When seven-year-old Aono Tsukune ran into the forest to retrieve his friends' baseball, it was an impulse stimulated by little more than a sense of innocent daring, not a suicide attempt. When the rain began and his visibility began to suffer, it was not due to any willingness to die that he did not turn back, but rather a steely resolve to retrieve the ball. It occurred to him that this was awful far for a ball to fly, but Sanageyama-kun was an excellent hitter, and to him, it wasn't impossible for it to have bounced and rolled. This was abetted by the fact that the forest made him lose all sense of time as he ran through the dark, forbidding wood.

There are tales that men meet the Devil at a crossroads, that the Prince of Darkness tempts them when it is their time to make a choice between two courses. Perhaps they are true, and perhaps not; what is true is that the young boy did not see the cliff he fell off of until he had run over the edge of it, blinded by the lashing of branches and the falling of rain. He felt weightless as he fell, a strange, pleasant feeling not at all unlike flying, then each twig and rock on the ground below him as he hit it and bounced and rolled down into the ravine, breaking many of the bones in his small body and sending shards of them through his skin, causing pain to lance through him with each involuntary move he made. It was, in a word, agony.

There are also those who say that the Devil comes upon those who are about to die before their time; and really, who can say what the vampire was actually doing in those woods? But for whatever reason, the vampire appeared before the young boy at that very instant, his fine, Italian-made black leather dress boots crunching onto the twigs and dead leaves in front of Aono Tsukune's face. "Well, well, well, what have we here?" he asked rhetorically, the expression on his face both bemused and amused as he crouched down so that the boy would not need to look up at him, and thus do damage to his neck in the process. "Aono Tsukune, is it not? You are the boy who was fated to fight me. But here you are, about to die-and we cannot have that, can we? The Fates' caprice is truly unacceptable, and I find it abhorrent that a boy with such a beautiful will that he would come all the way out here in this weather for this"-he produced Sanageyama's ball from his long black coat-"should die for his commendable resolve. And so, in recognition of that, I offer you a choice, Tsukune-kun: you are about to die, and I am the only one who can save you. Would you like for me to do so?"

Tsukune took a moment to think about it, and then nodded his head as vigorously as he could without causing undue amounts of pain.

The vampire smiled, baring his long, narrow fangs. "Well then, Tsukune-kun," he said as he gently sat down upon his coat and pulled Tsukune's neck into his lap. "I do believe this is the part where you're supposed to close your eyes."

Tsukune replied with a weak "Hai" that burned his lungs to say, then squeezed his eyes shut against the pain; before long, he felt another pain, just a pair of pinpricks at first, at the side of his neck, followed by another pair of somewhat more painful pinpricks anchoring themselves into the other side of his throat so that his spine was caught in between the vampire's jaws. With his grip on the boy's neck was secure, he began drinking his blood while injecting his own into the boy's body with his fangs. An excruciating agony unlike any other held Tsukune in its grip and refused to let him go as his bones moved themselves back into alignment and then snapped themselves into place, causing his body to contort and jolt against his will as the vampire's blood raced its way through his veins and commanded his body to heal itself. It continued for quite some time, as the damage that had been done was substantial, but as the ratio of human to vampire blood tipped in favor of the latter, it happened faster and faster; by time the transfer was complete, and the vampire's blood had completely overwritten his own, carving its code into every cell in his body, not an ounce of human blood remained therein. Aono Tsukune, a seven-year-old boy with average talents in almost all scholastic respects, was an immortal vampire.

"Well, now that that's done," said the vampire, standing up with the help of his walking stick and helping the boy to his feet as well. "You are now a vampire of the Shinso bloodline, my dear Tsukune-kun. Come, there is much work to do, and you have a great deal to learn before you'll be ready for it-ready for Yōkai Academy-and as your creator, I have a responsibility to teach it to you. You will be my heir-heir to all my power and knowledge."

Tsukune nodded, unaware of the cosmetic changes that had been effected upon his body, but knowing the truth of the information the elder vampire was giving him. "I have one question, Master; who are you?"

