Yuri would never admit it aloud, but she was scared as hell, just walking around the forest trying not to make a single sound, almost not even breathing. Her own steps were startling her when she stepped on a twig and a quiet cracking sound echoed. Even the stupid wind was scaring her. Seriously… She held her sword high, just checking the surroundings. There seemed to be nobody around. Yet she could feel in her bones that she was close. Close to their main base. There must be some base here.

She could have sworn she just heard a sound. Her eyes widened and she quickly looked around. Nobody. Her surroundings were still as peaceful as before. She continued to walk forward, deeper into the forest. Never regretting her decision to go alone. Well, kind of. Okay, she regretted, but she couldn’t go back now.

Then suddenly she saw them. Three huge vampires, one small one and one like superhuge one. She had a hard time trying not to run away. Or faint. Or at least gasp. She hid behind a tree and watched them. The biggest one was almost twice bigger than Yuri herself was. He must be some kind of boss or something, there was no other option.

Yuri stopped breathing for a moment. She would like to know something more about them, but they weren’t talking and neither communicating in any kind of way.

Suddenly the big fat vampire, the biggest one, opened his mouth and whispered one single quiet word.

“Xue.”

Yuri frowned, confused. That was weird. Was that Chinese? Two of the big vampires bowed to the biggest one and started to walk away. Yuri’s direction. Yuri panicked. She wanted to get to know them better, not to get confronted by them, that wouldn’t be nice. She quickly turned around, hid her sword back in the sheath and started to run away. She knew she made a mistake when she started to run, because they must have heard it, but she didn’t care. She just hoped she’s faster than them and ran. After a minute or two, she slowed down, because she thought they gave up the pursuit. She hoped they thought she was just a deer or something. Just to make sure she kept running for another minute and then she stopped completely, to catch her breath. She put her palms on her knees, listening to her own loud breathing, when suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Kwon Yuri!” a familiar voice said in a huge surprise.

Yuri reflexively took out her sword and swung it before she suddenly stopped mid-air.

Her eyes widened in shock as she recognized the man. “You?!” she gritted her teeth and was about to swing the sword again, but he stopped her.

“NO! Wait, wait, wait, I know you want to kill me, but it’s not a good idea trust me, I-“

“Tell me a single reason why I shouldn’t kill you and it better be a good one,” Yuri said, her sword still ready.

“I know how to get rid of them.”

Taeyeon, Tiffany and Jessica were just about to leave when Yoona and Seohyun showed up, so the five of them went to the forest. Taeyeon was still having her strong moment, but Tiffany told her to stay behind just in case the effect of the blood disappeared suddenly. But they allowed her to have a light sword and that made Taeyeon really excited. But she tried to look as calm and cool as possible. They didn’t have any special plan, just go into the forest and drag Yuri away before things get ugly.

“We’re gonna make it or time, aren’t we?” Yoona asked for nth time already.

“Of course, we will,” Jessica reassured as they slowly entered the forest. They had to be really careful not to make any loud sound.

Everything seemed to be quiet. They slowly continued to walk forward. The wind was blowing, playing with the trees, they steps were echoing in the deep darkness.

“I can’t see anything,” Taeyeon complained. “I’m still lacking the vampire’s night vision.”

“Don’t worry, I’m keeping an eye on you,” Tiffany whispered.

“Unnie?” Seohyun suddenly said, tugging Yoona’s sleeve.

“What is it?” Yoona asked.

“Yeah,” Yuri added.

They all looked the direction Seohyun was looking. They saw three silhouettes standing between the trees just watching them, before slowly getting closer.

“Who are you?” Tiffany asked loudly. They didn’t answer until the came closer. There were two girls and one boy, all of them having swords in sheaths.

