Been writing more music for the book! Above is Leya's theme. :)

Waking wasn't always easy - sometimes, when the duvet was so warm and the mattress was so comforting, waking felt like the hardest chore in the world. At first, that's how [Y/n] felt. Warm, happy, safe. Then, the constant paranoia began to creep back into her psyche as she reached for her clock on the bedside table. There was no clock, however. It was now she began to panic. Where was she? Her bed was larger - she felt more constricted, like the duvet was heavier and weighing down on her as though the feathers were made of lead. What was going on?

Had it all been a dream? Her time with the boys all a lie? Some psychedelic LSD trip as the reality of her new situation finally came to light?

"You haven't forgotten, have you?" a soft voice chimed next to her. A soft voice she recognised. "This is our house," he continued gently, "you're in our bed."

"Our..." [Y/n] sleepily mumbled, "Nyais," she sighed, "good morning. I'm sorry-"

"Don't worry," he cut her off with a small laugh, "it's fine. You've been through a lot lately." [Y/n] looked down at herself in response to this. Her arms and wrists were bruised beyond belief; everything ached still. Nyais gave her a sympathetic look.

"The contract," [Y/n] mumbled, looking over at the desk in the corner of the room where the contract resided, attempting to pretend she hadn't just completely forgotten the result of 22 days of fighting for her life, "was I supposed to sign or...?"

"Ah, yes," Nyais quickly made his way over to the desk, picking up the contract and taking it over to [Y/n] and passing her a pen. He tapped a small dotted line at the bottom of the sheet. "Just put your signature there."

Slightly shakily, [Y/n] did so, her hand scrawling her signature across the bottom of the page. She looked up at Nyais who returned her gaze with a smile and took the contract back over to the desk. "I'll send this off later," he said. It seemed he wouldn't have to, however. The letter suddenly combusted, falling to ash on the floor before the ash seeped into the soft, fluffy carpet and disappeared. The pair blinked a couple of the times as they wordlessly observed and construed the strange occurrence.

"Maybe not, then," Nyais shrugged. He walked over to [Y/n] and sat beside her on the bed.

"Nyais," [Y/n] began quietly, looking down at her hands as she subconsciously tugged on each finger. He hummed, encouraging her to continue. "I... I meant to ask - a-and this is probably a stupid question b-but - what am I to you?"

Nyais paused in thought, placing his hand on hers. "What do you want me to be?" Someone who can answer my questions without asking questions, [Y/n] thought with a mental sigh.

"I..." she looked over at the door, "I... uh... I don't know."

The pair went quiet for a while.

They thought.

[Y/n] was yet to realise that thinking was a bad thing.

Knock knock knock. [Y/n] stared in the general direction of the door where an impatient knocking had sounded. Knock knock. Nyais stood up, ushering for [Y/n] to stay where she was (but she followed him to the door regardless). He unlocked the door and the person at the other side promptly pushed it open.

A man with messy black hair stood in the doorframe. He wore a long white lab coat with a black turtleneck jumper under it. His attire was entirely casual, but he held himself formally (aside from the fact that he leaned slightly to the right as though his left leg was injured). The strangest part about him that [Y/n] noted was the slightly manic look in his emerald green eyes as he locked them on her.

"[Y/n]," his slightly quivering, wholly unstable voice called to her, "finally we meet! I've heard so much about you."

He seemed slimy, scary and surreptitious. She didn't feel at all surprised when Nyais slammed the door on his face.

"That's..." [Y/n] mumbled, trailing off as though his name was as dangerous as Voldemort's. Well, for all she knew it could be.

"Rayne," Nyais finished darkly. Okay, Rayne's not Voldemort. That's a relief.

"Hey~ let me in!" Rayne's voice called from the other side of the door, clearly irked. "Look, do you want me to fix her up or what?" Nyais looked over at [Y/n] and gauged her state - she was clearly still in a lot of pain. He was just scared that Rayne would make it worse by 'accident'.

"I-it's okay, Nyais. If there's something he can do about all of this then I'll take whatever the negatives are," she said quietly.

"Don't tell him that," Nyais warned, before slowly opening the door again. This time Rayne didn't wait. He pushed straight past Nyais and made a beeline for [Y/n], giving her a false sympathetic smile when he saw her state.

