Yoichi's place of residence... At the time, a hotel room. On amnesia round 27 he'd steal Yoichi's notes and read them all. There was one passage that stuck with him above all the rest:

Amnesia curse.

Rukia cursed our bloodline (?)

You will forget everything about and involving the one you love, the moment you fall in love with them.

The realization that this amnesia wasn't some medical amnesia, or a bizarre coincidence, but was actually happening because Yoichi kept falling in love with him, began to change Rin's outlook on everything. It was a beautiful thing, but made Rin feel tremendously sad.

Yoichi was making next to no progress on any of his research because of this amnesia. Rin had then decided, if Yoichi wasn't going to leave, he would help him in his situation. So Rin pioneered Yoichi's journal system, which would eventually end up being the key to their shared research progress finally continuing.

Rin's temper would calm, and his emotional intelligence would slowly but surely begin to progress toward that of someone his age. He would learn patience. Compassion. Understanding. All things he'd never had any use for before, but would find himself needing in copious amounts now. After the realization on amnesia round 32 that he had, indeed, allowed himself to fully fall in love with this person, following years of internal struggle, he submitted himself to this shared fate of theirs. They would subsequently spend many years together, stuck in this odd situation of theirs.

Now that Yoichi could finally see all the memories they'd shared together without forgetting, he could finally let himself be free and fall in love with Rin in turn. This time, he would not forget. Though these memories were theirs, it felt to him like he was an outsider looking in on someone else's love story.

It felt like madness... Watching himself repeat nearly identical scenarios with Rin, over and over and over again. But he also knew that even if it was some kind of madness, it was also this very repeated form of insanity that had ended up eventually teaching Rin how to love.

Watching Rin soften toward him, though an agonizingly slow process, was like watching a flower blooming in spring. It was such a slow progression, from their very first meetings, where Rin would frequently get frustrated, even irate with him, to their later years spent together, which were filled with such an astounding amount of patience, dedication, and love. Despite how non-linear their relationship was, it somehow still did progress. It was all thanks to Rin.

Yoichi had shown Rin how to love, and in kind, Rin had taken the fruits of this love and shown Yoichi the very same thing, even if he always ended up forgetting him in the end. And just like it always began with one thing, so too would this arduous journey of theirs need to find its conclusion with that very same thing. Something that would end up being more important for them than either of them ever even realized.

The violin.

*

Somewhere far in the distance, one lost within a thick shroud of mist sings a lonely tune with their violin, their body stricken with an ancient radiance. Their only audience is an insurmountable abyss shrouding them that contrasts the clarity of the other side. A single eye gazes upon its accompaniment. He waits for the guidance he requires to be lead out from the darkness of his prison.

A lone spotlight strikes the outline of a figure on a stage set for two; their song beacons the radiance, the key to free the one they love from their prison. With a melody that only his other can truly understand, he must lead the world back into the light. He longs for the one and only who understands his heart's song, his other half, to be freed from the cold hands of destiny.

ACT I. FIN.

Chapter Text

ACT II.

Later in the night after Yoichi had started to calm down and a persistent silence had ensued, he was sitting on the hotel room bed with its comforter wrapped around his body tight, shoved into the corner against the wall. He couldn't grasp how long it had been since either of them had said a word to eachother. Rin was sitting on the other side of the bed with his legs crossed, holding something in his hands.

"What's that?" Yoichi asked.

Rin looked up from the unusual object he was holding, which was silver and small enough to fit into the palm of your hand. At the question he flipped it shut, making its length about half but its thickness double.

"A cell phone," Rin replied, "Some strange new technology. It allows you to pass messages and have vocal conversations with someone else who has one."

"Really?" Yoichi's solemn expression brightened slightly with curiosity. "Who're you talking to?"

"Reo. He gave me this thing before I left Duskvale."

"I see... And how is he doing?"

"I don't know. I was just updating him on our situation."

"Ahhh... Gotcha."

Yoichi's voice reflected the depths of his fatigue. Having the amnesia curse finally wiped from his body, though necessary for him to finally begin to make progress, had taken a hefty toll on him.

Not only was he trying to cope with compounding emotions, which had previously been completely repressed when they were forgotten, that were now assaulting him left-right-and-center, but now he was just starting to make sense of it all.

"There's so much for me to try and work through. So many things for me to make sense of..." Yoichi's voice trailed off pensively, "The very first time I approached you... I... knew things. I knew who you were. I knew all about this blood moon stuff, though little else was known about you specifically. I only knew what I knew about you through reading and research. And now that I'm re-examining these memories, I do still have a feeling. I need answers..."

"If you knew, then why didn't you tell me?"

"Well..." Yoichi fidgeted, "I... Had the intent to study you. I wanted to see if crafting that mask for you, giving you the opportunity to experience love, would show me more about vampires as a whole. And more about you as an individual. I think I was on to something... That was, until I was hit with the amnesia curse."

"So you..." Rin paused, dumbfounded, "You only approached me because you wanted to study me?"

"Wait... I can already tell you don't like that. Let me tell you more, though." Rin's expression remained gloomy and unimpressed. "... Like for example, I knew about the blessing of the solar eclipse and the curse of the blood moon, though little is known about the blessing and curse themselves... There's so much more to it than only just that. I truly believed, when we first met, that you and I were somehow connected."

Rin's brow furrowed, his expression continuing to darken. Yoichi could tell he still wasn't impressed by what he was hearing, so he pressed on to his explanation.

"Do you know what a blood moon is, Rin?"

Rin's frown deepened. "A moon that's red."

"And do you know why it's red?"

"Because..." Rin paused and fell into puzzled silence briefly, toying with one of his sleeves. "Well... Something about the moonlight? I don't know."

Yoichi laughed softly. "Four-hundred eighty-seven years, and you really haven't spent all that much time studying modern scientific advances, have you?"

"Shut up. What's your point?" Rin huffed.

Yoichi chuckled. "Do you know what a solar eclipse is, at least?"

"That's when... When the moon blocks out the sun?"

"Yeah! So. My point here is this: I was aware of the blessing I was born with, a blessing that was bestowed on me by the total solar eclipse that was taking place while I was born. It's extremely rare for any person to be born at the exact moment the moon steals the sun from the sky and plunges the world into darkness, so imagine how surprised I was to find that there was actually another child born in this world at the exact moment an eclipse is at its totality... Only that person was born during what's known as a full blood moon, a phenomenon that's borne from a total lunar eclipse."

Yoichi held his two fists out in front of him. "Now imagine my left fist represents the sun, and my right fist represents the moon. Now put one of your fists in between mine."

Rin did so, and stared at their three hands. Yoichi's on either side of his, and his own, slightly larger and definitely more pale, in the middle.

"Now imagine your fist is the earth, the planet we live on, and my two fists are the sun and moon. A lunar eclipse is the product of the earth sitting between the sun and moon, which ultimately obscures the sun's light from the moon and changes the color of the light the moon reflects to the naked eye. Moonlight normally appears silver, but during a lunar eclipse, the purity of its light will often distort into a crimson red, producing what's known as a blood moon. Its appearance is a bit strange... Even frightening to some. Folklore often spoke of nights with full blood moons and people going mad, or blood baths and carnage-fraught battles happening underneath its red light. They would sing songs about the moon's red fury when the earth separated it from the sun, which is the source of its light and hope, but modern understanding of the phenomenon of the blood moon and its folklore seems to show that the blood moon is simply misunderstood." Yoichi smiled a thin, sad smile. "Its red color is only the product of the moon being stripped of its beloved radiance, and its longing for its light to be returned to it."

"Okay..." Rin muttered apprehensively, dropping his hand as Yoichi dropped his two, "I fail to understand the point to any of this."

"Well, I wanted to explain to you that I studied all of this at great length. In some folklore, the sun and moon are said to be lovers who eternally parallel eachother in the sky. The sun emits a radiant light that the moon takes, holds, and cherishes, but the moon doesn't have any of its own light to speak of. Other tales also paint the sun and moon as rivals who are in competition, but have ultimately been forced to share the sky. In either case, there's always some kind of divide placed between them. I don't fully understand it myself, but I do feel like I'm close to finding the answers I need to fit this together..."

"Isagi Yuzu," Rin interjected, "He actually brought this solar eclipse blessing up to me. So he probably knows about all of this, then."

Yoichi nodded solemnly. He'd also recently recalled something he believed to be important.

"I'm quite certain Yuzu knows a lot more than he's let on. Actually... I know he does. There are gaps in my memories that I've began to surmise must be from him altering my memories. For example, I was lead to believe I grew up in an orphanage and never had a family, never even a foster family, but I somehow retain the memory of being able to play the violin from a young age. Memory alteration is a devious inheritance, but it does have its fair share of drawbacks... If I'm right about this then this is one of them. When something is missed, it's very obvious."

Yoichi rocked backward and his back made contact with the wall behind him. Rin could see it on him, and feel it in his vitals, too... Yoichi was exhausted, overwhelmed, and stressed.

Yoichi was surprised when only a few short moments later, Rin shuffled himself across the bed to sit next to him in the same position. When their shoulders touched, he smiled a soft smile and looked over at Rin.

He studied Rin's side profile curiously and carefully. All the numerous pieces of their love story that he'd forgotten now fit together perfectly, and it made him feel so unequivocally fond and warm. It was like a part of him that'd been stolen from him over and over again had finally been returned to its rightful place. There was no other way for him to explain it, but even just looking at Rin right now was so deeply comforting to him. His narrow and icy blue-green eyes, which glowed dimly like the moon at midnight. His ever-perfectly styled hair, sideswept and gently tousled. His smooth, ivory skin, pale and cold yet beautiful in a way that was estranged to most humans.

To his surprise, Rin didn't look back at him, but he felt one of Rin's hands touching the back of his head gently, guiding it down to rest on his closest shoulder.

He sighed, closed his eyes, and smiled wider.

"I love you, Rin..." he whispered, "I love you. I really do. I can see all these memories of ours now, I can feel all these feelings. God, I love you so much it actually hurts. It makes me sick to think how many times I've had these feelings ripped out of my heart. Even if our circumstances aren't perfect right now... I just wanted you to know how much I love you."

Rin's silence persisted, though when Isagi looked up at his face, he was startled by what he thought he saw...

There, dangling in the corner of Rin's eye, was a crystalline embodiment of Rin's longing for his love to be reciprocated:

A tear.

At first Isagi couldn't exactly make sense of what he saw, because he'd never seen Rin cry before. Or at least, not that he could ever remember, so he squinted and leaned over to get a closer look at the tear. Rin, who hadn't moved an inch, suddenly swiped his hand up and swatted Yoichi's face lightly to avert his gaze from him.

"Are you...?"

"No," Rin instantly denied the accusation before it even had a chance to be spoken into existence.

Yoichi could see Rin's embarrassment sitting out plain as day. Rather than press the issue any more than he already had on Rin (who was seemingly already flustered by Yoichi observing his small moment of weakness), he simply opted to relax himself back against Rin's shoulder and enjoy their physical closeness while he could.

"All this talk about the sun and moon made me remember my favorite folk tale from the days of old... Have you heard of the tale of the lunar deity and their beloved, the being of eternal light?"

"It sounds familiar... Maybe I have a long time ago."

Yoichi nodded, lacing his warm fingers between Rin's cold ones. He yawned and hummed a little sound of contentment.

"Maybe I'll tell it to you... Later."

"Are you falling asleep now? Moron. Now is not the time for you to be sleeping."

"I know..." Yoichi sighed through his nose, his lips pursed in a firm, stubborn line. "I know we need to be talking about the coming full moon and all that... But my mind feels all fuzzy and tired... What time is it anyway?"

Rin gazed to the side and over at the closed curtains not far from where they were sitting on the hotel bed. He couldn't exactly tell the hour, but his own circadian rhythm put the time probably somewhere later in the morning.

"Maybe three or four in the morning. You've been resting for a while... Dawn isn't too far away now."

"Damn..." Yoichi sat forward and pushed himself away from the wall, and out of the comfort of his place beside Rin.

The sleep deprivation was seriously starting to get to him. Even earlier in the day in the cave, he'd only slept for a few hours and figured it probably wasn't the most restful of sleeps. That, coupled with the stress on his body from being thrown around by the black dragon, then having his lost memories attack his conscious mind, was all building up and making his fatigue far worse. And to top it all off, he was starting to get hungry again.

Then he had another thought cross his mind.

"Rin, you said you weren't hungry earlier... But when was the last time you actually fed?"

Rin flicked a hand through his bangs, a gesture Yoichi could now see from years with this person as a nervous tic.

"It's been... A while."

"How long is a while? And while we're on the subject, I genuinely need to know... How you're feeling. Y'know, without the mask."

"I don't feel much different, but..." Yoichi could see Rin's nose wrinkle and his eyes narrow into an expression somewhere along the lines of a scowl, "But still. I do still feel a little different, and I fucking hate it. I don't want to deal with this. I hate this blasted curse."

"I get it." Yoichi shifted himself so he was sitting directly in front of Rin. Despite the vampire's clearly avoidant body language and positioning, Yoichi wanted to make it obvious that he wasn't going to deal with an avoidant Rin right now. The mortal man reached a single warm hand out to cradle Rin's cheek gently, and as if his touch was a poultice being applied to an open wound, Rin relaxed into the soft feel of his hand. Rin's lips, which had been pressed together, fell open minutely at the comforting gesture, revealing rows of his teeth. The points of his elongated canines, like two tiny inverted peaks, were visible with his present expression. Yoichi smiled at the sight of them; this was something he now realized he was always deeply fond of, however small a thing it was.

"I hate the blasted curse as much as you do. But I think right now, we're better off being smart, and most importantly, safe. It's safer to keep you well-fed, because we don't know what will happen if your hunger starts to override your better judgement. Who even knows when that will happen."

"I know..." Rin mumbled, almost as a growl, "Fuck, I know. Okay? I just can't help how I..."

"You're scared," Yoichi completed his thought, and as he did, Rin's expression deepened sorrowfully. "I know you must be. I know I am, too. Things are changing. We've been trying to fight together for so long, but we're past the point of being totally safe now. You and I, we're both in danger. Everything is a risk, we just need to be smarter. Risks need to be calculated. Starving yourself because you're scared of losing control isn't a calculated risk and you know it. It's just plain foolishness."