“Who are you?” Tiffany repeated more quietly when they stopped like two meters away. Both of the girls had long dark hair, they were medium height and they were totally stunning. One had a bit chubby and cute face with big eyes, she looked like she hasn’t lost her baby-fat yet, she had her hair up, tied in a ponytail. The other looked a bit ier, she had a pale skin, her eyes were smaller, her hair was down and she had a long fringe almost covering her eyes. She also had a little black dot on her nose. The boy was pretty short for a guy, but still taller than the two girls, had a short black messy hair and sharp facial features, very Asian, but very kindly looking eyes. He was for sure one really charismatic young man. They all had serious expressions.

“Hopefully they won’t hurt us,” Taeyeon mumbled.

“We were expecting you,” the guy said and a brief smiled crossed his lips and wrinkles appeared around his eyes for a second, before he turned all serious again.

“You… were?” Jessica asked, confused.

“Yes. Though I’m not sure if all of you…” he looked at the girls and said something in… Chinese.

Jessica, Taeyeon, Yoona and Tiffany exchanged confused looks, while Seohyun seemed to be very focused.

“Did you understand?” Yoona whispered.

Seohyun frowned. “A little. My Chinese isn’t that good, but he asked how many of us the girls were expecting. I couldn’t hear the girl’s reply, sorry.”

“Mind telling us who you are?” Tiffany asked.

“My name is Chen,” the boy said, bowing his head a bit. “This is Victoria,” he continued pointing at the cuter girl. “And this is Jia.” He pointed at the ier girl with a dot. “They don’t speak Korean, so I will be interpreting. I am Korean.”

“Ah… well… Tiffany, Jessica, Seohyun, Yoona and I’m Taeyeon,” Taeyeon said pointing at the girls.

“Mind telling us who the heck you are? And why were you expecting us?” Jessica said coldly and sharply.

“Oh, right, sorry, we are slayers,” the Chen guy said.

“You are what?” Yoona wondered.

“Uhm, we are slayers and we were contacted by your brother or friend or whatever. He told us some of the Bear vampires are here, causing troubles, so a few of us came here to help you deal with them. And to answer your second question, Jessica, right? Well, we talked to your sister or whatever and she told us you would probably go look for her here.”

“Our… brother? And… sister?” Tiffany asked and the other girls nodded, confused as well.

“Yeah, well, Yuri is her name, if I’m not mistaken… and he said his name was Jiyong.”

“Jiyong???!”

“I’m sorry for not being able to give you more,” a short haired boy or girl told Yuri in English, handing her a cup of tea as she joined her on the ground next to the fire. “But we’re staying here temporarily and we sure didn’t want to bother with establishing some kind of permanent… habitation,” he or she said pointing at the tents.

Yuri didn’t really understand. Why did the short boy have to go? He was like the only one who could understand and speak Korean. Now she was stuck here with some Fei girl, Tao guy, Kris guy and Amber… girl? Guy? Yuri was confused, Amber was a one big question mark for her. They were all speaking Chinese, Amber and Kris were trying to talk to her in English. But honestly, Yuri didn’t really understand Chinese or English. Luckily Jiyong was here and he’s English was at least conversational, so he was able to help her out a bit. He still kept the distance in case Yuri wanted to kill him though. Oh and Jiyong says Amber is a girl. And the name suggests it as well, so yeah, Yuri decided to believe him.

She accepted the tea and took a sip. It was a jasmine tea and it was delicious. Yuri showed Amber a thumb up and Amber smiled. She was very… handsome. Weird.

“Wǒmen huíláile,“ a boy’s voice said, announcing they were back. They all looked the same direction.

“Girls!” Yuri jumped on her feet.

“Kwon Yuri! Seriously!” Jessica stared at her with an icy expression.

Yuri looked away since she couldn’t handle the look any longer. Jessica was angry. And wasn’t shy to show that. But then a little smile crept on her face as she was relieved Yuri was okay.

“Long time no see you,” Jiyong smiled hesitatingly.

“Yeah…” Yoona mumbled, Tiffany and Taeyeon bowed their heads a bit. Jessica and Seohyun didn’t really react to it at all.

“I believe your friend here has some story to tell you,” Chen said and put his hand on Jiyong’s shoulder.