"They really did a number on you, didn't they?" he hummed, tenderly taking her hand and bringing her through to the living room. He seemed to know Nyais' house quite well. [Y/n] remained quiet as he opened a metal box filled with medical supplies, his finger running over them as he mumbled random medical shorthand terms to himself. He looked up at her after checking he had everything. "Has Nyais told you not to talk to me?" he asked with a frown. [Y/n] shook her head. "So, cat's got your tongue?" he huffed, trying his best to stay patient. She shrugged. In truth, [Y/n] just didn't know how to communicate with him safely. He might not be Tom Riddle but that didn't mean he wasn't Hannibal Lector.

"Just do what you're here to do and get out," Nyais' voice chimed from the door as he watched from afar. Rayne sighed and shrugged.

"Right, [Y/n], can you tell me where your injuries are?" he asked. Something told [Y/n] he already knew - the way he asked sounded more like he was trying to test her mental state than working out which thing to treat first.

"My arms and legs," she said quietly. That was a lie; she immediately regretted it. Her worst wounds were the shuriken wounds from Kori on her back and the knife wounds from Seishin on her midsection.

"Really?" Rayne asked, an eyebrow raised, furthering [Y/n]'s suspicion that he was running psyche tests. And, as proof for her suspicion, he pulled out a notebook and pen and scribbled something down. [Y/n] narrowed her eyes. Can't pick between Hannibal Lector and Lex Luther.

"Stop fucking around, Rayne," Nyais spat. Rayne looked over at him with a grin.

"The psychological state of a patient is just as important and the physical. You don't want her to be depressed or scarred by what happened to her because of you, right?" Rayne asked with a fake innocent voice. In truth, it dripped with malevolence.

"Because of me?" Nyais retorted bitterly.

"I don't think she'd be ripped up like this if she was still at home with her friends and family, do you?" Nyais looked away and Rayne turned back to [Y/n], shrugging his shoulders. "Don't hide things from vampires, [Y/n]. We're all working to protect you now, even if we'd love nothing more than to destroy you for ruining our tradition," he grinned, "so if you give us the beautiful respect of lying to our faces we're not going to be happy."

"I'm sorry," [Y/n] said quietly.

"Good," Rayne affirmed, patting her on the head. It seemed degrading. Buffalo bill? [Y/n] suspected that's what he was going for. "I'm going to need you to lift up your top so I can treat your wounds now, [Y/n]—"

"Just tell me what to do and I'll do it," Nyais snapped from the doorway.

"I'm afraid it's rather complicated, Nyais," Rayne responded condescendingly, his eyes narrowing. Nyais glared. "Plus, you're too scared of hurting [Y/n] to do something like this without hurting her. You'll shake. I'm sure she'd rather have an expert hand treating her wounds, wouldn't you?" [Y/n] just stared at him in response. In all honesty, his argument was convincing enough for her to just want him to get on with it, but she didn't want his hands anywhere near her. She hung her head and shrugged when he continued to wait for a response. This earned a sigh from the male.

"Oh whatever," Rayne huffed. He took her arms (which she'd subconsciously folded over her chest) and placed them by her sides. "Are you gonna take your top off or are you waiting for me to?" Rayne raised an eyebrow. Before [Y/n] could respond, Nyais cleared his throat deliberately and Rayne lethargically turned to face him. "What?"

"Enough with the fucking mind games, Rayne. I know what you're doing." Rayne smirked at this, leaning back and shrugging his shoulders.

"You do? Oh, please tell me, I'm dying to know what I haven't thought of," he chuckled.

"Please, please, I beg of you just shut up," Nyais pinched the bridge of his nose as though Rayne was a headache that needed to be expelled. "Write down some instructions on what to do or something. I don't want you touching her and I can't stand to hear you talk anymore," he groaned.

Rayne shrugged, pulling a pen and notepad out of his lab coat pocket and flicking the first page over to show Nyais what he'd written. At the top read 'I thought you'd say that' and then there was a list of instructions. [Y/n] could see how repulsed Nyais was at the amount of time Rayne had evidently spent understanding how his visit would go. A small grimace was on the brunette's face as he took the notepad; staring at Rayne, repulsed, he gestured to the door. The raven haired madman let out a final, shrill giggle before walking over to the door and shutting it behind him.

Nyais spent a moment reading over the notes in the notebook before rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry you had to deal with that. He's a piece of work," he huffed.