"Tsk..." Rin clicked his tongue and clenched his teeth, throwing an annoyed look over at Yoichi. He hated to admit how this idiot always proved himself to be the furthest thing from one.

"Now drink." He could already see the serious and tired Yoichi was fed up with the conversation, and really, Rin was too. Without protest, he reached around to the back of Yoichi's head and pulled him in closer, tangling his fingers into strands of Yoichi's hair. The hybrid man's hand that had been laying against his cheek fell away and onto his shoulder to steady himself as the vampire pulled him in to bite him.

Even after over 50 years of struggling with his own unraveling emotions, Rin was still hesitant to acknowledge how that inexplicable desire still ached strong in his body alongside his hunger, but denying everything he always felt when he was with Yoichi was a part of existing as who he now was; he could no longer deny how deeply he could feel things even if he still wanted to. Not only did he know he could feel, but he thought he may even be capable of feeling things even deeper than any human could. He was physically cold-blooded, but a blazing inferno burned bright at his core in direct opposition to this. When he let himself let go of his self-hatred for that one sweet moment and bared his fangs, the warm crook of Yoichi's neck felt less like a hiding place from the self-disgust, the taboos, and the foreboding curses, and more like a place of comfort, respite, and a genuine source of solace.

The warmth emanating off of Yoichi's skin was tantalizing him now. He tipped himself further into the exposed skin along Yoichi's neck, and as he did so, he guided Yoichi's body down into the bed beneath him.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

The sound and feel of this living person's vital organ had grown to soothe him so much, that he'd all but forgotten the original meaning behind his attachment to it.

All of his instincts were screaming at him to remember how hungry he'd grown, but all of his emotions wanted to cancel that out. All he could think about as his nose and mouth inched against the smoothness of Yoichi's neck was that he was hungry, but his heart told him that he only wanted to be close to the one he loved.

The curse was itching incessantly in the back of his mind, slowing creeping up on him, curling its infernal fingers steadily around him like a sickness, but he was strong. He would not obey it. He would not let himself succumb to this sickness. Not yet.

What he truly still craved was not satiation of hunger, but a deeper sort of satisfaction that had slowly been carving its way deeper into his subconscious over the past 74 years, not allowing him to forget about it no matter how hard he'd always tried to. As he nuzzled his face up against Yoichi's neck, he could hear his pulse beginning to hammer faster and harder behind his ribcage. Yoichi's breaths became shallower and his body temperature began to rise, as it normally did when they did this. Rin's cold fingers wrapped around the warmth of Yoichi's wrists, holding them firmly yet lovingly, enjoying the twin cadences of the pulses he could feel within them.

It didn't matter where he chose to bite anymore because Yoichi wouldn't be forgetting about it this time, so he bared his fangs and let them sink into his favorite spot: right next to Yoichi's carotid artery. Yoichi's breath caught and hung precariously in that moment as it always did before he sighed and relaxed. Despite Rin's perilous bite placement, Yoichi always somehow knew to sit deathly still to avoid nicking his artery, and Rin's keen senses and jaw control harnessed an astounding level of precision and accuracy to make sure that would never happen. When he felt the hot rush of blood begin to coat his tongue, he flinched and backed his face out of it. Blood and drool dribbled onto the pillow beside Yoichi's head as they looked at eachother.

"Something's different," Rin said to him, wiping the blood from his lips. Yoichi smirked at him smugly. "You taste different."

"Do I? And does that surprise you?" Yoichi asked evenly, his small smile spreading even wider into a grin.

"It just caught me off guard," Rin defended himself.

"You told me yourself, not long ago. You thought I always tasted good because I was developing feelings for you. Wouldn't it then make sense for me to taste even better when my feelings are allowed to fully bloom?"

Rin grunted his begrudging agreement once. Yoichi was probably right, but this didn't help the unfolding issues that they would be facing in the future. He decided in that moment to let his worries go and leaned back into his feeding.

"Would you pull my hair?" Yoichi asked, and once again Rin had to pause what he was doing, this time because he was startled by such an off-beat request.

The blood was pretty well all over the pillowcase now. It continued to ooze from the neck wound, though Yoichi couldn't have looked more unbothered by this.

"Pull your hair?" Rin repeated, confused.

"Purely for scientific purposes, of course."

Rin didn't necessarily understand the purpose behind such a request, but he did as Yoichi had asked of him anyways. When he nudged back into the blood flowing from Yoichi's neck, he tugged back on locks of his midnight blue hair. The man sighed a gritty, lavish breath from the back of his throat and let out a small chuckle as his head was dug back into the pillow.

"Freak," Rin muttered, half-way petulantly, pressing his lips back into Yoichi's neck and continuing to drink.

"Right back at you," Yoichi replied raspily, with both a satisfied smirk and a deep red blush decorating his face. Rin couldn't see any of that, but he could still feel Yoichi's odd enjoyment presenting itself in his other vital signs.

*

Rin felt a lot better after drinking his fill. Much less on edge and his thoughts far clearer. It was becoming quite apparent and very quickly that the curse was affecting him a lot more than he'd realized, because even after taking more than he usually would choose to, his hunger still lingered more than it normally would.

As the dawn passed them by and the day began to unfold, Yoichi took an hour long nap, grabbed himself something to eat (not without avoiding some confused looks from people about the bandage on his neck), before the two settled themselves back down into the hotel room to work away at the impending issue of the full moon.

They both searched Yoichi's notes as thoroughly as they could for anything that could be of help. Daily research notes, notes on Rin's skills as a violinist, notes on the full moon, notes on vampires in general. They spent hours upon hours pouring over things desperately, but as the day progressed to the early afternoon, late afternoon, and early evening, nothing seemed to be standing out in a way that would help them.

"In one of my earlier passages of notes, I wrote something about needing to study the sound of your violin because I believed it was somehow important. Important to you in another way other than just curse supression. The notes are too vague, though. They don't indicate how I believed it's important or in what way I need to study it. I also wrote in here, basically just as an aside, that I needed to read the full tale of the lunar deity and the being of eternal light, that folk tale I told you I love earlier... I even underlined it for added emphasis... But I haven't been able to find a full copy of the story anywhere. None of this is helpful at all right now, though... Damnit!"

Yoichi shut the notebook he'd been reading frustratedly. He was feeling exhausted and hopelessly at his wit's end with the entire situation.

"This is just leaving me with questions. More fucking questions. No answers. More than all this, though... Many dead ends seem to point toward one thing. One person as an answer. The person who dedicated years of their life to studying vampires and the arcane, the one who possessed a natural genius-level prowess with anything magical in nature, who was intelligent and known by all as the forerunner in advances regarding magic, curses and blessings, vampires, and all things arcane... None other than Rukia Kazuki."

"You think she might have known things? But her time was... What, maybe two-hundred years ago? Maybe even more than that? At least two pure-blooded human lifetimes have passed since then... If she's not around, then...?"

"Yuzu." Yoichi finished the thought. His eyes, though tired, were narrowed into two determined slits that were swimming shards of ocean and blue flame. "I need to find Yuzu. That's my next stop, I think. The family manor of the Isagi family."

Yoichi heard Rin standing and looked over at him. The expression he wore was difficult to read, but it did somehow make him feel a bit sad.

Rin toyed with his sleeve for a moment, the silence hanging between them suddenly feeling thick with tension. He then flipped a hand through his bangs and turned to face away from Yoichi.

"We've been going through your notes for hours and we haven't found anything," Rin said quietly. Though his tone of voice sounded completely composed, something about it sent Yoichi's heart sinking deeper into his chest.

"I'm sure we'll find something," Yoichi replied, "There has to be something in here that can help you. If we just—"

"No," Rin interrupted him, "You know there isn't, idiot. This is a waste of time."

"How is it a waste of time? Maybe we'll find something in here that will genuinely help you. You've been struggling with this curse for so long, struggling on your own... I just want to help you."

"You can't help me," Rin added calmly and curtly, though his voice cracked at the very end of the statement, "No one can. There won't be anything in your notes, nothing in your books or any other book you find, because people don't just study me. Nobody has ever been dumb enough to let themself get close to me. Not until..."

"Not until me," Yoichi finished his sentence, "Not until I came along. Maybe everyone else is scared of you, maybe no one else in this world has ever even tried to understand you, but I have. I understand you better than anyone else, because..."

Now, Yoichi's voice was cracking too. He couldn't help how Rin's feelings of hopelessness were starting to make him feel a bit hopeless, too.

"Because I love you. I understand you, I want to understand you better because I love you. Only I can love you like this. Part of this vow we've taken means I need to understand all of you. Even this curse you bear. You've thought for all this time that you'd have to bear it alone, but I promise you, now and always, that you will never have to be alone again. Let me try and help you."

"How?" Rin asked, his tone coming off a bit more guarded. Maybe even a bit venomous.

Yoichi didn't flinch at the small outburst, though. He only got to his feet and walked across the room slowly.

"You were probably right, we most likely won't find anything in my notes about how to help you on this full moon. But if I study you, I'm almost certain I'll be able to help you in the future."

"Don't be ridiculous," Rin patronized him, "You have a habit of overestimating your own abilities. You know as well as I do..."

Only Yoichi, who was born with that fabled blessing, has the power to banish both of your curses from your essence, Itoshi.

Isagi Yuzu's words suddenly cut into Rin's mind, and he found himself feeling stupid for doubting Yoichi. It was in that very moment that he profiled this doubt of his as a falsely labelled doubt in Yoichi's abilities... It was actually a reaction he was having.

A reaction to the root of his fear.

Rin knew deep down in his heart, the determined Yoichi Isagi was the only person in the world who could save him, but in his mind, if Yoichi was put in harm's way in the pursuit of understanding him better, then he wanted no part in it at all.

"I know better than you do," Rin heard. He couldn't help how the drastically changed tone of Yoichi's voice made him look back.

"Only I can help you."

When their eyes met, Rin's heart was instantly shattered. His prior conviction was thrown into oblivion when he saw how he'd made Yoichi cry.

It wasn't only a tear or two. Yoichi's face was completely glazed with tears. He'd clearly been crying for a little bit now, though Rin had either been too distracted to notice or he'd been suppressing the sound of his crying, or both. His eyes were even puffier and more red than they had been before, because of the fatigue.

Yoichi's tears glittered like rain drops and dying stars, held against the midnight solstice of the universes that were contained within his eyes, like a rainfall in the night's darkest hour. Rin's heart could never forget how he never failed to make Yoichi sad.

"For tonight, I'll do what I've always done in the past. I'll find a secluded place far from human civilization and hope I wake up tomorrow without the taste of human blood in my mouth."

Yoichi's face had become a graveyard for his hope, now only showing pale tear-soaked cheeks and swollen eyes, which were filled with a desolation contrasting the small hope he still held, beyond reason, for a future where he no longer had the need to cry.

"I'm scared..." Yoichi whispered, his lips hanging open the slightest bit, his tongue teasing the air with words unspoken, "I'm scared, Rin. I don't want to be alone. You've been with me for 74 years... You're all I have left in this world. What do I do if...? If I... If you...?"

Yoichi's clear desperation dashed what was left of Rin's heart into dust, sending it swirling into the abyss.

But still. He'd long since decided he'd do absolutely everything in his power to protect Yoichi, no matter what the cost was. Even if the cost was high.

Rin had never cried much, but seeing Yoichi's raw emotions laying bare like this made him want to cry. He felt like ripping his own heart out may have been a less painful option than seeing Yoichi like this. The warm space of the hotel room, which had felt like a place of comfort earlier in the day for them, now felt as gloomy as a storm-clouded sky.

Rin reached one hand out and touched Yoichi's chin softly, with as much love and care he was capable of.

"Quit crying," he said softly, with his usual monotone laced with unfamiliar melancholy, "You have nothing to be afraid of. Remember what you said to me in the cave? That we're a team? Would you forget your own words so easily? We are a team, idiot. We always have been and we always will be no matter what. But right now, what I need you to do is wait here. Wait until the night is over and I'll come back to you in the morning." He took note of the ever-flowing river of tears continuing to fall from Yoichi's eyes, and with one hand he gently brushed them from his beloved's under-eyes.

"Think about your favorite story while I'm gone. The one with the lunar deity and the being of light."

Yoichi smiled faintly. "I... Don't remember much about the story." He sniffled a little between his thoughts. "I do remember the two beings, despite not speaking a common language, being so determined to love eachother that they learned to communicate in other ways that don't require speech. And they were able to understand eachother effortlessly despite being so incomparably different. To be honest, they kind of... Well... Maybe it sounds stupid to say, but they sort of remind me of us a little bit."

"Hm," Rin hummed, the sound low from the back of his throat, "And does this story have a happy ending?"

"The story is quite sad, but in the end, the lunar deity, despite being misunderstood and feared by most others for a good part of the story, was the one who ended up saving the being they loved from the darkness. The ending is quite lovely."

As he told Rin about his favorite story, he couldn't help how he recalled his conversation with the mist walker. The creature had said that there was some kind of darkness that exists within him, and that he and Rin are bound together... Somehow cursed by destiny. He figured it was probably a coincidence, though, that he had found this small similarity to his favorite folk tale; his mind was just searching desperately to find parallels in places where they didn't exist.

"Good," Rin said, "Then remember that story. Think of it right now, hold it close to your heart until I come back. And remember this: for as long as your heart beats in your chest, I'll always be here to protect it."

Yoichi felt Rin's hand fall away. In an instant, an immense sadness completely overtook him. Like a torrent of ice rain drenching him from head-to-toe, he felt himself become chilled to the bone, ire soaking deeper into his soul with a longing that made him feel colder than he ever had when Rin had touched him.

Rin was halfway turned away, but Yoichi dashed after him impulsively. He threw himself at Rin without thinking, and as if eternity was coming to an end in this one delicate moment, he kissed Rin with all the power of the swell of a tsunami, and all the longing that the sun held for the moon in the twilight of the dawn sky.

He could feel it in the measured pressure of Rin's lips and each stroke Rin's hands made along his waist, even if Rin always believed himself to be dead inside, Yoichi knew all along that he never truly was.

Rin was alive in every way possible, save for his heart, which had not uttered a single beat since the curse had killed it all those long years ago.

