A/N: Aaand, belated Happy New Year! The year is still pretty new anyway so it counts, right? Anyway this part is dialogue-heavy.

She stirred. A weak pressure was on her head—a little weight from something that wasn't very solid—and it seemed to move in repetitive motions, disappearing, reappearing, trailing down her hair and disappearing again in a slow, steady rhythm. It filled her with a faint nostalgia. Shiena's head had been stroked like this before, but not in years, and so long ago it surprised her that she even remembered at all.

But this hand was unfamiliar.

Grumbling tiredly, she pulled her face up from the surface of the bed it had been on. She could feel in the placement of her limbs that she'd fallen asleep seated on the chair and with her head rested on the bedside. Her mind and the rest of her senses were still too muddled with drowsiness to tell her anything else, but her hearing was the fastest to return.

The voice was soft, with a subtle whispered rasp. "Oh, sorry… I didn't mean to wake you up."

It took a few moments for Shiena to blink her eyes back to clarity, and her eyebrows knit. "Takechi…? Was that you?"

"Yeah, that was me," she said. Otoya seemed to mirror Shiena's own drowsiness, but her lips were stretched in a small smile. "Hope you didn't mind too much. Got bored and, well, your hair looked nice. You can go right back to sleep."

"What about you?" Shiena asked.

"I can't sleep," Otoya answered. "If you've ever been tired of sleeping, then you'd get it. But you need rest."

"No, I—"A yawn cut into Shiena's response. "I'll stay awake. I needed to talk to you, anyway. And it can't wait until later." She sat up slowly and let her gaze fall on Otoya's comforter. It was rumpled and clumped in places that it hadn't been before, telling her how restless Otoya had been the past few hours. Boredom likely hadn't been the sole reason for her untimely wakefulness.

"That doesn't sound good," Otoya said, weaving a small laugh around the first few words. "What's up?"

Before she spoke, Shiena took a deep breath and tried to keep her demeanor as even as she could, but a little of the anger managed to boil through her voice. "Why was it so easy for you to fall for Kaminaga's trap?"

For a moment, Otoya looked at Shiena with a perfectly empty and unreadable expression—one that Shiena never could've imagined on her—before cracking a carefree grin and staring back at the ceiling. "Why does it matter?" she said. "Look at us. We both got out in one piece, didn't we? And it's not like something like that's ever going to happen again. No big deal."

"Like hell it's a big deal!" Shiena said, putting a hand on the bedside. "We almost died! I nearly got burned alive twice, and if I hadn't gotten to you soon enough afterwards, Inukai would've gotten you executed, given you didn't already rot to death after being in a burning building!"

Otoya turned her head toward Shiena. "Shiena-chan, where—"

"I've been doing some thinking since then, you know. Aside from finding a place like Shutou's, being with you hasn't gotten me anything. I know it's my fault that I decided—like an idiot—to ask for help from the first person I thought could help me, but I didn't think that you would make a mistake that could've cost us our lives. Maybe you're just so desensitized to all this, this wrongness, after sleeping near dumpsters for so many years that you've forgotten what a normal house looked like, and maybe you're so used to being a vampire that you've forgotten what it's like to be a human being!"

The air was sliced in half with the speed that Otoya had shoved Shiena to the floor and kept her there with a hand pressing on her collarbone. A jolt of pain coursed through Shiena's spine and set her shoulder on fire again, but she forced an eye to stay open. Otoya's face had almost twisted beyond recognition by boiling anger. Her fangs had been bared and there was a cold, deadly intent in her eyes that the darkness couldn't stifle. Shiena wasn't sure if the pulsing she felt on the scars of her neck was imaginary.

"What are you doing now?" Shiena asked, fighting Otoya's chilling stare with her own. "Trying to help me prove a point? Go ahead. Bite me. Rely on me for blood, so it'll be harder to go back to scavenging for victims in the city once you go back to being the lowlife that people hunt you down for being."

As if something physically held her back, Otoya abruptly stopped just as she was about to jolt forward, and the iciness in her eyes vanished. Her stare had wavered, and then, lips set in a line, she stepped up, away from Shiena, who pushed herself up to observe in silence. As she walked to the chair on the side of her bed, her limbs looked heavy. She took the chair by its backrest and, after spinning it so it would face Shiena, took her seat.

What little life that was in her body seemed to have drained as soon as she did so. Otoya sat with her back slumped, elbows on her knees and her head in her hand. She looked tired, and despite what she'd said, it was still unsettling for Shiena, to see someone usually so full of energy suddenly looking devoid of life. But as unsettling as it was, she couldn't look away. Looking at Otoya felt like looking at the remains of a devastated city.