"It's alright," [Y/n] responded softly, a small smile forcing any negative thoughts away. Movie villains. That's all he was, a movie villain. But Freddie Kruger was bloody terrifying- no, just movie villains.

"He, uh, didn't mention anything about the elixir thingy though," the [h/c] haired female observed.

"Shit," Nyais muttered, his hand rubbing circles around his temple as he let out a heavy sigh. He stared down at the note and read through it properly. [Y/n] stared at him, hoping he would read it aloud so she could understand what would warrant for 'making her better'. Nyais seemed to catch on to this as he looked up at her and his eyes darted to the top of the page.

"Here," Nyais said, passing it to [Y/n]. She began to read.

'I thought you'd say that. Steps marked with a bullet point are mandatory if you want her to recover with as little pain as possible. Hyphens are additional but will definitely help.

• Clean the wounds. You need to wash out the wounds before doing anything else or you risk allowing her to get infected. I left some carbolic acid and hydrogen peroxide on the counter. You must use carbolic acid no matter what you do - soak a towel in it before pressing it against any wounds, open or not. It'll help.

- If the wounds have sealed over and messily scabbed, you ought to use hydrogen peroxide (but just know that this is a little bit more painful) - do the same with this and apply it to the scabbed over wounds. It should melt off the scabs and allow you to switch to carbolic acid again.

• Allow the wounds to dry off. There'll be too much plasma to stitch them properly after applying the chemicals. Sit her by the fire or something.

- Towel drying is an option to speed up the process but you'll have to actually stick it right in the wounds. I figure you're probably not going down this route, eh?

• Apply salve. I've left that with the hydrogen peroxide and carbolic acid.

• Stitch up the wounds. Also with the hydrogen peroxide, carbolic acid and salve. This is also with the bandages so I don't have to keep repeating myself because my wrist is getting tired.

• Soak and apply the bandages.

• Remove the bandages after she drinks the elixir (tomorrow if you were wondering) and remove the stitches. You may have to cut her skin - I'll be there to do it if you'd rather.

If you're wondering, I've got Laion and Aytsa studying from books downstairs. I'm sure [Y/n] will be thrilled to know that they've hardly mentioned her. It seems they've given up already.

I guess [Y/n] and I can relate on a few things.

- Rayne.'

"I don't like the look of all this acid stuff," [Y/n] frowned, "also, I'm thrilled the boys are calm and all but what the heck is that last part supposed to mean? Rayne and I, relate? Oxymoron much?"

"Don't worry about it," Nyais brushed off her small rant before frowning. "Rayne's an expert, I trust his judgement, but I don't trust him." [Y/n] looked at the floor. Well that was reassuring, she thought sarcastically. "Look, let's just have a look and see what we absolutely need to do. I know you'd rather not - I'm the same - but if it'll help you in the long run then we ought to have a go. [Y/n] nodded. "I'll also ask Olli to get different acid. I don't trust he hasn't given us something with extra high concentration or something."

This chapter is actually the one I wrote 'Forever and Ever' (my other composition) for. I'll put it again here just in case ;)

[There should be a GIF or video here. Update the app now to see it.]

So sorry for the absolutely pathetic chapter length of this one! Super busy with Christmas dawning on us and my Mock Exams first thing January :,)

AHA - you thought it was over! I've actually gone back to this after publishing a few days ago so you've got a few more thousand words to read! <3 Why, I don't hear you asking? Well, I'll tell you~ It's cHRIISSSTTTMAAAASSS no but seriously, it's Christmas and Christmas is amazing. I was planning on putting this (and all that will follow) in a separate 'Christmas Special Chapter' but thought eh, seeing as it's all canon anyways why not just put it in the chapters themselves? Also, I've got another Christmas present (it might be late, please don't sue me) on the way. On the flip side, I'm planning on taking 'Last Chance' off my account for now to make room for your other Christmas Present :)

DAY ONE OF TRAINING: 6.33AM Draka and Mitzu

"Get up, boys!" a harsh voice boomed in the small bedroom Draka and Mitzu were temporarily housed in. Draka stretched his arms in front of him, narrowing his eyes as he tried to catch a glimpse of the man in the room with them. The boys had yet to be introduced to their mentors - all they knew was they were to stay in rooms with their designated partner and wait for the morning. "You've been out for 30 hours so I'm expecting everyone to be well rested today."

