Martin carried a slight feeling of doubt with him during the rest of that evening. The suspicion that Kurumu wanted Tsukune more than she wanted him did no good to his mood, even to the most socially inexperienced, it was clear that he was not really enjoying himself.

"Kurumu?" he asked as they danced on the calmer music that broke up the rave of heavy beat house and dance music every now and then.

"Yes?" she asked, not bothering to look up from his shoulder as she carefully observed Moka and Tsukune dancing together mere feet away.

"What is the reason I'm here with you?" he asked, his voice filled with sincerity and pain.

"Because you asked me, remember?" Kurumu answered with a laugh, one that wasn't particularly audible but still rubbed up Martin the wrong way.

"You know that's not what I meant." Martin said as he stepped back to allow himself a clear look at her eyes. "Why do you need me?" he asked, his expression so serious it would scare any mortal.

"I needed someone..." she said softly, averting her eyes from his questioning gaze. "I didn't want to feel alone. And you..." she continued, her voice quivering. "You were a godsend. You cared." she said, finally allowing her eyes to reconnect with those of Martin. A tear once again dropped down her cheek.

The tears that flowed from her eyes played havoc with Martin's sense of logic. In an instant, he had forgiven her for all she had done wrong and all she would do wrong in the future. Quickly he pressed her against his chest and slowly resumed dancing.

"It's okay, you don't need to cry." he said, in an effort to comfort her.

"Thank you." she said, her voice still full of emotion. Anybody that looked at her face would have seen a evil, slightly disturbing smile appear as she continued to dance with him.

XXXXXXXXXX

As the evening progressed, Kurumu proceeded to stage two of her plan. By introducing Martin into the group, she hoped to be able to spark a heftier response from Tsukune at the end of the day.

Neither Mizore or Yukari seemed to be particularly interested in him and Moka simply greeted him in her kind and innocent manner. Tsukune however didn't act quite as Kurumu had hoped. Instead of any signs of jealously, Tsukune seemed to be accepting him into their tight-knit group.

"Hey Martin, nice to properly meet you." he said as he held out his hand, not a typical Japanese gesture. "I'm Aono Tsukune.".

"Nice to meet you too." Martin said as he took Tsukune's hand and shook it.

"How do you enjoy this school?" Tsukune asked, trying to kickstart a meaningful conversation that could perhaps lead to a proper friendship.

"I've only been here for two days, in which I've been beaten to a pulp and found myself hurrying to a mall to buy a suit. So common sense dictates me hating this school." he said with a frown, sarcasm abundant in his speech. 'But, I guess this school might have some good stuff to offer as well." he finished with a smile.

"Oh trust me, this school offers enough to keep you entertained." Tsukune retorted with a grin, as he recalled last year's rather spectacular events. If this year was to be anything like last year, there'd be no shortage of peculiarities.

As the two boys conversed, Kurumu looked like she was ready to explode. This was not what she wanted to happen. In fact, this was quite the opposite of what she had been trying to achieve. Quickly she pulled Martin away from the group.

"Let's dance." she said as she clung onto his arm rather intensely.

"Uh sure." Martin said as he was being pulled away from his conversation. Quickly he turned his head around to Tsukune. "We'll continue our conversation some other time." Martin shouted as the distance between them grew larger and the music demanded elevated levels of audibility.

As soon as Kurumu was confident she was far enough away from Tsukune she came to an abrupt halt and turned towards Martin, putting her arms to rest on his shoulders.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Martin said as she forced him to follow along with her moves. In her haste to get away from the group, she hadn't paid any attention to the fact that she was frowning.

"Huh?" she asked rather bluntly, her frown disappeared immediately, cancelled out by the snap back to reality and replaced by a single raised eyebrow of confusion.

"I asked whether you were okay." Martin replied, letting his head inch closer to hers and looking into her eyes.

"Yeah I'm fine." she said, turning her eyes away from his investigating gaze. A gaze that she felt would look right into her mind and discover what was in fact troubling her. As she turned her head, she saw Ruby climb the stage with a microphone in hand.

"Look, they're going to start the dancing competition." she told Martin as she lifted her hand from his shoulder and pointed it in the direction the stage.

Ruby made a 'kill it' motion and instantly the music died down, and so did all the other noise in the hall.