The elder vampire threw his head back in laughter before calming down enough to speak. "Well, I certainly do have you at a disadvantage, now don't I, kid?" he chuckled to himself. He thrust a hand out to Tsukune, and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Tsukune-kun. My name is Fujisaki Miyabi, and I am your master. Now, are you ready to begin, Aono Tsukune?"

Tsukune nodded.

Shuzen Akua was not a girl many people could surprise. Ever since Jasmine died, she was rarely irked or taken aback by the evils and injustices of the world. So when her grandfather walked into the building with a small boy in tow, she was shocked and horrified far more that she was shocked and horrified than she was actually shocked and horrified. Even more so when she noticed the strange markers on him; his eyes were blood-red and slitted like a cat's, and his hair was silver-markers of vampirism. Recently turned, too; she could tell by how awestruck the boy was. He had never seen this kind of splendour before, it seemed. Akua found it odd that she didn't expect her grandfather to be the type to pick up strays. In retrospect, it seemed somewhat obvious.

"Akua, this is Aono Tsukune. Tsukune, this is my granddaughter, Shuzen Akua," Miyabi said as they approached to an appropriate distance for introductions to be made. "Say hello, kid."

"Konbanwa, Akua-sama. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu," said the seven-year-old vampire with a respectful bow.

"Ojii-sama, what is the meaning of this?" Akua asked, suddenly feeling quite out of her depth with her grandfather's newfound hobby of taking in a stray vampire.

"Well, it's simple," Miyabi said, pulling a cigarette from the box in the inside pocket of his long black leather coat. "You see, I found Tsukune while I was out walking. He was about to die, and so I fixed that issue. You can see the results for yourself. The boy is a proper Shinso now that the change has taken hold, but by the same token, he shouldn't really be involved in any strenuous activity for at least a day, if only to let his body adjust to its newly elevated parametres." Seeing Akua's blank look, he nonetheless continued. "I've decided to recruit him to our side, and seeing as I don't really trust anyone here at Fairy Tale to tie their own shoelaces without written instructions and a practical demonstration or three, the duty of training him falls to you."

"Why me?" asked Akua, folding her arms and taking a cautiously aggressive stance; she didn't want to push her luck with the Shinso who stood before her.

She needn't have worried. Fujisaki Miyabi was many things, but without a sense of humour wasn't one of them. He merely chuckled as he lit his cigarette, taking a deep breath in, and exhaling a solid gust of smoke. "Well, you see, it's like this, Akua-chan. In the state the kid is in, developmentally speaking-both as a human and a vampire-he just wouldn't survive my training. You on the other hand have a chance of actually teaching him something without ending his life somewhat…prematurely. You will teach him how to be a vampire worthy of his bloodline over the course of the next year. Once you've done that, he's going to be going out on missions, at first with you, and then solo, for the next two years-one year each. And then finally, when I feel that the kid's strong enough not to die in the first session with me, he will be admitted into my special training, learning the kind of power that Holy Locks were made to contain. Get it?"

"And he gets the special training instead of me because…?"

"Because it's not for you," said Miyabi, his eyes now devoid of mirth and deathly serious, and the crooked half-smile on his face as he smoked made his expression all the more terrifying. "You have reached the pinnacle of your fighting technique. There's nothing left to mould. It would only break you, and thus make you useless to me-and to Moka."

"Fine," she said, conceding not because of his words, but because of the absolute death his eyes promised to any who stood against him. It was in moments like these that Akua was reminded of just who her grandfather was and what he represented. "I'll train the boy. Starting tomorrow." She looked to the small child, and he seemed very much exhausted by the events of the day. Her grandfather was right; she could see how much strain the transformation from a human to a Shinso, of all things, had put on his little body, and if they pushed him any further before he had the chance to get a decent rest, they would break him. Shinso or not, everything has a breaking point, and some things, in spite of their inherent power-or perhaps as a consequence of it-were more fragile than others.

"Excellent," said Miyabi, performing an act that most would think of as unthinkable to someone like him and picking up the exhausted boy, who immediately began to nod off. "First thing tomorrow, I'll get him fitted for a Holy Lock. Shinso blood is all well and good, but if it's not given time to incubate and mature, all we get is a normal vampire, and we don't want that."