He had rather fluffy grey hair and blue eyes. He looked strong, Draka decided. Mitzu tossed the covers off himself and stretched his arms out in front of him. Draka followed suit.

"I ought to explain your training," Jay huffed, leaning against the door. "Everyone's put in pairs. There are different types of training you can all go through depending on the strengths and weaknesses you show in the first 21 days. Once you're pooled in your training niches, the seniors and elites are sent a letter with an offer. It's first come first serve really, but relatives and elites get priority. Now, you may be wondering what your niche is," he said, leaning forwards a little as he looked both boys in the eye, one after the other. "I'm training you to become soldiers, sort of. Really, I'm training you to become elites, but I have to label it as soldiers so it doesn't seem like the hierarchy favours kids like you."

"Kids like us?" Draka echoed. 'We're not even kids,' he thought with a frown.

"Strong kids," Jay clarified. "Anyway, I want you to up, dressed and ready in five minutes exactly. Meet me downstairs when you're done," he said shortly, walking away and shutting the door behind him.

"He's kinda scary," Draka laughed with a shrug, going to get his clothes (which had been folded up neatly on the end of the bed). Mitzu didn't acknowledge him, he noticed. "Mitzu?"

"How can you smile right now?" Mitzu snapped in irritation. "Doesn't it piss you off, even slightly, that [Y/n]'s with that purple eyed prick instead of us?"

"No, not really," Draka smiled, swapping his plain white sleepwear for his day-to-day wear. "She won't be with him for long anyway. He'll either do something weird and scare her off into our arms or Seishin will make a plan to bring her back. I'm sure he's already planning."

"Why are you leaving that to Seishin? Why not make a plan yourself?" Mitzu asked.

"I'm not as good as any of you, so I don't see why I should," he shrugged. Mitzu was clearly about to give a pitying look but whatever sympathy had been in his eyes quickly dissolved in his usual torrent of irritation and wrath. He threw his new clothes over himself and walked over to the door, looking at Draka. The brunette in question gave Mitzu a nod. He pushed open the door and Draka followed after him as they stepped out into the corridor of the foreign place.

It was pretty ordinary. The place was metal framed giving it an industrial sort of look - there were metal stairs as well. Many mirrors hung on the walls - Draka wondered whether it was some sort of statement. A 'look inside yourself' sort of thing.

Once they reached the foot of the stairs, a figure appeared from the bottom of the small corridor that led on from them and tossed a pair of blood packs their direction.

"You can choose whether you drink them now or later," Jay began, "but just know the work we're doing today is going to be quite strenuous."

DAY ONE OF TRAINING: 6:30AM Laion and Aytsa

Aytsa woke with a start, suddenly feeling cold and scared. It took him a moment to realise why he felt that way as he registered the icy dampness of his pillow and the sodden state his hair was in. A tall male in a white lab coat stood next to his bed (Laion's bed on the other side of him). Both of his arms were outstretched and empty glasses were in each hand. He brought them down by his sides and cleared his throat. "Good morning," he began as both Laion and Aytsa sat upright, "today is your first day of training. I had to give everyone a pretty strong sedative to get you all here without seeing locations and stuff so you've all been out for about 30 hours, but don't think that's an excuse to slack off."

"Was that necessary?" Aytsa huffed, running his hands through his wet hair.

"Entirely," the raven haired male responded with an unstable grin, "though mainly for my own entertainment. Still, there was an element of necessity." He paused, walking over to a bookshelf and placing the empty glasses on the side. He turned to look back at Laion and Aytsa. "My name is Rayne as I'm sure you're already aware. I've selected you to train under me because I'm the only doctor our society has and I think it'd be quite useful to try and inspire a pair of young beings such as yourselves to join me and lessen my workload," he laughed. "I'm also a human biologist but that's quite a particular trade that I'm not certain you'd want to mess around with," he briefed.

"What's a human biologist?" Laion asked, his brow furrowed.

"Uhh, well, I guess... I research humans. Their behaviour, their strengths and weaknesses, illnesses they're prone to and how they heal them..." he hummed.

"Is that why Nyais hates you?" Laion asked, raising a brow. Rayne laughed at this.

"It'd probably be a lot easier to just say yes," Rayne brushed his question off with a twisted smile. "Now, I've got a few errands to run today so I'll be giving you some books to look at when I'm gone, but first I think I should give you a brief overview as to what it is I actually do. So, if you'd come with me," he said, leaving the boys' room and pausing at the door to see if they were following. The pair, still soaked and in yesterday's clothes, followed along as Rayne led them through his house, stopping at a door at the end of the corridor.

