Note: I have nothing to do with Here is Greenwood and its characters except to be a fan who enjoys the OVAs a lot. This story is my extrapolation of the storylines as seen in the OVAs. I apologize if this story doesn't quite fit in with the manga.
Kazuya sighed. He reached up and rapped on the bunk above him. "Shun!"
The rustling noises above him stopped. "Huh?"
"How do you expect me to get any sleep if you keep moving around?" Kazuya demanded. "And don't tell me it's because you're sleeping in a strange bed. You were fine last night and the night before. I'm the one having trouble sleeping in a strange bed, especially with this cast on my leg."
"I'm sorry, Suka-chan," Shun said, and Kazuya regretted how much of his irritation he'd allowed to show. Shun did sound sorry, but he also sounded nervous about something--almost scared--and coming from a boy known to be almost perpetually cheerful, it was something to worry about.
"Shun, what's wrong?" Kazuya asked, forcing himself to calm down.
"It's nothing," Shun said evasively.
Kazuya sighed again. "Shun, are you worried about those spells you cast?"
There was a moment of silence. "Suka, I swear, I never thought I'd actually succeed in casting any spells. I didn't really think that book would help us exorcise ghosts. I just bought it because it sounded interesting."
"And instead you wound up summoning who knows what kind of monsters," Kazuya said, letting some of his skepticism into his voice. "Shun, I know Shinobu-sempai said that the spells worked, but I seriously doubt you're in any danger. Where in Japan is anybody going to find a mummy? Or a--what was it--a succubus? Or a vampire? And what was that last one...a rusalka?"
"But what if--"
"Shun," Kazuya said patiently, "we're a long way from Egypt and England. And America, for that matter, so no matter what happens, it will still take time for an mummy to get here from Egypt, and probably just as long for a vampire to come here from England or America."
"Still--"
Kazuya rolled his eyes. "Shun, quit worrying! Look, if anything's going to happen to you tonight, it's going to happen to me first, because I'm not going to let anyone hurt you unless I'm dead first. And I'm sure that will give you enough time to scream for help. And given how thin the walls are, Shinobu-sempai and Mitsuru-sempai will be over here in an instant, and between them I'm sure they can handle just about anything." Kazuya didn't add that anything that happened was likely to happen to him first simply because he was the injured one and wouldn't be able to offer much resistance anyway. "Besides, you have Mitsuru-sempai's charm, right?"
"Yes," Shun said hesitantly. "But--"
"Well," Kazuya pressed on, not giving Shun the chance to think more carefully about it, "that will work. Misako said that it would protect you. I'm sure it will work for tonight, and we can get you something stronger tomorrow morning, right?"
"I...guess," Shun said. "Sure! We can go to the temple on the other side of the school! And maybe Mitsuru-sempai can ask his grandfather to help us."
Kazuya breathed a sigh of relief. "See? Everything will be fine, okay? So try to get some sleep."
"Okay," Shun said. "Thanks, Suka-chan."
Kazuya yawned. "We're friends," he said. "Besides, you guys helped me out with Miya, remember? Oyasumi, Shun."
"Oyasumi, Suka-chan."
Kazuya listened as the rustling noises picked up again, then stopped...and didn't start again.
Smiling to himself, Kazuya yawned again and closed his eyes.
* * *
His given name--the one that appeared on his birth certificate--was Craig Woodrow, but everyone knew him as Haruki "Haru" Matsumoto. He might look like a gaijin, what with his naturally pale skin and his red-brown hair, but he was actually half-Japanese through his mother, and anyone who saw his dark eyes would know that he wasn't purely Caucasian. Technically, though, he wasn't anything.
Technically, he was dead.
A chance encounter with the wrong type of girl a year before, however, had changed all that. He'd died, but he'd returned as something both more and less than human. And after his return, he'd embraced an entirely different lifestyle--or perhaps existence was more appropriate, since he wasn't alive--that required the drinking of blood.
However, ever since his mother's death--not the one who had given birth to him but the one who'd made him into a vampire--when an earthquake exposed her refuge to the light of day, he'd learned that he didn't have to follow her example at all. She had wallowed in her power, doing her best to emulate the vampires that appeared in the old western movies. Her sole sustenance was blood, and she gladly killed the humans who provided her with their life essences.
Free from her guidance, he'd changed his ways. He'd never killed a human himself--his mother had always finished them off--but he'd still felt guilty about it all. Now, he took only short sips from a number of people, leaving them only moderately dizzy and still quenching his own thirst. Also, he'd found that he could eat normal foods as well, though he still needed some fresh blood each night to survive.
The result was that he could slip through humanity practically unnoticed, thereby protecting his existence simply by not leaving a trail of corpses behind him.