"Welcome everybody!" Ruby shouted enthusiastically, hoping for an equally enthusiastic response from the crowd. The crowd however did not feel particularly enticed by her unnatural enthusiasm and so the hall remained quiet. There was not even a cricket that attempted to mark the slightly humiliating moment with its chirping.

"Eh, right." Ruby said, not in embarrassment, more so in disappointment of the lack of participation by the crowd. "For our first dance tonight, we have Kurono Kurumu and Martin Ardacul! Give them an applause!" she announced as she started clapping. This time, the crowd, stimulated by a few avid clappers in their midst, joined in.

"Oh dear..." Martin said as he brought up a hand to cover his eyes. "I can't believe we have to go first.".

"It'll be fun" Kurumu insisted as she pulled him along to the stage.

"You never did tell me what dance we'd be performing." Martin said as he led Kurumu up the stairs of the stage.

"Isn't it obvious?" she said with a smile as their hands parted and the music came back on. A familiar track, one that Martin recalled as a piece to which people danced the Tango.

Sure enough, Kurumu turned around and inched closer with passionate moves he recognized to be part of the tango. Suddenly he felt confident of his success. If it was tango they would be dancing, victory would be assured.

Timed perfectly with the music, Kurumu came to a halt right in front of Martin, their faces mere inches apart.

A heartbeat of silence passed, then another and another. Synchronised almost perfectly with the return of the music, their hands, arms and bodies locked together and moved in fluid motion. At no point were they absolutely still, always moving as passionate as the tunes emanating from the audio installations of the DJ.

Feeling the connection and perfection of their movements, Martin allowed himself to feel slightly elated. With her at his side, what could possibly go wrong?

XXXXXXXXXX

As the dance progressed, Kurumu too felt the early rush of potential success. At the sight of Martin's smile, she too allowed herself to bare a faint smile. Unfortunately, the thought of imminent victory triggered a cascade of thoughts. Thoughts of what it would be like with Tsukune and how he would finally reject Moka after they finished dancing.

All of her mind seemed to become dedicated to the emulation of her fantasies and slowly she began to forget about the dance.

She began to make mistakes, crashing her high heels into Martin's foot, earning a muffled grunt from him. A grunt too muffled for the crowd to hear, but also too quiet to wake Kurumu from her fictitious paradise.

As he peered into her eyes, Martin found that she was not focussing, she wasn't mentally present at all, causing her body to dance on autopilot, which would certainly make them lose the competition.

Unwilling to lose the competition, Martin decide to draw upon his powers, and hope that the seal around his neck would not block the one thing that might salvage their attempt at winning the competition.

From the darkness of his heart, where the monstrous youki was at its strongest, he extracted the power required for his feat. He felt the power creep up his body towards his eyes. He squeezed together his eyelid and forcefully reopened them, revealing red pupils and a menacingly large and vertically elongated irises.

He gazed deep into her eyes, and let his thoughts flow into her body, driving her will out to a dark corner from where she could do nothing but watch as her body moved beyond her control. Quickly he took control of every fibre of her body and carefully he steered her to match his movements.

Martin's chest started aching. As he had feared, the seal was trying to suppress the flow of power by sending the same amount of youki in the opposite direction. More and more of his energy did Martin have to send into his charm, and with each passing second the aching increased in intensity.

Much to Martin's appreciation, the dance soon drew to a close. And he could finally release his control over Kurumu's being, who, at that precise moment, snapped back to reality from her daydreams, unaware of what Martin had just done to her.

As the two of them bowed, the crowd cheered and applauded them, they had set the standard and it was clear to everybody that it was going to be hard to surpass them.

As Ruby continued to announce the next group of dancers, the two quietly made their way down the stairs and back to Tsukune and the others.

"And? How did we do?" Kurumu asked Tsukune.

"It was very good. Better than two of you had shown in class, which already seemed like top notch quality." Tsukune said with a smile. Moka merely nodded and Yukari simply would not grant the succubus the satisfaction of feeling like she had done something right in her life. As for Mizore, she was nowhere to be found.

"That's good to hear." Martin said, holding his hand up to his chest as a mental aid in suppressing the pain that besieged his heart. "If you guys don't mind, I'll be off to the bathroom." he said and left without waiting for an answer.

