judging

Kyouya leaves Dino during the night, sneaking away from the Otherside hotel they're staying at. The dragon isn't too bad, and he's pretty cute in baby form, but Kyouya just isn't a social person. He doesn't like being around people for too long.

He walks aimlessly for a bit and randomly catches the first train at the station, then a bus and a boat before arriving at a small sea-side town.

Kyouya makes his way up to the one of the many cliffs hanging over blue, blue water and watches the sunrise. A feeling of contentment spreads out from his chest as he takes in the pinks and oranges and fluffy white clouds.

He's been running around for a few days now, and the fights were nice, but he needs to rest as well. He finds himself relaxing muscles he didn't know were tense and takes a small nap, uncaring of the light wind that plays with his hair.

Kyouya wakes when he gets hungry and wanders through the quiet town, curious as to where everyone is. It's around eight in the morning judging by the angle of the sun but nothing is open and this far down from the cliffs he first visited, it's actually rather foggy.

Sometimes he can see frightened eyes peering out of the barricaded windows, and while Kyouya rather prefers the herbivores away from him, he also wants food. Kyouya solves the problem by finding a restaurant and breaking in the door.

They shriek and flail but tonfa are a universal communicator and they quickly prepare breakfast for him. They don't speak Japanese and Kyouya doesn't know any other language but he understands the panicked gestures at the forest that surrounds the town.

After he finishes his food he makes his way towards whatever scares the herbivores so much. He walks onward to a castle hidden very well by tall trees and even heavier fog. The gardens are organised but the plants look wild and vicious, kind of like the Hibari compound.

He can't see anyone here either and walks up to the wood and metal double doors. When he opens one of the doors it doesn't squeak on rusted hinges, and the inside foyers is completely clean so clearly someone is taking care of the place.

"Hello?" Kyouya calls out, his voice echoing slightly in the huge castle. "Does anyone want to fight me?"

No one replies and he steps inside, wandering the place in curiosity. He goes up a staircase, down a hallway, left, left, right, up… and encounters a man who looks to be a copy of him.

The teenager hovers at the threshold of an empty ballroom, blinking at a man with Kyouya's hair and Kyouya's eyes and Kyouya's air of confidence, except… older. He stands all the way at the end of the room, partly covered in shadow from a thick black curtain that's half covering an arched window.

He wears black pants obviously tailored to fit and an old-fashioned shirt with ruffles down the front. The man also has a cloak with a high collar and just under that is a doubled-up chain which keeps the edges of the cloak together.

"What generation are we up to now?" the man hums with a voice that even sounds like Kyouya. "I've been out of touch with the family for a while due to… reasons."

"Are you a Hibari?" Kyouya wonders, walking closer to the man half hidden in shadow. "I didn't know there was a hunter base here."

In fact, Kyouya had entered the town specifically because there wasn't a hunter base. He knows his fun has to end sometime, but he'll stay away for as long as he possibly can.

"I'm a Hibari but I'm no hunter," the man says easily enough, stepping behind the curtain as Kyouya gets closer, leaving only a faint shadow of himself against the fabric. "What is your name, child?"

"I'm Kyouya, and you are?" He moves closer, confused as to why the man is trying to stay away. He pulls back the curtain but the man is gone.

The fabric wrenches itself out of his grasp and all of the curtains in the room hiss as they're yanked across the windows, blacking out the room almost entirely, only faint light coming through at the very top of the curtains. A sudden thickness to the air comes next and it says someone strong is flaunting their power.

"You can call me the Alpha vampire," purrs a deep voice at Kyouya's ear.

Kyouya whips around, his tonfa out, but no one is there.

"I'll leave you to settle in, little one." The man's voice echoes around the room, making it impossible to pinpoint his location. "Then we can have family time."

Kyouya frowns as the dark presence vanishes. He tries to pull back a curtain but it's frozen in place and doesn't budge an inch. He thinks he should be panicking considering his reaction at Kawahira's, but also he's pretty sure the vampire is harmless.

To be completely honest, if fighting is off the table Kyouya would probably do something like this. In Namimori, if he's really bored, he'll stalk people and watch them break down into sobs.

Kyouya leaves the ballroom and tries to open a window in the hallway, none of them having curtains, but the it doesn't move either. He huffs in annoyance and retraces his steps back to the front door, occasionally trying windows or doors that lead to balconies on his way but nothing works.

Vampire's control their blood and everything the liquid touches. It only makes sense to coat the walls of the castle in the red substance and flood the air with dispersed particles. It also explains the herbivores' fear of this place because if you use blood as a tool you tend to run out quickly and people don't like it if you eat them to replenish.

Kyouya hasn't heard of a Hibari vampire, but considering the strangling of information when Fon first went rogue, he can believe the man nonetheless. He also believes the man is the Alpha, simply because Hibari are the best at whatever they do. It wouldn't exactly be hard to be the strongest since vampires themselves are quite a small group, usually recluses.

