Fandom: NightWalker
Rating: PG-13
Warning: References to sex, violence, m/m relationship, stalking, vampirism, etc etc.

SPOILERS! Lots and losts of spoilers.

I realize that this won't make a great deal of sense to non-NightWalker fans, but I tried. It's a great series. Yaoi vampires. Come on, who could possibly ask for more?

**

I can't decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I did that night. It certainly wasn't the intelligent thing. Of course, I have often been accused of being ruled by my emotions. In this case, it was certainly true.

I had two choices, kneeling there in that church. I huddled there in a pool of her blood, holding her in my arms, praying desperately that by some miracle she would live.

I knew that she wouldn't.

Cain does nothing by accident. All of his countless schemes are forged with a purpose, often one that cannot be seen until it is far too late. He wanted her to die and he wanted me to watch it happen. He knew that I would let her die, allow her to slip quietly away from the world that had already cost her so much. That would be my choice.

But that choice was taken out of my hands by the girl herself and now I know that this was a part of his plan as well.

Riho is strong, sometimes amazingly so. For all her bright enthusiasm and bursts of energy, until that night in the church she was just another teenaged girl. You could watch her and never know that her parents had been murdered by dark creatures and that she herself had a part-time job running errands for a vampire.

The Breeds took her parents, yet she still accepted me for what I was. The discovery hadn't been a gentle one, either. I had been battered and wounded too badly to merely walk away from what had happened that night and Riho had watched as I had claimed my price from Yayoi.

It isn't easy to watch someone you trust drink someone's blood, even if the donor is willing.

I should not have been surprised then at her actions as she lay dying in my arms. I love her. I love Yayoi as well. I can refuse them very little and the thought of having someone by my side for all eternity was...tempting.

Cain's plans are both dark and deep. I had killed him for what he did, for what he was and for what he once meant to me. I made Riho a vampire because she asked it of me, because I did not want to be parted from her. I took her selfishly, wanting her bright smile and cheerful innocence to always be there for me. I wanted her to be a reminder of all that I longed for.

I wanted her for her humanity.

I cling to that small core somewhere within me that is still human. I do not prey on humankind, instead trying to protect them from the Breeds. I drink human blood, but only from Yayoi and she is quite willing to share it with me.

The world should be a place of sunshine and peace, something that Riho's laughter and slender strength brought home to me every time I laid eyes on her. She was a child of the morning, born to run through fields of bright flowers.

I made her a vampire because she was Cain's antithesis and that was my first mistake.

Vampires are immortal.

I did not believe it, not really. Not until I severed Cain's head and watched his body fall into the raging fires of a burning fuel truck. Not until he brought up my worst fear from the depths of my mind and forced it on me. Not until he reappeared in my office, restating his desire to force me to return to what I once was.

He showed me Riho. Corrupted and evil, she slaughtered innocents and murdered friends. She turned from me, despising all I had tried so desperately to cling to since awakening from Cain's blood-drenched dreams. She rejected me and all that I stood for.

And it hurt. It hurt so badly that I thought I might die, immortality or no. That perfect, golden child of the daylight, poisoned by darkness and hate....

That is when he woke me, and he laughed. He said that he wanted me to know what I had done to him. He wanted me to experience having the child I had created turn on me and leave me as dust.

It is not the same!

It is not.

I have to believe that.

Cain chose me. He set out deliberately to lure me in. He has eyes that can draw you into a dream of his making, and he used that dream on me.

I don't know who I am. I don't know where I came from. The name that I bear is one that _he_ gave me. For years I knew nothing but that he had created me and that I loved him unbearably. I accepted his word without question, killed and slaughtered without pause. I lured innocents into our bed, enjoying their bodies, drinking their blood and all this I shared with him. He made me into his image, and I accepted that making gladly. I would have done anything for him, and indeed did.

All of that ended with another girl child, an innocent that I had loved and brought back from the brink of death for a reason that I could no longer understand. But I had not lost as much of my humanity as I had thought.

She chose death. She fled from me and what I had done, throwing herself into the bright light of the morning. I can still see her tiny form, plummeting downward, only to be devoured by the hungry rays of the sun long before she reached the ground.

Perhaps vampires are not truly immortal, for she never returned.

I left him then. Shock and horror drove me to find out who I really was. I was sickened and pained by what I had become and desperate to discover who I used to be. It has been hundreds of years and I still do not know who I am. Cain knows, but he will not tell me. Rather, he would be delighted to tell me, but the price is far too high.

He was the center of my existence, my very reason for being. It broke something inside my heart and mind when I discovered who and what we really were. It was that pain that allowed me to break free the first time, searching desperately for some reason to go on.

Everywhere that I go, he will eventually follow. He is far older than I and correspondingly more powerful. He haunts my dreams even now, taunting me with the pleasure I used to find in his arms, whispering of the things which will befall those that I love.

Cain says that he loves me, and I believed it once. I was his spoiled pet, wanting for nothing. He desires me, that is certain. My constant rejections anger him, and I have felt the force of that anger often enough. He has stated his intent of not leaving me in peace until I capitulate, allowing him to drag me back to the castle that I fled so many years ago.

He could force me easily enough, he has that power. In that darkened church where I made Riho one of us he nearly succeeded. He has since made it very clear to me that I have nowhere to run.

I have no intention of running. Not this time.

Riho is still just a child. Despite the things that she has seen and done, she is naivete itself. I don't want her to lose her faith in humanity. I don't want her to see the things that I have done, or the creature that I used to be. I cannot leave her alone in this world. Without protection she would not live for long. Yayoi is only human and cannot protect Riho from the Breeds that would seek her out without my presence. Gumi wouldn't do much better.

I will not run. This is my home and these women are my family. I will not leave them willingly. I will not betray them.

I will fight Cain for as long as I can.

But it is a battle that I am destined to lose.

He knows all my weaknesses, all my hidden faults and flaws. I am, after all, what he made me to be. The changes that I have gone through have given me strength, but whether or not it will stand up to the challenges he delights in is something that I do not know.

Yes, Cain knows everything that I hold in my heart. He has seen the slender figure dancing in the park, laughing and chattering at my somber silence. He has seen Yayoi, teasing us both about our nighttime existence. He has watched the green fairy that follows all three of us now. He has watched and waited, laughing at my attempts to find peace.

I cannot let him destroy Riho. She delights in her new powers, fights ferociously for the underdog even now. She is a ray of sunlight in the darkness that we both inhabit and I will not let Cain tarnish that. In her young and ageless hands she holds the hope of my soul.

So I will stand against him, refuse his dark offer. I do not love him. I never did. Everything that I felt for him, he created inside me. I still do not know who I am, or who I once was. But I know that I will die before I will allow Cain to destroy my last, most precious hope of humanity.

Humanity found inside a slender, teenaged vampire who dances in the twilight of the park and laughs at my dark moods.

Perhaps it was a good thing that I did in the church that night. Perhaps I was merely playing into Cain's hands. But without Riho's laughter and Yayoi's determination, I would have already lost. They have given me something to fight for, even if it is only within my own mind.

So come, Cain. You wanted to find me. Here I am.

This time, I will not run.

This time, I have something to lose.

This time will be different.

**

Slender, so slender
its stalk bends under dew --
little yellow flower

Reading this, I suddenly suffered this mental image of Riho in her little post-vampire yellow and red outfit. There _had_ to be a reason that Shidou keeps her around, and it suddenly struck me what it might be when I saw this poem.