Eventually the hand on her face fell, and she lifted her head, though her gaze was still weighed down and trained on the floor. For once, she looked her 58 years. "Shiena-chan," she began, "I have a lot of things that I want to tell you, too, actually, but right now doesn't really seem like the time for me to cover all of them. For now, I'll just answer your questions."

When she was met with silence, she continued.

"Why did I fall for Kaminaga's trap? Well... I guess you could say it's because I've been on the run for so long. When we met Kaminaga, I knew from the beginning that she might've thought you and I weren't really human, and that meant that she knew about the people like us. In the first place, houses like the ones that we went to are the types that are inhabited by souls of people stuck on earth, so I thought, 'Maybe Kaminaga-san has a ghost friend or something in here.'

"I'm fairly infamous, so anyone who is willing to help me or stick around with me is either crazy, clueless, or apathetic." Shiena could've sworn Otoya smirked at that point, but it faded almost as quickly as it appeared. "The people in the part of the world we belong in come tend to have more colorful personalities than regular humans. There's no way to tell if they're willing to help me out or not just with a few minutes of conversation, but I've lived to the point where it's not that big a risk anymore, because people have tried to kill me so many times I've learned how to save myself from almost everything. That's why I took the bait. I thought that even if it turned out to be a trap, I'd have been able to save myself."

"But you didn't," Shiena said. "I had to save you, and we both got hurt."

"I know," Otoya said. "I went into that manor with the mindset I brought with me for the past decade, but it turns out that wasn't going to work this time. I forgot to take into account something very important—you."

Shiena's eyes widened, and she picked her gaze up from the floor and looked at Otoya. "Excuse me?"

"It never occurred to me that you'd freak out if something happened," Otoya said. "I never expected for you to pull me down those stairs, and it messed up my usual escape plan. If I took charge sooner and made sure you stayed calm, we could've escaped the manor without any injury at all. So… yeah, I'm sorry I didn't keep you in mind. Everything that's happened to you is my fault. It won't happen again."

At that, Shiena's response stuck in her throat, and though she wouldn't admit it, she felt defeated, like whatever delusions of control she had on the conversation had disappeared. So she swallowed and nudged it in another direction. "…I still have more to ask you."

"Fire away."

"What you did for me when the first explosion went off… It nearly killed you, and I know you could've escaped if you hadn't, so why? Why did you save me? "

"I could ask you the same thing." Finally, Otoya lifted her head and met Shiena's eyes. "It sounded earlier like you wanted to get rid of me, like I just held you back or harmed you, and I could see why. You were right—all I'd done so far to help you was bring you to Shutou-san. I was beginning to feel like this whole deal we made was helping me more than you, even if it was your idea." She looked away, and her hands began to grasp each other anxiously. "All I asked for was a supply of blood while I was helping you, but you gave me all this. I'm not complaining, of course—I'll take any help I can get, but I just don't understand why."

Shiena slouched and stared at the floor. "Funny, Shutou-san asked me the same thing earlier, while we were on the way to get you. I told her I wanted to break you out just so this burn I got saving you wouldn't be for nothing, but she was smart, and went on to ask why I even saved you in the first place."

Otoya had been watching Shiena attentively since she'd begun answering, and her hands had stopped moving. "What did you say?"

The answer came to her with such ease it felt branded onto the back of Shiena's mind, but there was an inexplicable refusal in her chest for her to repeat it to Otoya. "I... I told her I wasn't—" But the protective half-truth she'd picked out had stuck in her throat and crumbled after a careless glance in front of her. Shiena's aimless gape was a lost, wandering deer, and Otoya's eyes had been the hunter's snare, unassuming but impossible to escape. The silence that followed had begun to choke her.

"Shiena-chan?"

And that was the killing arrow.

One of Shiena's hands had balled itself into a fist, and she spat her next words out like bitter medicine. "I-I told her I didn't want you to die."

Desperate for some, any kind of reaction, Shiena's eyes locked onto Otoya, whose face remained locked in a look of question. "What?"

Shiena let out an exasperated sigh before her words came out in a nervous flurry. "I-I don't know, okay? I don't know. If everything that's happened is how it's going to be for as long as we're together, then the most logical thing for me to do is just leave you, right? No more neck-biting, no more people trying to get me killed, nothing. I won't get in your way anymore, and you can return to whatever messy, high-risk lifestyle that you had before meeting me. I can just stay with Shutou until I can make it on my own. I know all of this, and it's obvious what decision I should make for myself, but when it finally comes down to choosing between leaving you and helping, I…" Her hand flew to her face as she growled and clenched her jaw. "I just don't understand anymore. All I know is that I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I left you in that burning house or in that cell when I could've helped you. It feels so ridiculous saying that, considering the rest of the world is seems to be going out of its way to kill you—"

Otoya stood from her chair so suddenly that Shiena nearly jumped. "Don't say that," she said. "I don't want you to say that saving me was stupid."

