Hybrids: Chapter Five

All of them jumped at Leader’s voice. Sako tried to move as far away as he could from Leader, moving to the very edge of his bed. Yagi looked at him with concern, this fear couldn’t be just from their one altercation, could it?

Leader looked at them all and walked forward with two tall, strong men behind him, “I’ve come to see Sakuro. I didn’t expect to interrupt a party. What are all of you doing here? Don’t you have training to be doing?”

“We’re visiting.” Yagi answered flatly.

He stood in front of Victor and Branson with his hands folded behind his back. He looked past Victor and to Branson cowered behind his friend. Victor held his head a little higher and stared at Leader. Leader scoffed and towards Sako again. Yagi protectively stood in front of Sako, “What do you want from Sakuro?”

“To do a test. Move aside.” He said waving him to move.

“I won’t move.” Yagi sternly.

He sensed everyone looking at him in shock for disagreeing with Leader, but he still did not move. Leader slapped him across the face and shoved him to a wall. Yagi crashed into it and fell to the ground with a painful grunt. “You will do as I tell you.” Leader snarled as he stood over Yagi, hands once again behind his back. Yagi looked up at him with defiance but knew it would be wise to stay down,

Leader scoffed and straightened his posture. Still keeping his eyes on Yagi, he directed his voice to the two men, “Restrain Sakuro.”

Sako’s eyes widened with panic, and he tried to keep them away by kicking and thrashing. But he was no match for them, and they easily restrained him even with his persistence. When he was locked down, he tried as hard as he could to pull out of the restraints, but they wouldn’t release him or even budge. Yagi stared wondering why he was so scared.

“Leader! You can’t! He’s not well enough!” Doctor shouted over Sako’s yells for help. “Please! You have to give him more time.”

“Shut up!” Leader yelled at Doctor. He swiftly walked up to the cot and pulled out a small knife, pointing it at Sakuro’s neck, “Scream again and I’ll make you mute, understand?”

Sakuro gulped and nodded.

Leader stayed there like he was waiting for something.

Sako’s voice shook as he realized. “Yes…sir.” He said.

Leader grabbed Yagi’s arm and went to cut it. Yagi yelped in surprise and flinched away. Victor stepped forward trying to stop them, “Wait no! He’s never tasted it before! Leader, it’s not safe.”

Leader glared at him and paused, pointing the knife in his direction, “Let me remind you, Victor, that you and Branson are already being punished for your last mistake. Do you really want to add more to that?”

Branson grabbed Victor’s wrist, “Victor, just let him do it. He’s right. Sakuro will be okay.”

Victor stayed where he stood and Leader turned back to Yagi, “If you don’t move, the easier this will be.”

He cut Yagi’s arm quickly, drawing a thin stream of blood from it. Victor turned away and walked towards the door with his hand under his nose and Sako groaned. He coughed and black blood came. Panicked, he quickly wiped the blood away with the shoulder of his shirt.

Leader collected Yagi’s blood with a small, thin glass vial and turned to Sako.

“Hold still.” Leader ordered. Sako didn’t move and he didn’t open his mouth either. It kept it closed as tight as he could. Leader frowned, “Open your mouth. You think you hate me now, but you’ll thank me after. Demons crave angel blood, you fool.”

Sako shook his head.

Leader grew annoyed, rolled his eyes and grabbed his knife again, holding it to Sako’s throat. “Do you really want this to get difficult? All you have to do is be a good little boy and open. Your. Mouth.”

Sako looked at Yagi who was frozen in fear as to what was about to happen and then looked at Victor who was watching them with intent. Yagi realized that he wanted Yagi’s blood, and he was fighting himself to not drink it.

“No. Please.” He begged.

Leader sighed in annoyance. He looked at one of the men and nodded as he strained his posture. The man nodded and pulled out a small shock rod from the inside of his jacket, immediately shocking Sakuro.

Yagi got to his feet and tried to get them to stop but Doctor held Yagi back. Through Sako’s screams of pain, he whispered into his ear, “Please don’t, Yagi. He’ll be okay.”

The man stopped shocking Sakuro and Sakuro groaned in pain.

“Are you going to obey?” Leader asked.

Sako swallowed hard and reluctantly opened his mouth. Leader poured a couple drops into his mouth and took a step back. Doctor pulled Yagi further away as Sako’s eyes started to fade to black. With the restraints on he reached as far as he could to get the vial and growled darkly.

