A/N: And that's all, folks! A huge thank you to all the people who have followed my work from Part 1 all the way here, and those of you who have been so patient as I published new chapters sporadically over the last few years. I'm not really sure if I'm going to continue on with this series, because I've sort of moved on to other things, but I at least wanted to finish what I'd started. Sorry about not updating sooner, but I hope this chapter will wrap up all I wanted to say about Reiji and my OC. I hope you enjoy.

~Nique

Ch. 10: What Science Couldn't Explain

Reiji's vision was red around the edges. The bitch across the room was laughing after injuring HIS property, HIS assistant, HIS... Bride.

A small, warm hand cupping his cheek brought him back from the brink. He'd never lost control like that before, never let anyone know they'd affected him so much as to warrant a reaction, but this time he didn't think he'd be able to stop himself from killing the cheeky vampirette. The consequences be damned. But Masumi's voice distracted him long enough for his mind to regain some control over his primal, bodily reaction.

"It didn't hurt, really, Reiji-san. It's okay, I-" she broke off. The soft brown eyes that gazed so calmly into his, despite his rage, shifted down to her palm again, to the knife stick stuck there, to the blood still dripping onto the floor between them. Her eyes met his once more, but this time they were wide, frightened... remorseful. She fell, unconscious, into his arms without another word.

Had he not been cradling the human girl in his arms, he would have taken Suki by the throat and slammed her against the opposite wall. He resisted (barely) the urge to lay Masumi gently on the floor and do it anyway. Through his teeth, he hissed instead, "What have you done?"

Suki looked entirely self-satisfied. She gestured to the knife which pierced the girl's hand.

"I'm surprised you didn't notice, Reiji-san," she said mockingly. "That knife inflicted physical damage, yes, but it was what was ON the knife that has given me true revenge." She sneered at Reiji. "You humiliated me. You took away my social standing, my aspirations to something better, my chance to make myself the princess I was supposed to be... And now I've taken from you something you clearly hold dear... Say your final goodbyes, Reiji-san. That neurotoxin is of my own design, and none of my test subjects lasted longer than an hour once it had been introduced to their system." Suki turned to move through the crowd, confident in her victory, but the feeling was short lived.

Everyone in the room suddenly felt the stifling feeling of all six Sakamaki princes in the same room. Their combined power pushed many of the weaker vampires forcefully to their knees in obeisance. Kanato, the moody, childish brother appeared in front of Suki, his brows furrowed in anger.

"How dare you touch her! Now who will make my pancakes?! Should I just eat you instead?" he screamed at the girl. Behind him, his twins blocked Suki's escape routes, both equally angry. Laito rarely stopped smiling, but even his lips pouted, and his fedora hung low over hard-looking eyes. Even Shu stood near the back of the room, leaning against the wall, his eyes-surprisingly-wide open.

Reiji was on his knees, cradling Masumi's limp body as he examined the knife and the traces of poison left on it. Subaru crouched down next to him. Without looking up at his youngest brother, he asked,

"Can I remove the blade now?" The family expert on such things, Subaru nodded.

"It's already done its worst," he replied quietly. "The wound itself would heal with time, but the poison..."

Reiji clenched his teeth, his elongated canines showing. "I am very much aware of what the poison will do," he said, his voice lower than normal. Gathering Masumi's slight body in his arms, he faced his older brother. "I need to get her back to my lab. I can't apparate that distance, so I'll need the car." His voice was void of its usual contempt, and Shuu inclined his head slightly to show he recognized the shift in their relationship, even if only temporarily.

"I'll see that the others make it back to the mansion. The car is waiting out front." Reiji spun on his heels immediately, striding swiftly through the classroom door and toward the school's foyer. Behind him, he heard Shuu mutter "What a pain..." but knew he would follow through on his promise. Unconcerned now about how and when his brothers would return to the house, he ordered his familiar (the car's driver) to take them home as quickly as possible. His window of opportunity was shortening with every second they spent on the road. Until he reached his lab, there was nothing he could do. With Masumi laid out across his lap, he leaned his head back to think... to make use of this idle time. He hoped it would be enough.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Masumi was conscious. But her limbs felt so heavy, like lead was weighing them down, and she couldn't move them at all. She couldn't even open her eyes to look up at Reiji's face, though she could vaguely feel his arms around her, cradling her to his chest. He laid her down on his lap gently, and she heard a car engine start. Ah, how frustrating this is! To be able to feel, to hear, everything... To be fully aware of my death approaching but to be able to do nothing about it, Masumi thought. How ironic. Only a few months ago this was my reality, yet now I am nearly overcome by the unfairness of it all. If He hadn't shown up in my hospital room that day, this is exactly how I would have died... Perhaps I cannot escape this fate, she mused sadly, trying to ignore the uncomfortable stiffening of the blood in her veins, trying to stay lucid through it all. It was so hard not to just succumb to the nothingness... She knew the poison was spreading, could almost feel it flooding her system, beginning to halt vital functions. When it reached her heart, she would breathe her last.