"And why the hell not, Takechi?!" She hadn't realized it, but Shiena had burst into a standing position, fists balled at her sides and challenging the taller girl with a fuming glower. "Why would my keeping you alive be anything other than completely idiotic?!" A pair of hands grabbed her arms forcefully.

"It's why I saved you!"

After that outburst, the grip that Otoya had on Shiena's arms had loosened until her hands had fallen to hold her wrists, and her eyes fell to look at them.

"You're probably going to hate hearing this," she began, and her speech gradually accelerated as she continued, "but you don't know how much you mean to me. I'm going to be completely honest—at first, I only wanted to stay with you because I could drink from you without turning you into a vampire, and that was most of why I saved you from that explosion, but then you saved me twice after that, and it really confused me, but at the same time I was really, really happy that you did, and, and, now I just think that if I lost you, I'd never be able to find someone like you again!"

"Paint it however you want," Shiena said, "but it's still obvious that you only want me because it helps you. I won't be your babysitter."

"You won't!" Otoya said. "I'm sorry that being with me comes with so many risks, but you might be the only chance I have at getting rid of them. I don't know any more than you do about why you saved me, but if I asked you if you could leave me right now, what would you say?"

Shiena swallowed and looked at the far wall of the room. "I... I'd say I would leave you. It's not that hard now that you aren't miserable."

"What if I said that I'd protect you from everything that comes with being around me? You'll be my first priority!"

Shiena didn't answer, but even when she looked absently at empty space, she could feel Otoya staring at her expectantly. Cold silence settled over them both.

She broke it with a wry laugh.

The weariness returned to Shiena's voice and seeped into her arms, which had relaxed into Otoya's grasp. "Do I really mean that much to you?"

"Yes," Otoya said.

Shiena let out a long sigh. "Just my luck, huh?" she said, almost to the air as much as to Otoya. "For someone like you to be the first person to think of me like that..."

"Shiena-chan, plea-"

She raised a silencing hand. "I get it. You want me to stay with you, right?"

Otoya nodded fervently. "I swear I'll-"

"No, it's alright. I don't need anymore convincing." As she paused, Otoya's face began to brighten, while Shiena's own eyebrows furrowed as if bracing for something. "I guess I'll give you another chance."

Shiena's muscles had tensed on their own just as Otoya had leapt in for another hug, nearly lifting her off the floor and spouting a series of hurried 'thank you's. Her grip around Shiena's torso was inhumanly strong, which Shiena wouldn't have minded as much if it hadn't chafed at her shoulder injury. She began to twist around in Otoya's arms.

"Okay, okay, Takechi, you're welcome!" she said between a few pained yelps. "Let me go already! C'mon, you're making my shoulder act up!"

A giggle erupted from Otoya's throat before she put Shiena down. "Sorry," she said, grinning ear to ear, "but I was just so happy."

"Well then calm down," Shiena said, flexing her shoulder to get the worst of the sting out of the way. "You won't be able to get back to sleep like that."

"Haha, right, right." She and Shiena both knew it more for effect than anything, but Otoya took a deep breath before her tone returned to normal. "But seriously-thank you so, so, so much. I promise the Kaminaga incident won't happen again."

In a passing glance, Shiena found that Otoya had dramatically held a fist in front of her during her declaration. The image nearly kindled in her an urge to smile at least a little, but she quelled it and looked away just soon enough. "Don't go making promises now," she said. "I'm not some bratty princess who expects you to keep me safe a hundred percent of the time. Just do your part and things will be, y'know, okay between us."

"Got it!" Otoya chirped.

"And one more thing," Shiena said. "I did say I'd give you a second chance, but no matter how well you can hold up your end of this deal, don't expect me to stick around forever."

The brightness faded from Otoya's face for a moment, only to return after a pause. "That's okay," she said. "I know you won't leave me too early."

Whatever my punctuality, I still have to apologize for not getting this out earlier. Writing this chapter hadn't gotten any easier since putting up the last one, and everything here (like characterization, dialogue, body language stuff, avoiding cheesiness, etc.) was just that delicate and I had to be that careful. Up to now, I'm still not sure if it passes. Did everything have enough build-up? Is Shiena too angry? Would Otoya even act that way in an argument? What do you think?

Also, since there may never be a good reason to mention this in-story without the inclusion of parallel dimensions (which belong to a different genre) I'd like to mention here that canon!Shiena has something that werewolf!Shiena does not have nor need. It's not something important like her deep-seated hatred towards bullykind or her crush on Chitaru Namatame, but it is something that most people would expect to be there and might think I made a mistake by forgetting about it. There are hints around some of the chapters and anyone can guess, but the actual answer will be in a later chapter.

The usual greetings, and hopefully I can pick up the update pace, ahaha. (And in case anyone doubts, yes, the future holds SuzuKou.)