They pulled apart, Yoichi all plump lips, messy hair, and swollen eyes. Though he may have been imagining it, Rin thought he saw the faintest pulse of light flash across the surface of Yoichi's skin, almost as if there was some kind of radiance contained within his body, calling back to him, whispering for him to stay by his lover's side. Rin brushed it off as his mind playing tricks on him.

When Rin turned away from him again, Yoichi's lips began to tremble as he fought off the tears. Despite what Rin had told him to do, his immediate thought was to do the opposite.

He felt he had no choice but to follow Rin, just like Rin had followed him to Redville. As Rin readied himself to leave, Yoichi glanced down at the open notebook he'd been pouring himself over a few minutes prior. The note he read simply said:

VIOLIN

Chapter Text

Rin's intention to leave was set in stone.

The two had already spoken about this night at great length... The night of the full moon. The first full moon Rin would spend without his violin in a very long time. It would seem that, despite Yoichi's pigheaded insistence, there was no reasoning with him. Despite all the questions Yoichi had—questions he believed could be answered if he was given a chance to follow Rin and study his full moon transformation—Rin remained in the stance that the risk of Yoichi following him vastly outweighed any potential gain.

After what was supposed to be their final goodbye, and Rin threw a cloak he'd brought with him over his body to shelter his skin from the remaining rays of evening sunlight that would no doubt threaten him outside, Yoichi was left feeling hopeless. There was one last thing Yoichi was curious about though, before Rin left him for the night. It had to do with Isagi Yuzu's suspected alteration of his memories. In order to test his theory, there was one thing he deduced that would cancel out Isagi Yuzu's use of his vampiric inheritance.

"Rin," Yoichi said firmly, "I need you to use your inheritance on me."

Rin glanced over his shoulder at him from underneath the rim of his cloak's hood, seemingly confused by the request.

"What reason would you have for wanting me to do that?"

"Do you remember our discussion about Isagi Yuzu altering my memories that we had earlier? Well if that's true and he really did that, then wouldn't your inheritance null magic cancel out his? All vampiric inheritances passed down in the bloodlines of the greater houses, from what I understand, are magical in nature."

"Yes... You're correct, it should work against Yuzu's memory alteration," Rin nodded his agreement, "It's been quite a long time since I've used it. It can only be used once per lunar cycle. Let me see, now..."

Rin flexed his right hand and balled it into a fist a few times, as if he was warming it up for something. He then turned and stepped over, making his way so he was standing right in front of Yoichi. He raised his right hand, and with his thumb, pointer, and middle fingers all arranged in a hand-gun shape, placed the tip of the gun against Yoichi's chest.

Yoichi's breath caught in his lungs as Rin spoke, with power and conviction, the single phrase "Null magic." A second passed. Then two, then three... Moments later and Rin scowled down at his hand gun, unimpressed.

"Did you do it wrong?" Yoichi asked, "Why did nothing happen? I don't feel different. Unless maybe we were wrong about Yuzu..."

"Hm..." Rin glared down at his hand, turning it palm-up and opening and shutting his fingers, "No... Even if there isn't any magic for it to cancel out, it would still cast. Something's not right..."

Rin tried what he'd just done two more times, but he was left with the same disappointing result. No magic channeled, nothing seemed to be casting. Nothing.

"I don't understand..." Rin mumbled, "It should be doing something. That does make me worry... If it's not working... Well, it's possible for a vampire to give away their inheritance. Maybe this also has something to do with Yuzu's memory alteration. Right now, though, we don't have the time to think about this."

"Alright..." Yoichi mumbled, voice trailing off faintly in those tense moments. He reached his left hand up and wrapped his fingers around the barrel of Rin's finger gun affectionately.

It's not working... Why? This doesn't sit right with me. Just another thing I'll have to investigate myself, I suppose...

Yoichi, startled, jumped a little because he'd been so lost in thought that he didn't notice Rin reaching his hand up to pat him on top of the head. Rin brushed his hand side-to-side through his hair and pinched his little cowlick on the crown of his head. Despite how stressful this whole past few days had been for them, Yoichi still couldn't help but smile anyways.

"I'll see you in the morning," Rin said, with so much sureness, so much conviction, that Yoichi felt all that strength in Rin's heart leeching into his as well.

"Yeah... See you in the morning..." he replied quietly.

It's not like he didn't have faith in Rin's judgement... Rin is a very discerning person and had always been great at making level-headed judgement calls. But the idea of Rin running off into the night by himself right now made him feel deeply sad.

As Rin made to leave, Yoichi said after him: "Hey. Leave your cell phone here with me."

The vampire turned halfway back. His ice-hued gaze lingered, pensively, longingly, on the sight of Yoichi's face. Listening to his heartbeat and the sound of his breathing... Regarding him with the love that, if he had to, would be carried with him to the ends of the very Earth they lived on.

Rin relinquished his cell phone to Yoichi, and as he made to leave, turned back in the doorway one last time. Their eyes met, and the world around them felt as though it had suddenly disappeared. When they looked at eachother like this, it felt like it was only the two of them. Their love, loyalty, and fondness for eachother was truly unmatched; yet there was nothing that could prepare them for the truth... For what was to come in their near future.

Their love would soon be put to the ultimate test.

Chapter Text

With the full moon fast approaching and Rin now off on his own, Yoichi was starting to feel the panic sink in.

Even if he still wanted to have strong faith in his purpose, he was also starting to feel afraid. This was a night where a side to Rin that he had never known of before would be shown to him. And even if he'd promised Rin he'd wait the night away in safety, he did not intend to live up to that promise.

I'm sorry, Rin. I know this is dangerous, but I have to do this... I have to do what no one else has ever done before and study you. If I can't do this, then I can't fully help you.

In fact, I'm quite certain that only I can do this for you.

After a couple of minutes of thinking things through in silence, Yoichi whipped the thing Rin had called a cell phone open. He'd seen these things around but had yet to get one himself, due to all of his time being monopolized by his studies of curses and vampires.

When he found Reo's number in the phone, he placed a call out to his friend and sat patiently while the device rang in his lap. After a few tones, Reo seemed to picked up the call.

"Hello? Rin?"

Yoichi could hear the sound of Reo's voice coming from the speaker, but due to the fact that he had never used a phone before, he awkwardly picked it up and didn't know where to place it on his head.

"Hey, are you there?" he heard Reo ask again.

"I'm here," he replied, but was holding it way too far away from his head so his response sounded very hushed on Reo's end.

"Isagi? Is that you? I can barely hear you."

"O-Oh... Really? Sorry, I'm not sure how to use this thing..."

"Put it right up against the side of your head!"

Yoichi obeyed Reo's order. "How's this?" he then asked.

"Perfect! I can hear you. Man am I glad to hear your voice, Isagi. I was worried when you left without even saying goodbye to me. Geez, what's with that anyways?"

"Yeah... I'm sorry, Reo. I did what I had to do. It was really difficult, but I don't regret it."

"Hm... Alright then." He sighed and chuckled. "I suppose I'll forgive you since you acted out of necessity. So why do you have Rin's phone, and why're you calling me?"

"This is selfish of me to do, but I was sort of panicking right now. I'm by myself and Rin left his phone with me. It's going to be dark soon, and the full moon is tonight... Apparently Rin had another curse he wasn't honest with me about that turns him into some sort of beast of destruction when the moon is full. But there's something else, too. If you've heard of a vampiric inheritance, an innate magical ability that's passed down vampire bloodlines and is specific to each of the greater houses..." Reo interjected a mhmm to show that he had understood and heard of it, "Well, you may also know that it can be given away by a vampire willingly. And Rin's seems to be missing."

"Transformation...? Hmm... Okay. Before he left here he was asking about some blessings and curses I've never heard of before. Unfortunately, I don't really know anything about all that that you wouldn't already know yourself. I was sort of wondering, though, why Rin even went after you in the first place. Isn't that dangerous?"

"Well, yeah. But it was either he come and help me, or sit around waiting for me to end the curse by myself."

"Yeah, but in leaving to chase you like that he put you in more of harm's way. It just doesn't seem like something that he'd do, y'know?"

"Well... I guess you do have a point."

"To be honest, I had my suspicions about why that might be. I know this isn't what you want to hear right now, Isagi, but I really think you need to be careful around him now. I think the curse is affecting him way more than he's letting on."

Yoichi frowned into the cell phone's mouthpiece. "So you think he's hungry but he's trying to hide it? Or maybe, like, trying to fight it or something?"

"I think so. I mean, that could be the beginning of him starting to change. Minor irrationality. Maybe Rin himself isn't even aware of what's going on yet."

"Yeah... You may have a point. Thanks Reo. I wanted to pick your brain about one other thing while I have you."

"And what's that?"

"I need to find him. He's headed out into the forest and I don't know how I'm going to do that."

"Hm... What about a spell? Like some kind of tracking spell?"

"I don't really know one. Actually I sort of do, but It's only a blood tracking spell, and, well, vampires don't have any... Blood..."

Right as the thought had formed into words on his tongue, he reached up and touched the dressing he'd placed on his neck not long earlier.

"Actually... I think I can make do. Thanks again. I'll call you as soon as I can."

"Sounds good. And Isagi, be careful out there, you hear me?"

"Yeah yeah," he chuckled, "Got it. Talk to you later."

Isagi didn’t know how to end the phone call, but thankfully for him Reo did it for him. When the line on the other end went dead, he closed the device and placed it down onto his bed.

A minor blood tracking curse isn't that hard to do. Since Rin's body is probably still metabolizing my blood, I can track my own blood in his system to find him. This should work. Now, in order to cast it I just need to gather a couple small things. I should be able to get them from the store... Yeah. I have to do this.

I'm coming for you, Blood Moon Berserker.

*

The sun had now completely departed from its place in the sky. As Yoichi slowly made his way through the forest, which was becoming more dense with each step he took, the object he'd selected as his compass to point him in the direction the blood tracking spell was taking him hovered just above his palm.

His eyesight being sharp wasn't enough to have him actually see in the dark, so he brought along a lantern for good measure. Based on the way his tracking compass was beginning to throb faster and faster, he believed it was indicating that he was starting to get close to Rin.

This situation he was about to place himself in was undoubtedly a dangerous one. But the berserk state of Rin, even if unpredictable and threatening, may potentially lead to him getting more of the answers he needed.

Now the moon is out and full, which means when I find him he'll most likely be transformed. I have to keep myself calm in order to fully assess his berserk state.

Yoichi gazed up at the full moon, a melancholic feeling beginning to blossom into an ice-cold sensation within his heart. The unyielding abyss of this night sky, including the moon, are things he'd always associated with the comfort and safety in being at Rin's side. They had stargazed together countless times, and each and every time Yoichi had looked up at the night sky curiously without any memory of what Rin had taught him before, the vampire had patiently pointed all of his favorite stars and constellations to him all over again with the patience of a saint.

As he continued to stare up at the cloudless darkness above him, admiring every silvery dot of every single star, he heard branches cracking in a relatively close proximity to him.

He hastily put out the flame that was burning in his lamp so as not to be seen, searching the thick darkness around where he'd heard the branches crack. He could tell there was someone there but it was too dark to fully see them. Exposing himself for even a single moment to the berserk Rin would put him immediately into harm's way, so he silently pushed through the forest in pursuit of the crackling sounds of branches (and trees, too, apparently) that he could hear, walking carefully and as silently as possible.

To no real surprise, Rin was moving a lot faster than he was, so once he found himself directly on Rin's trail, he followed the path in the forest that Rin was making as he moved. Bark, branches, and trees along the path were all being charred by the energy that was pulsing around him, it would seem.

After about thirty minutes in pursuit of Rin, he reached the edge of the forest line which broke out into a vast meadow, and that was when Rin's form was finally shown to him in full view. What he saw when his eyes first fell upon the shadowy figure of the Blood Moon Berserker was mind-boggling, yet he absolutely could not bring himself to look away.

Rin was staggering in the precise direction of the full moon, which hung ethereally in the sky like a large silver coin. Yoichi had to stand completely still and watch him for a few painstaking moments as he tried to make some sort of sense out of his appearance.

His figure was completely engulfed by whatever it was that possessed him on the full moon... Dark magic, evil energy, or whatever it was. It formed a cowl of this odd energy over him, making him look like a true to life monster.

The cursed aura surrounding him appeared, from a distance, like a dense black fog with small veins of red electricity jolting through it. The aura wasn't easy for him to make out at this distance, but it was still relatively easy to tell that it was unsettling and unnatural.

Just looking at him feels... Strange. As if he's stealing the very light out of my eyes or something. But that doesn't make any sense, does it?

Feeling brave, Yoichi began to step toward Rin and close the distance. He wanted to see this cursed being fully to try and make sense of what he thought was going on.

If Rin has no memory of his transformations, then he wouldn't remember doing what he's doing. Which is why I have to be the one to do this. And the closer I get to him, the more this is starting to make a little more sense.

It looks like... That evil aura around him is... Suctioning? The light of the full moon. But I don't understand what this means. Why? Why is he chasing the moon? Why is the curse trying to steal the moonlight?

Closer... I need to get closer...

Since they weren't in the forest any longer, he picked up his pace to try and close the distance faster. As the distance between them started to narrow, Yoichi could, indeed, see clearly that the light of the moon appeared to be siphoning directly into the shroud of black energy around Rin in the form of pale wisps.

There's something nobody understands about the curse of the blood moon. There has to be something missing here. If only Rin's inheritance had worked on me, then maybe something I knew, something in my altered memories, would be able to help here.

What, exactly, would even make him go berserk? Is it a trance of some sort? Is he in pain? Is he completely possessed or something? I don't know... Damnit, I don't know!

I need to get closer. I need more information!

He continued to walk closer to Rin, advancing himself toward the beastly vampire as he continued to study Rin's bizarre appearance. That's when he suddenly had an epiphany about something.

Earlier when I'd explained what a blood moon is to Rin, I'd told him that the blood moon is misunderstood. So perhaps, then, this curse you possess is also misunderstood just like the phenomenon you were born under?

People are terrified of you... They hide from you because they fear death, but what if the nature of your destruction magic isn't what we think it is? What if it's actually something else? Something that we've all misunderstood since everyone's been too scared to even try understanding it?

If anyone on this planet can understand you... It's me.

I was born beneath the solar eclipse. I'm then one who was destined to carry the blessing of divine radiance. This isn't just a mere coincidence.