"You're not to touch anything down there unless I ask or permit you to. I'm being nice letting you down there in the first place. Don't push your luck," he warned, before unlocking the door with a key that he fished out of his pocket and pushing the heavy steel door open. A dark staircase led down into what appeared to be nothingness; when Rayne flicked on the light, another door revealed itself at the bottom. He led the way, unlocking the second door and turning on the second light.

Aytsa and Laion stared at one another in shock as Rayne's workplace was revealed to them. The aseptic nature of the room was ruined by the occasional blood splatters and rotten smell that surrounded the place. Aytsa had to take a long breath to keep him from feeling ill. Their attentions then flickered to the cage in the corner of the room. A young man was curled up inside, rocking forwards and backwards.

"Ignore Harry," Rayne muttered, glaring at the disheveled male in the corner of the room. "I'm running a psyche test on him."

"What sort of psyche test is that?" Laion said in disgust. Aytsa gave him a deliberate nudge in the side, shutting him up. Rayne seemed to approve of this as he said nothing more on the matter.

"There are several different experiments going on in this room at this very moment," Rayne began, beginning to walk around the room. He picked up a small container. "Here I have some mould. Do either of you know what I might be wanting to do with this?" he asked, looking from Laion to Aytsa. Aytsa bore a blank stare but Laion seemed to brighten a little.

"Medicine, right? Penicillin," he clarified. Rayne gave a nod.

"Tell me more about it," he prompted. "Who invented it? When? What does it do?"

"Uhh," Laion began, reaching in the back of his mind for the books he'd read on the history of medicine, "w-well, penicillin was discovered by A-Alexander Fleming?" Rayne nodded, urging him to continue. "It was discovered in the early 1900s but they could never develop enough of it to use it as a drug. Florey and Chain were the ones who actually made penicillin useful. I think they used it in that big human war," Laion hummed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Oh, and it kills bacteria. It's an antibiotic."

"Brilliant," Rayne praised. He diverted his attention to Aytsa. "Did you not know this? It's basic stuff."

"I'm not a fan of all this medicine stuff," Aytsa pouted, "it's too wordy and full of plants."

"I see..." Rayne trailed off. "Then what are you fond of?"

"I like the more practical side of science," he smiled. Rayne paused before returning his smile; he wasn't used to smiling semi-sincerely. It looked clearly forced, even though anyone could tell he was trying his hardest.

"Well I suppose that leads us on to this second experiment," Rayne explained, pointing to a glass bottle with a reddish pink liquid inside of it. "This here is the Elixir of Life. I created this after years and years of trials on people like Harry over there," he said, pointing to the broken male in the corner. "Finally I've perfected it. In here is a mixture of things, but the main ingredients are rosewater and Nyais' blood."

"Nyais?" Laion questioned. "Wait, did you? Hang on, what? I'm confused," he rubbed the back of his neck.

"You don't need the details. All you need to know is this is very important for the future of your little human."

There was a momentary silence before the boys looked at one another. With all these new occurrences and all these things to think about, they'd almost forgotten the most important thing of all: their end goal, their motivation, the incarnation of their very will and strength.

[Y/n].

"Regardless, the time is flying! I must be off. Here are some textbooks," he said, passing the two boys a book each - Laion's focused on medicine while Aytsa's was more centred around experiments. "Learn some stuff. I don't care what. Just know that if I find a single object in this room has been moved, you'll be begging for the mercy I've given Harry."

With that, the manic scientist grabbed a first-aid-kit and left the pair to their own devices, locking them in the basement.

DAY ONE OF TRAINING: 7:00AM Seishin and Kori

"Have you seen him yet?" Seishin asked tiredly. The pair had searched the house up and down but there was still no sight of Seishin's father. A note had been left on the kitchen table saying 'find me', along with an illegible sequence of words that neither Kori nor Seishin could decipher. They'd quickly figured this was the first part of their training, but with no scent trails that could identify the male and no other clues in sight, the pair had concluded the task would be impossible.

"No," Kori huffed, crossing his arms over his chest, "I can't find him anywhere. You dad's as irritating as you," he sighed. Seishin decided to tactically ignore Kori's statement, thus avoiding WWIII.

