Whoops who needs class?

"Ah...so he did finally show up...how interesting..." Hametsu said, clapping a little as if he was amused. And in all honesty, he was.

Jaaku sighed and looked at Azaya. "Long time no see, my dear Azaya..." he said lowly before he mock pouted. "Don't be so cruel. We did promise her we'd hear her out...after all, we knew you'd show up eventually..." he said lowly.

"But you're right. We give her a choice, but it's only a choice of who she wants to turn her...but she's made the choice already...and if you don't turn her, we will..." Haetsu said, chiming in.

Kyoko blinked as they more or less confirmed what he had been saying since he walked into the room and that they were counting on him showing up. She said nothing as Azaya moved her behind him placing the door behind her and himself as a wall.

"Glad you find it soo amusing." he said a bit sarcastically to Hametsu that his arrival was amusing to this one not that he cared although he did look at Jaaku.

"Yes Jaaku it's amazing you let her go this far before my arrival. Your not usually so patient with humans." Azaya said as he looked at his superior don't be so cruel was Jaaku serious before he turned his gaze sharply to Hametsu his frosted ice blue eyes taking in the sight of the one before him.

"You won't touch her." Azaya said that warmth gone the 'Ice Lord' standing in the room a man who could without remorse freeze his enemies solid and shatter them watching as they fell to tiny pieces on the ground and yet Kyoko wasn't afraid of him knew he was angry and protecting her even still. "I do not know who you are nor do I care. You are here with Jaaku that is all I need to know but understand you will ot touch her. Not unless it is death you wish to seek out." Jaaku would know him well enough to know that it was not an idel threat on his part he would fight Hametsu to the death......they weren't giving her a choice but he wasn't about to let them touch her when he spent so much time protecting her.

Hametsu snorted at Azaya's words. "I'm the one who has command over you...you're under my command and if you want to kill me...I wish you all of the luck in the world..." he told him lowly as he leaned up against the wall.

"I'm simply here as an audience....nothing more...I let this go because I simply want you to come back...and I want you to be happy with your little sister....nothing more..." Jaaku said lowly and shrugged. "But if you want to fight Hametsu, do keep in mind...he's one rank below me..."

"I'd be more than happy to oblige you...especially since it would help to ease my anger.."

Happy with his little sister? Azaya shook his head as he turned taking her wrist and opening the door. "I'll be in touch if and when I decide to come back I will change her when we're both ready." he said glancing back at Jaaku and then looked at Hametsu before looking back at him. "But I don't work with those who piss me off."

He opened the door and began to walk out with her having no intention of staying here. Happy that was a laugh. "One rank below you and one more reason to not return. I will not swear my alliance to another nor will I fight for another clan......but if you wanted me to come back............he is not the way to do it."

He paused and bowed his head. "Let me amend that....I keep forgetting how quickly things change when one is absent. Since you placed someone new above me after I left. I will NOT work for him.....come and talk with me alone Jaaku but not him....." it wasn't a demand Jaaku could turn him down but the fact remained.....Hametsu was throwing his weight around and it was pissing him off quickly. "I swore my allegiance one to you Jakku never to him and I will not tolerate or accept his orders since I am not currently working." he said as he stepped out into the hall with Kyoko planning on leaving and she wasn't resisting. The only choice she had was who was to change her?

In the grand scheme of things Azaya hiding what he was was far less offensive and easily forgivable. The lie that she even had a choice in the matter wither or not to be changed, wither or not to accept there offer upset her far more.

Jaaku sighed and closed his eyes. "I'm afraid...you have a limit on how long you can wait...and that limit is a week...if it's not done once that week is up...I will turn her myself...." he said lowly, sadly.

"As for Hametsu...he's not really the type to fight his crew...he's not trying to hurt you, or anyone else...nor was he put at the top to hurt your pride...he simply is the best of the best...mind you, he's a bit rough around the edges...but he's got a good heart...do try to understand Azaya, we're not trying to hurt you or the girl, we're trying to protect her and you from the ones who are out to stop anyone who knows about us....we want to keep her safe, just as much as you do..." Jaaku told him lowly, his eyes speaking in ways that his expression could not.