"... Rin!" Yoichi called out to him, knowing full well that he could be wrong about this.

The curse-bearing creature halted dead in his tracks and slowly, menacingly began to turn around. When Yoichi saw Rin's face, a nervous smile formed on his lips despite the fear that immediately grabbed hold of him.

Rin's eyes were completely clouded over, his expression entirely polluted by madness. Not a single hint of recognition flickered into his eyes when he gazed upon Yoichi. His tongue was drooping from between his lips and he was drooling like some savage. And yet...

He isn't coming to attack me...?

I don't understand. Aren't you supposed to be a berserker in this state? He's just staring at me. Not moving at all. Yet supposedly when you're berserk you'll tear anyone's neck open without hesitation?

So... Is it really what I think it is? That you're completely misunderstood in this form?

Let me get closer. Closer. Closer. Let me try and understand you. Only I can do this.

Rin remained deathly still and facing Yoichi while he finally finished his approach.

"You're drooling," Yoichi said to him cheekily, and as if on impulse one of Rin's hands flexed into tension like a bear retracting its claws.

"So if you're berserk right now, and would attack anyone on sight... Why not me? Do you recognize me? It doesn't seem possible that you recognize me, but maybe it has to do with the blessing of the solar eclipse? I still don't know enough about the blessing, and I don't have access to those memories because of Yuzu."

Yoichi stared back at the blank gaze that was seemingly directed at him, rampant with neither Rin's wrath nor his sadness. It was simply a void filled with nothingness.

"And how does the violin play into all of this? I wish I had one with me right now so I could see how you'd react to it. So I suppose then... The Eternal Curse of the Night is my greatest threat right now, because as you are now you don't seem interested in killing me. Next month... Maybe, if that curse hasn't overtaken you completely, then I can try playing the violin for you under the full moon. Would you like that?"

The rabid creature would have no way of knowing what Yoichi was saying, and it simply continued to stare at him. Rin's eyes, which glowed red with dark magic when he's possessed, seemed to be looking at Yoichi, and yet also somehow not.

"I think I'm just talking my nerves out now, but I don't want you to be alone even if you don't recognize me. I wonder... What would happen if I touched you right now?"

Yoichi reached out for Rin, his hand passing through the destroyer's intimidating aura without an issue. When he did touch Rin, he felt a flash of heat coarse through his body, along with an accompanying flash of light flicker off his skin. Unlike his seemingly apathetic demeanor toward Yoichi speaking to him, this actually caused the berserk Rin to give some sort of reaction. It was faint, yet undoubtedly there. A small reaction to Yoichi's touch.

"Who knows what I even am. Maybe I don't even look like me to you right now. Well if you're just gonna stand there like that, I'm going to study you as you are. I hope you don't mind."

The misunderstood nature of the blood moon, and the lunar eclipse itself. If the fables say that a lunar eclipse encompasses the yearning of what's believed to be the loneliest celestial body in existence, the moon, then could that mean Rin is connected to the moon itself?

Wait... Wait a second.

That story I told him about earlier, the one about the lunar deity. What was their name again? Damnit, I still don't remember... But I do remember some kind of curse mentioned in there. The name... What was the name?

Damnit... That could potentially be helpful, but I can't recall the name of that curse right now.

"I'm just gonna stay here and study you, I hope you don't mind. It's a good thing you aren't hungry. I'd probably be dead right now if you were."

I'll stay here with you... Rin. Beneath this full moon, with the stars as a witness I'll vow this. Even if you think you're better off alone because of what you are, I won't let you be. I'll never abandon you when you need me.

I'll never stop loving you.

●

Rin's perspective of the world when he goes into what's seemingly a berserk state to an outsider isn't something anyone would easily be able to understand.

This is because he possesses the curse of the blood moon, which represents the yearning of the very moon itself while its moonlight has been ripped from its heart. An affliction known as Silas's curse.

*

When the light of the following morning broke through from between the twining tree branches, Rin looked around in confusion as it seemed like he was sitting in an ideally shady place.

"Good morning," Rin heard, and to his great surprise, confusion, and relief, Yoichi was looking down on him, completely unscathed.

"Hmm...?" He rubbed his forehead drearily. "You... What? How?"

"I followed you," Yoichi responded simply with a cheeky little smirk.

Rin groaned in aggravation as he pushed himself up to sit upright. "Why the hell would you do that?" he growled, "That's dangerous... And..."

Thud. Thud. Thud.

"Dangerous and?"

"Hngghh... My head is killing me..." Thud. Thud. Thud. "And... Fuck, that sound. What's that...?"

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Oh... Oh.

Oh. No.

"You need to leave," Rin snarled at him, "Right now."

Yoichi's smile began to drop. "Leave? No, I'm not—"

"Listen. I can barely fucking concentrate on what you're saying, all I can hear is... No, no..." Rin whimpered and began to curl himself into a ball, appearing smaller and weaker than Yoichi had ever seen him look.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

"God. It's like... I barely even recognize you. Your pulse... It's so loud, my ears are ringing, my fucking head hurts..."

Rin looked up at Yoichi, his eyes wide with sadness. Just seeing him look like this made Yoichi want to cry. He looked like he was in pain.

"It's the curse..." Yoichi whispered, "The curse is starting to take over now... Isn't it?"

"I'm sorry..." Rin mumbled, the words barely choking out of his throat excruciatingly. "I... I thought I'd be fine. I believed I could fight it with willpower, until the very end, but... It's starting... The full moon transformation must've accelerated it somehow."

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Rin felt Yoichi cupping his head into his hands and turning his face upward, so they were looking eachother dead in their eyes. The close proximity made him scowl at how painfully on edge all of his senses were right now, and he could feel his fangs lengthening in his mouth.

—Thud. Thud. Thud.—

"I love you, Rin. I love you. And I swear to you, no matter what, that I'm going to free you from this curse."

—Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.—

"Both your curses."

—Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud—

And in the heat of the moment, Rin felt himself being pulled into a kiss. Something he could never have fathomed he ever would've enjoyed, but this one thing made him relax and feel like himself again. This momentary respite, though fleeting, gave him a small bit of hope that maybe someday he wouldn't only need to long for a future where he may be able to relax at the side of the person he loved with his whole heart.

The smell of Yoichi's sweat was acrid and intoxicating in his nostrils, the taste of saliva sweet and the perfect distraction from all of his problems. For the moment, anyways, he found himself able to ignore the dizzyingly loud cadence of Yoichi's pulse thumping in his chest.

When their kiss was through, Yoichi stood and slowly started stepping away.

"See you again soon, I hope," Yoichi smiled an uncertain and sad smile down at Rin.

Yoichi kept walking backwards away, the faint smile he wore overtaken with a deep sorrow. "Who am I kidding. Of course I'll see you again soon, my beloved."

Rin didn't want to say goodbye, because goodbyes feel like farewells, and he hoped he never had to say farewell to the only thing in the world he'd ever truly loved.

Yoichi.

Your pulse is so loud, so disgustingly distracting, yet now that it's slowly getting more and more quiet while you walk away, I feel terrified. I'm scared. I'm so scared of being alone... When will I get to see you again?

I'm cold. I'm so cold it hurts. Why am I like this? I want to be warm again... You're so warm... I want you. I want you so badly but I can't be with you right now.

Is this really it? Am I going to slowly descend into madness? Is hunger going to slowly start to take over my mind?

I guess... If that's the case, I'm better off dead.

Now that Rin's hunger had started to form into a dark pit of desperation in his stomach, the countdown began to tick until he completely lost his mind or, in essence, withered away into nothingness.

Eternal suffering... Eternal suffering... Eternal suffering...

"Yoichi..." he whispered, his voice raspy with fear, "I'm scared..."

Yoichi was already gone from his presence. With tears pouring from his eyes, he sobbed in despair as he ran in the direction of Redville as fast as he could.

His next stop: his ancestral home, the manor of the great vampiric house Isagi.

●

You who are cursed by vampirism shall dread most of all to fall in love with a human, for this is the most despicable fate for one like you. Let this curse bring you unending suffering, for you shall never know the warmth of human love again. You who are cursed by the night, spend the rest of your countless days lurking in the darkness alone, lest you suffer a fate far worse than only eternal loneliness.

*

Lunar year 3541, calendar day 70 (4 months before Yoichi Isagi and Itoshi Rin's supposed "first meeting" in Duskvale).

Itoshi Rin apprehended a stranger. After tackling the man to the ground and threatening to eat his heart while it still beat inside of his chest, the man had begged:

"Wait!"

The blue eyes, familiar to house Isagi, looked up at Rin. The color of the sky at dusk, they were filled with a burning blue determination Rin was not familiar with in this person's pure-blooded vampire ancestor.

"I came here to talk to you. It has to be you, Itoshi Rin. I wanted to ask you about your music, this one specific violin I've been searching for, and also... I wanted to offer you the terms of a blood pact that I believe would benefit you greatly."

Rin cocked his head and silently appraised this odd man, his interest piqued.

Chapter Text

Humans and vampires don't cross paths with eachother. That's just the rule everyone knows to abide their lives by because of the danger posed by the curse. However, when they're forced to cohabitate common spaces, a vampire will often take towns or neighborhoods under their dominion. Much like having to share territory with wild animals if you live out in the woods, humans may occupy such a living space harmoniously with said wild animals if they keep to themselves. But these animals, especially apex predators, are the ones who truly rule in those domains, not the humans. It's no different for humans and vampires.

Itoshi Rin had resided in Duskvale for only a short span of time in his unfortunately long life. He always tended to move around a lot, but the small town's peaceful charm ended up being surprisingly alluring to him. He stayed for much longer than he normally would choose to in any place he would normally live. After a few years of living in Duskvale, his territorial instincts had started to kick in. This town, which had only been a dilapidated little place when he'd arrived, began to thrum with more and more people who would flock in from near and far to attend his violin shows knowing he was there every week.

Because human-vampire relations were a strict taboo due to the curse, humans always avoided him. His interactions with the people of Duskvale were kept to a bare minimum outside of paying someone once every couple of weeks to drink their blood to keep himself fed, and, of course, interactions with the Duskvale theater's owner. It was a comfortable way of living for him for a little while, and although Rin had no intention of staying in this place forever, he did somehow grow comfortable staying there for the time being and he let himself become immersed in the cozy familiarity of the place.

When a town falls under a vampire's dominion, that vampire will very quickly become the central presence in said town. As such, people were always very weary of Rin even if he always kept to himself. People would walk to the other side of the street if they saw him outside. Mothers would hug their babies closer to their breast at the sight of him in passing. And one thing people definitely, always knew to avoid doing around a vampire to avoid aggravating them: cooking with, growing, or consuming garlic.

Vampires have such a strong aversion to the pungent smell of garlic that it can seriously flare up their tempers. They can smell it on people walking around in streets, and it’s especially strong to their sense of smell when it's used in cooking. And no matter what, this smell always, always, makes them angry without fail.

In the few short years Rin had spent in Duskvale, garlic had effectively been abolished so as to avoid aggravating Rin's already notoriously short temper. It'd been a very long time since the smell of garlic had unexpectedly assaulted his olfactory receptors, so when this one night in particular he smelled it when he was walking home from his violin show, it had instantly pissed him off. Because of how inexorably strong and difficult to ignore the odor of garlic is for vampires, as soon as that scent made its way into his nostrils, he abandoned the serenity of his otherwise peaceful evening to trace the source of the smell. It didn't take very long before he turned down a dark alley and found himself following behind someone. The obvious culprit.

In one impossibly fast motion, he disregarded his violin case and lunged at the garlic person, tackling them so they were thrown face-first onto the ground in front of them. He didn’t waste a single beat of time before he pinned the person's arms against the small of their back with his foot, placed one hand on the back of their head, and yanked their hood off of the back of their head so he could question them.

"Who the hell are you?" Rin growled, "And where's the fucking garlic?"

Rin could feel the person's abdomen rumble beneath his shoe with what seemed to be laughter.

"Sorry about that. I figured this would be the fastest way for me to find you in this place."

"Answer the question before I snap your neck. You aren't from around here, are you?"

"Heh. What gave me away?"

"Your stupidity."

Rin fished around the person's pockets. When he located the pesky head of garlic, he yanked it out of the person's pocket, and with his nose wrinkled distastefully, he glared at the ugly bulbous thing that stinks worse than rotting flesh to any vampire. He promptly bared his fangs, hissed at it, and tossed it as far away from himself as he could manage to throw it.

"I hope you’ll forgive my... Crass... Methods for attracting you to me."

"Crass? I'll kill you, scum. This is my territory. Don't think you're getting away alive after this garlic stunt of yours. How would you like to die? If I drained all the blood in your body, you'd be cold and dead in about four minutes. I could snap your neck or crush your brain in your skull, instantaneous death. Perhaps those things are all too merciful for you, garlic bastard. Maybe I should eat your beating heart out of your chest while you watch?"

“Wait!”

The person squirmed beneath the pressure Rin's leg was placing on their wrists. Rin could hear their heart racing rather quickly, although, to his surprise, the person didn't really seem all that afraid. Actually, now that he observed the cadence of their pulse a little more closely... He leaned down and fisted a bit of their hair in his hand, twisting their head backward so he could examine their features more closely.

This man… His face was round, his features still relatively youthful, and his eyes... A pair of deep, mysterious dark blue spheres that remind Rin of the hue that the sky often showcases at dusk. The stranger's lips curled up into a thin, disconcerting smirk when their eyes met.

"I recognize you. Are you one of those hybrid whelps from the Isagi bloodline I've heard of?"

"Ah, so you do know who I am."

"So has that wretch Yuzu sent you to spy on me, then? What a damn fool. Unfortunately that won't go well for you, garlic whelp."

"I'm not a whelp, geez! I'll have you know I'm turning twenty-five soon!"

“Twenty-five is merely the age of a whelp to me.”

“Hrmmm… Understandable that you’d think that, I guess. But I’m telling you I’m not one!”

“It makes no difference to me. You’re running your mouth way too damn much about unimportant, trivial drabble. Is this how you truly wish to spend your last moments?”

The Isagi fellow seemed to squirm a little beneath the weight of Rin’s foot bearing down on him from above. Rin, though still pissed off, relented his fingers’ powerful grasp on the coarse, raven-black locks of the man’s hair. The hybrid man sighed a short breath of relief.

