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Disclaimer: Blood+ is not mine.

Chapter One

Twisting. Gasping. Reaching…reaching for what? All I can comprehend is the darkness around me. And the sleeping part of my soul I seek so desperately to awaken. I see a face, gentle but anguished. Young, but ancient in the heart. He smiles at me, a smile that makes me torn between smiling in return or screaming out. Why? Who is it? Who am I? What have I lost?

Hagi…his name comes and something I have yet to understand washes through me. All the guilt and the pain tears through me so abruptly that my lungs seem to clamp up and I cannot take a single breath. I'm choking on it, thrashing about only to find myself on the dark cold stone floor. Fluid and remains of the cocoon that had entrapped me lie scattered about on the ground.

That's right. I'm not…human. "Saya?" comes a voice from beyond the darkness of this place. "Saya!!?"

My eyes tilt up enough to see red hair glinting softly from the moonlight outside. His eyes stare down at me, expectant and unsure. "Do you know who I am, Saya?"

My mind grasps for the name, but it escapes me. I see Hagi's once more and my arms wrap themselves around my shoulders. The man comes over and drapes his coat across my shoulders. "Kai…"I whispered, hoping the name was correct. "Thank you."

He just fell to his knees and hugged me, thirty years of patience in that grip. When he pulls back I notice the flecks of grey here and there. I smile, sad but genuine, and Kai laughs in return. "I'm thirty years older, but I'm still getting around just fine, don't worry."

And then I see Diva's face, a mix between fear and sympathy overtake me for a moment. Her two children…those twins…where are they? "My sister…where are Diva's children?" I ask hesitantly.

Kai helps me stand and we walk out into the moonlight. I keep glancing at his face, trying to read the expression, but his face stays hard. That look made him look like 60 years had passed, not thirty. I grip his hand as I stumble slightly on the last of the stairs, and finally Kai speaks to me. "The truth is…we aren't sure where they are. Some organization David didn't even know about apprehended them one night on their way to school. I raised them for five years, and they just stole them away from me!"

His fist slams into the wall of the bar, our old 'home'. I touch his shoulder. "It's not your fault Kai. I'm the one who was asleep…I wasn't here to protect them…I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," he mumbles. "This one is completely mine."

Silence consumes the room, and my memories wash through me. "Are you tired?" Kai asks, a yawn of his own escaping him. "your room is still the same as you left it. I've just washed the sheets over the years."

Then his face reddens a moment as I nod. "And your clothes too."

I suddenly realized I was still nude, only his jacket to cover me, and I thank him and make my way up the stairs. It seems like I had just been walking up them yesterday, not thirty years ago. I open up my closet and slip on my old white nightgown before climbing into bed. The familiarity is almost painful.

And then his face enters my mind again. Hagi…I touch my lips remembering our final moments together, and I stifle a scream with my pillow. "It's all my fault…what's the point of waking up?" I think, angry and crying now.

Faintly I hear some low notes drifting through the window. Notes from…a cello? I jump to my feet and rush to the window, half expecting to see him outside on the street. My heart sank as I realized no one was there. Just the empty street. And the sad, drifting music had stopped. "Saya," comes a voice from behind me, and I freeze.

AN: This is my first blood+ fic, please review!