"When you took her in, you knew that they would be after her...we want to help, you know I would not do this out of selfish desire or for my own personal gain...I do really want to help you, but you have to let me help you...they're coming for her...and if we know where she is...so do they...you know that...please Azaya...don't make things hard on yourself...you will still be able to have her close, to protect her. We will not take that away from you...but if you don't let us protect her as well...they will take everything that is precious away and not even blink while they do it..." Jaaku explained lowly, a pleading that had never been heard before entering his voice. He wanted to save an innocent life, not watch them take it. They would kill her where she stood and not think twice about it...Jaaku couldn't stand the thought of that, not when the man he was at his core was actually a gentle, loving person.

Azaya looked back at him. A week he'd do what he had to. But as he looked at Jaaku he turned his head away again. "I'll do what I have to to protect her. But as much as I trust you.........and you trust him I don't. I don't know him. I know nothing of him. You're telling me he is the best of the best. That he is above me. That I am to blindly trust in someone I know nothing about.........." He shook his head as he looked back over his shoulder at Jaaku. "I can't. I'm sorry I just can't."

"My pride though Jaaku, you really think it's about my pride?" he glanced back at him and then shook his head. "It's about having someone above me I don't trust. I need time to think Jaaku and I don't have that here not now. I know they are coming for her now. I don't care if he is the best of the best. I don't know him...."

He placed his hand on her shoulder and began walking again shaking his head. "I know how to contact you." He said sadly walking away he wasn't a jerk on a normal basis. It wasn't about his pride they weren't giving her a choice she was being changed either by him or by another wither or not she wanted it. He was told that when he came back he had to follow the orders of a man he knew nothing about and didn't trust.

As Kyoko walked with her brother though she turned into his side under his arm and burst into tears. "It's lies.....they lied from the start.....I never had a choice...." she whispered and sighing sadly he picked her up as he walked......this hurt. He trusted Jaaku but Jaaku was forcing him forcing her and then there was the second......and that hurt because Jaaku in placing him there expected Azaya to blindly trust him and he just couldn't.....

Jaaku sighed and closed his eyes. "I never expected you to trust him right off...I know you better than that, but right now isn't the time to worry about him...worry about saving an innocent girl who needs you..." he said lowly as he watched Azaya begin to leave.

"And yes....believe it or not, right now, you sound much like a man with a wounded pride. So he's above you, I'm above him...and you don't have to swear allegiance to Hametsu, so long as you work with him on jobs when you come back...but that doesn't matter at all to you...right now, all you see is anger, and be angry all you like, it will do you little good when it's directed at the wrong person...remember, I'm the one who saved you from them so many centuries ago...do not mistake my kindness as ill will...I want to save the girl, not hurt her...she can hate me all she likes, but one day...she will understand why she was changed..." he explained as he watched Azaya walk away with Kyoko who began to cry.

It hurt Jaaku to have to play the bad guy in all of this, but when it came to innocent children getting killed by the nobles...Jaaku would rather be hated by the one he saved, than to be hated by the one who had to watch her die....

Azaya looked back at Jaaku a pained hurt almost crushed look in his eyes. "Wounded pride? It is not pride. You forget I had no choice but to cast aside pride long ago. That died back then it had no choice but to die." he had stopped walking long enough to speak his voice low tired and pained. Pride? "I'm not angry Jaaku.....I'm hurting. As I'm forced to watch once again as others back me into a corner from where there is little options left. As I am forced to make a choice a decision I shouldn't have to make." his grip shifted slightly but not anywhere near enough to harm her. "I'm hurt......because once again I am reminded of how very far I've fallen and how deep the hole is that I must climb back out of."

He turned to face the man he had come to think of as a father figure who had taken him into his clan and looked at him. Azayakana Sanjo sighed as he looked at Jaaku. "Don't worry......I'll do as I'm told. And I'll explain things a bit better to her. I know this world and it's laws all to well.....and I know how helpless I am against all of them. I have even less power then he does and they've made certain to box him in soundly" Azaya said as he turned. He was the last......and he was forced to watch through the centuries as others climbed higher and higher above him proving to him over and over again that he was part of something that should have been long buried. 'He' was Yudokuna the vampire king was helpless the new nobles cutting him off from everything without the backing of the nobles there wasn't enough he could do to counter anything. And now he was forced to swallow a bitter pill as yet another climbed to power above him it wasn't pride at all.

