Fireproof. (Private)

The shimmering heat was enough of a clue for Antonio for what was standing before him. A phoenix. “I am his big brother… Believe me if I were our father you would not still be standing in one piece right now for daring to lay a hand on him.”

Big brother. Ozaki’s shock in hearing those words was apparent. Funny thing… He had always wanted siblings. But hearing one of Mordred’s goons… Realizing now that Antonio, one of his human childhood friends, had also been a vampire… And now that vampire was apparently considering him a brother. That was a bit shocking. Two vampire friends, and he hadn’t even known. And here was him having thought that Antonio was just busy at work and college back then and could only hang out at night for that reason. He hadn’t seen him in years… Fifteen years to be precise.

Ozaki was startled out of his shock by realizing he had to do something about the mounting hostilities in the room. He could see shadows start to rise from Antonio’s body, the precursor to a talent activating.

“Antonio! Its not like that at all! It was an experiment and… Well I didn’t take the right safety precautions at all. Its all my fault, not hers. Both of you calm down!” If she lit up both Antonio and him would be in serious trouble. Well… Antonio first, as the older vampire seemed to be trying to shield Ozaki from further future harm.

The first impulse to answer for that was no. These people weren’t family to him. But Antonio… He’d been a friend. The way Antonio was so casually throwing around the word brother and father around was dizzying and weird. Ozaki pushed away. Antonio allowed him his space, but did not move farther away himself.

“Kind of…” Ozaki responded in her asking if they were kin. They shared the same sire, and had the same blood running through their veins. In that way they could be called brothers but… It didn’t feel right to go that far.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Antonio looked between the two, looking at Ozaki nodding frantically in agreement. A phoenix angel hybrid? This was a school of hunters. Why in the world did Ozaki feel the need to go himself to hunt such a dangerous hybrid? Shouldn’t he be more focused on hunting Yuuto?

No matter, as he looked around it seemed that the story checked out. Though the fact that Ozaki was messing around with such dangerous things was concerning. Particularly concerning the details of his alleged death fifteen years ago. The details of which clearly were over exaggerated. He would have to figure out the details what actually happened from Yuuki himself.

“… It seems I have jumped to conclusions. My apologies.” He still was wary of the phoenix, but the tendril-like shadows that had been edging up out of his skin receded back into his pores. A wound caused by phoenix and holy fire. That was sure to leave a nasty scar if left to heal on its own.

He tried to put a hand on Yuuki’s shoulder to guide him out of the room, but found the smaller vampire moved away from the simple contact. “We should get you to our medic Yuuki. If such a wound is allowed to heal on its own I have no doubt it will scar something fierce.”

Antonio looked a little confused at Yuuk’s withdrawal, then understanding. “Ah yes… I suppose it has been awhile.” They had been friends back in the day, but that had been a long time ago for someone as young as Yuuki. For him, who was in his mid two hundreds, fifteen years went by quickly. It was easy to forget how others might not see it that way. Yuuki was tense, not trusting his intentions.

His eyes shone with genuine concern as he spoke. “Our family really does just want to make sure you’re safe Yuuki… Believe it or not that includes our father. You should swing by sometime and give us- and him- a chance. Now or later though, I’m taking you to our medic. We can catch up on the way too.” Hopefully that would ease Yuuki’s nerves a bit. They had been friends at least. And the younger vampire had been happy to see him, if not a bit confused.

~~~~~~~
Ozaki honestly wasn’t sure what to respond to that with. He had been a bit happy to see Antonio again, but realizing he was a vampire after all this time made him feel both stupid and rose a lot of questions. Two members of the Bloods had been his friends back then. And he hadn’t even known. Was it a coincidence? Or was there something more?

He wished Antonio wasn’t saying all this here though. Ozaki took care to keep his professional and personal lives separate. But the line was being heavily blurred right now without any regard for that.

Ozaki was also quite nervous about the idea of seeing Mordred again… And if he went to their medic, he almost had no doubt he’d run into the man.

“We should at least tie things up…” Ozaki muttered, stepping around Antonio and walking towards the samples, one of which was the only remaining survivor. While he wanted to see what happened if they used just rebirth phoenix fire or holy fire, but by this point there was hardly any point seeing as the combination had already been enacted. Really if he wanted to see the individual effects he should bring a different chunk of metal for each round.

For now they had gotten to at least a ball park ratio. Further, more detailed research rounds could be conducted later. With proper precautions put in place this time around.