Hastily he made his way to the entrance. Not knowing the layout of this building proved to be an annoyance, but experience dictated that bathrooms could virtually always be found in the vicinity of the main entrances.

Instantly he found what he was looking for, the universal 'man's toilet' sign and he hurried inside. He found himself alone, something he found to be a relief. He held onto the edge of the sink as he peered into the mirror. His veins were starting to show, swollen by increased blood pressure. He tried to grab the cross, hoping to properly inspect it in the mirror, but instead of being able to grab the artefact like he was used to, a flash of lightning erupted from the cross' red stone and connected with his hand.

Despite his best efforts to pull his finger away from the seal and end the current of destructive energy from soaring through his body, his body seemed paralysed by the Youki, pulsing through the pathways in his body. Slowly his body went numb and Martin dropped to his knees, gasping for air. The numbness continued to expand throughout his body, up his torso, down his arms and eventually into his mind.

Slowly, Martin's consciousness faded into nothing.

XXXXXXXXXX

Kurumu felt that Martin had been gone for an awfully long time. Perhaps he was just lost in the school, he had only been here for a couple of days after all.

The dancing competition was now drawing to a close and the final couple now vacated the stage for Ruby to announce the winners.

Kurumu turned to Tsukune.

"Martin hasn't come back yet. Can you go look for him?" she asked him, trying very hard to convince him without unleashing a charm on him.

"Uhmm, sure?" Tsukune replied, slightly unnerved by Kurumu's cuddling up to him. "Any idea where I should start searching?".

"Yes, he said he was going to the bathroom, but that was almost half an hour ago. she answered.

"I see, I'll check the toilets first though, perhaps he's still there." he said and went of on his quest to find the missing Martin, just as Ruby had taken centre stage.

"Well, I think we can all agree we had some pretty amazing dancers tonight." she said, once again the crowd remained silent. "Anyways, let's move on to the winners of tonight's dancing competition!".

The crowd cheered, not so much in excitement, more so that they could return to dancing to some nifty beats themselves as soon as possible.

"The winners of tonight's dance battle are..." she said as she opened a cheap envelope. "Kurono Kurumu and Martin Ardacul!" Ruby shouted.

The crowd began clapping and cheering, though some were less eager than others and would rather have seen someone else take the stage, themselves most likely.

Kurumu bit her thumbnail, of all times Martin could go missing, it just had to be the one in which they were going to be handed the prize they worked so hard for.

Slowly she made her way towards the stage, trying to stall for Martin's arrival as long as possible.

When she finally reached the stage, Martin had yet to arrive and so she climbed the stage on her own.

"Where's your other half?" Ruby asked teasingly.

"Missing in action..." Kurumu said sarcastically.

Ruby laughed and turned back towards the crowd.

"Looks like we have someone with a bit of stage fright" she joked and turned to the DJ "Crank up the volume DJ!". At her command, heavy bass tunes came from the sound installation in that surrounded the stage and the rest of the hall.

As Ruby started dancing on the stage and the rest of the crowd participated in the act, Kurumu saw someone moving towards the stage.

It was Tsukune and concern was visually imprinted all over his face through his serious expression. As he approached, Kurumu climbed down to meet him, placing her ear to his mouth to understand his words through the insurmountable amount of noise generated by the house music.

"I found Martin, laying unconscious in the rest room" he said.

"Oh god, is he all right?" Kurumu asked as her eyes widened and her hands went up to cover her mouth.

"Yes, Miss Nekonome has taken him to the infirmary" Tsukune explained as he put an arm around Kurumu and guided her towards the exit.

The other girls, who had noticed them leaving, were quick to follow in their footsteps and Ruby, in her blissful unawareness, remained dancing.

At the infirmary they encountered Miss Nekonome, who was just on her way back to the party.

"Nekonome Sensei! Is he all right?" Kurumu asked frantically, on the verge of tears.

"He is in good hands, I'm sure the Doctors will do a great job nursing him back to health" Miss Nekonome replied, trying to comfort Kurumu. Whilst she was unable to keep proper control of her class, she did care about her students and could act like a proper teacher if the situation absolutely called for it.

"I must now ask you to either return to the party or to your dorms. Come back tomorrow and you may see him" she said reassuringly.