"I thought Mikogami was an enemy of Fairy Tale-and of you," Akua pointed out.

"He is. But Mikogami's not the only one who knows how to seal away massive amounts of power, nor is unlocking one's full potential a skill exclusive to Toho Fuhai," he explained. "I can do both, quite possibly better than they can, especially since I've forgotten more about how Shinso blood works than the both of them combined have ever-and likely ever will have-discovered. But let's not worry about that. Right now, let's let the kid get some rest. He's going to need it."

Tsukune awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling. He would have bolted upright in a panic if the memories of what had happened the day before had not come flooding in the instant he finished thinking about how unfamiliar the ceiling was. He was where his master had put him after the strange events of the previous day. In fact, were he not contemplating the visual evidence to the contrary, he might have thought that the previous day's goings-on had just been one strange dream.

He tried to slip out of bed, but collapsed into a heap at the foot of it. Suddenly his legs would no longer support him. He tried to reach out to the wall, but found that his strength, his ability to move, was gone. "Ah, yes, I ought to have explained that this might happen," came the now-familiar voice of his master from the far corner of the room. Now that Tsukune could pay attention, he realised that his tone was strange-like he was the only one on earth that understood some great cosmic joke, and now derived amusement from the attempts of others to get the joke. This was a voice unused to kindness or compassion. "Sorry, kid."

There was a clicking of shoes on the hardwood floor, and then a surprisingly strong set of arms lifting him up and back into bed. He felt his master open up his mouth, and pour in a liquid that had a strange sourness to it, as if it was highly acidic. "What's happening now is that now that your body has stopped rejecting the change that my blood brings, it's been rewritten. The catch is that all the fatigue your body accrued from attempting to fight the transformation stays. And that includes the stress from the injuries you had sustained when I found you. I'm feeding you my blood because the transformation is not complete, and I want to postpone it until your body is strong enough to handle the final stages of metamorphosis. Adding in more of my blood will do that. I can give you something to postpone the final few changes, but you're eventually going to have to go out and drink human blood, or else your body won't recover properly, and when the lock fails, as it inevitably will, your body will mutate into that which we call a 'ghoul'. That is what we want to avoid at all costs."

Tsukune wished he had the ability to nod in understanding, even knowing that even if he did, actually completing the action would have been a lie. There was a lot of information being thrown at him, and his seven-year-old brain could only take so much of it in at a time. Thankfully, his master seemed to understand, reaching over and mussing up his hair. "Don't worry, kid. I'll tell it to you again when you're older-and able to understand at least half of what I'm talking about." Tsukune managed a weak smile in reply-as a sign of gratitude to his master, the one who had saved his life. "Can you walk?"

Tsukune attempted once again to get his legs to support him, and they did-albeit barely. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"Well, kid, we're going to see someone about getting you what you need," Fujisaki said in response.

Later that day, Tsukune was sitting in the gardens, toying with the length of chain that encircled his small, thin arm, especially the little charm on the end of it, which looked to bear a strange, five-pointed star surrounded by a picture of a dragon eating its own tail. This was, as his master explained it, a 'Holy Lock'. The analogy Fujisaki had used was that it was like a set of training wheels on a bicycle, and that eventually, like training wheels, they would come off in time, as he learned to control his newfound powers. Tsukune didn't really care much about that, though, as he was much more excited to learn that he could walk unaided again.

This was where and in what state Akua found him. For the first time, Tsukune could take Akua in without exhaustion making his vision blurry and the memories of their first encounter somewhat hazy. She was beautiful, with black hair cascading down her shoulders and attired in a strange sort of coat, though the fact that she wore a frilled white shirt underneath was made obvious by the fact that the sleeves were white and of a different material than the coat. "So, Aono-kun, was it?"

"Just call me Tsukune. Everyone does," replied the innocent-looking seven-year-old child sitting before her with a cherubic smile-one that was marred by the fact that he wore such a strange-looking Holy Lock, which, to Akua, spelled nothing but trouble. She had learned to take that which was unfamiliar and treat it with caution years ago, and so she did precisely that.