Kyouya frowns when the front door is also a lost cause and he keeps wandering around. He winds up and down stairs, peering off the highest tower and getting lost in the underground catacombs, where a cloak falls on him when he shivers from the cold. He glares around him but does wear the warm cloak.

The castle doesn't let him leave but the fireplaces flare to life when he sits down in a room, and when he jumps off a staircase a carpet catches him. Kyouya eventually gets called out for lunch and finds himself opening a door in the catacombs and reappearing in the second-floor dining room.

Vampire portals taste like rust.

Kyouya finds the Alpha there -sans cloak- and the man invites him over, past the pretentiously huge dining table and to a small round one that fits two people perfectly. They take seats and the food is hamburger steak and maybe this is what having family feels like.

"What's your name?" Kyouya questions.

"Don't laugh, okay?" the vampire asks with a pretend seriousness as he tucks a cloth napkin over his lap. "It's Hibarin."

Kyouya has to pause for a bit.

"Yes, I know, Hibarin Hibari," the man sighs. "Just eat your food."

"Would you prefer to be called something else?" Kyouya asks politely and pops a forkful into his mouth.

"At this point I've stopped caring," Hibarin confesses and then asks his own question. "Are you closely related to Fon and Alaude?"

"Brothers," Kyouya mutters.

Hibarin hums. "I haven't gone to see them yet but I keep track through rumours. If I get discovered by the hunters in our family they'd try to kill me. Again."

"They can't," Kyouya says in confusion. "The oath-"

"After my time," Hibarin interrupts. "Long after my time. These clothes I'm wearing are not the era I was born in."

Kyouya hums and asks another question, the two of them passing the time in the same way until they finish eating. Hibarin waves off Kyouya trying to collect the dishes and instead leads the younger through the castle and up to Kyouya's new room.

Kyouya is focused on the conversation but Hibarin thinks about the items necessary for keeping the teenager. Indefinitely.

Kyouya speaks about his Namimori, and his mother not wanting him to leave. What he doesn't speak of is being trapped and the constant disappointed looks, of the snide remarks about doing something useful with his life, of being bait to help the family 'despite being so out of control'.

"Nothing has changed from my time," Hibarin says in annoyance at the thought of such a powerful person wasting away.

"I highly doubt it ever will," Kyouya mutters. "Recruits go in young and they never quite find their way out whole."

Hibarin looks at him with dark eyes. "You'll always be safe within the walls of my house."

"Castle," Kyouya corrects, yet again.

"It's the same concept," Hibarin says dismissively and opens the door to the room he had prepared.

"No, it's really not," Kyouya deadpans, wandering into the large room. "My home in Namimori is a mansion, and this is a castle. Regular houses have nothing on this."

Hibarin smiles. "Thank you."

"It isn't a compliment, it's a statement," Kyouya rejects.

Hibarin only chuckles. "No, I mean thank you for coming here. It's been very nice to talk with you."

Kyouya blinks and looks away, out of the window that has a view of the entire forest it's so high up. "I… wouldn't mind doing this again."

"You're such a sweet child," Hibarin murmurs, his eyes bleeding red as his teeth lengthen to wickedly sharp points. "So sweet."

And so lost, almost too easily stolen away. It's not only wolves that children have to look out for if they step off the path, though Kyouya is hardly trying to get to grandmother's house. Hibarin steps closer and leans down to reach Kyouya's neck, his lips parting.

"The herbivore found me," Kyouya abruptly says, moving away from the teeth and stepping closer to the window.

Hibarin straightens and his appearance is fully human when Kyouya turns to him. "A friend of yours?" he says simply, if a little coldly.

The entire castle shakes as the massive Alpha dragon drops down onto a spire and roars so loud the trees are blown back, the ground shakes, and all the wild life in the forest scatter in terror. The people in the town scream because something worse than the monster in the castle is here.

Kyouya sighs. "He's so dramatic."

Hibarin scowls in annoyance. He can't do anything now because the other Alpha would protest and the last thing the vampire wanted was a fight with the dragon during broad daylight. Maybe at night he could have won, but it's too risky now, when he's at his weakest.

The vampire steps up and grabs Kyouya's upper arm when the teenager tries to leave through the window. "You'll come back, won't you?" Hibarin murmurs.

"I will," Kyouya promises.

Dino roars again, like thunder, like a tsunami crashing down, his talons digging gouges into the roof top and sending shards of ceramic roof tiles and stone to the forest floor far below.

"Excuse me," Kyouya grumbles, taking off the cloak and handing it over. "I need to bite this herbivore to death."

"Bite to death?" Hibarin echoes in confusion but Kyouya is already gone.

The Alpha vampire stands there for a moment, watching as the child climbs onto the windowsill and waves his arms to bring the dragon down. Dino darts in, frighteningly fast for something so big, and snatches Kyouya up in his talons before flying off.

Hibarin holds up the cloak and breathes in the traces of Kyouya's scent, something living, something warm. He sighs and then dissolves into shadow.