“I don’t want these to be my last moments. Not while I still have so many questions I need answers to.” Although Rin had released Isagi’s head from the backward-swivel position it’d been vice-gripped in moments before to force eye-contact and to assert a bit of dominance, Isagi’s unexpected voluntary backward look his way sent an unusual shudder crawling straight up his spine.

“Questions?” Rin muttered, the sound of his own voice falling dead in his ears.

Rim immediately regretted blurting out the single word with any semblance of curiosity… He wished he hadn’t shown any interest at all in this imbecile’s pointless line of conversation. Rin scowled at the realization that he really was still wasting his time on talking to this garlic man, this Isagi, this pest. This nuisance who wasn’t so much as even blip on his radar. Crushing this whelp’s skull in his hands would certainly prove a point to the bastard Yuzu. Never send spies out here again. They will all meet the same fate as this one.

Rin placed two fingers, his pointer and middle fingers, against the base of the man’s skull, feeling as the hybrid’s muscles tensed against his firm and measured touch. Gentle enough, but holding an unspoken threat behind it, the action laced with a bit of malice.

“Yes…! And I suppose that probably seems stupid to you… No, scratch that, I know it definitely does seem stupid to you… But if you just wait a minute I can explain!”

Rin barely moved in the moments after Isagi Yoichi made his plea, but the vague, nearly undetectable retraction of the pressure placed against the base of Isagi’s skull was still noticeable to this observant person.

“I know who you are. I came here to talk to you. It has to be you, Itoshi Rin. I wanted to ask you about your music, this one specific violin I’ve been searching for, and also… I wanted to offer you the terms of a blood pact that I believe would benefit you greatly.”

Rin cocked his head and silently appraised this odd man, his interest piqued.

“Hmph. So you know who I am. Tell me, why are you out here looking for me?”

“Release me and let’s go talk about it in private.”

Rin paused, his thoughts careening off into nothingness as he failed miserably to grasp Isagi’s point. The strength of his restraint had all but given way, though, and the astute Isagi harnessed this brief moment in time to flip himself onto his back, freeing himself from the uncomfortable way he’d been restrained face-down against the dirt.

At the same time, they both felt a bit of something beginning to stir in their respective hearts, but neither knew exactly what that feeling was yet.

It was simply the very beginning of a spark, the initiation of a perfectly normal thing that could blossom between any two beings at any point in time—something known as attraction.

Only moments after the two of them had grown painfully aware of the effect that they already had on eachother, which was the very beginning of the full-on chokehold they would later have on one another, Rin decided he would release Isagi. He got back to his feet, backed off, and gazed down at Isagi with an apprehensive look swimming in his dimly lit eyes. When Isagi Yoichi fearlessly locked eyes with him, he found a bizarre chill jolting up his spine.

“Come on, then,” Rin muttered, turning away from the man to retrieve his violin case.

*

Rin lead them back to his little home he resided in located on the outskirts of Duskvale, a place nobody in town was ever foolish enough to wander to. When they arrived, Isagi marveled at the plain, eerily empty state of the place.

He sat down at Rin’s table, which was a small, circular, antiquated piece of furniture with four chairs arranged neatly around it. He smiled in the disquieting silence as Rin sat across from him, laying his violin case down on the tabletop beside him.

Rin watched as Isagi pulled a single piece of paper out from his pocket and unfolded it. With the unfurled page held between his fingertips, he placed it onto the table face-up and slid it across the table toward Rin. The vampire’s unnerving gaze swiveled down to look at the paper. What he saw didn’t quite make sense, so he picked it up off the table to examine it more closely.

“What’s this?” Rin inquired, his head swaying to the side as he looked at the image displayed on the page.

“A violin,” Isagi replied, “Not just any violin, this is a specific one. A special one. These are the blueprints that were drawn up for a violin that I believe was once wielded as both a weapon and an instrument by an ancient and powerful being.”

“Hm. And what about this thing is so special?”

“These blueprints are clearly written in the common language that’s spoken in the south. The person who designed this was apparently from there. There are two things that make this violin stand out from all the rest of them. The first thing is the drawing of an eclipse you see at the bottom corner of the page… Apparently this was engraved somewhere on the instrument. The second thing is this violin’s strings. They were made from Niobium, an extremely rare elemental metal that gave this violin a very unique sound.”

“Niobium strings… What would an odd alteration like that possibly benefit to this instrument?”

“Well… I don’t actually have factual confirmation on why that might be yet, but I do have a hypothesis. I believe this being’s senses were unique.”

“Hm…” Rin mumbled, placing the image of the violin down onto the table, “Well unfortunately for you, garlic intruder, I haven’t seen this violin and I’ve never so much as heard of it, either.”

“I see… A shame…” Isagi retrieved the page and tucked it back into his pocket. “Do you mind if I see your violin, Rin?”

Rin hesitated for a short moment before he slid his instrument, which was inside its case, into the middle of the table in silent agreement. Isagi unpacked the violin, and Rin watched him do so with a withdrawn interest.

As a violinist would do when taking up their instrument, Isagi placed the violin's padded base into the crook of his neck. That was when Rin realized that this man also probably played the violin. He placed his fingers along a few strings on the fingerboard and slid the bow carefully across the sections of the strings located at the instrument’s midsection. He played a single delicate note, then another, each one reverberating a solemn harmony across the empty walls in Rin’s house. Isagi didn’t do anything else with the instrument and placed it back into its case.

“Your tuning is very unique. May I ask why you choose to tune your violin like this?”

“I’m not sure if you, as a musician, understand how difficult it is to produce music that’s enjoyable for both humans and vampires alike. I had to play around with the violin’s tuning for a long time to get it just right. Tuning it the way vampires usually tune their instruments would not produce music that’s enjoyable to humans. And likewise, the way humans tune their violins is not enjoyable for a vampires’ sense of hearing.”

“So this tuning… You’ve perfected your own style of music so that it’s enjoyable for both species? From what I understand about you, you aren’t a particularly friendly specimen. So then… Why?”

Rin wrinkled his nose and latched his violin case shut.

“I don’t have a choice,” he conceded moodily, “If you know who I am, then your puny brain can probably surmise why I play the violin. Playing for an audience doesn’t mean I have to know them as people, or take an interest in them off the stage. This is the only thing I can do to keep things right.”

“Because you possess a curse… A second curse. Did you ever wonder why the curse-sealing properties, not yet fully understood by many, seem to work on only the curse of the blood moon and not the other curse that troubles you?”

“I don’t know… I’ve always assumed there’s a reason, but I’ve yet to figure that reason out.”

“There was one person who understood part of the picture, I think. Or maybe the entire thing. I’ve read her notes on the subject. Your violin suppresses only the curse of the blood moon because of a very particular intricacy relating to this instrument, its link to the moon, and your own link to the moon as well. Have you, perhaps, ever heard of something called Silas’s curse?”

Rin's brow furrowed in confusion. “No,” he responded flatly.

“Ah, I see… It’s as I thought. I can tell you more about that later.” Isagi pulled a pocket watch out of his pocket and checked the time. “I don’t suppose you have time for a drink?”

“A drink?” Rin glowered and passed his gaze over Isagi. There was no way Isagi could’ve missed the way Rin’s cool blue-green eyes flickered away from his eyes, down just below his head, and rested in a place he’d all but expected Rin to look at at some point... His neck.

“I didn’t mean that.” Isagi chuckled as he fished something out of one of his pockets, placing it onto the tabletop between them. “I can only assume you aren’t overly fond of drinking human blood from the perspective of enjoyment, only for satiation. I meant this.”

Rin glared at what Isagi had offered. It appeared to be a small, plain, silver flask, the polished surface of the metal dull and aged in appearance.

“Alcohol? That has no effect on me.”

“Not just any alcohol. This brandy is laced with wolfsbane. I stole it from the family manor before emancipating myself… Yuzu has a thing for drinking, smoking, and the like. Wolfsbane is an extremely potent toxin to werewolves, but only a mild one to vampires. Its effect is comparable to that of alcohol on humans.”

Rin touched the flask once, his apprehensive gaze as cold and hard as shining steel. He then shoved it back across the table toward Isagi.

“I don’t know what you’re trying here, but it’s entirely pointless. I have zero intention of being all buddy-buddy with you.”

“I’m not asking for you to be buddy-buddy with me, just a drink and a bit of light conversation to pass the time. I’m sure you’ve got nothing but time, Rin.”

Rin’s eyes ticked onto Isagi’s and held steady. There was something about this guy… Maybe his fearlessness to the point of brazenness, maybe his interest in Rin, maybe something else—maybe all of these things. There was just something about him that set him apart from all the rest. Even from Yuzu. Despite practically looking like a spitting image of Yuzu, his personality seemed to be a great deal different than his vampire relative’s.

“And I haven’t offered you the terms of my blood pact yet. So will you pour the damn drink or are you gonna make me wait?”

“I was interested in hearing about this violin stuff, but this blood pact doesn’t interest me in the slightest.” Rin stood and walked into the kitchen. He grabbed a couple of plain water glasses from one of the cupboards above the kitchen sink, then sat back down and grabbed the flask in one hand.

“What if I told you I wanted to end the Eternal Curse of the Night?”

Rin, who’d been pouring the drink, froze and darted his eyes across the table to look at Isagi curiously.

“End the curse? What kind of fool believes they’re capable of doing that?”

“This fool. Who’s related to the ones who apparently started it all in the first place.”

Rin ended up overpouring the brandy, so he set the flask aside and dumped half of what was in one glass into the other, shoving it across the table at the strange man who’d offered it to him.

“I don’t have any ice,” Rin muttered, taking a sip of the drink. His nose wrinkled at the floral, slightly bitter taste mixed with the sharp and slightly sweet chemically flavor of the alcohol. “Anyway, what sort of reason would you have to even want to attempt such a ridiculous thing? A human-vampire hybrid, and a whelp no less. You don’t know anything of the world, let alone of the curse.”

“Hm…” Yoichi also sipped his strange brandy concoction, pursing his lips in mild disgust, “You keep calling me a whelp, but you don’t know who I am or what I’ve been through. You don’t know what I know. I grew up in the Isagi manor, with the vampire who was supposedly involved in this curse’s inception. Yet something about that seems… Off to me. Listen, Yuzu’s a hedonist, he’s lazy and condescending and entirely lacks honor. But he’s not… He’s not that. I just don’t think any of what we’ve been told about the curse makes sense.” Yoichi touched his drink to his tongue again, appraising Rin’s reaction from across the table.

Rin placed his drink back down onto the tabletop and tented his fingers beside the glass. “I don’t know the man well enough to understand his situation.”

“He made me learn the violin. He’d make me play and play and play until my callouses started to bleed, then he’d make me play even more. He’d get drunk on this wolfsbane brandy and start to ramble on incoherently about things. I never quite caught him slipping up about this, though…” Isagi sighed, sipping another taste from his ancestor’s disgusting drink of choice.

“Living with him made me realize something. Vampires really aren’t meant to be alone. They’re fiercely loyal in nature down to every cell in their body, but this curse has forced your kind into an unnatural state of being. Forced solitude. Fear of humans save for drinking their blood, yet you’re only capable of feeling love when it comes to humans. It’s such a sad and tragic fate for so many vampires… People, really. Not human people but vampire people. It’s such a tragic fate for your kind that it moves me. It makes me want to do something, to be better than all the rest. Better than the humans who run from vampires and likewise, the vampires who isolate themselves for fear of what might happen if they don’t. All of this needs to come to an end.”

Yoichi finished his drink and shoved it to the side. Rin, whose drink was only about half finished, stared at him in silent contemplation.

“So… What, then? You have some ridiculous, half-baked dream of ending the curse and saving the world? How do you propose to go about accomplishing such a feat? If you think a blood pact is something that can help you, I fail to see your reasoning. In the pursuit of a future where there is no longer a curse, you’re more likely to lose either your mind or your life than reach that goal.”

Yoichi got up off the chair and turned away, toward the window in Rin’s kitchen above the sink. The point of his sudden avoidant action was unclear. That was, until he continued to speak.

“You’re probably right…” he whispered, “But if I don’t make some sort of sacrifice, then who will? This world is a cold, cowardly, and unforgiving place filled with self-absorbed people.”

Rin got up to place the pair of empty glasses into his sink. It just so happened that while he did, he ended up standing beside Isagi, who was still staring out the kitchen window.

His expression appeared soft and his eyes seemed to be searching the darkness outside for something. There was a great deal of inner turmoil he was feeling as he stood there, realizing that he’d just said he would basically offer himself up to be the sacrificial lamb that saves the world from the Eternal Curse of the Night.

Rin shifted uncomfortably, and while he did, Isagi Yoichi looked over at him. His eyes were calm and swimming with a deep blue sea of intrigue.

“You must be out of your mind,” Rin said to him, intended as sarcasm but not really coming off that way.

Yoichi chuckled softly. “I think I might be, but I dunno. Maybe I’m stupid for this, but I do have faith in myself. I really believe I can do it. And so, that’s why I was hoping you’d—”

“Are you hoping to find some sort of ally in me? Because you won’t be getting that. I have no use for your companionship. You’ll have to undergo your fool’s exploit on your own.”

“Are you afraid?” Isagi asked, and Rin’s head snapped to the side so fast to look at him it was almost comical.

Rin grabbed the collar of Isagi’s shirt in one fell swoop, fisting the fabric under so much tension it made a cracking sound. He yanked the imbecile off balance, and while their eyes locked, Rin’s mouth lulled open to reveal the crystal-white points of his fangs.

“You should watch what you say to me,” Rin snarled.

“Did I touch a nerve?” Isagi blurted out his conjecture, seemingly ignoring Rin’s obvious threat.

“There is no nerve for you to touch here. This is just how things are. The world has accepted its fate, and so have I.”

“And what if you met someone who made you change your mind? What if you met someone who gave you hope for a different future, maybe even for a future where eternal loneliness wasn’t the only option left for you?”

Only just now, while Rin felt a wave of Isagi’s breath clouding around his face, did he realize—

Their faces were so close they were nearly touching. Rin, a being of countless nights spent in strict solitude, didn’t exactly know how to make sense of how this made him feel at the time. But Isagi…

A coy smile began to tug at the corners of Isagi’s lips.