"Well, he's locked us in the house so he can't have gone outside. Technically we could lock pick it, but something tells me that would be breaking the rules," Seishin frowned. "We have air vents but they're just about big enough for a mouse to fit inside of— wait..." Seishin stopped himself. Kori seemed to have the same idea as he cut in by shifting into his bat form, flapping up to one of the slits in the ceiling. He clung onto it and heaved himself into it. Seishin waited. No way in hell was he going to risk his life like that.

There was a long period of silence before Kori reappeared, shifting back.

"The air vent goes straight up," he began, "I didn't fly all the way because it started to get really hot after a few metres, but I'm pretty sure this place is under a mountain."

"That's not gonna help us find Kaist," Seishin deadpanned. Kori shrugged. "So what about the other air vents? Do they connect or are they all just vertical tunnels?"

"Vertical tunnels, I presume. I also presume they have heaters inside to stop any precipitation from the outside world getting inside - if the heat built much more it'd be enough to burn me to a crisp. Any liquid wouldn't stand a chance," he observed. Seishin nodded.

'I see," Seishin muttered. "So he's not in an air vent, he's probably not outside and he's apparently also nowhere inside," Seishin concluded. "Or, he is inside but he's been stalking us while we've searched. We have no technique or experience regarding spacial awareness so I doubt it would be difficult to do. If that's the case, we could probably search for him for years on end and never find him."

"So you're saying we're outmatched?"

"Precisely," Seishin admitted.

The pair waited for a moment in silence before Seishin let out an almighty groan of abject frustration. "Was I that obvious?!" he spat.

"In your bluff?" Kori returned. "Yeah, you were."

"Thanks a lot," Seishin retorted. "You played along though so you're as much of a failure as I am." Kori shrugged, walking over to the note on the counter again.



"Maybe he wants us to decipher this?" he wondered.

"Good luck," Seishin returned spitefully, "I'm gonna continue searching."

DAY ONE OF TRAINING: 1:23PM Draka and Mitzu

"On to the second activity!" Jay called out to the pair of boys, coughing and panting in a pile on the grassy floor. Their first time outside wasn't all Jay had made it out to be. The old guy had described luscious green grass, wonderful fresh air and soft, ticking ferns from inside the rock crevasses. Both boys acknowledged these things, however they'd had little time to appreciate them as Jay had plunged them into his extreme training regime.

The activities Jay had told them of were:

1 - Weighted running (time limited),

2 - Cave training (time variable),

3 - Underwater training (time variable),

4 - Weighted push-ups (time limited).

The boys weren't too put off by this until the first (and apparently easiest) activity, which had actually included chaining a boulder to each foot and getting them to race around the mountain Kutelo (which is one of the mountains that sits above the underground city) before then also getting them to run along the arête (with their boulders in tow). They'd nearly fallen off the mountain several times over but had managed with Draka winning by what seemed like a blade of grass. Now, having just removed their shackled boulders, they were faced with their next task. No break. No time for breathing.

"This is a far more tactical activity," Jay began with a smile, before beginning to walk and ushering for the boys to follow. Lethargically, they did so. It wasn't long before they were headed into the mountain itself, walls of stone surrounding them. There was no light source as they ventured deeper. They could only trust their instincts.

"I'm going to throw objects at the pair of you at random intervals, from random directions. In this first round, I expect you to dodge every single one of them. If you touch a single one, you must do 50 push-ups with a goat stood on your back," Jay explained.

"Goat...?" Mitzu echoed. "The hell is that?"

"It's an animal," Draka responded with a huff. "You should've read some books." Mitzu shrugged in response.

"We'll start now," Jay barked, and suddenly everything went silent. None of them could even hear themselves breathing, never mind listen for Jay moving around them.

When the first object was thrown, the boys really realised quite what they were up against. This day would sure as hell be a long one.

DAY ONE OF TRAINING: 6:29PM Laion and Aytsa

"I think he's back," Aytsa mumbled, looking up from the diagrams he'd been drawing to the door. Moments later, it cracked open. To Aytsa and Laion's partial surprise, partial horror, Rayne was drenched head to toe in blood.

"Messy job," was all he said as he put his bloodied first aid kit in the bin. He seemed to glare down at it for a while.

"The hell is your job?" Laion spluttered. "Part time human biologist, part time doctor... part time blood bather?"