"Tsukune-kun, then. Follow me," Akua ordered him, a touch curtly. There was only one person who she would regard as a younger sibling, and it wasn't this black-haired, relatively plain-faced shota.

Tsukune nodded and followed, but did ask, "Where are we going?"

"The gym," Akua said, her response somewhat short. "Today is the day you start your training, remember?"

"Training?!" Tsukune's eyes lit up. "Are you going to teach me to be like Kenshin?!"

"Who?" she asked flatly.

"Himura Kenshin," he said, suddenly a bit shy. "From Rurouni Kenshin?"

"No, Tsukune-kun. I'm not going to teach you to be like an anime character. I am, however, going to teach you how to survive."

Tsukune fell silent after that, for which Akua was grateful. Talking to this child, so small and innocent, triggered unpleasant memories about what had happened to both Jasmine and Moka, the only two people she had ever truly loved, and so she was glad to have the quiet.

The pall of silence between the two vampires in short order became so thick that it could be cut through, such that it was even beginning to irk Akua, and so she was ironically quite glad to shatter it when they reached the door to the gym. "Ah, here we are," she said finally, and the sound was as refreshing as a cool breeze on a stuffy day. She proceeded to the centre of the mat that covered the floor, and she encouraged Tsukune to enter in behind her. Not even his pouting could stop him from gawking at the immense space, empty of equipment or sounds of inhabitants anywhere in the vicinity save herself and Tsukune. Truthfully, 'gym' was a touch inaccurate, as the only exercise that went on in this room was sparring-hence the necessity for space.

Once they were well-situated, Akua began. "Tsukune-kun, you're young, and so we'll have to start with the basics. Your first task will be to hit me."

"Hit…you?" asked Tsukune, confused.

"Yes. Come up to me and hit me," she said clearly.

Tsukune, still perplexed, walked up to her and threw a punch. He almost tripped when his fist failed to connect with anything, though the light shove from behind wasn't really helping anything. He whirled around, and there was Akua, waiting impatiently. "Well? Hit me!"

Tsukune ran up to her and tried to punch, but again, all he encountered was air. That, and another light shove. He looked around, and she was directly to his right. He punched, and suddenly she was on his left, pushing him lightly.

This continued for several hours, as the child punched and punched and never connected, because at the moment of impact, Akua was already gone, and he was only punching air. He continued getting more and more flustred and frustrated with every missed attack, until he was on the verge of tears. The next thing he knew, he felt a swift pull on his legs, and suddenly he was on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the gym, and Akua's riding boot was on his throat. "That's enough for today, Tsukune-kun. Go wash up." With that, she stepped back, releasing the pressure on his neck, and walked away.

Tsukune laid there and cried tears of anger for hours, but no-one came to help him.

Akua herself stopped when she saw her grandfather lurking in the doorway. "I suppose you're about to question my methods-say I'm being too hard on the boy?" she asked rhetorically as she stopped to talk to him.

Fujisaki Miyabi just chuckled and took a draw off his cigarette before exhaling the thick white smoke. "If I were, I would like to think that I had enough common sense not to say anything, considering that I'd be pushing him twice as hard as you are, and thereby wind up breaking him entirely."

"Figures," she said with a mirthless half-smile. "That should have been exactly what I expected you to say, given your station."

"Of course," said Fujisaki. "The kid'll catch on quickly, and then you'll not only have taught him something, but also have made him tougher in the process."

"'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'?" she quoted.

Her grandfather only gave her his crooked half-smile. "Precisely."

Tsukune's "training" continued like this for several days. Every day, it was the same exercise in seeming-impossibility. No matter how hard he tried, how quickly he reacted, nor how frustrated he became, his blows still hit only air. It had come to the point where he began to dread training, but Akua would not settle for half-measures. No matter where he hid, she found him, dragged him to the gym, and forced him to do the pointless exercise again and again, until his seven-year-old mind could take no more stress, which was when she ended it-just on the edge of him losing control of his emotions. She never bothered to push him over that edge. That final plunge into hot, angry, shameful tears was his own, and no-one else's.