“You aren’t what I expected…” Isagi whispered, “I halfway thought before I found you that you’d be some hideous, greasy monster that skulked around in a robe croaking on about cursed full moons. The moniker Blood Moon Berserker really does conjure up those images. But you’re… You’re actually beautiful."

Rin froze at the utterance of the word from Isagi’s mouth. A shudder crawled its way up his spine for the third time that night after meeting this man.

Even if he didn’t admit it to himself at the time, he already knew how much this person had a way of affecting him that no one else had ever had on him before.

“Vampires are all beautiful, really. But you. You’re—” Isagi exhaled heavily, and as if on instinct Rin mirrored him. Not because he needed to—cursed vampires don’t breathe—but because he was starting to fall into the early stages of infatuation.

Something vampires are known for doing when they’re interested in a human is mimicking human behavior to make themselves more likeable. They often do it without realizing it, which tends to give away their interest before they’re even aware of their own interest taking shape.

“You’re gorgeous, Rin.”

Rin unhanded the guy’s sweater about as quickly as he’d grabbed it. With a scowl, he huffed out a disgruntled ‘breath’, giving himself away once again, only this time he was painfully aware of what he’d just done.

“You reek of garlic,” Rin snapped, though it was a lie only born from a tongue that was razor-sharp, honed in such a brutal way from years of protecting his comfortably frozen heart from being thawed in his chest.

The pungent odor of garlic did not linger on Isagi. In fact, he smelled just fine, and the sound of his heartbeat tapping in his chest rhythmically was already starting to draw Rin’s attention far more than he hoped to admit to himself.

“So what’s this blood pact, then? Tell me.” Rin grumbled.

“It would simply go like this: Isagi Yoichi will swear to end the Eternal Curse of the Night, and Itoshi Rin will swear to help him in any way he needs.”

“You’d wager your life on something like this? You really do have a death wish, Yoichi Isagi.”

Isagi smiled softly at him. “You said my name,” he muttered, and Rin could hear his pulse fluttering a bit faster in his chest, “You haven’t said it since we met.”

“Meaningless details.” Rin lied. He’d always been an atrocious liar down to his very core.

“Well I didn’t think so. Actually, I think I liked hearing you say my name.”

Rin stared into the far corner of the room, bewildered into uncharacteristic silence by this guy and what was obviously intended as... Flirting.

“There’s a kitchen knife in the drawer beside you,” Rin gestured with one hand toward the drawer in question, “Take it. Slice your palm, and we’ll be done with this.”

Isagi stared at him and blinked a couple of times in disbelief. “Oh! So you’re gonna help me, after all!”

“Don’t get too excited,” Rin growled, “Obviously if someone comes into my territory with such an outlandish idea running around in their head, then there may be some truth to it. Any vampire would want to see the curse meet its end, I’m no different.”

Isagi drew the blade of the kitchen knife across his palm in one stroke, opening a fresh cut that immediately began to bleed. They then repeated the terms of their contract and shook hands to seal the pact.

Rin could feel Isagi’s blood sticking to his palm. He turned it over and squinted at the sight of it. He couldn’t deny how he felt a little bit curious about how this blood might taste.

“The first thing I’m going to ask from you might be a tall order, but I believe it will be a necessity for me later on. I need you to give me your inheritance.”

Rin’s eyes widened as he looked up from the spot of blood on his hand. An uncomfortable silence ensued.

That night, the first night they ever met, would mark the beginning of their journey together. However, the memory would be completely wiped from their minds a few days later when a third person showed up in Duskvale in pursuit of Yoichi, ready to use his inheritance to bide his time—and Yoichi's time—more carefully. The memories of their first meeting would be wiped completely clean, replaced by other ones that this conniving vampire would weave in their stead…

The one named Isagi Yuzu.

*

Present day.

Yoichi Isagi’s first stop after the night of the full moon was the Akako manor.

Because of his suspected altered memories, he didn’t quite know where to go to get to the Isagi manor. Thankfully for him the twins had a map on hand showing where each of the known locations of the greater vampire houses resided within the province of vampires.

To no real surprise (since the sisters presumably didn’t leave their manor very often), there were an abundance of question marks around the place. Many of the vampire families had gone missing over the years, and most didn’t care enough to try and find one another.

After settling on where he believed he needed to go, Yoichi was getting himself ready to leave. First, though, he gave Reo another call.

“I need Rin to be able to call me on this phone,” he said, so Reo read off the digits of the phone number to him, which he wrote down. After quickly catching Reo up on the situation, the friends bid their farewells.

“I’m almost certain that Rin will stop by here too since there isn’t anything else out this way. I don’t know what sort of shape he’ll be in, but if you let him use your phone,” Yoichi gestured at the landline the twins had set up, “to call me on this cell phone, I can talk to him and keep him calm.”

Yoichi headed out on his own to the train station in Redville, and a few hours later, as expected, Rin also paid the twins’ manor a visit.

As soon as they let him inside, the pair regretted it. He seemed very agitated (not that he wasn’t before), and hardly able to focus.

Sato watched Rin pacing back and forth in the hallway before he barked something out about a map, to which the twins showed him the same map Yoichi had looked at earlier when he’d swung by.

“Isagi… Isagi… Isagi…” Rin was muttering under his breath. In contrast to his earlier demeanor, he seemed to lack his usual stone-faced composure and appeared outwardly distressed.

“The curse has done this to you, hasn’t it?” Sato asked. It really was a harmless question, but Rin slammed his hand down on the table causing both the twins to jump in their seats.

“Heartbeats… So many of them…” Rin growled, “Get them out.”

“You mean the servants in the manor?” The twins shot eachother a look of apprehension. “Most of them live here and work here.”

“Get them out. Now.”

Sato nodded to her twin, her single fuchsia eye blazing with a small light of fear. “Get the servants out of here,” she instructed briskly. Chise nodded and left right away.

“So what are you planning on doing?” Sato asked Rin when they were alone.

“I don’t know… I don’t fucking know. I can’t know where he’s going because that would be dangerous. Even just putting his location or destination in my mind would probably, inevitably mean I’ll go after him one way or the other.”

“That reminds me, he left his cell phone number here for you to call.” Sato slid the number Yoichi had written down toward Rin. His face seemed to relax when he gazed down at the numbers on the page.

Rin used the rotary telephone the twins had in the house, and after punching the numbers into it and waiting through a few painful tones, Yoichi picked up.

“Rin? Is that you?”

“Yoichi…” Rin whispered. Even though hearing Yoichi’s voice on the other end was as comforting to his ears as a warm blanket is to a sick child, and even though the sound of Yoichi’s voice wasn’t being drowned out by the deafening sound of his pulse, he did not feel full relief.

All he wanted to do was see Yoichi again, but he knew that was no longer an option for him in his present state.

“I knew you’d stop by the Akako manor so I left this cell phone number there for you to call. I’m just headed—”

“Don’t tell me,” Rin interrupted him, “I’m still sane enough to know not to go after you… For now. But you know where this leads. You telling me your location could put you in great danger in the near future.”

“Ah… Right. I suppose you do have a point. ‘Kay, I won’t tell you.” Rin heard Yoichi sigh a drawn-out, hopeless sigh of defeat. “I’m sorry things had to be this way. I’m sorry we can’t be together right now. I feel like this is all my fault. I lured you into a false sense of security by crafting that mask for you, without thinking we may have people working against us. I thought everything would be okay if we were together, but I never accounted for what might happen if I left.”

“Don’t apologize,” Rin snapped, his temper dwindling much shorter than usual, “Maybe you lured me into some false sense of security, but I also agreed to it. We’re both at fault for this outcome. This is the price we have to pay for having foolish desires that are still far out of our reach.”

“Yeah… You’re right, I guess. I still keep thinking about what I saw in the oracle’s orb… The future where we’re together, where we’re happy. Every time I think about that it makes me smile like an idiot to myself. While you’re there you should go look into it yourself. It might make you feel better.”

“Sure…” Rin mumbled, twisting the phone’s curled cable around his pointer finger while he enjoyed the sound of Yoichi’s voice. “Yeah. That sounds nice.”

“I had someone in town ask me about the bandage on my neck. I laughed and said it was from a vampire, lightheartedly of course. I’m used to being around you so I always forget how scared of vampires other people are, but especially you. Blood Moon Berserker and all that.” Rin could hear Yoichi shuffling around on the other end doing something. “That gets me thinking, though. I didn’t tell you what I saw during the full moon. I saw you walking toward the full moon, and you were covered in this creepy mist of darkness of some sort. I don’t know how to describe it properly. It was mingling with your destroyer aura. But the thing that really surprised me the most was that you seemed to be siphoning the light of the moon into yourself. Also, when you saw me you didn’t attack me.”

“Ah… Interesting. I have no memory of what I do when the full moon is out so I can’t speak to any of that. But I’ll keep that in mind when doing my own research.”

“Good. And Rin,” Yoichi paused. Rin could practically see his beloved's smile in his mind’s eye, standing right there in front of him, a phantom that existed now barely out of his reach. He wondered when he would ever get to see that smile again.

“I’ll always love you no matter what.”

Rin also, despite his gloomy nature, felt himself smiling the faintest, weakest little smile.

“Don’t talk to me like it’s the last time you ever will, moron. There will always be another time. And Yoichi,” Rin paused and breathed out a sigh of mimicry after he heard Yoichi doing the same, “ I’ll always. Always. Love you. Nothing that happens will ever change that.”

“Good.”

After he'd hung the phone up, Rin asked to see the oracle’s orb that Yoichi had seen, so Sato fetched it for him. When the thing was sitting in its setting, midnight black began to swirl while his eyes locked on it.

The vision washed through his mind like a warm early spring wind, there and then gone in what felt like the blink of an eye. Sato didn’t know what he saw, but after it was over Rin’s face was twisting in an even more despairing way. He had to stand up and turn away so she couldn’t see him crying. It really wasn’t like him to cry, but the situation was far beyond the depths of hopelessness of any other situation he’d ever been in before.

“You two are hopeless. I’m not sure why you would even put yourself into this situation in the first place, Berserker,” Sato reprimanded him with a hand on her hip.

“Shut up…” he snarled his hands balling into fists at his sides.

“Listen. It’s not my place to judge, but—”

“I said. Shut up.” Rin’s temper, already short without the weight of the curse bearing down on his mind, was a lit fuse teetering dangerously close to being set off.

“I know your secret,” Rin whipped around, and Sato flinched at the clouding of red beginning to seep its way into his previously placid teal irises.

“You think you’re so clever, Akako Sato, that you’ve smugly solved the problem of eternal loneliness that the rest of us have to suffer through. You hole yourself up in this manor with that thing you call a sister. Does she even have any idea what she really is?”

Sato stood in stunned, fearful silence while Rin began to pace toward her menacingly.

“Don’t fuck with me, you despicable scum. If you so much as speak another word arrogantly about him or me in my presence, I’ll destroy you. You and your 'sister'. See, you’ve fooled the entire world into believing that you were born with a twin sister. Winning the lottery for vampires, really. You’ve stricken your family’s inheritance from every record book for fear that people might figure out what you’ve really done.” Rin cocked his head and looked down at Sato, who looked like only a meek version of her earlier self in the face of Rin’s threat.

“You’ve played god with your inheritance, the inheritance of house Akako known as twin. The ability to make a perfect copy of anything you cast it on. You, Akako Sato, were born as an only child just like the rest of us. You used twin on yourself when you were old enough to fear being lonely, then you convinced your copy that she is her own person, known as Akako Chise. You’re merely rotting away here in reprehensible denial while the rest of us truly suffer through the curse. You disgust me.”

“Don’t tell anyone. Promise me. I don’t care if you know. Threaten me all you want, but please, don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t worry about that. For as long as you keep your nose out of our business and give Yoichi what he needs, Akako Sato numbers one and two will remain safe.” Rin formed his fingers into the shape of a finger gun, the one he would use to activate his inheritance if he still had it. But Akako Sato was unaware that it was missing, so he used this to deepen the intensity of his threat.

“All I’d have to do to get rid of her was say two words to activate my inheritance, and poof. The magical being's existence would be gone without her being able to even put up a fight,” he placed the tip of the finger gun against Akako Sato’s forehead, “Far weaker than you, the original, who I’d need to use destruction magic on to banish from this world. Keep yourself safe, Akako Sato, and out of our way if you know what’s good for you.”

Rin snapped his arm back to his side, and as quickly as he’d come into her house, he began to stride back toward the manor’s door to take his leave.

“I won’t give you any trouble, Itoshi. Where will you go now?” she called after him, her voice shaking.

Rin halted but did not look back at her.

“I’m going to crush the one whose sent my world into this chaos into pieces.”

He then left the manor.

Without knowing that Yoichi was also on his way to the Isagi manor, Rin planned to go there himself in order to destroy Isagi Yuzu as revenge for the peril he’d placed Rin and his beloved in.

The time was ticking down on the curse, and Rin’s sanity was already being torn out of his mind, bit by agonizing bit.

Chapter Text

In the days following Yoichi and Rin's parting of ways, the former felt restless and gloomy while he embarked on his solo travel for the Isagi manor in the north, as if pitch-black stormy skies were following him around no matter where he went.

It was, he came to realize, a product of a very simple thing that saddened him. He held a deep uncertainty of his future, and felt himself growing increasingly weary of what the days looming in his near future may hold for him. And of course, he was also starting to miss Rin.

When he'd first left Duskvale by himself his heart had felt light with hope. He'd felt that, although it had been a horribly difficult decision to make, that it would be for the greater good. But now... How did he feel?

Being forced to remove himself from Rin's side was painful. Each beat of his heart, which belonged to only this one person, grew increasingly colder without the support of the one he loved, and it was doubly more painful knowing that Rin was beginning to suffer because of his carelessness.

The curse is coming. I need to start looking for answers... I need to find them fast, before it's too late for Rin.

I don't know what awaits me in Yuzu’s manor, but I need answers and I don't know where else I should look. If it really was the case that my memories were altered by him, I need to try and get those memories back to move forward.

I need to know who I am, and I feel like I can't even fully recall my own identity because my recollection of the past has been altered.