It was just more salt in a wound that had never healed. It wasn't Jaaku's fault if Hametsu was truly more skilled it was the right choice to make and to be expected to work with him. He knew it wasn't fair to Hametsu the man hadn't done anything to deserve Azaya's wanting to pull away from him to put distance between him and Azaya.....but....he got the feeling that the man hated the current king and would probably hate him as well. Since he was part of the noble clans that disappeared. Yudokuna had been to young to stop the uprising that was his only fault. He had still been a child when it all fell apart.

"Azaya?" Kyoko asked seeing the haunted pain in his eyes.

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it......it's an old wound that won't heal is all." Of a noble house, but that houses name could no longer protect her alone. He was just tired of being reminded in soo many different ways of how helpless he was. It wasn't pride.....it was frustration and anger and perhaps being tired of trying to claw his way back out of the hole he was in. "I'll be in touch Jaaku......"

Jaaku sighed and closed his eyes. "Honor, pride...what's the difference anymore?" he asked lowly, just as tired as Azaya was.

"Our families are gone...the ones we make for ourselves are all we have left now, so what does it matter if we mix the words up now? The nobles have taken everything except for the holes that we have been forced to crawl into, and you know this better than anyone Azaya...I've seen it many times before on your face. As much as you deny it, you are angry...but you keep directing that anger towards those of us who are here to help, and in the end...that's what they want...they want you to have no one left to turn to but them...so that they can have more power on their side..." he explained lowly before he moved to put a gentle hand on Kyoko's head and looked down at her sadly.

"Take care of him for me...he's got a lot of problems to deal with right now. I trust you with his life, as I trust him with mine..." he told her lowly before he stood back up and nodded to Azaya. "Don't be a stranger...everyone misses you Azaya..."

Azaya looked at Jaaku as he said what was the difference? And that they wanted him to be out casted so that he had no choice but to turn to them to gain the power of the Sanjo family. Power that alone as he was meant nothing. He looked back at Jaaku as he told Kyoko to take care of him that he trusted her with his life as Jaaku himself trusted Azaya with his.

Kyoko looked at Jaaku she didn't want to become a vampire she was sixteen she had soo much she wanted to do yet and yet there was a pain a deep pain in her brothers eyes as Jaaku placed a hand on her head she was looking up at Azaya.

Azaya finally spoke. "What power Jaaku.....there was a time when this wouldn't even be an issue, when her just being taken in would protect her." he looked back at him angry with him. "I'm not angry with you your just hearing it. I'm angry because I have to force something on her now that I hadn't planned on offering to her until she was eighteen, with the option to remain human, but I can't give her that now.. I'm angry because I'm reminded that I can't protect anything in my prescience and that I have yet another 'master' above me." Another to command him another to give him orders....there was a time when the only one he would have to follow the orders of was the king himself and that was well above him now. It wasn't pride, as much as he wished it was something as egotistical. "And I'm hurt.....because you of all people think it's something as shallow as a wounded pride that I'm angry about."

Azyaka sighed and closed his eyes.....as Jaaku told him to come home that everyone missed him....."No....not everyone just you. When you not looking I bear the brunt of there accusing stares being the last and powerless to do anything.....There hateful looks in my own right I understand Kuna's pain.....to bear the brunt of the blame for the world we live in now. And being unable to stop the massacre that occurred then.....or the nobles who control things now.....I'm tired Jaaku.....I'm tired of trying to claw my way out of a pit that is becoming a bottomless hole.......I'll change her.....and after I'll come back."

He started walking again......Jaaku didn't see it. He was the last of the noble clans he was angry and hurt.....because he knew the jeers. Another above him how meaningless he was in the grand scheme of things to hear that the nobles wanted him so that they'd have his power what power? Azayakana Sanjo had no power not in the courts not anywhere......if he did.....they wouldn't be talking about forcing a change on his adoptive sister, this entire conversation would be anchored around just convincing him to come back. He knew he was powerless......and it hurt.