“I believe so too,” Yoona nodded.

“I’ve already heard a little,” Yuri said. “But I would like to know details.”

“Uhm, well… where do I start…” Jiyong sighed as he sat down on the ground. The other people followed, except for the two blonde guys, Tao and Kris. They remained on their feet to guard the little camp. They looked quite scary with those swords, serious expressions on their faces and all… But Taeyeon could have sworn she saw the Tao guy winking and doing some small aegyo at the Kris guy. Yes. Winking. And. Aegyo.

Taeyeon was thinking about them for a second, but then Yoona’s voice interrupted her trail of thoughts.

“Start from the very beginning. What happened after you ran away?” Yoona asked.

“Uhm, well, I ran to Seunghyun hyung and he allowed me to stay over at his place for a few days. The next day I spotted a little announcement in newspaper. You know… about BoA noona’s… uhm, yeah… so… I knew I messed up a lot and suddenly something clicked. I started to dig around. You know I have many friends… Well some of them are… gifted.”

“What do you mean by gifted?” Tiffany asked.

“Like… fortune-tellers and stuff. They told me to go to China, they told me that I would find the people I need there. Of course, I had no money, so I had to… help myself out with some illegal stuff, but that isn’t really important. Uh… So I managed to get into China a few days ago.”

Taeyeon was listening with semi open, Yuri and Seohyun had serious expressions on their faces, Yoona was staring at him in disbelief and Tiffany and Jessica were frowning. The other Chinese people around them were just expressionlessly looking at them. They probably didn’t understand a word, except for Chen, who already knew the story, so he wasn’t really interested.

“Well… I think I got really lucky there. I didn’t really know what to do, so I just told everybody I met and who would understand some English or Korean that I was looking for a vampire slayers. People just thought I was crazy most of the time, but then…”

“He stumbled across my hyung, Lay, he’s not a part of this clan, but he knows about it and he knows a bit Korean, since we… doesn’t matter. Well, he told me about Jiyong and I decided to help him,” Chen interrupted. “I figured he didn’t have to be a fool.”

“Yeah,” Jiyong smiled for a second. “He brought me to his family. Victoria, Jia,” he said pointing at the girls. “Fei here, their boss,” he pointed at the really beautiful brunette sitting on the ground, watching them with no expression but still managing to look absolutely flawless. “Amber,” he pointed at the boy/girl. “She’s a girl by the way, I was confused too at first,” he added quickly. “And Tao with Kris. And a few other who stayed in China. Turned out they are Bear clan’s counterpart. The Bears are Chinese and the ones in Korea ran away here,” Jiyong explained.

“Ah, that explains stuff,” Jessica mumbled.

“I thought they’re Chinese, I assumed that since I saw them a few moments ago and I heard them say one word… Xue, I think,” Yuri said.

“You what?” Jessica asked quietly and sharply, but also kind of upset.

“Don’t worry,” Yuri just whispered back with an apologetic smile.

“Ah, well, xue means blood,” Chen translated.

“Uhm, they agreed to come to Korea with me and help me get rid of them. I kind of hoped you would forgive me my mistake if I took care of them,” Jiyong said, looking at Yuri. Yuri just sighed and looked on the ground, so he looked at Yoona. “Yoona?”

Yoona shrugged. “Yuri unnie is the boss now, your life is in her hands.”

Yuri looked up again and stared at Jiyong. “I guess you did well… I don’t forgive you yet. I just… promise I won’t kill you, okay?”

Brief smile crossed his face for a second. “Okay, that’s enough for now.”

Then Seohyun spoke up after a longer time. “So what are we going to do now?”

A/N: I sincerely hope this wasn't very confusing :D But the story is slowly reaching its end, I know I keep saying that all the time, but I'm really almost done with it, I'm actually writing the very last chapter already and that is chapter 36 :) Plus there will be an epilog. Probably :)

As always, thank you for reading, love you all, thanks for all the comments! :)