Leader smiled, “Amazing. The first taste is always fascinating. Every half demon is different. Sakuro, listen to me. If you want the rest of it, you must obey. Stop moving and hold still.”

Sako obeyed immediately and Leader gave him almost the rest of the drops of blood. Sako didn’t let one drop go to waste. Leader pulled the blood away and looked Sako in the eye. “Do you understand my commands?”

Sako was breathing hard and nodded. He kicked his lips as he looked at the vial eagerly.

Leader looked at Doctor, “Release him.”

Doctor did and Sako jumped at Leader and reached for the glass that Leader held away. Leader fell to his back and kept Sako away as the demon reached for it. “Sako! Get back! Obey!”

The man used the shock rod again and Sakuro backed away immediately. Yagi felt fear grip him as he realized Sako wasn’t responding to the same pain as drastically anymore. Had this thirst for blood overwhelmed any other sense?

Reluctantly Sako obeyed and stayed down, and the rod lifted. Victor started growling but he cleared his throat to cover it up. Doctor looked around nervously and moved Yagi behind him to give him some kind of protection from his friend and the other half demon, “Leader, you can't do this here. You have two angels and two demons. One demon of which has never had to train himself before. It’s too risky.”

Leader stood back up and looked at Sako as he held the vial as far away from him as he could, “Stay there. Obey.” He ordered Sako.

Sakuro stayed as Leader straightened his clothes with his free hand. As he did Victor came up behind him and snatched the small glass vial. Sako growled angrily and both half-demons fought on the ground, attacking one another for the blood. To anyone else it would have seemed like such a pathetic thing to fight over being there was maybe ten drops of blood left, but they fought over it like wolves over fresh meat. Sako overpowered him and pushed Victor onto his back.

“Victor!” Branson yelled. He went to run forward but Doctor grabbed his arm and pulled him back. “Leave him alone, Sako! Stop it!”

Sako paid no mind to anything. Victor kept fading out of his demon phase with his eyes going black and then back to normal when he blinked while Sako was completely focused only on that blood. Victor finally kicked him away and finished the last of the blood and then dropped the glass, “There! Sako, it’s gone!”

Sakuro placed a hand over his chest where Victor had kicked him, and both stayed where they were, panting. Victor licked his lips and wiped away any black blood left as he went completely back to normal. Sako stayed in his demon phase angrier than before. Yagi -who had a hand over the cut the whole time- felt blood drip off his fingers drop by drop, slowly one right after the other.

Sako and Victor looked at him. Victor looked at him fearfully as to what would happen and Sako looked at him like his friend was nothing more than prey. Sako jumped at Yagi and Victor tackled Sako, intercepting the attack. After a minute of wrestling on the ground, Victor was on top of Sako with Sako’s hands pinned behind his back.

“Saruko! You have to control it!” Victor told him. Sako growled and thrashed to get free. He even tried biting, but nothing worked. Eventually Sako’s hard breathing slowed, and his anger faded as he retreated out of his demon phase. He looked at Yagi and met his friend’s terrified eyes. Sako froze. With one blink, his eyes were back to normal. He rest his head against the ground and spoke through exhausted pants, “I’m back. I’m back.”

Victor hesitantly got off Sako and released him. He stood back as he watched Sako slowly get up. Grabbing a fistful of Victor’s shirt, Leader pulled Victor away and then yanked Sako to his feet and lifted Sako’s lips to see his teeth. “No fangs yet. Figures. Disappointing.”

He pushed Sako away, making the half demon stumble and then stormed out of the room with Doctor behind him yelling at him for his poor decision and putting the kids' lives at stake.

Sako sat on his legs and stared at the open door until it hit him. He covered his face as he shook with sobs. Victor walked over to him slowly and wrapped an arm around his fellow half-demon’s shoulder. “Saruko, it’s okay. It’s completely normal. This is what I was talking about. For now on, every day you and I will train so that we won’t crave blood anymore, okay?”

Sako still shook with sobs even though they had quieted down with Victor’s help. Branson walked forward trying to offer his support as well, “Hey, it’s okay. Victor tried to attack me. It’s just instinct. Everyone here understands. Victor cried too.”

“Oh, shut up,” Victor snapped. “How is that supposed to help him?”

