Seras POV

Blood. Seras wanted it badly; this was standard for vampires, but in Seras' case this craving brought her a great deal of self-turmoil. As a result, she was pretty pissed off today. Searching the unfamiliar and very, very large city of Tokyo for her irresponsible master, in no way alleviated this mood. After he disappeared from the airport that incompetent escort had shown her to her room. The pig had refused to tell her the situation without Alucard present, so now she had to search the whole damn country for his unreliable grinning ass.

"My specific orders are to tell Alucard, not his groupie. Humph." She mocked his words with distaste as she walked along some alley. She hoped the fact that she couldn't read the street signs weren't going to get her as lost as she felt. "Groupie. The pig called me his groupie of all things! I was so close to grabbing that scumbag by the…grrrr! Her grumbling and bitter inner ranting kept the young Nosferatu from realizing that she was mere seconds away from hitting the school girl who was about to turn the corner parallel to her. Inevitably, both ended up on their rears. "Oh god I'm sorry, I wasn't looking!" Seras stated quickly, not realizing the girl was unlikely to understand her. With a sigh, she gingerly lifted the girl back to her feet with unearthly ease.

As she dusted herself off, Seras looked the young girl over. She was attractive, in a subtle way. She had long brown hair done up in a fashion she had never seen before. Most of it was put up in a bun along the side of her head while the rest was braided and trailed below the bun, a single red ribbon was woven in with the style. Slowly the girl looked up at Seras and smiled. Her eyes gave an eerie golden glow in the darkened alley.

"Don't worry, I'm fine. It was my fault too, I wasn't looking." The girl politely stated, with perfect English. Seras nodded her head idly at the statement before the realization that the girl was speaking the Queen's English hit her like a gold brick. She glanced at Miyu in she seemed normal enough, to Seras' advanced vampiric senses, there was something about the girl that was… just... off. It slowly dawned on Seras that they were in a dark alley in an unwholesome part of town and it was the middle of the night. These were factors that simply didn't allow for the presence of a high school girl. She'd heard rumors that plenty of perverted old geezers in the country were into the whole "innocent schoolgirl" look, but she doubted from the look of this girl that she was into that kind of stuff. Hell, the girl spoke flawless English so asking clearly wasn't out of the question. With that in mind, she let loose.

The girl seemed to pick up on Seras' blunt suspicion. "I'm just out with a friend. I didn't realize how late it was," she said, with a nebulous smile. The expression sent an enigmatic chill down Seras' spine. This was a feeling usually associated with her master.

Seras peered around the girl, trying to find the aforementioned friend, but was greeted by a ominous alley, dank, dark, and deserted. "So, um… where is your friend?"

"Oh, around. So what brings you to this country, Officer?" the girl asked, eyeing Seras' uniform.

"Officer?" She looked down, realizing what she was wearing. "Oh yeah, officer... Hehe… um… well, business I suppose…" She mentally kicked herself for forgetting to put on her civilian attire. She wasn't here as a cop or a vampire, in front of normal people here she was instructed to appear as one. She assumed some common courtesy would be the best way to disengage the subject of her employment.

"M-my name is Seras. Seras Victoria." She said nervously, rubbing the back of her head and feeling generally awkward.

"Miyu," the girl said simply, her smile broadening slightly. She looked as though she was about to continue, but a brief flash of something…possibly concern, flashed across her face. She looked up into Seras's eyes, all humor gone from her expression; her smile replaced with a tightlipped frown. "I just remembered something. I need to meet my friend somewhere. He's waiting for me, maybe we'll see each other some other time." With that, Miyu ran off into the night.

Seras stared off into the urban abyss Miyu disappeared through. It was still necessary to continue to search for her wayward master, but she knew if Alucard didn't want to be found, then success was basically out of the question. Of course, knowing that certainly wasn't enough to deter her. As she continued the opposite way she stopped dead in her tracks when she came to an awareness that, when realized, seemed far too obvious for her to have overlooked at the time. The girl didn't smell human. Not one bit. Miyu wasn't a FREAK, that was for sure. FREAKs smelled of coagulated blood, and ghoul stink usually saturated them. Miyu smelled like blood all right, but also something else, the smell of matches and fire. It would be far too faint for even a dog to detect but Seras was sure of it.

Processing this information in her head, she walked robotically down the alley for several more minutes. However, the heavy explosion a couple of blocks away sent her rocketing towards a different destination entirely.

Miyu's POV

Miyu stopped and waited in the middle of an empty lot. Her conversation with the creature, Seras, had been abruptly cut off. Upon encountering the confusing woman she immediately sensed something similar to the red-coated man she had seen the other night. Much to her dismay she felt a warning from Larva and immediately ran to a place to meet with him. Looking around the lot once, she changed from her brown schoolgirl uniform to her usual attire in the blink of an eye. The familiar cloaked figure of Larva landed in front of her. Miyu could sense his anxiety through his ever-present mask.

