Getting Fired Up <Private>

Ozaki grimaced when Yuuto spoke. He… Wasn’t entirely wrong. If Ozaki bit down on someone he was liable to rip them apart and gorge on their flesh. He was no proper vampire by any means. But that was when he was in a frenzy… This was something entirely different.

When you’d been working out the plan for about a month you better well seem prepared. Then there was his hunter’s training, while it had never been explicitly meant to carry or murders or assassinations, you better well believe the skill set could travel over rather easily. With the right materials and rituals you could send someone straight to hell. Their body would never be found.

But he wasn’t willing to put it past Yuuto to find a way out of hell just to get to him. Plus that would just be cruel to the demons just trying to live their own lives down there. I mean.. They were demons. But hell was where they belonged and their world of very strange morals. Point held though.

Time was ticking. He had gotten what he wanted to say to his father across. He could see the man stepping backward to the edge… Undoubtedly thinking that if he could manage to kill himself before Ozaki executed his own plan, that he could be free of the drug and come after Ozaki at full tilt.

Ozaki mused letting him try that… Yuuto Asahi would not realize until it was too late that the chain that was currently up here heaped into a pile was more than enough of a counter weight for him. But as horrified as Ryse already was at this… Might as well not subject her to that. The vampire withdrew a dart from his pack, the blood within shifting to a transparent liquid and throwing it at the man.

“He’d r-“ Yuuto’s words were cut short as a dart imbedded itself into his neck and he fell like a rock.

“I knocked him out… Cann’t kill him that way. He’d just remotely trigger one of the potential hundreds of phoenix downs he stole from her over the years. Then he’d be right up again, no drugs in his system at all. And out for blood.” Ozaki stared down at him. He was glad he had the ski mask and sunglasses right now. It would make it that much more difficult to truly see his expression warp into something terrible. It was cold steel that crept into his eyes, and his mouth curved into a terrible sort of blood thirsty glee that looked horrifying.


Something, Ozaki could only hope, worse than death.

Ozaki let out a harsh barking laugh before he could stop himself. “Hear that Yuuto? You could end up a soulless husk, just like me. Wouldn’t that be great?!” He leaned over Yuuto, a thoughtful look on his face. Vampires were soulless creatures. Getting a phoenix’s soul sucked out might be fatal for them, but it wasn’t always the case with some species. Humans being amongst them. He realized that he probably should make a clarification as well about what he had just said. He did not truly consider vampires soulless husks. Even if it was true they were soulless, that did not mean they were empty inside. “I'll note that those were Yuuto's words... Not mine. But it wouldn’t kill him like it would a phoenix though.” He muttered thoughtfully.

Could they really trust this court system? They were just as flawed as any other no doubt. What if he was “proven innocent?” He’d have to get Birdie to testify. Though perhaps his memories of her might suffice to work. Then again, he wasn’t sure they’d take the word or memories as a vampire as doctrine… It was hard to say. He didn’t want to put her on the stand like that though. "How can we be sure this court system will actually convict him though?" 

“That’d be possible to do even if you didn’t have the power of a deity.” According to his research the phoenix gods scanned the hearts and minds of each person that passed through their afterlife in order to conduct their trails in the most efficient manner. But they didn’t even need to go that far for that. “Though some places might consider such a seizure of memories as a violation of his rights…. I doubt that’d be the case in this country.”

They were used to being put on trial on the basis of their memories. He could hardly see them hesitating to use such methods in their own country.

Ozaki was vacillating between relief and sheer blood lust right now. He wanted his father to suffer for his actions. The method of his death that Ozaki had chose would have likely been him suffocating a hundred times over. He deserved a painful death. But… With any luck a stay at a prison were the prisoners knew you were a child kidnapper would be a fate worse than death… Ozaki had heard tale that child abusers did not get it easy in prison. If people did not already know, the wardens were want to make sure they did.

He still wanted o hurt him though… Without even so much as a moment’s warning Ozaki’s foot came down hard on Yuuto’s back with incredible speed, an ugly breaking crack audible from the break. “Better safe than sorry.” He muttered as an explanation. He wasn’t sure whether Yuuto would be paralyzed from the waist down or the neck up from that… But either way he doubted the phoenixes would fix him. Ozaki mildly wished he'd been conscious to feel that pain though.

So long as he didn’t die and be revived he’d be stuck like this. Though that’d likely be less of a problem once the Null Lantern got to him. Phoenix downs tended to be much less effective on those without a soul.

Funny she was thinking that though. Ozaki wouldn’t have even thought of the council if she hadn’t mentioned it either. She had begged him to stop, said there had to be another way. And there was. A way that, Ozaki could only hope, would be worse than a hundred deaths. He would get to live as a soulless cripple in a phoenix prison. And Ozaki wouldn’t have to watch the man he had called father die hundreds of times. Despite himself he was actually kind of glad he didn’t have to do that. And he would have had to stay... If there was anything Yuuto had taught him, it was not to leave until you knew the job was done. “Yes… That will do.”

For a moment Ozaki tensed at the hug, then relaxed into it. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying his best not to cry at this moment. He still had his rage, and there was still blood lust aplenty in his system. But there was a part of him that was glad that Ryse had stopped him. Ozaki had killed as a hunter before, for jobs. He had killed as a vampire high on blood lust. But such a cold methodical murder specifically designed to draw out the pain for as long as possible? There were ways he could have killed Yuuto permanently even with the remotely triggered phoenix downs that would revive him even if he was burnt to a crisp.

He didn’t know what they were, but with as much time as he had spent on preparing this he could have thought of such an alternative to kill him if he wanted. Having to watch Yuuto die like that repeatedly though.. He wasn’t sure if he could still be the same person afterwards.

Ozaki hesitantly returned the hug, glad for the cover of his ski mask and sun glasses as a few tears slipped past his guard. “I… Thank you. For stopping me.” For the past month solid he had felt like he was teetering on the edge of an unfathomable rage. He had felt Yuuto’s death would be the only thing that could end it… But as much as he did not want to admit it… He also feared giving into such a depths of rage. That wasn’t him. He didn’t want that to be him. He wanted to be better than that.

Giving into such dark impulses would make him worse than a monster, it would make him just like Yuuto.

He pulled away after a moment, looking back at Yuuto. Then watching both him and the chains disappear. Oh. Ozaki remembered now. How the hell could he have forgotten? Well. Gods blocking one’s memory tended to be a good reason to forget. “You… you’re dead.” He muttered in shock. “I mean… You died… We’re in the trials. None of that was real.”

The only parts of that that had been real were him and Ryse.