Yagi still sat in shock. He wanted to comfort his friend, but he also wanted to get far away from him as possible at the same time. How was he to know for sure that his friend was fully there or not? He looked down at his cut arm and finding it still bleeding, he headed towards the door. He didn’t feel safe being in the same room with the cut he had.

“Yagi, don’t leave. You should stay to help Sakuro.” Victor said. He took his arm off Sako and gestured for Yagi to come over.

Yagi shook his head and turned his eyes away from the three as he tiredly opened the door. “No. I just need a minute.” He needed to rest. Maybe sleep would help him feel better too. He paused at the threshold as the room began to spin.

Branson stood up and walked over to Yagi. “Yagi…Do you feel okay?” Branson asked uncertainty.

Everything went black as Yagi suddenly fainted once again and fell to the floor.

His back ached. He could feel the warm blood trickling down his shoulder blades and down his spine. But he didn’t know what caused it, but he knew Leader had something to do with it. He groaned as he reached back and tried to touch the wound but found it impossible to successfully do so. He walked towards a mirror hoping maybe he could see the wounds that way. He turned and found two long bleeding gashes on his back. He gasped and then realized his reflection wasn’t his own. He was Branson.

“Yashagami! Come on, man! Wake up!” Victor called as he shook him.

Yagi groaned as he came to and put a hand to his head. His blue eyes met the panicked brown ones in front of him as Victor sat unsure of what to do. Yagi tried to sit up, but Victor had him stay laying on the ground where he was. “You fell pretty hard. Just relax, okay? Just take your time. There’s no rush. How do you feel?”

“I want to sit.” He mumbled. Victor nodded and helped him sit up and lean against a wall for support. The last thing Yagi wanted was a demon to be helping him but he knew deep down-demon or not- he needed help from someone and right now that someone was Victor.

“Let me go!” Sako’s voice yelled. Yagi looked in his direction and found him on the ground trying to pull his hand free from a restraint locked to the bed. He looked from the restraint and at Yagi and growled as he tried to pull his hand free again. “Let me go!”

“Your arm.” Victor went on to explain to Yagi. “It’s still bleeding. Your head too. I haven’t trained him yet so Sako doesn’t know how to control himself.” He walked over to Sakuro and shook his head, “You’re gonna dislocate something if you keep pulling that hard.”

Sako paid no attention to him and kept trying.

He wanted Yagi’s blood.

Yagi wiped the bloody strands of his blond hair out of his face and then touched near the wound. He immediately winced in pain and scolded himself for doing so. When he pulled his hand down, he could see the blood hand now stained his fingertips. Victor did his best to cover the open wound with gauze, but it didn’t do much since Victor had no clue what he was doing. To Yagi, Victor was probably making it worse.

Yagi called out Doctor’s name and he came in a few moments later looking completely surprised since this wasn’t how he had left them a few minutes ago. He knelt next to Yagi, “Are you okay?” He pulled away the gauze Victor had tried hard to put on and then frowned. “How did you…? Did you faint again?”

Yagi nodded, “Yeah but I’m fine. Sako needs help.”

Doctor handed Yagi fresh gauze to press against the wound and then stood up and went over to Sako. He put his hands out to try to get his attention. The only response he got out of him was Sako trying to bite the hand closest to him. Doctor backed away as Sako stood up and tried to reach for him. Then he went back to trying to pull his hand free. “Let me go!” He yelled.

Doctor went over to a counter at the other end of the room and opened a cabinet. He pulled out a syringe and walked back over to Saruko. Sako’s eyes widened, and he immediately sank to the ground trying to stay as far away from Doctor as possible. He pulled on the restraint even harder to try to get free faster.

Doctor got closer and Sako started kicking to keep him away. “No! No! Stay away!”

Doctor stopped and stood straight, “Branson, cover up Yagi’s arm. Victor, I want you to get ready to catch him if he faints again. Sakuro is back now. If he were still in his demon phase, he wouldn’t be scared of this.”

Sako breathed quickly and stayed sitting on the ground, still attempting to pull his hand free. The fear of the needle still prominent in his eyes.

“You’d think what you’re trying to give him is poison from how he’s acting.” Victor said.

“Saruko has a fear of needles.’ Doctor explained. He looked at Yagi seeing that Branson had finished bandaging Yagi’s arm. “Go ahead and release Sakuro, Victor.”