"Something like that," Rayne responded shortly. Both boys could tell something was up - Laion was about to press on but Aytsa gave him another nudge to warn him to keep quiet. Laion simply turned on him and gave him a dark glare.

"Are you alright?" Aytsa asked simply. Rayne seemed a little surprised at the question - he shrugged in response.

"Just a bit tired," he shrugged. "Anyways... how have you two been doing?" he asked, wandering over to the piles of work they'd done. "Yes, that's good," he nodded. "So, if I'm correct, you're interested in human biology, Aytsa?" Rayne said, his brow furrowed slightly.

"I guess," he trailed off.

"And you're apparently mesmerised by medicine, Laion?"

"Y-yes," he stuttered, looking down at his current piece of paper - an essay he was writing for formaldehyde and it's uses in medicine.

"Then tomorrow I'll set you both some work in here. I think I'd do us some good to have someone here who specialises in human medicine, so I'll teach you some tomorrow, Laion. Plus, you may be needed if ever [Y/n] injures herself." Laion nodded firmly at this. "As for you, Aytsa, I'll teach you a bit about the tests I run on humans. Just know they're not for the faint of heart. If you show any empathy towards a wretch like Harry, I'll set you on the same work Laion has to do." Aytsa paused before nodding also.

"When do we start?" Aytsa asked.

"Tomorrow morning," Rayne explained. "You've worked long enough today. Go get your blood packs and make yourselves at home. Just remember that you can only come down here when you have my permission, so go anywhere in the house other than this room. Okay?"

The boys nodded their heads before allowing Rayne to lead the way to the rest of the house.

DAY ONE OF TRAINING: 7:08PM Seishin and Kori

"Fucking hell," Seishin spat, his hands running through his hair. He finally, after avoiding Kori for 12 hours and searching for himself, had returned to his starting point. Kori looked up at him. There was a mountain of screwed up balls of paper on the floor. "Where the hell did you get all this paper from?" Seishin growled out.

"It was on the table, idiot," Kori responded dully. In his mad search for Kaist, Seishin had been ignoring the blatantly obvious. "I think I might be nearly done," he said with a smile.

"Oh yeah?" Seishin muttered sceptically.

"Yeah," Kori responded with a deadpan expression, holding his piece of paper up to Seishin.



"Wow," Seishin drawled, "you've worked out one letter, you fucking genius."

"Wait," Kori paused, picking up a blue pen. He began to scribble things down, frantically adding things here and there as he seemed to have some sort of genius breakthrough. To Seishin, it looked foolish. The grey haired boy had no idea how to solve ciphers. How he was supposed to just learn was beyond him.

Kori then presented the piece of paper for a second time.



"I see a question mark. You gonna screw this one up, too?" Seishin sighed.

"Nope!" Kori beamed. "I've got it! The cipher has a super easy rule that I can't believe we missed. If the desired letter is a vowel, you go forwards three in the alphabet. If the desired letter is a consonant, you go backwards three."

"How'd you know that?" Seishin mumbled, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Because the first word has two letters in the middle which means it must be stressed. The chances are, it's a double 'o', so I listed some double-o four letter words that he may have used. I circled the ones to do with place or time, excluding soon as it was too indefinite, and - after reviewing the alphabet for a pattern - realised the first word has to be room."

"So?"

Kori then grabbed a green pen and continued scribbling things down for a moment. Then, he shoved the completed paper in Seishin's face.



There was a pause before the front door creaked open. A blonde male stood in the doorframe with a pleased expression.

"Had I been willing to let this search continue, I would've made you search the whole place for room thirty four," the stranger began, "but I figure you've had enough searching for today. I'm a bit disappointed you didn't work it out though, Seishin. I'd expected a bit more from my own flesh and blood," he shrugged.

"Are you Kaist?" Kori asked. The man nodded.

"Indeed I am. I'll be training you for the next few days. I expect you to flourish, but I'd hope you'd learn to get along a bit better first," he frowned. "Take the rest of this evening to talk. Your constant bickering will almost definitely drive me up the wall so please nip it in the bud."

aish, so this chapter ended up being 6149 words. Oopsies— Merry Christmas! (Oh, also, I haven't proof read this (oops) so please, if there are any typos, can you maybe comment on em and make me aware of them because I'm literally dying of fatigue over here xD. Thank you!)