"Why can't we see him now?" asked Mizore, calm and out of the blue.

"The doctors want him to be perfectly stable before he gets any visitors." Nekonome explained.

"But..." Kurumu objected.

"No buts, let him rest for the night. You may come back tomorrow".

Disappointed, Kurumu more than the rest, the five left the infirmary and instead of going back to the party they decided to retreat back to the dorms for the night, where they said their goodnights and separately returned to their respective rooms.

All the while, Tsukune couldn't help but notice Kurumu's concern for Martin when he told her of Martin's condition. Previously, such emotions were reserved for him alone. Perhaps she was finally learning to let go?

XXXXXXXXXX

Kurumu had immense difficulty falling asleep that night, Martin appearing in front of her whenever she closed her eyes, covered in blood more often than not.

After several hours, well past midnight, Kurumu finally managed to fall asleep. It wasn't long however until Martin once again invaded her mind, this time as a malicious dream.

She found herself in a featureless, rectangular, white room with no discernible peculiarities, save one. A dark corner in which she could vaguely see the contours of a person crouching down. Slowly she approached the corner, her soft footsteps echoing throughout the chamber. As she got closer to the corner, she started to hear painful moans and sobs. It didn't take her too long after that to realize that it was Martin crouching in front of her.

"Martin? Is that you?" Kurumu asked as she carefully approached him.

"Go away!" Martin shouted, his voice deep and twisted.

"It's me, Kurumu" she explained, trying to calm him down.

The sounds stopped.

"Kurumu?" he asked.

"Yes, it's me. There's nothing to worry about" she replied.

Slowly Martin turned around to reveal his face, a sight that made Kurumu jump and want to scream. She opened her mouth, but no sound escaped her. He was bleeding from every orifice on his head, blood streaming down his cheeks like tears.

"What's happening to me?" Martin asked.

"I don't know." she said as she held out her hand "Come with me, we'll get you to a doctor and you'll be fine. Okay?".

For a moment, Kurumu gazed into Martin's fearful eyes.

Martin too now extended his hand towards Kurumu's though mere inches away he flinched and pulled away, accompanied by the sickening sound of breaking bones.

He screamed in agony as his body became twisted and contorted until his body lost all structure and collapsed into a lifeless, deformed body lying in a puddle of blood.

Kurumu, too shocked to do anything, dropped to her knees, staring mindlessly at the corpse.

In her trance, she failed to notice the thin streams of blood moving towards her like roots of a tree move towards moist and nutritious soil. As the streams got closer, they changed direction around circled around the still dazed Kurumu.

Behind her, the streams merged and reassembled Martin's head.

"Ku... Ru... Mu... Chan..." a low, menacing voice whispered from behind.

Kurumu awoke from her trance, finding herself staring at an empty corner. The body was gone. In the corner of her eyes she saw the final droplets of blood circle around her.

Then she felt a hand rest on her shoulder and she turned around, staring right into what appeared to be Martin's face.

There was something different about him. His face seemed slightly more matured, malicious and most disheartening, she was staring into blood-red, predacious eyes.

"Ma... Martin?" Kurumu asked, her voice quavering in fear.

The monster grinned, revealing long, sharp canines. The grin quickly evolved into maniacal laughter.

"Close, but not quite." it said, opening its jaws open wide and digging deep into her neck.

Kurumu woke up, screaming and feeling her neck. She was covered in sweat, her pyjamas were soaked and sticking to her skin. She was panting, even when she realized it had all been a very bad dream.

She glanced at her alarm clock, it was seven o'clock, there was little sense in trying in returning to bed. Instead she chose to take a long, relaxing bath to take her mind of things. This morning, she'd take things slow.

XXXXXXXXXX

As she walked to school, Moka caught up with her.

"That was quite the scream" Moka said. She, being situated in the room right next to Kurumu, had heard it quite vividly.

"So you heard that" Kurumu replied flatly. "I just had a very bad dream. That's all".

"Don't let it get to you" Moka said, trying to encourage her friend.

"I won't, dreams are just dreams. They're not real." Kurumu replied.

But they can certainly come very close.

A/N: Woop, finally some time to (re)write the things I wanted to finish so long ago. I blame exams.