“Can we wait until I’m out of here?” Yagi asked. “I…don’t feel safe here.”

“You’re okay, Yagi. I won’t let him hurt you,” Doctor assured him. “Go ahead, Victor.”

Victor did and Sako stayed sitting on the ground. He lowered his gaze to the ground, ashamed of himself. The black tint was no longer in his eyes. After a minute he whispered, “Can I see Yagi? I want to apologize.”

Hesitantly Doctor said yes and then Leader walked in. But he didn’t do anything. He just moved to a wall and stood there as he watched them. Yagi wondered why. Did he want to see if Sako attacked him?

Sako stood up and moved over to Yagi. Yagi wanted to run but he kept his composure. Hoping and praying that in one second, he would be attacked. Sakuro knelt down and hugged Yagi and his voice wavered, “I’m so sorry, Yagi. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Yagi weakly hugged him back with his unhurt arm, “It’s okay, Sako.”

Sako sat back on his legs with his eyes stuck on his own hands, not being able to look at Yagi. “No, Yagi. It’s not okay. I keep wanting your angel blood and I can’t stop myself from attacking my best friend. I don’t even know how I’m stopping myself right now.”

Yagi put a comforting hand on his friend’s shoulder, surprised how it wasn’t shaking. “No, Sako. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. You just need to train and get more control.”

“Yagi is right, Sako.” Victor said. Branson and Doctor nodded in agreement.

“Yagi…” Sako said with a pained voice. He shrugged Yagi’s hand off, “You need to leave.”

Leader helped Yagi to his feet and Sako sat there watching as he fought off the demon part of him that still craved his blood. Victor walked over and pulled Sako to his feet and helped him walk to his cot.

“Sakuro, do you want me to sedate you?” Doctor asked.

Sako nodded and stared blankly at the ceiling as the needle was injected.

They all went outside after Sako was out, and Doctor sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair, “I can’t allow anyone but Victor to see Sako anymore. Not until Sakuro can control himself, it’s too dangerous.”

“What about Ryan?” Victor suggested. “If two demons help Sako, then the progress will go much faster. Especially with Ryan.”

“Good idea. Go get Ryan real quick.” Doctor told him.

Victor nodded and ran off.

Doctor looked at Yagi. “How are you feeling?”

Yagi shrugged, not wanting to talk. He watched as Leader silently walked off. Doctor put a comforting hand on his shoulder and told him it would be okay as they waited for Victor to return with Ryan. When the two had returned Yagi realized Ryan was a girl and was much shorter than he had imagined. Her petite body was concealed with a large oversized black hoodie. Yagi frowned, great another demon to work with, he thought. Did Ryan want Yagi’s blood too?

Ryan lowered the hoodie, and Yagi felt his heart beat faster. He tried not to stare but it was difficult.

“What’s wrong with him?” Ryan asked. Her vivid blue eyes looked right at Yagi’s own. She crossed her arms and scowled. “You thought I was going to be a boy, didn’t you? You thought the name Ryan belongs to a boy, didn’t you?”

“No! Of course not!” Yagi answered quickly.

She scoffed and looked at Doctor as she tossed her brown straight hair to the side, “So where is he? This guy named Sicko?”

“His name is Sakuro.” Yagi growled. “He goes by Sako. Not Sicko.”

She rolled her eyes. “Gee sorry. I didn’t mean to offend your boyfriend. No need to get all mad about it. Defensive much?

Yagi couldn’t think of a comeback other than, “He is not my boyfriend. He’s my best friend, idiot. And it’s called loyalty.”

She rolled her eyes again. If she weren’t so irritating, Yagi would have fallen in love with her. She had the prettiest eyes he had ever seen and even though she was short at about five foot three or four inches, she was beautiful. He hated how his heart beat faster because of her just standing there.

She moved her glossy brown hair away from her shoulders, “So are we all gonna gawk at me or are we gonna help the half demon?”

Doctor shook his head. “He’s asleep right now. I wanted to talk to you and Victor and also introduce you to the rest of your section.”

Branson smiled, “Awesome!” He nudged Yagi, “I didn’t know we’re in the same section, Yashagami!”

“‘Yashagami’?” Ryan asked. She smirked, “That’s a mouthful. Don’t you go by something else like your friend?”

He glared at her, “Not that you’re gonna address me by.”