Unknown POV:

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked back to see Douma, the cult leader and founder, leering at me with a chilling glare.

'Oh my goodness, how is he so terrifying!?' I thought as I turned around and bowed in front of him. He used his fan to lift up my chin, forcing me to stare into his creepy eyes.

"Say, have you seen the person who found this hairclip and paper?" He asked dauntingly, a ghastly smile stretching across his face as he held up the notepaper and hydrangea hairclip that I had taken from (Y/N)'s room.

"T-th-that would b-be me, sir." I was shaking so badly, I could barely stay up against a wall, let alone stand on my own two feet.

"Oh, what's your name then?"

"I-I'm Kikuchi Takeshi, (Y/N)-chan knows me." I had hoped that bringing up (Y/N)'s name would help me avoid whatever trouble I had gotten myself into, but it didn't.

"Well, I would prefer if you didn't use her name as a bribe. It's not nice to do that, you know?"

'What in the world?' I thought, subconsciously nodding and bowing from habit.

"I apologize profusely, Great Leader."

"Follow me, young man. I actually have a gift for you instead." Douma offered me a convincing closed-eye smile. Even though he gave off a furious aura, I had no choice but to comply when he grabbed my wrist and dragged my down the hallway towards the East Wing.

'Shit. I don't know where I'm going, I don't trust him. I really hope that he's just in a bad mood...' Douma, sensing my lack of resistance, finally let go of my hand and motioned for me to follow him myself.

I nervously jogged behind him and kept up with his brisk pace, fortunately guessing that he would catch up with me if I ran away. He flung open the now unlocked doors of the East Wing, revealing a bloody massacre within. Douma turned his head back towards me, displaying the Kanji in his eyes and his sharp fangs in a malicious grin.

I paled and attempted to run the other way when he caught hold of my wrist again. I started to cry and opened my mouth to yell when his iron grip pulled me inside the room filled with red.

"I don't usually kill or eat men, but I can't just let this go! No human has ever stolen from me and survived until the next sunrise." He giggled, staring me dead in the eyes.

"People shouldn't steal, it's so mean! Don't you agree, kid?"

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Y/N POV:

I woke up from my sleep and looked around to find that the new surroundings were gone, and I had been returned to Douma's cult. Shrugging it off, I changed into a casual silk black kimono, which reminded me of what Nakime had been wearing.

I winced as my leg gave out multiple times, but was too bored to sit around in bed all day. I had forgotten about the pain, since I hadn't been walking around much for weeks.

I quickly went out the door, searching for something to do while I wait for sundown to arrive. Suddenly, Douma walked out of a hallway, covered in blood. He turned to me and grinned.

He strolled towards me and picked me up effortlessly; he then walked back the way he came, now carrying me.

"Douma-sama, why are you covered in blood? You're smearing it all over my clothes, and it stinks like hell." I huffed, climbing out of his arms and faceplanting on the floor.

"Ouch." He stated as I rubbed my bleeding nose, which luckily wasn't broken. Two seconds later, I returned to my huffy state, forgetting about both of the injuries I still had.

"I just changed, and this is a new kimono." I showed off the long black fabric, and he shrugged.

"Okay! I'll lead you there instead." He held out his bloodstained hand to me, and reluctantlyI took it in mine. Mild pain shot up my leg with every step, but that was not enough to get me to dirty even one of my kimonos. Douma turned to me sternly.

"(Y/N)." The lack of honorifics showed that he was serious, so I knew something was wrong before even having to look at the man.

"What is it?" I was not expecting the sharpness in his voice, or the fierce demeanor present in his eyes.

"Don't think that I don't notice that you're limping. Your leg hasn't healed yet, I am going to carry you." Without letting me respond, he lifted me up into his arms. I stayed silent for a second before quizzically staring at him.

"You are worried about me? Why?" He froze before shaking his head slightly.

"I don't know. Meh, it's fine!" Douma, who I assumed was bored of moving at a human pace, started to sprint towards the East Wing. After a moment, he placed me on the ground next to him, but placing a firm grip on my arm to help me balance.

We both slowly dawdled inside the large room, Douma suddenly having an endless amount of patience for my snail-like pace. Eventually, we were inside the room, and he dragged two blood-free chairs over to where I was standing. I sat down, panting slightly, and he did the same.

After I caught my breath, I finally had a chance to see where I even was. The once pale walls were coated in blood, but the only place where the red liquid didn't touch was a brick pool of white lotus flowers in the back corner of the space.

"(Y/N)-chan, is something bothering you? You seem distressed. I can clean the blood, if you would like me to." I snapped my head towards the direction of his voice and saw his 'concerned' face attempting to read my emotionless expression.

"I'm good, I know you have to eat. Also, why did you want me to come here? Are you going to eat me?" I asked, only half joking.

"Nah, I'm good." At that, I couldn't tell if he was being serious or not. I decided that it was best to forget it and move on, and reverted my attention to what he was doing.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of note paper. He looked up at me expectantly; I assumed he was waiting for an answer of some sort. I reached for the paper, and he gave it to me. Something that looked like a list of questions was written onto it, although I couldn't properly read because of the messy handwriting.

"I can't read this...can you read it to me?" I placed the illegible paper into Douma's lap, and he frowned playfully.

"O-kay, if I have to." He grinned as he read the first question off of the paper.

"What are some of your favorite things?" At this I didn't have to think very deeply to answer.

"I am interested in when we train, it keeps me busy. I also get some exercise, so that's a plus." He laughed at this; I did not understand why.

"Okay then, next question. Who are your friends?" He looked up at me excitedly, and it was obvious that he was waiting for a specific name to show up in my list of friends.

"Bold of you to assume I have friends, but yes actually, I do. Touko-chan said we were friends a couple of weeks ago, my parents are my friends, I consider Nakime-san to be my friend, and there's also the guy who helped me travel here. I think his name is Kakashi or something...I don't really know." Douma covered the bottom half of his face with his hands, and to me he looked suspicious.

"What is it, Douma-sama?"

"Do you know who Kokucharo-san is?" He pointed to a mangled corpse near the corner of the room.

"Wow, okay." I didn't know what else to say. "I guess I'll miss him. Kakechiyo-san was a useful friend. What else is there on that list?" I peered over the paper so that I could read what he wrote, forgetting the fact that it could be mistaken for a toddlers'.

"What about me?" Douma ignored my question, instead asking his.

"Well it depends if you consider yourself my friend. I go off of if the other person has explicitly said that they're my friend." I explained, avoiding having to answer.

"I believe that a friend is someone that you tolerate. I tolerate you, so I think you're my friend." I readjusted my position so that my sore leg was resting on top of my other one.

"Oh okay, we're friends then." Douma clapped his hands happily at my response. He looked down at the paper, his eyes flitting across the words.

"I can't read this either. Am I that bad at writing?" He frowned and pouted.

"It's fine, you can just ask me what comes to your mind." I reassured him, patting his shoulder.

"I can't think of anything."

'Well that wasn't very helpful, was it?' I thought sarcastically.

"Ne, that's fine, I want to go and train with you anyway. It's probably dark outside by now." He rapidly shook his head.

"Your leg isn't healed yet. We can practice punching though." With that, Douma threw a fist at me, and I was barely able to block. This training went on for the rest of the night, and by sunrise, my arms were three times stronger than when we had started.

Word Count: 1656