But he wasn't about to let someone control him and possibly drive him to kill people as well. So the one who had summoned him would die in their stead, because the only way he'd be able to remain free was if his summoner died. The person's death would weigh on him, of course, but it would in the long run be better for the human race.
And now he stood outside the home of the one who'd called him.
"Hmm," Haru murmured. "A boy's dormitory. I didn't expect this." And he hadn't. Why in the world would a high school student want to summon a vampire for? It had to be a mistake. Therefore, he had to change his plans. He'd only kill the boy if he wouldn't break the spell. Of course, if the boy couldn't break the spell, that would be yet another matter to think about.
"What are you doing here?" a harsh voice demanded.
Haru whirled around. A naked woman floated in the air, glowering at him. Her nudity might have been arousing had he been other than what he was, but he saw the truth behind the illusion she cast: she wasn't a beautiful young woman but an ugly, shriveled crone whose wickedness had burned away her physical beauty and forced her to shroud herself in lies to survive.
"Succubus," he hissed. "I know you're kind. I'm not about to let you enter that dormitory."
The woman laughed, her long illusory hair and her wispy real hair fluttering in the wind. "Protecting humans? Now I've seen everything! Since when do vampires protect humans?"
"Since this vampire happens to be a man," Haru snapped, "and he's not about to let you loose in a boys' dormitory."
She laughed again. "Gender loyalty, is it? Hah! You're a fool, boy. You won't see me protecting any girls from you!"
"Well, that's the difference between us, isn't it?" Haru said coldly. "I'm still human. You're a monster."
The woman's wicked smile fell away and she glared at him. "So I'm facing a young vampire, then. I'd tell you to wait a few years and see how you feel about humans then, but you won't survive that long!" She lunged for him, her fingers and their sharp nails curved into claws.
Haru easily sidestepped her charge, but as she went by, she raked at his face. Her nails gouged bloody tracks across his cheek. Had they been made by an ordinary foe, they'd be healing already, but since another inhuman had made them, the healing would take longer. Grimly, he took up a fighting stance.
The succubus laughed again, then darted in, her hands once again reaching for his face. This time, however, he blocked her clawed fingers and spun a kick into her belly. As she reeled backward, he made his own charge, attempting to drive a fist into her mouth. She was able to avoid his punch and drove him back with her slashing hands.
Haru and the succubus circled around and around, occasionally landing blows that began healing almost as soon as they were struck. Haru was inwardly glad that his mother--his living one--had thought to enroll him in martial arts classes. It gave him a slight advantage over the succubus' wild, unstructured attacks. She, however, had the advantage of mobility, being able to float in the air while he--so long as he remained in human form--was stuck on the ground.
Then again, he had no idea how to destroy her. He had no doubt that she knew how he could die, though. At best he could hope that he somehow got lucky, avoiding her attempts to destroy him while he stumbled on a way to stop her.
Suddenly, she charged at him. She drove him back with her wildly flailing claws, swinging her arms so quickly that he could only block and retreat while she pressed her advantage.
Then, he suddenly saw a possible chance at winning. As they passed beneath a tall tree, he fell to the ground and tumbled towards her. Bracing his hands on the earth, he extended his tall body and long legs. His feet caught her directly in her midriff, flinging her up and away...directly into a nest of winter-barren branches.
She gave a hideous scream that changed into a gurgle as a particularly sharp and strong branch drove down between her shoulder blades and out through her stomach.
"You...bastard," she whispered. Then she seemed to sigh and shudder, but it was actually her body crumbling to dust. Soon the only sign that there had been any sort of battle was the mess of cracked and broken branches atop the tree.
Haru sighed. He had no doubt about why the succubus had suddenly shown up. "What were those boys thinking?" he demanded of the sky. "Do they think this is a game?"
Grumbling to himself about fools tampering with things they knew nothing about, he slipped into the dormitory.
* * *
Haru walked silently through the halls, searching for the one who had summoned him. The spell had linked him to the caster more completely than a wedding vow, and he could feel the soul of the boy who had cast the spell.
He followed the trail up the stairs to the second floor. He started up to the third floor, then went back down as he felt the pull weaken. He moved slowly along the wall, feeling the pull of their link growing stronger and stronger.
Finally, he paused outside a door. He looked up at the room number. 211.
"The caster is in here," he whispered. He reached out with his mind to scan the room's inhabitants. Both were deeply asleep, but there was something unnatural about both of them. There was power in there, and he'd have to be careful.
He gripped the doorknob in his hand and slowly turned it, waiting until it could go no further before he applied gentle pressure to the door with his other hand. At the same time, he pulled back on the knob, keeping the door from swinging open. Slowly, ever so slowly, he started forward, preparing to step into the room...
Only to be held back by an invisible wall.
