It was the middle of the semester and Mio's midterms were just a week away. Mio wanted to improve her GPA from last year so she was motivated to study. She was planning on locking herself in her room after her lectures and study till she felt was necessary. What she realized is that she had to do extra work because of the incident, so she had no time to waste.
After her lectures she sat in her chair at her desk and opened up her laptop, textbooks and notebooks. It was laid out neatly since she had one of those large minimalistic desks with barely anything on it. She slapped her cheeks together and rubbed her face. Hyping herself up as she began either to type on her laptop, write something down on her notebook or furiously flip through the pages of her textbook.
Meanwhile, in the central part of the city a young woman in a brown hood walks down a darken alleyway. She continues walking for a bit until she is closed off by a fence. On her right she knocks on a door which looks like the back part of a small housing complex. Upon hearing the knock a voice of what seems to be a rowdy woman can be heard. She yelled, "I WILL HAVE YOUR RENT BY THE END OF THE MONTH....oh" The woman stopped speaking abruptly as she approached the door and peered outside.
She was quiet until she saw a glimpse of who was at the door. The crass woman opened the door all the way. She was in her mid-thirties with a ponytail and an eyepatch on her left eye. You could see the a mark outside of her eyepatch making what seems to be a long scar. She wore a tank top and shorts and it seemed like she hasn't showered in days.
"I need your help Cecilia." Ceros said in a somewhat monotone voice.
The woman took a puff of her cigarette and let out a sigh. "You could've at least called first." Cecilia look left and right and pushed Ceros inside of her apartment. "We'll talk inside. I don't want any weirdos looking around here."
Ceros followed Cecilia inside of her home. She saw a couple of women wandering around the house similar to Cecilia each of them holding a cigarette or downing a can of beer in front of an old television set. The air was filled with smoke and it was hard for Ceros to breathe but for the most part she held it in as they went up a flight of stairs to Cecilia's room.
Cecilia quickly locked the door to her room and sat down on a floor in front of a knee-high table. Surprisingly her room was clean and didn't smell like anything like the first floor of the housing complex until she notice a window opened ventilating out all the smoke.
"Sit down anywhere on the floor. Don't worry its clean." Cecilia quickly threw her cigarette outside of the opened window and sat back down.
"I need some help investigating a mysterious person." Ceros reached into her backpack to give her the files.
"Hmmm..." Cecilia scratched her head. She then got a cigarette from the pack that was on the table and proceeded to light it. The flickering sparks of the lighter ignited the cigarette...
It was Mio's last exam and she hurriedly finished writing her exam paper as the professor and proctor were counting down the last seconds of the exam on a projector in front of the class.
"5...4....3...2...1..."
"The exam has now finished. Please wait till a proctor comes around to pick up your exam papers. Until then you should remain seated."
The proctor was quickly picking up each students paper. As he picked one up each student began to leave their seat.
'That was brutal. Hopefully I did well on those weird business type courses. No less stressing now its over. I wonder how Maria did on her exam?' Mio thought as she waited for her paper to be picked up.
'I don't see her anywhere. I guess she's already gone.'
As Mio was leaving the exam room she felt a tap on her shoulder. Mio trying to speed home did not notice the tap until someone was chasing after her outside of the university building.
"WAAAIT!!" A young woman came running towards Mio.
"Maria?" Mio looked confused. "What's up?"
Panting, Maria took a couple of seconds to catch her breath to respond. She held onto Mio for support. "Do you want to come to Jodi's house for a gathering tonight?"
Mio was hesitant to answer. "Ummm..."
Finally catching her breath she held Mio's hands. "C'mon it'll be fun."
"I'll have to think about it...I'm not really into that kind of stuff."
Maria was staring at Mio intently. She was inching her way closer and closer to her face until she felt uncomfortable.
Maria was practically kissing Mio. Mio jerked her head back to avoid her getting any closer.
"FINE! I'll go." Mio shook off Maria's hands.
Maria lunged at Mio and hugged her. "It'll be fun, trust me."
In the evening Mio was in her room trying on different clothes. The various shirts and pants were scattered on the floor. She was in front of the mirror with an outfit that she liked.
"I think this is okay."
She eyed her outfit from top to bottom. "Maybe I should've said no..."
She shook her head and headed out.
The party took place in Maria's house where she shared with a couple of her other friends. Mio looked around and saw many people drinking and conversing as she headed inside. The music was fairly loud and chatter of even more partygoers could be heard as she stepped inside. Maria immediately noticed her and ran to greet her.