~~~~~~~
It was at this point the investigator spoke up. “I hate to step in the middle of... Whatever this is. But I have a job to do. Seeing as you filled out the proper paperwork to conduct this experiment there won’t be much trouble from all this… Though in the future it would have been better to plan a bit better ahead for this and have signed out the room for this as well. Given your current conditions I could handle up the cleaning.” Whatever was going on seemed like some weird family drama, and he wanted as little to do with it as possible

There were a couple of things Ozaki knew. If these people were going to kill him, they’d have done it by now. The other thing, any harm they might do he could heal from. Even loosing an arm wasn’t a huge loss in the scheme of things. At max it was a weeks worth of healing. Sure it wasn’t pleasant but… He could live. Anything they threw at him he would likely be able to escape, even without usage of his darts. They made his talent more convenient, but that’s all they were.

Everything was fine. He was fine. Even if he saw Mordred again… He’d be… Fine. So here was Ozaki’s decision. Live with a horrendous scar for the rest of eternity or chance seeing Mordred. It was honestly a hard call.

He’d technically be safer going with a phoenix… But relying on a little girl for protection? Plus… From what research he had done on the gang, if someone actually did kill one of his self proclaimed children… There would be hell to pay for both them and their families. It would be too risky to bring Ryse. He felt cowardly for even thinking that to begin with.

Ozaki took a picture of the surviving samples and put them into the bag he'd originally put them into after washing them off and drying them, separating the one that had mostly survived from the lot. They all had a strange slightly green hue to them, the one that had survived having the richest hue of it. Interesting. He wondered if that was the infernal iron shining through after having been blasted by phoenix fire. Or maybe it was something else. There were certain legendary weapons that had been forged by dragon's fire- namely, Exaliber. Ozaki had to wonder currently if there were any that had been similarly treated with phoenix fire. It would be worth looking into both books and testing this in the field. Would a vampire even be able to hold a phoenix forged weapon? Well... At least he could not feel any bad effects through his gloves. So that was promising. Not that this had been properly forged by phoenix fire. Only just briefly bathed in it. 

Any how. He put the best surviving one in one of his padded internal pockets and put his mind towards the current state of affairs. 

The fact that his left eye was in a shoddy state tipped the scales a for him. A scar was one thing. He couldn’t see from that eye now. The odds it would heal back to proper degrees of sight were high… But not high enough that Ozaki was comfortable betting his depth perception on it. “Yah, I’ll be fine.” He said, forcing a fake smile to assure her as he went to the remaining samples, taking a quick picture of the state they were in before taking the one that had mostly survived.

“Mind if I grab your number so I can get in contact with you for the second round of experiments? I mean… If you’re sure you want to be in it. I’ll set things up to be much safer next time around.” He was pretty sure she would be, but Ozaki just wanted to check one last time...

~~~~~~~~
“Second round?! You’ve got to be joking me. Why are you even after a phoenix-angel hybrid anyways? Surely literally any hunter in this school could do that!” This was a school for Hunters. Why was it that Yuuki felt the need to be the one to go after such a risky target? The fledging was pulling a Mordred with absolutely none of the experience to back it up. “Besides. I thought you had a more important target in mind. Or did you change your mind on that?”

“They’re the same target.” Ozaki explained. Her offer to help was one he was likely going to need to turn down. It sounded like she was likely a hybird of some sort… As she wasn’t entirely sure if she would come back to life. Considering she was able to create the rebirthing fire and heal herself, she probably was though. At least by Ozaki’s own deductions. Which could be wrong of course. “Thanks for your offer Ryse… But is a bit personal….”

Her safety was not wholly in question but… He still felt it was wrong to involve her. This was his to do. It had to be him… Even if somewhere, deep down in his gut there was a part of him that didn’t want to do it. Because some stupid part of him was still clinging to the idea of Yuuto being his father. Despite all he had done it was hard to let that go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
“But he’s not…” Antonio’s eyes lit up with understanding, then confusion and a bit of anger. “Oooh. So you lied. You know you could have just told her that it was a vampire hunter with those powers. Would have been a lot more honest.”

Why did Yuuki feel the need to lie in the first place about that? Antonio didn’t get it. His little brother trusted the phoenix enough to do these kinds of experiments with her. Yuuki had trusted her enough to light up with phoenix fire itself within fifty feet of him. But he didn't trust her enough to let her know such a simple thing? 

Oh geez no. That was Ozaki’s immediate reaction upon seeing the look Ryse had at finding out he had lied. What to do? What to say? Even if he had the time to think of a proper way to evade the truth or skit past it he doubted that Antonio would let it stay that way. The vampire had not changed a bit. He was always one to call a person out on their bull shit. Which apparently Ozaki was full of right now. And because of it he’d hurt Ryse, who had only done her best to help him.

“Ryse. I’m sorry. I… I didn’t want you to know the truth. It is a vampire hunter. Its just… Personal…” He paused for a moment, looking physically pained.. That wasn’t good enough for as angry and sad as she was at his lie. Ozaki glanced at Antonio, who just crossed his arms. He was not bailing Ozaki out of this. And if he did, he’d just spit out the truth in the worst way. He looked down at the ground. “I didn’t want anyone to know who I was hunting… Or why…”