"What's wrong, Larva?"

"I'm being followed. I sensed it about a half-hour ago; I've been unable to lose it… I think it wanted me to lead it to you. I had no choice."

"It's all right, Larva. Is it a shinma?"

"I can't be sure, I couldn't see it-" his sentence was concluded by the large heavy form skidding to a halt in front of the two. Reflexively, Larva jumped between it and Miyu. His blood red claws extended to their full length. Miyu simply narrowed her eyes at the beast.

The beast in question was a large onyx wrinkled mass about the size of a Dumpster. Four spindly limbs of various lengths supported it's main body, although their minuscule size made it seem impossible to lift the creature up as easily as they did. Four more long, thick, trunk-like tendrils grew from it's top. At the end of each was a long, crooked scythe-blade. Seven jet black "eyes" in the middle of the mass made up the creature's face. Branded above the eyes was a burning pentagram. All in all it was a monster, but it currently made no move towards them.

Miyu looked the beast over apprehensively. It was definitely a shinma, but something was wrong with it. It seemed empty. Void of anything. No. That assessment was premature. It did give off something. Malice. Pure and simple malice. She took a step forward.

"Who are you?"

No sooner had she said this, a beam of blue light projected from it's many eyes and soon formed a face made of the light. It was the face of a man; the illusion (which is what Miyu was sure it was) was tinted blue and translucent, like a hologram. The face had long dark hair and wore sunglasses. Before she could do anything, he spoke.

"If you are seeing this message, it means you are the guardian." The voice oozed disdain. "Let's skip the pleasantries. My name is Descartes, and quite simply I'd like to make a deal to make with you, more like an agreement really."

When the message stopped Miyu realized the shinma was waiting for some kind of conformation from her before continuing. She considered her options before speaking.

"Go on, I'm listening."

The message continued as if it had never halted. "I want you to leave me and my 'associates' alone. It's as simple as that. I'll grant you and yours safety if you do. If you refuse… well, my associate, Sho-Ro, enjoys making a mess. Oh I'm sorry, Sho-Ro is the gentleman giving you this message right now." In response to this, the shinma now identified as Sho-Ro, gave an inhuman screech. " He isn't like other shinma you've dealt with. I've put some work into him-" Descartes looked over at the branded pentagram. "-And I'm sure you'll be able to see the difference he has with your earlier opponents. This offer I find to be generous, and you have one chance to accept. Just one." On that note the message cut off. Sho-Ro took several steps forward and let loose another sibilant screech. It seemed to impatiently await her answer.

A grin slowly made it's way across Miyu's face. She shook her head. "If your leader knew anything about me, he'd know I'd deny his generous request."

Another screech was all that Sho-Ro had to say on the subject before sending two of its five blades rocketing towards the guardian and her servant. Larva caught the blade a half second before it made contact with his face, and with his free hand drove all the claws of his left hand into the side of the tendril. Miyu sidestepped her assailant's blade with ease. Grabbing hold of it with her right hand she set fire to the portion she held then let go. The fire traveled through the tentacle and quickly towards the main body, incinerating the flesh as it made it's way down. With a scream of desperation, Sho-Ro, used one of its free blades to sever the two captive ones. The two stumps quickly regenerated back to their original length. It quickly backed away from them.

"It seems no stronger then average." Miyu grinned. But she knew it was faster then she anticipated. It was smarter then it looked too.

The beast leapt high into the air above them, it's tendrils retracted until only the blades stuck out from its flesh. They centered themselves along its axis, then like some hellish buzzsaw it began to spin. The blades continued to move faster and faster until the separate edges couldn't be seen. It quickly dashed towards them with every intent of shredding them. Before it reached attack distance larva jumped up into the air colliding with the freakish blender in mid-air. He used the handle of his scythe to hold off the torrent but slowly he began to be pushed back.

Loosened from the initial collision larva's mask fell from his face to the ground. "Now Miyu!"

A large swirling flame formed between her hands. She regarded the creature with disgust. "Rest in darkness, Shinma!" The fire let loose from her hand and slammed into the spinning shinma, sending it careening into the far building, shaking the whole block and letting loose a large crash.

Larva landed and reseccured his mask. He looked over at Miyu as she sighed in relief at the form of Sho-Ro burning away to nothing. "What do we do now, Miyu?

"We start looking for the one causing trouble in my town. I'm sure finding a trail shouldn't be too hard. Let's go back home for some rest."

"Miyu, behind-!" Miyu barely had time to assess Larva's warning in time to see the severed tentacle Larva dealt with earlier flying towards her face. A Moment before it's fatale impact, the tendril exploded, its chunks landing at Miyu's bare feet before withering away to dust. The two both turned to the source of Miyu's savior. Standing several meters away, the policewoman, Seras stood pointing the largest gun Miyu had ever seen in their direction. The blond addressed the two with humorless narrowed eyes. She slowly turned towards Miyu.

"We need to talk."

To Be Continued