"Glad you could make it. I honestly thought you weren't going to come." Before Mio could speak Maria grabbed her arm and showed her around to her friends.
A group of girls and guys were sitting on her couch in the living room. Maria quickly introduced Mio as she sat on the couch next to two girls. The girls were pretty and Mio felt self-conscious as she stared at their outfits and looked down at hers.
'Maybe this wasn't enough.' Mio thought to herself.
There were two guys sitting on the floor checking Mio out. One of them was an average looking guy with a buzzcut and the other was a fairly handsome young guy. Mio took a quick glimpse of them both and just had a weird feeling. She touched her chest and took a deep breath.
Maria looked over to Mio and sat next to her. "You alright?"
"I'm fine. It's nothing."
Maria smiled and brought over some drinks for them to enjoy. Through the night Maria's friends were drinking and having a good time talking about random things about their social life and school life until one person brought up relationships. They talked about love and who they would currently go for.
All of a sudden one of the guys asked Mio if she was looking for someone. Mio quickly answered, "I haven't really thought about it like that."
One of the girls beside her was disappointed. "Awwww, look at you. I'm sure you're joking right? You look cute as fuck." The other girl on the left side of her hugged her and made a kissing face. "If I was a guy I would date you in a heartbeat."
Mio's face turned beet red. The girls both laughed and continued on their talk.
As the night went on Maria's friends were drinking and were getting progressively drunk. Mio didn't drink even though Maria offered her a cup. She took the cup she was given and placed it on the coffee table on the couch. Mio wanted to get some fresh air so she excused herself and went out the back. As she was passing through to the backyard Mio saw that there was nobody there.
'I guess everybody left.' She took out her phone and realized it was 1 am.
She found a bench in her backyard to sit on. The way the backyard was set up was that there was a patio in the entrance of the backyard and a wide open space with grass in the back. The bench and a couple of chairs were placed around the wide open grass.
She sat down on the bench and saw the night sky. The stars were barely visible but the moon was shining brightly. She closed her eyes for a bit until she heard the backyard door opening. It was the handsome guy.
He walked towards the bench. "Mind if I sit here?"
Mio nodded.
"Just wanted some fresh air." The man said.
"I don't do parties in all honesty. I came cause Maria asked." Mio didn't feel like talking but she just opened her mouth.
"You get used it. The atmosphere is overwhelming if don't know anybody."
Mio noticed that he didn't reek of alcohol. "You didn't drink?"
"Nah, I'm just trynna pace myself."
Time passed as they sat there staring at the moon. Until Mio noticed that he was trying to get closer. Mio's heart was starting to beat really fast.
"Mio was it? That is a beautiful name." The man looked straight into her eyes.
"Wh-wh-what i-is your name?" Mio face was flushed and she was stumbling over her words.
"Leon." He began touching Mio's thigh as he stared at her.
'My heart is not ready for this.' Mio pushed him back and he backed off for a second.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm just not used to this." Mio place her hands on her knees.
"That's the fun part." He suddenly got closer and touched Mio's chin. "Emotions run wild and people just feel what they want to feel."
"I-I'm not ready for this. I need more time. I-I just met you." Mio pushed him off once more.
Leon kept getting closer. "Maybe we'll get to know each other better if I come a little closer." Leon grabbed Mio's hand and tried leaning for a kiss.
Mio didn't want to be apart of it anymore. She felt uncomfortable and wanted it to stop.
THWACK
Mio slapped Leon across the face and ran out.
As she left Leon rubbed his cheek, "A feisty one, huh?"
Maria opened the door and saw Leon standing in the middle of her backyard. "What happened? Where is Mio?"
"She said she had to go home."
"Without saying goodbye?" Maria was concerned.
"Yeah, she said she had to do something."
A couple days have passed and in the Blood Moon Facility Ceros outside of Alucard's office strolls in closing the door as she walked in. The wooden door makes a creaking sound which alerted Alucard typing away at her desk.
Alucard closes her laptop and asks "Darling did you find anything to note? Any traces of what could possibly be her next move."
Ceros had her arms behind her back. "Mastah I couldn't find anything. Looks like she's been inactive for the past couple of weeks now."
Alucard wasn't disappointed but she knew that they couldn't get ahead of her if they didn't have anything to work with.
"Good work. Don't be to hard on yourself just return to your school work. I'll call you when we need any help."
Ceros saluted and walked out of Alucard's office.
As soon as Ceros left Alucard was pondering her next move. 'I guess its a waiting game at this point. With the lack of clues and a mysterious organization lying in the shadows. I just feel really helpless...'