"I forbid you to die, Yatari-san." Reiji seemed to have read her mind. "Need I remind you that you are still in my service? I own you. You are..." Reiji trailed off, his voice uncharacteristically thick with some sort of emotion. "...you are MINE, Masumi." Silence reigned in the car once again, but it felt... heavier than before. Not the silence of the vampire prince thinking, of absent communication between the two scientists, no, this silence felt... like words unspoken. Reiji couldn't vocalize how he felt, so he was quiet. Outside the car, the darkened sky finally opened itself to pour out a fierce storm. Thunder cracked. Reiji lifted Masumi's limp form once more, and carried her into the mansion, apparating into his bedroom immediately. Laying her gently on the dark covers, he brushed her bangs away from her face with an ungloved hand. It was perhaps the most tender touch he'd ever gifted her with, and it made Masumi's chest seize up.

He's scared, she realized with a start. He's genuinely worried... for me. But as his soft footsteps faded into the adjoining lab, Masumi was left again to focus on nothing but the poison tearing through her system, and all other thoughts faded.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

He had exactly thirty-six minutes before the poison on the knife she'd taken for him killed her. Thirty-six minutes before he lost his assistant, his plaything... Thirty-six minutes before it would be too late to tell her all the things he hadn't been able to say in the car, all the things that ran through his mind as he tried desperately to figure out how to help her.

The poison required introduction to her circulatory system, and was then fast-acting... It was thin and nearly imperceptible upon the blade until it had already taken effect... and she seems to still have some level of awareness within her comatose state, meaning it has so far left her mind unaffected, but it is attacking her blood, preventing it from reaching vital organs... He ran through all the facts he knew in his head as he pulled out various beakers, solutions, and reagents. Pulling the blade from his pocket, he unwrapped the handkerchief he'd used to handle it with, and extracted some of the remaining poison from the cloth. It was the best sample he was going to get. Separating the sample into several test tubes and adding several different reagents, he set about conducting four different tests at the same time.

He needed to know if it could be counteracted, diluted, and reversed. If it were a simple chemical mixture of poisons, he'd likely have all the ingredients necessary to make an antidote right there in his lab. But if, as he suspected, Suki had indeed concocted something new, a revenge drug that only she could make, his chances of finding out its exact chemical makeup and a counter-solution would be very slim indeed. He didn't have enough time for all that. As it was, the four tests would take up a large portion of the thirty minutes remaining, and Masumi's heart and lungs could malfunction even before that. Not only were they not getting their steady supply of fresh blood, they were also beginning to lack the fresh oxygen that accompanied said blood. She was suffocating from the inside out. What Reiji needed was something stronger than any chemical solution Suki could have combined. Something capable of treating unknown afflictions, of rendering them completely ineffective...

He needed whatever it was his father had given Masumi before she came to stay at the mansion. But how to get it? He and his father weren't exactly on speaking terms, and he doubted Karlheinz would have told him what he needed to know even if they were. He was infuriating like that.

Think. THINK! Reiji ripped his glasses off his face and nearly smashed them against the table. Only the blood of a powerful vampire could have cured Masumi before, but such a cure would also have turned her. How had Karlheinz diluted his blood enough to heal but not change? What had he mixed it with?

His books were scattered all over the floor of his lab, but still he was flipping through a journal on traceless poisons and venoms. His fingers stilled over the page, just as he was about to turn it, and without meaning to, he whispered aloud:

"I just need this to work." Going to where he'd laid the blade on the counter, he extracted the last few liquified drops of poison and placed them in a syringe. Rushing around his lab, he pulled out the necessary supplies-an attachable needle, two unused sets of syringes and needles, a tourniquet, and an empty vial.

Reiji proceeded to strip off his overcoat, vest, and dress shirt, discarding them without thought on the lab floor. They didn't matter. Not right now. Not anymore. Standing in nothing now but his uniform pants, Reiji used his opposite hand and teeth to tie the tourniquet around his left arm. Just as he finished injecting the poison into his own vein, Laito appeared at the doorway.

