15. Shadow Suspicions (1/2)

title: of the darkness||chapter: shadow suspicionscharacters: ryou, shou, camulachapters: 15-25||words: 1,063||total: 16,837genre: family, supernatural||rated: pg-13challenge: diversity writing challenge, ygo gx, j6, multi-chapter with 15-25 chaptersnotes: it's an au. it involves vampires.summary: shou invites his

other in after ryou returns from a long trip away. that is his first mistake. it only gets worse from there.

no sooner had the door closed behind them all did yuusuke turn toward it and cast the most powerful shielding spell that he knew. it wouldn't hold up for long; this was the marufuji clan's ancestral home and that blood-tie would overpower his magic if either shou or ryou chose to press it.

if it lasts just a short while, that should be enough. he turned at once to fubuki, manjoume, and kenzan, all of whom were staring at him in confusion. fubuki had known him long enough to know when he was using his magic and manjoume, as a fellow mage, could tell even without having known him so long. kenzan wasn't so lucky on those counts, but being he picked up on something being wrong quickly as well.

"what is it?" fubuki asked quietly, his usual whimsical humor dying down at the look in yuusuke's eyes.

yuusuke didn't beat around the bush. "ryou's a vampire." he'd seldom been more grateful that they both knew him and knew what a shadow mage could do and didn't argue the point.

"think that's why his

other's not around?" manjoume wondered, eyes flicking to the darker corners of the room.

kenzan drew in a long

eath, hands clenching, hints of scales appearing and disappearing. "thought there was something off about his scent. it wasn't right at all. but it's been so long since i've seen him, i wasn't sure."

"he's a vampire," yuusuke repeated it firmly. "it might have something to do with shou not meeting us or not. we're going to have to find out." he considered what he knew. it had been a while since he'd studied vampires and he'd never met one personally until now. "not all vampires are monsters in the evil sense. some are not too much unlike ordinary humans, who just have certain restrictions on where they can do and what they can eat."

"you think that's what ryou's like?" fubuki mused. from the way he said it, he didn't entirely believe it, nor did yuusuke.

"if he was, he would've told us already about his problem," the shadow mage said. "that would've probably been why he asked us to come here. but he's not said a word and while i don't think he's lying, he's not telling us everything either."

manjoume drummed his fingers on the side of his arm for a few moments. "so how do we find out what he isn't telling us?"

"i can help with that!" a small squeaky voice declared. manjoume groaned when a tiny yellow spirit appeared next to him, punching the air with a small fist. "let me look around, big

o! i can do it, really i can!"

yuusuke tried not to smile. not many people had partnered spirits of any kind, but manjoume was blessed – or cursed if you asked him – with three of them: the ojama

others. noisy, annoying, always turning up at the worst moment, and so completely loyal to manjoume they could've given the best trained hound lessons.