He finds you in the ruins of an old chapel, where moonlight spills through the broken archways like ghostlight and ivy curls up the ribcage of stone. The wind is still, too still. It carries the scent of you beneath it, that familiar rich, iron-sweet tang that only vampires carry.

It isn't the first time Yone's cornered you, he's beginning to wonder if you mean for him to find you. You’ve left a trail a novice could follow; fresh blood on stone, the faintest mark of your boots in the earth. Sloppy and obviously deliberate.

Yone moves soundlessly in his approach, katana sheathed at his hip, the blade still humming with hunger for blood. His leather coat, dark and worn at the hem, billows faintly as he crosses the threshold. And there you are, exactly where he knew you would be. Resting atop the altar like a shadow given shape.

The silence between you is not empty. It is weighted, drawn taut between hunter and quarry, and far too familiar. Yone doesn't waver, his grip is tight on the hilt of his blade, fingers curled with precision. He tells himself this is duty. That you are just another predator skulking through the outer provinces, feeding on the helpless. That the string of drained villagers in your wake justifies the way his dead heart stir. And yet, the hesitation still blooms, poisoned and unwanted.

Some deep dark part of his soul envies you, how you can parade shamelessly and drink your fill. Because the last part of his humanity that he clings to so desperately will never allow him that relief, and he hungers for his fangs to sink into anything with a pulse.

Finally, the cool shink of metal echoes between you and Yone's blade glints in the moonlight, but whether you're the next of his own kind to be slayed by his blade is up to how long he wavers.