When he arrived at Yuzu's manor, a strange yet bizarrely familiar foreboding feeling took ahold of him when he stood in front of the navy blue door with the brass knocker that was molded in the shape of a raven, the house sigil of the greater vampire house Isagi. Although the recognition he may have felt upon seeing this place had clearly been wiped from his mind, it was like he was gazing upon something he had seen in a dream once long ago.

Not that he expected Yuzu to just let him inside, but he still rapped the brass knocker thrice anyways, a deep and sternly metallic sound ringing yet another feeling of deja-vu into his brain. As if the knock had urged on some kind of catharsis, Yoichi felt his mind shuddering with something that lay beneath the veneer of the false memories that had been planted deep in his mind and manipulated at the hands of his vampire bloodline's inheritance.

*

93 years ago.

Ting. Ting. Ting.

Three sharp knocks rang out from the outside of the navy blue front door. The servant who worked in the family manor of house Isagi answered it and swung the door open. Young Yoichi Isagi (only six years old at the time), who was a human-vampire hybrid child who'd been taken into the care of the household of the greater vampire family, lurked around the corner to eavesdrop.

He was a bold child, intelligent and fearless to his very core, and he was also relentlessly curious. All traits he was born with that were more characteristic of his human side than his vampire side.

The head of the household sat in front of the fireplace in the living room with a glass of wolfsbane brandy held in one of his pale hands, his shining azure blue eyes peering thoughtfully into the dancing flames. As a vampire, he had no real love for the heat. Truthfully vampires preferred their homes to be on the colder side, yet the warmth and false illusion of life the fire gave made him feel like he was a little bit less alone than he had been for such a long time. Out of habit, he twisted in his seat, the leather of the chair creaking beneath his legs, and he gazed with silent longing at the locked black door that lead into the basement. The place he dare not go into while Yoichi was awake.

"Master, a courier stopped by with a message for you."

Yuzu looked upward at his servant with his usual deep blue distain swimming in his softly glowing eyes. His gaze passed from the servant's face down to the single envelope the man was holding out for him to take.

With the sharp eyes of an apex predator he spied the child skulking around the corner, its curious eyes fixated intently on him and his servant.

"Yoichi, up to your room for practice," he ordered, downing the glass of brandy in one gulp afterward.

Yoichi's eyes narrowed with a familiar resilience Yuzu had once grown to love seeing in the boy's first human ancestor—the woman he had no choice but to love for the rest of his miserable eternity. A fiercely hot pang of hatred stabbed him in his stomach when he looked into the boy's eyes. There was nothing he loathed more deeply in this world than being reminded of how trapped he was.

And Yoichi always somehow never failed to remind him of that.

"I don't want to practice," the young boy protested.

"Do what I say, child."

"I don't wanna. My fingers hurt. I want—"

Yuzu threw the crystal glass with terrifying accuracy. It hurtled out his hand, interrupting Yoichi, and went crashing into the wall beside the boy. The child jumped and looked down at the shattered piece of glassware that had fallen to the floor beside him, though he didn't seem weary of the fact that it had almost hit him. That fearlessness of his always pissed Yuzu off.

"Do as I say, Yoichi."

Yuzu despised having to repeat his every order to this rebellious child. Vampire children knew better than to speak out against their caretakers, they always obeyed without a word. It drove him insane that this fragile mortal child thought so arrogantly that he had any right to be disobedient like this.

"Yes, father. As you say." The child's voice became a low monotone, yet beneath the obedient nature of his words there lie a rebellious tone that betrayed them. Still, he began to descend the stairs up to his bedroom where his violin was anyways.

Yuzu sat back into his leather arm chair, his face clearly showing frustration. He bit his lower lip, one of his fangs poking out as it nibbled the flesh there. Without another word to the servant, he snatched the envelope and examined the seal that had been stamped onto its backside. He then began to tear it open.

I hope this letter finds you well.

This letter is one of many copies that are being sent out to every single one of the heads of the greater vampire houses. You are all being summoned to the southern holdfast of Skavernesz for a meeting. We must all come together in person on this matter.

Yuzu rolled his eyes but continued reading the last part anyways.

We have the Blood Moon Berserker in custody. This atrocity cannot be allowed to walk the Earth any longer how he is. We, as a community, will decide what to do with him together.

We hope we can count on your support on this matter.

-H. Yorozu

"Idiocy..." Yuzu mumbled under his breath. He threw the letter into the fire and watched with a ire as the page fluttered and burned before his eyes. "What the hell are they thinking, toiling with that creature? I thought things were fine as they are with the violin..."

"Master. My apologies, but I did not mention that the courier requires your response to be in his hand and off within fifteen minutes of this letter's arrival. And it has been-" he quickly checked the grandfather clock in the corner of the room, "Around twelve minutes, sire."

"A response?" Yuzu wrinkled his nose pompously, "Don't be stupid. Obviously I'm not going, Denki."

"But sir, if I may—"

"No you may not," Yuzu flicked his hand at the servant to dismiss him, "Write my reply out for me. Isagi Yuzu will not be attending. Send it to those cronies and I'll laugh all the way to the distillery while I make myself another batch of that brandy. Aaaahhhh, the brandy, it's a shame it takes so long to make. I'd be more fond of it if it didn't."

The servant bowed once and hurried off to obey without another word. Yuzu watched him leave briefly, before he began toying with a lock of his hair, turning his attention back to the blazing fire in front of him.

"What the hell are they thinking... Capturing that guy and... What do they even think they can do with him? Hold him prisoner? Well if it's the Yorozu house head, I can't say I'm that surprised. Still, this is the most brazen thing I've ever heard of." Yuzu muttered to himself like he often did while he looked into the fire. The thought passed through his mind that They'll certainly all end up dead meat at the hands of the Berserker's fury. Actually, that doesn't sound so bad. Maybe I do join them after all. Death really would be a mercy to my eternally unfortunate circumstances.

But... Alas.

I do still have a part to play. Perhaps if I play my cards right, things won't...

Ah. Nevermind.

I shall go upstairs and drink more of the damn brandy. Where is the brandy...

Yuzu stalked off into the manor to find himself more of his precious drink.

*

A few days later...

In the lavishly decorated holdfast Skavarnesz, a central hub for vampires passing through the south, a single silhouette knelt in shackles in the very center of the room full of others.

Each and every head of all the greater vampire houses—thirty-two, to be exact—along with some of their children, had flocked to where they'd been called... Well, all except for one. Mutterings began to pass amongst the vampires who were seated in the dim room, fluttering flames of candles gently touching pale skin and framing curse-imbued glowing eyes.

"Where is the head of the Isagi household?"

"Oh, it's just that guy. The elders in his family died too early before the curse, he never learned the discipline required to lead a greater house."

"I mean, he cursed us all into doom with his infidelity. Let him rot for all I care."

"It's his duty as a vampiric progenitor to come when summoned. What a heathen."

"We should have him detained and—"

"Silence!" A single voice boomed out from the center of the room as it stood beside the one in question who'd been detained. As obedient as ever, each and every one of the vampires in the room fell into silence.

"I, Yorozu Haku, have summed you all. We must deal with this long-standing problem of ours. We must pass judgement on this one immediately." Yorozu gestured down at the single person that had been detained, who knelt deathly still with their bangs obscuring their face completely.

The first person to voice a complaint: the head of the Itoshi family. The sire of the family stood, dressed with dignity and an air of authority about him, he calmly looked across the dim room at the pitiful sight of his son kneeling on the cold marble floor.

"What's the meaning of this, Yorozu? You do know he hasn't been much of a problem lately. Working as a traveling violinist has been doing him good." The vampire turned his gently luminous teal gaze up from his son to look the Yorozu house head in the eyes.

"Much of a problem is the key word here, Itoshi Jin. Your son still tends to lose control... When is it now? During solar eclipses or lunar eclipses, for a few years now?"

"We will deal with the remainder of this problem amongst ourselves as a family, you have no right to—"

"To what? This monster cannot be allowed to rampage around the way he does, he's dangerous and unpredictable. We, as a society of vampires, must deal with him. Which is why I propose that my house takes him. We will..."

Yorozu's speech was halted in its tracks as something interrupted him... A sound. At first so quiet it was nearly inaudible, but slowly growing louder and louder until he couldn't ignore it. It was laughter.

"Hah... Haha... This is just too good..."

The restrained vampire looked up from between dark and messy tufts of his bangs, his eyes glowing an unsettling red as the sound of laughter continued to rumble from within his chest—reflecting a boundless rancor that had been smoldering within him for all the years of his life.

"All of you... Think you can keep me in shackles like this? All of you deplorable creatures? You look at me with contempt in your eyes as if I was some kind of monster... How vile... And you..." Itoshi Rin turned his stare onto his mother, who'd been silent but seemed to show no signs of distress, "You? My own mother? You sit at that table looking down on me like I'm a cockroach you're about to squash beneath your heel..."

"Rin, listen to me. Your father and I will handle—"

"Father and you will handle. What? What is it, mother? Do you detest the stain I've left on your family name? Did you detest me the very moment I was born beneath that blood-red moon all those years ago, or would you simply hate me no matter how I was born into the world? Itoshi Rin, the besmirchment of his house, has no one on his side. Not even his own family. Right, mother?"

Rin bared his fangs. They glinted in the low light of the candles threateningly, appearing ominously pearl-white from within the darkness. An unsettling sight to the room of other vampires that were looking on. He was the sole being in current existence who could kill a cursed vampire. The fury beheld inside of him was twisting the emotions that stirred within his heart. An ever-raging inferno of his anger that had been burning low for his entire life, scorned with ineptitude and shame at being born as an Itoshi, dashed his withered heart into a pile of ashes in his chest when he looked into his mother's eyes.

His once-beating heart, at one time fiercely loyal to its family, was reduced to nothing more than a ghostly remnant of its former self in the painful silence that his parents persisted in after he spoke.

"I've tried... I've fucking tried... I'm sick and tired of living in this disgusting society of vampires you all are so proud to exist in. I'm sick of your looks of contempt, tired of your shitty fucking attempts at vitriol."

"Rin, that's enough," Rin's father called out to him.

"Enough?" The malice-drenched chorus of his laughter that he no longer tried to restrain barked from his useless lungs. All eyes were on him now, and some were definitely looking down on him with fear.

"No... It's not enough... Not until you all realize your places. And you, Yorozu..." Rin cocked his head and looked up at Yorozu. He did not blink—an intentional choice. He hoped this insect finally realized that he should fear the monster that he'd played a part in making.

"Your family are scum. All you've ever wanted was to chain me up in your basement and study me. Study the magic that I possess... Or rather, that possesses me. You wanted it all to yourself. You, creature of wretched pestilence. Vomit-soaked swine. Will never. Never. Be able to control me."

Not a single sound uttered in the stagnant room. Even the candles seemed to want to burn down into pools of wax for fear of Rin's wrath. Yorozu seemed to be faltering, but before he could say or do anything...

Rin, whose hands were bound tightly against the small of his back, lunged at the other vampire with his fangs completely out. His bite fell on Yorozu's clothed shin with a sickening crack, the bones shattering beneath his powerful bite force.

Cursed vampires couldn't die, but that didn't mean they didn't feel pain. Yorozu cried out in horror and began flailing his leg in an attempt to shake Rin off of him, but Rin was completely latched on. The sinew in Rin's neck began to pop out while licks of scarlet-red energy began to swarm down to his mouth. In an instant, the destruction magic began to curl off of his body and travel onto Yorozu.

"W-What is this?!" Yorozu cried out. This process, of an otherwise immortal being having their immortality shredded into tiny bits before their very eyes, was by far the most painful thing for any creature to endure.

Whether or not it was a worse fate than the eternal loneliness that all vampires dreaded to endure so deeply, Yorozu would never know, nor would he live to find out if it was or not. The dark magic Rin was channeling engulfed him, and before he could fully unleash a scream into the room full of now horrified vampires, his once undying body was turned into a pile of dust before everyone's eyes.

"Ha ha... Ha... Hahahahahahaha..."

Rin's laughter coughed out like a war cry, rattling off the stone walls, the sound ringing sharp with madness. A couple of vampires in the room, for fear of meeting the same fate as Yorozu, got up and left without another word.

The thing about being immortal is that your fight-or-flight response, after so many years of realizing that you indeed cannot die, gets diminished significantly. This fact became brutally obvious in the moments following Yorozu's destruction. Each and every pair of eyes that remained trained on Rin, save for the few that were smart enough to leave, stared in a state of dumbfounded disbelief. Almost as if their eyes were whispering There's no way that was real. There's no way this could happen to me. I'm immortal, which means I can't die.

Yet, the majority of the vampires sitting in the room continued to listen to the sound of Rin's chilling laughter reverberating off the walls around them, remaining oblivious to the fact that they were all now in mortal peril.

Rin's control over the destruction magic that went along with his curse dwindled with the lunar cycle, however, its strength is suppressed by playing the violin for an audience. Rin had played for many an audience all over the province of vampires, both human and vampire audiences alike, including the people sitting in that very room. However, when Yorozu detained him, he was unaware that there was one thing other than an eclipse that could spontaneously set the destruction magics alight within the berserker's body.

His emotions.

Specifically anger and other such negative and intense emotions could send him out of control, yet another reason he'd been coined with the moniker Blood Moon Berserker. A berserker is, by reputation, one who cannot be controlled and is impossibly difficult to restrain.

Rin's laughter slowed, then faded off into nothingness, much like how his heart felt while all those vampires stared at him in either fear or disgust. As rage began to spiral out of control and his heart slowly sank into a blackened abyss in his chest, the destruction magic's intensity began to grow. Veins of its energy began to creep across his skin and overcome his mind and better judgement. When reaching his outer appendages, the silver (a metal known for having anti-vampire properties) shackles that were restraining him spidered with countless cracks.

The metal shattered into bits with the powerful magic that had now possessed Rin's body, and when he finally stood, with bits of his clothes beginning to burn from the heat of the magic pulsing on his skin, the entire room shuddered.

As if all the vampires realized it at once, they moved (nearly unanimously) to leave Skavarnesz. The glowing red of Rin's eyes trained on movement in the dim lighting. There was little left in terms of conscious thought to be found in his mind, which is why he didn't hesitate before lunging at the exit door to block it off from any of those vampires escaping.