After a week of this torture, he would have been ready to give up-and more than once he had almost done so-but something instinctual, intrinsic and primal in him refused to surrender to this pointless, impossible task. But even that ironclad resolve was beginning to waver, and if something didn't change soon, it might break entirely. Thankfully, however, on the eighth day, things changed completely.

"Today we're going to try something a bit more advanced: evasion. Instead of hitting me, I want you to avoid getting hit," Akua said that day. Tsukune was relieved that the task had changed, but felt an unfamiliar emotion at the announcement. That emotion was one he would come to know as 'wariness.'

Then he felt the sudden certainty that Akua was right behind him. Following his instincts, he did precisely that, and Akua's attack rushed over his head. "Good," she said. "Again." And again, the sudden certainty that Akua was to his right flared up. He bent backwards to avoid the strike, and it sailed across his supine torso. "Good. Again!" He ducked his head and crossed his arms over it in a defensive stance, and in an instant, he felt a profound impact on his arms. He looked up, and saw that his arms had caught Akua's foot. She had drop-kicked him, and he had blocked it. "Perfect. Now hit me." Tsukune didn't respond. Akua was there and disappeared to appear somewhere else for about an hour. Before she moved in to end it, however, Tsukune leapt over her leg sweep and drove a knee into her body, and, committed as it was to the attack, she could not evade.

Tsukune had finally hit her.

"Very good," said Akua as she got back to her feet. "You've learned the first lesson: how to sense killing intent. Over time, you'll learn to sense yoki in general, but killing intent is a good place to start."

"Is that why I had to hit you?" Tsukune asked.

"Yes. I thought to train you to predict where an enemy was going to be through detecting their yoki. But as I said, killing intent is a good start," Akua said. "That's quite enough for today. Go wash up. We'll start on the real training tomorrow."

Tsukune nodded, but no longer was he excited. In fact, he felt somewhat…numb. It was as though the stress of the past week had crashed against the satisfaction and happiness he felt at completing the task set before him, and in that crash, neutralised each other. He proceeded woodenly to the locker room and cleansed himself in herb-treated water, and walked out, not even noticing his master's presence, let alone his smirk, as he left.

"He has potential," Akua said finally, biting the words out as if each one was a personal affront to her and her honour.

"What'd I tell you? The kid's going places," replied Fujisaki as he lit up another cigarette and took a draw on it. "In fact, if trained correctly, the kid could one day surpass even me."

"And even knowing that, you elected to save his life?" Akua asked in incredulity.

"Yep. In fact, I'm counting on it," Fujisaki said with a half-smile. "That's why I'm going to ensure that he gets the training he needs to reach that point."

"You're planning something…" Akua said, her tone thick with suspicion.

"But of course. When am I not?" he responded glibly. "To the point, I thought it past time that I selected an heir."

"And why not me?" Akua asked, not offended-simply curious.

"You count yourself as being amongst the Shuzen family, and you ask me that?" Fujisaki answered, deathly serious. "Moreover, quite frankly, you wouldn't make the cut. Surpassing me requires a level of resolve you simply do not possess. Tsukune does. I simply have to mould him correctly, and he will be a Shinso worthy of the title and the bloodline." And suddenly his face became a smirk once more. "Don't ask questions you wouldn't like the answers to, kid. It'll keep you out of trouble."

"I see," said Akua. "Then should I press him harder?"

"Press him as far as you see necessary, with the understanding that if you break him…" and here Fujisaki took the cigarette out of his mouth and indicated her with it, with eyes filled with promises of pain and misery, "...you'll answer to me."

"I understand," said Akua, backing down. He was correct in that no tool she had in her arsenal, no technique she had ever mastered, would be enough to destroy the vampire before her.

"For your sake, I hope you do, kid. I hope you do."

Fujisaki Miyabi enjoyed taking walks every now and again. It was usually quiet, and a way to get away from the incessant squawking of the other subdivision heads, as well as the Queen Bitch herself, Shuzen Gyokuro. It was on one of these walks, in fact, that he had come across the boy who would defeat him-now his heir. However, this walk wasn't nearly as restful as the other walks he had taken over the years, and that was by design.