Haru stopped, confused. What was happening? The caster must surely be in this room, but since the spell amounted to an invitation to enter, he should have been able to go inside. Why was he being held back?
Forcing himself to remain calm, he scanned the room's interior, searching for the source of the siren call. Then, his eyes went to the desk closest to the window.
That was the source! That old-looking book with the strange markings! The spell that had summoned him must be in it. But where was the student who had summoned him? And why couldn't he enter the room?
Then he understood. The dormitory itself wasn't a home, but the dormitory rooms were. So, while he could enter the dormitory without hindrance, he had to be invited into the rooms in order to reach its inhabitants. And while the book that had been used was here, the caster was in another room.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly closed the door, allowing it to make only the softest, lightest thump before slowly letting the knob turn back into place. He stood up and sighed. He hadn't yet given himself away, but now he was faced with the task of finding the room of the student who had summoned him. Which meant he would have to try every single door until he found the one he could enter.
Muttering under his breath, Haru went to the next room. This one was number 210. He repeated his efforts with this door, bracing himself for the resistance that would come when he tried to enter. He lifted his foot and started forward...
...and nearly stumbled when he met no resistance at all.
Haru's jaw dropped. "It can't be this easy," he whispered to himself. But it had happened, and he wasn't about to question it.
He crept forward to examine the inhabitants of this room. He reached out and cautiously drew back the curtain of the top bunk. His eyes widened as he saw the long hair and the feminine features of the sleeper.
A girl? In a boys' dormitory?
After a moment, however, he realized that, while the person might look like a girl, he was definitely a boy. He had a masculine scent, not the feminine one that, however corrupted it might have been, the succubus had possessed.
What was more, he felt the lingering traces of the spell on this sleeper! Now all he had to do was wake the boy and...
He paused as another force held him at bay. It took him a moment to recognize the aura of a blessed object. He gritted his teeth. He couldn't touch this boy! The aura really confirmed that he was, indeed, the spellcaster since someone had given him some sort of protective charm. But that created problems.
He could try to wake the boy without touching him, but that would very likely endanger him. He'd have to call fairly loud to get the boy to stir, which might in turn wake up others in the building. And he wasn't about to try to explain his presence to an entire dormitory full of boys, of which two at least might prove a match for him in strength and power.
Haru felt a growl rising in his throat and quickly suppressed it. Now, however, he became aware of his thirst for blood once again asserting itself. He wasn't really surprised. First he'd fought a succubus. Then he'd snuck around the building, and gone through the painstaking tasks of opening and closing doors without making noise. And with all the disappointments and frustrations he'd had to endure so far, he needed something to soothe his nerves, not to mention replenish his exhausted strength.
He'd come back for the boy, of course, but for now he needed to leave and find a few strong donors. He started for the window and prepared to leave...
...only to run into a similar wall of resistance like the one that had guarded the other boys' room. Now what?
Haru quickly slipped out into the hall and back to the doors he'd entered through, only to find that they, too, were now impossible for him to pass through.
He was trapped! Somehow he'd entered the building, but now he couldn't leave it! But if all the boys were asleep--and his searching mind told him they were--who had cast the spell that trapped him here?
There was only one answer. The book.
These boys were only pawns. The book had somehow used them to summon him--along with the succubus and who knew what else--to the dormitory. "Why" was a question that would have to wait. He had to find a way out. Otherwise, he'd wind up attacking one of the boys for blood. And he was barred from approaching any of them, including the one who'd summoned him.
No, wait. Haru thought back to his own living days when he'd lived in the school dormitories. He'd had a roommate, and--judging by the bunks in each room--this dormitory was no different. So surely his summoner had a roommate!
Haru hurried back upstairs, still as silent as ever. He slipped back into room 210 and drew back the bottom curtain.
A boy lay there, one whose hair was only a few shades redder than his own. He seemed uncomfortable for some reason. Then Haru noticed the cast on the boy's leg.
Haru sighed. He was in trouble, and this boy would have to pay for it. He didn't want to add to the boy's problems, but as long as he was trapped in the building--as long as he could only enter this one room--he'd only have this one provider, and without any solid foods to supplement his diet, he'd have to take a lot of the boy's blood.
Haru struggled with himself, trying to find some alternative--any alternative--to what he knew he had to do. But nothing came to mind, and the thirst grew stronger.
Sighing, Haru drew back the curtain all the way and, being careful not to hit his head on the top bunk, sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned in over the sleeping boy.
"I'm sorry about this," he whispered, "I truly am. If there were any other way, I'd take it. I just hope that when you finally realize what's happening, you'll find it in your heart to forgive me." Haru lowered his face to the boy's neck. He closed his eyes.
"I'm sorry," he whispered again. Then he bit.
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