"I didn't think you were the sort of man to follow a lover into the grave, Reiji-san," Laito said lightly, leaning against the door jamb. "How romantic, nfu~"

Reiji scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. This poison will hardly do any damage to me... But... I need- I require your assistance, Laito. As you can see, my usual helper is... indisposed at the moment..." Reiji tried to maintain his usual condescending tone, but apparently failed. Laito just raised an eyebrow and stepped further into the lab... His first time ever doing so.

"Hmm, I'm quite fond of medical foreplay, so I can help you out, I suppose," he agreed with his sly smile. "At least, I know my way around a needle."

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Repositioning his glasses on his face, Reiji could still feel the poison lingering in his soft tissues. It was an unpleasant sort of ache, and he didn't know how a mere human could tolerate the level of pain the poison was meant to inflict... But then, Masumi was no ordinary human, and her sensitivity to pain was significantly dulled. So perhaps it was bearable. Reiji swirled the antibodies (taken from his own body), purified serum, and a small measure of his healthy blood (a small amount of which he always kept on hand, locked securely away) together in a vial before extracting it into the last syringe. He didn't know if the potion would dilute his blood enough to keep from turning her, but at that moment, it was sort of the least of his concerns. A vampirette-Masumi would likely be a more efficient assistant anyway.

It was the first time he'd ever experimented on himself, and he couldn't say it was an enjoyable experience. But it was also the first time he'd felt uneasy with experimenting on the life of a human subject, something he normally took great pleasure in. What is it about this girl? It was really a rhetorical question. He knew the answer, even if he couldn't yet admit it to himself. Kneeling at his bedside, his brothers and their mates arranged in various poses around the room, Reiji unfolded one of Masumi's arms carefully. The injection took mere moments, and then the horrible waiting began.

Interlacing his fingers with hers, Reiji forgot for a moment that they had an audience, and he pressed his forehead to the bed at her side. "Please, Masumi... wake up," he whispered. There was, of course, no reply. "I haven't told you... There are so many things I should have said... I-I think I love you," he finished, lamely. There was a soft intake of breath, and then her eyes fluttered open.

"Reiji-san?" Masumi murmured softly. "Why are you kneeling?" She began to sit up, and Reiji guided her with one strong arm behind her back. He ignored her question, just gazing into her eyes for a long, silent moment.

"I suppose it is my turn to apologize for my appearance," he said instead. Masumi's cheeks flushed as she noticed the vampire prince was shirtless, chest bared for all their guests to see.

"I guess it's my fault you were forced into such an.. indecent position," she said with a nervous chuckle, twisting her (strangely non-injured) hands together in her lap. Reiji reached up to push his glasses up his nose.

"I suppose we can postpone your punishment a few days... Until you've regained your strength."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Several days later, Masumi was back to her usual self. She assisted Reiji in the lab in the evening, made Kanato pancakes for breakfast, and still managed to complete her own studies. In fact, she was feeling so good, that she'd rearranged all the silverware right before breakfast, just to antagonize her dark-haired prince.

As she stood before Reiji, listening to his stern lecture, a small smile played on her lips. Interrupting his tirade on the proper alignment of spoons, Masumi reached up and pulled Reiji down by the back of his neck. To the rest of the family, it seemed as though the couple spoke softly to each other, faces only an inch apart.

"If you're really that upset about the spoons, Reiji, you could just skip the lecture and get straight to my punishment..." Masumi cooed, her cheeks flushing and pupils dilating as she got a little worked up over her boyfriend's closeness. In turn, Reiji's eyelids lowered as he became completely consumed by her presence. Am I to be held in such awe of this woman forever? he wondered. Ahh, sweet perfection...

Masumi stretched up on tiptoes to press a soft, but sure kiss to his lips, and Reiji's first instinct was to stiffen. It isn't proper to do such things in public, he thought, but...

Masumi felt his gloved-hand wrap around her waist and his lips soften from their hard line beneath hers. His mouth opened just slightly and Masumi knew he had closed his eyes, surrendering fully to the kiss. Angling his head a bit further to the side, Reiji deepened the kiss, tongue sweeping into her mouth, searching, tasting, demanding... So like Reiji, she thought, suppressing the urge to smile.

They eventually pulled apart, but Reiji's lids were still lowered, and his hand still rested in the curve at the base of her spine when he said softly, "Please don't toy with me. It will take much more than this to satisfy me tonight." Tilting her head to the side, he sank his fangs into the smooth, pale column of her throat, and above him Masumi hissed in pain... And then she smiled, revealing two sharp white canines.