What ensued that night was a massacre. Every single vampire in that room would be reduced to a pile of dust, leaving countless greater vampire families without their house heads. Children of various houses like Akako and Yorozu would be left to their heirs to run, and many would retract further into their isolation for fear of a repeat of the carnage that had been reaped that night in Skavernesz.

When every single vampire that had wanted him detained had been destroyed, Rin's berserk state began to flash out of his body and his emotions started to level out.

All had perished... Except for two.

Rin's parents stood in the far corner of the room, huddled together in the darkness as they had watched their son strip every one of those vampires of their immortality—and their lives—as easily as slaughtering a herd of cattle.

His mother was crying, but her expression didn't show any noticeable emotions. She looked like a hollow shell of the vampire she had been earlier in the day. When Rin's senses came back to him and he saw his parents were the last ones left in the room, he reached out to them. The energy that had previously overtaken his mind peetered away and backed off into whichever corner of him that it always hid.

"Mother...!"

Rin's father remained still, not moving, showing no emotion, and his mother was whispering something. Over and over again she kept saying it. Rin's hearing was sharp, but he refused to believe that she was really saying what he thought he heard.

"I'm sorry, for what I said to you earlier... Mother..."

He kept stepping closer to them. She was only hugging herself, not acknowledging him or his words at all. Her eyes were wide and horrified, and what she kept saying... Over and over and over again...

"Just kill me... Kill me... Kill me. Please just kill me."

Rin had lived nearly 400 years, battling with the curse he'd been born with. Fighting against the pain and loneliness of being an outcast amongst other outcasts. He'd taken the lives of other vampires outside of only in his berserk state—those who'd asked him to end their eternal misery. He had grown into a harbinger of death for those who weren't brave enough to endure unending life as a curse-bearing vampire, yet none of them held any true love or appreciation for who he was as a person. Not at all.

Not even his own family.

As Rin stared down at the pitiful sight of his mother and father, he felt sad for them. They had never really been all that good to him, but still. They were family. And right now, they were all he had left in this world.

"I'll see you at home... Father. Mother." Rin's farewell was whispered as he turned away. While he walked he heard his mother's trembling words growing more and more frantic behind him.

"No... No! Please! Please!!!! Kill me! KILL ME!!!!!!"

The sound of her wailing, though tragic, did not sway the stone heart of the young vampire who was her son. He left his parents there, with only the company of the dusty remains of the rest of the vampire house heads to keep them company.

Itoshi Rin, though still rather young by vampire standards, would earn himself the reputation equivalent to that of the grim reaper walking in the realm of mortals that fateful day.

*

"All gone..." Isagi Yuzu muttered with a mild interest. He reread the letter to ensure he hadn't misunderstood its contents. "Not all... Most gone... I suppose this time my contrarian nature has worked to my advantage..."

He sighed and wistfully tossed the letter into the fireplace once he'd finished with it.

"Father, I don't want to practice the violin anymore. May I do something else now?"

Yuzu looked across the room at young Yoichi Isagi... The child who'd been born beneath a solar eclipse. The one who'd unfortunately been dropped into his lap.

The boy's fingers were white and trembling. A couple of them were actually bleeding, too. Yuzu always forgot how delicate a mortal's body really was.

"Yes, yes... Do what you like, Yoichi. Bed time at sundown. Don't forget, child."

"Yes, father." Yoichi placed his violin and bow away carefully, under the watchful eye of his vampire relative.

"May I spend some time in the library before bed?"

Yuzu nodded slowly, vacantly. "Denki, accompany the child to the library."

Yuzu's human servant nodded once. "As you command, sire."

That night, while the servant named Denki bound his hands with bandages, the boy began to read his favorite childhood fable. He opened the book and scanned its pages with the intense interest of a curious child.

The cover of the book was emblazoned with an image of two beings sitting against the backdrop of a silver moon and a golden sun.

*

Present day.

"Hello?"

It was a servant around the same age as...

"Denki?" Yoichi blurted out, unsure of where that name had even come from.

The servant raised one eyebrow at Yoichi. "You. Ah, I see. The master informed me you may be visiting soon. You truly are a spitting image of master Yuzu." The servant named Denki nodded once, brisk and polite. "Since you're technically the heir to this household, I am obliged to serve you, master Yoichi. I presume the Denki you knew was my father. I'm his son. You may still refer to me as Denki. Please, come inside, young master."

Yoichi was confused, but he stepped into the manor anyway. He looked around curiously at his surroundings with his striking blue eyes that were characteristic of his vampire genetics. Looking at the antiquated wallpaper and aged decor felt similar to how it had felt earlier when he'd first rapped the raven knocker outside the manor, as if it was faintly familiar to him but he couldn't figure out why that was.

"Master Yuzu is in the living area," Denki gestured down the single, dark stretch of hallway behind him, "In front of the fireplace."

"Thank you," Yoichi nodded, glancing calmly down the hallway, his eyes fixed on the space between the dark blue wallpaper where the living room was.

So apparently Yuzu had been expecting him and didn't plan to stop him from coming inside. It annoyed Yoichi that he was being treated as if he wasn't a threat like this, especially after what Yuzu had done to Rin's mask, but this behavior of his vampire ancestor's held an unclear motive in his mind.

When he was standing beside the base of the manor's staircase near the living room, he gazed out at the fire place. All he could see from where he was positioned was Yuzu's side profile. Light from the flames in front of him casted a pale orange reflection on the smooth pallor of his skin.

"Yoichi," he called out without looking away from the fire, swaying a glass of something in the air back Yoichi's way. The gesture seemed like something of a greeting.

Yuzu slowly turned Yoichi's way and looked over at him. "I thought you might come back here at some point..." Yuzu's voice trailed off, "Ah, I just had a bit of deja-vu, seeing you stand there like that. I remember this one night, when you were only a child. I received a letter of summons from one of those arrogant vampires who heads another of the greater houses... Ah, what was it that happened again...? I don't quite recall..."

"Don't ramble on to me like this as if I should care for nostalgia. What are you playing at here, Yuzu? Speaking about me when I was a child. You know I have no memory of any of that. Because it was you who altered my memories of my upbringing."

"Yoichi..." Yuzu cooed, swigging deep from his drink, "My dear Yoichi, you sound upset with me."

"Fuck you, manipulative bastard. Why wouldn't I be upset with you? After what you've done?"

"Ah... Oh, you mean the mask? Sorry about that. You should know, though, the design for the mask you crafted for your beloved Itoshi was only biding time at the cost of his health. I did you two a favor, really."

Yuzu placed his glass of amber-colored liquor onto the wooden side table beside him. He pulled what appeared to be a cigarette out of a small wooden box he'd had tucked away in one of his pockets, got up, and walked over to the fireplace to light the end of it. When he sat back down in his leather arm chair, he leaned into the back rest and took a drag off the cigarette, puffing its earthy smelling smoke into the space above him. Yoichi watched him with quiet rage simmering in his heart.

The vampire gestured with the hand holding his cigarette to the empty chair beside him. "Have a seat," he offered.

"You did us a favor? How can you even say that! And what do you even mean by his health? Rin, and all other vampires, are immortal..." Yoichi resumed their conversation, unable to drop the subject of Yuzu's mysteriously aggressive interference.

"Yoichi," Yuzu mumbled, "Sit down, please."

"Don't Yoichi me, you sorry excuse for a vampire. I'm no friend or family to you. I want answers from you and I want them now."

Yuzu pinched his cigarette firmly between his left hand's pointer and middle finger, and with his remaining three fingers on that hand he deftly picked up the glass of whatever it was he'd been drinking. Still, even just being in this situation gave Yoichi the worst sort of feeling of deja-vu imaginable.

"You're a bloody bastard without loyalty or care, and you just... What? Drink yourself into oblivion, caring even less than you already do? How can you just sit here and act as if the world hasn't been sent into total chaos because of you!"

Yuzu sipped from the glass, his cursed glare beginning to glint with a touch of anger while he listened to Yoichi speak. When Yoichi opened his mouth to continue berating his relative, without warning, the vampire interrupted him by hurtling his crystal glassware directly at him. Yoichi jerked to the side in time, watching as the glass shattered into pieces against the wall behind him. Yet another wave of deja-vu hit him when he stared down at the broken glass that now sat in bits on the hardwood floor, the alcohol that had been contained within it spattered and dribbling in painted streaks of desperation that raced to reach the floor after the crystal that had contained it.

"Yoichi..." Yuzu whispered, almost as a growl; although this vampire rarely lost his composure, there was an unseen abyss of hatred that always burned hot and powerful within him... For himself, the world around him, but especially when it came to Yoichi.

"Sit. Down."

Yoichi turned his fearless deep blue eyes away from the smashed glass, their virtue of curiosity beginning to taint with the same hatred that was beheld in the eyes of the one Yoichi had inherited them from.

This time, he obeyed Yuzu's order.

"You always were too disobedient, Yoichi. But then again, that is in your human nature." Yuzu blew another cloud of smoke of the floral cigarette he'd lit before he flicked it into the fireplace.

"I don't understand you. Why have you been following us around... Watching us? If I supposedly grew up here, why did you wipe all of my memories of my past? Do you even care about anything other than yourself? All of this just feels so selfish to me and I just... I don't get you at all!"

"Of course you wouldn't." Yuzu got to work opening his decanter of liquor—the word brandy seemed to pop into Yoichi's mind while he watched.

"I keep getting these, like... Waves of deja-vu."

"An unfortunate weakness of my inheritance memory alteration. Its effect grows weaker with time on the mortal mind. It works for extended periods of time on other pure-blooded cursed vampires, but for some reason, the human mind's resilience tampers with it."

"If it's starting to weaken then just reverse it altogether. I want my memories back."

Yuzu shook his head. "I won't be doing that, I'm afraid."

"Why not? Damnit, you know I just want to end the curse! Isn't that something that all vampires want equally?"

"I know you do, Yoichi. My problem with that is that you can't."

In the dark room, with only the feeble saffron-hued fire light offering any illumination to show it, Yoichi's expression slowly began to shift to show clear vexation.

"If I don't at least try, then who else will? Does everyone else in the world think just like you? That freeing us all from the curse is a hopeless cause? I don't know how to explain how angry it makes me feel that this is the fate we've all just... Reserved ourselves to. But doesn't any of this bother you, Yuzu? At all? Why do I feel like, when I look back on all the research notes I've taken, that vampires and humans are such a perfect match for eachother, yet we aren't allowed to be together because of this curse. I've figured out that it probably wasn't Rukia who inflicted the curse on us... Was it? So was it you, then, Yuzu? Or someone else?... Or even something else?"

"You've already stuck your nose too far into something you don't even understand," Yuzu threw back his glass of brandy and instantly poured himself another one, his movements less precise than they had been before, splashing a bit of the liquor onto the shining surface of the varnished wooden side table.

"You being a drunk is possibly the funniest part of all this. It really does solidify my opinion of you, Yuzu. Maybe you think I should respect you because you're my relative, but of all the vampires I've met, you're really the least respectable of all of them. You're nothing but a lazy piece of shit, full of lies, manipulation, and selfishness."

Yuzu's expression remained completely unmoving while he listened to Yoichi insult him. After a few moments of silence, Yuzu passed the already half-empty glass of wolfsbane brandy toward Yoichi.

"You're not wrong about me," Yuzu replied listlessly.

Yoichi glared down at the tongues of flame that danced on the glassy surface of the alcohol, hardly thinking another thing before he snatched the glass out of Yuzu's hand and tossed it back. A mild burn followed the fluid down his throat and into his stomach.

Yoichi placed the empty glass onto the side table beside Yuzu with a soft tap. A thin, vaguely amused smirk played on Yuzu's lips.

"If you won't give me my memories back then I'll just find a way to get them back myself," Yoichi's sapphire stare flicked away from the flames, through the darkness of the manor, to gaze at the base of the staircase, "Rin's inheritance Null-magic, for example, completely nullifies any magic, including another vampiric inheritance like yours."

"Mhmm. So why didn't you just have him use it on you, then?" Yuzu tapped a finger on his leg impatiently.

"Well... It seems to be missing. I guess I'll just have to find it."

"Missing? Oh, is that what you think? Sheesh. I thought you were actually smart, Yoichi. Do you honestly believe the Blood Moon Berserker would just give his inheritance away without cause, to just anyone? Think about that for a little bit, I'm sure you can figure out where it is easily enough."

And what does that mean? Yoichi wondered, though he didn't respond to Yuzu's condescending statement.

"I'll be using the library."

"Oh, by all means," To Yoichi's surprise, Yuzu was now standing, even his drunken movements seeming swift and silent as an entirely sober vampire. He threw a jacket that'd been sitting on the nearby coat rack over his shoulders, "Read away. I'm sure that'll help jog your memory. As for me... Well, I'm afraid I can't dawdle around here for any longer. It seems like danger is headed my way."

The vampire head of the household then slowly started to walk down the dark corridor toward the front door. It seemed to Yoichi that he intended to leave, and sure enough, he waved back at Yoichi with one hand as if to say goodbye.

"See you later, I suppose. Watch over this place for me, won't you? And do try not to get yourself killed, Yoichi."

"Try not to drink yourself to death, Yuzu," he replied unceremoniously.

"I fear my undying liver shall continue to receive the brunt of the punishment. If I could drink myself to death, I surely would've done that already."

And with that, Yoichi's vampire relative was out the door and gone from his presence.

The servant named Denki approached Yoichi. He bowed and gestured up the stairs with one arm. "Young master Yoichi, if you'd like to use the library, I'd be happy to show you there. It is my duty to serve house Isagi."

"Sure..." Yoichi mumbled, feeling that this encounter with Yuzu had only left him with even more questions, "Thanks, Denki."

"My pleasure. This way, young master."

Yoichi followed his vampire house's servant up the stairs, unaware that he, too, was in mortal danger.

Not far away, Rin was advancing closer and closer to the manor in pursuit of Isagi Yuzu, who'd become the single target of his wrath. The one who was already gone from his manor. Rin's sanity dwindled dangerously small, his hunger for Yoichi's blood was growing in magnitude with every hour that ticked by, only thwarted by Rin's desire to completely destroy Yoichi's vampire relative.

This love of theirs, once a beautiful thing, was now twisting Rin's mind with his growing hunger, throwing him further and further down into madness.

How long until he was lost in the darkness completely?