Normally, he would start in a little village at the base of a mountain and walk through the woods that lay at that mountain's feet. Sometimes, he would even climb the mountain and take in the cool air at the summit, and maybe rest there awhile. Now, however, he had something in particular he wanted to check up on, and so he went to the suburb where an unassuming family that had, until recently, had a very unassuming son dwelled. His cane rapped on the concrete sidewalk as he explored the neighbourhood, and took in the amount of signs there were. 'Have you seen this boy,' they all seemed to say in one fashion or another. The entire situation seemed quaint to him-quaint enough to evoke a chuckle out of him every now and again.

However, he knew that this walk would have to be over prematurely, and had known it when he had embarked upon it. He looked up into the air, a cigarette in his mouth, and laughed. Then he turned around and acknowledged the large font of yoki that had appeared behind him. "It's a wonderful night, isn't it, Kahlua?" he remarked glibly as he turned to face the fair-haired, dark-skinned vampire behind him. "The moonlight is lovely, and all the chirping of the mortal insects provides a very peaceful natural backdrop."

"Okaa-sama wishes to speak with you," said Kahlua. "She sent me to fetch you."

"Oh, did she now?" he asked rhetorically and with mock-surprise. "Well, then. I suppose I'd best abandon whatever I'm doing and dance to your mother's tune, eh, Kahlua?" The barb was wasted on the other vampire, but the catharsis of having said it almost made it worth it in Miyabi's estimation. Almost.

Moments later, they had returned to the floating fortress that was the headquarters of the organisation known as 'Fairy Tale.' Miyabi did his best to quash his impatience with the insolent bitch who dared order him around like some trained attack dog as he appeared in her presence. She turned in the chair she was sitting in to regard him, her uniform coat only loosely on her shoulders overtop her black cocktail dress. He, however, kept his carefully-guarded expression of smug superiority on his face. He would not give Gyokuro the satisfaction of visibly expressing his displeasure with a worm like her giving him orders.

"There is a rumour floating about that says that you have taken a new apprentice," Gyokuro began in her voice that was meant to sound seductive and authoritative but instead came off as grating and shrill. "But that can't be. One of my division heads couldn't be acting without authorisation, could he?"

"I wouldn't call him an apprentice as much as I would a protégé, Shuzen-sama," Miyabi replied with the same unreadable expression of mild boredom, even as he took another draw off his cigarette. "An heir, if you would."

"And you thought you could do such a thing without my approval?" she asked.

"When last I checked, the ability to deny a vampire the right to procreate is not one of the powers the head of Fairy Tale possesses," replied Miyabi, a note of danger in his voice. "Thus, it is not incumbent upon me to get your approval to do such a thing."

"Nevertheless, you have caught my attention, Fujisaki. I will be watching you."

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Watch all you like, Shuzen-sama. At the end of the day, however, I would have you remember that what Tsukune is and what he becomes is my business, not yours. Now, if you will excuse me, I was having a walk just now." With that, Miyabi rapped his cane against the floor of the floating fortress, and was gone.

Miyabi took in a sigh as he ran a shaking hand through his black hair. The hand was shaking not in fear, but in anger. The current head of Fairy Tale was getting on his last nerve. She represented everything he despised about the depths to which his race hand sunken over the past two hundred years. She possessed an arrogance about her, a certain hauteur, that she carried even though she was not worthy of it. She was decadent, petty and vindictive. The days of vampires as the noblest of monsters had come and gone. In that moment, however, Fujisaki Miyabi committed himself to ensuring that Tsukune never ended up like that disgraceful bitch-never fell into the trap of believing his superiority came not from skill or power, but from the simple fact of his race. To that end, he decided to add to the special training regimen he was planning for his heir. By the time that Tsukune was ready to be planted in Yokai Academy, he swore that the boy would be devoid of all those qualities that made Miyabi despise his own race.

It was in that moment that the wheels of fate once again began to turn…