“Pardon me, please. Would you step out of there for a minute?” Seira spoke in a hushed tone and politely waited for the man to remove himself. A pale face and the sudden gasp for air indicated that he had been caught off-guard by the woman and Seira returned his baffled expression with a shy smile and a simple ‘thank you’. Unintentional sneaking up on unsuspecting citizens and her very soft footsteps were—or so she thought—a fairly unassuming trick of vampyrism, but Seira ultimately came to understand that these were the traits of an apex predator, a manhunter. Fortunately, however, she had not fallen victim to her own, newfound cravings yet and to remind herself that there were other, better ways to live like this she carried a constant reminder with her. Always.

She reached upwards and pulled one of the books from the shelf. With this, Seira had all that she needed for the night and went to the store’s counter to pay for the item. “Ah, vampire and werewolf lore, I see—” the lady behind the cash register giggled and nearly rolled her eyes while scanning the book and putting it into a plastic bag, “let me guess, fantasy romance novels! I understand they are fairly popular these days, especially among young girls.” Seira suppressed the urge to make a face and quietly nodded instead. “That will be 740 Jewels, please!”

The doors creaked when she exited the building and with quick, nearly silent steps the newborn vampire walked into the night. It was past 10pm now and the general public had disappeared into the safety of their homes—good for them, she thought to herself with a smirk. Seira, who genuinely enjoyed the night vision that came along other things, crept through the dark alleys of Magnolia Town that lacked street lanterns and other ways of illumination until she found a bench somewhere isolated. After reassuring herself that there were no potential witnesses around, the woman revealed the blood bag she had stolen earlier today from the nearby hospital and emptied the red liquid into a flask. She threw the leftover plastic bag into a trash can down the street before finally taking a seat.

“So far so good,” she murmured and took a generous sip from the flask. Her expression softened immediately and her muscles relaxed. Her starving body regained its posture and Seira opened the book she had bought and began to read the stories and legends about her own race and the way mankind saw them—as monsters in human skin.

"A man should laugh in the face of imminent danger lest he forgets how to by the time he reaches the pearly gates," there was no evident malice in the man's voice, but his cold, rigid gaze suggested that he was irritated at having been dragged out to such an isolated, and poorly lit part of town. The person he was addressing, another male who seemed to be of similar age and build, did not even bother responding; instead, he began to clear his throat, almost as though he were preparing to hack out a particularly nasty dose of phlegm. Before he could get the chance to do so, however, he was met with Houren's size eleven right boot, which sent him flying right down the dark alleyways that he, himself, had tried to escape to. A neutral observer's interpretation would probably single the Fairy Tail mage out as the unsound instigator in this situation, but those who were familiar with him  would likely draw the conclusion that this was simply an employed mage carrying out a request that had been asked of him and his guild.

After all, it was rare, exceedingly so, for such a dangerous criminal to be active in Magnolia, so when a request entitled ''catch this dangerous criminal!" was posted on the guild's request board, the Fire Dragon Slayer pounced on the chance. Now though, he couldn't help but be disappointed by this supposedly dastardly villain; sure, the guy had some talent as a mage, and he was a physically imposing man to boot, but that was about it. He didn't utilize his magic in any significant way (it soon became obvious to Houren that this guy was primarily a brawler), and what good was pure brawn when you were too slow to hit your enemy? The sight of the man literally flying across the place put a smile on the Fairy Tail mage's face, and when the other man eventually settled in front of a barely visible bench, Houren began to walk up to him, from quite a distance away.

"You don't look like you can resist anymore. I guess I'll take you to... ho?" the Fire Dragon Slayer had started talking and walking at the same time, but quickly stopped to a halt when he noticed that he and his jail bound friend were not alone. The bench was visible enough from where Houren had been originally standing, but it was only upon coming to a closer proximity that he realized the bench was actually occupied by someone. His gaze immediately narrowed in on the criminal who was crumpled in a heap directly in front of the bench's occupant; incredibly still, but was conscious and certainly not dead. "There's no need to be alarmed. I'm just cleaning the streets," he was attempting to assuage any potential misunderstandings that may arise.

She sat in silence for nearly an hour, fully immersed in the idea of learning the secrets and truths of a nightwalker. She was so anxious to understand that she began disregarding the surrounding environment and only subconsciously registered the sudden arrival of two foreign scents. Seira Navillera’s features distorted in disappointment, a frown deformed her beautiful face. ”Dear me,” the woman exhaled a sigh. Modern literature had romanticized (and thus completely ruined) the vampyre race.

Numerous words of displeasure were muttered under her breath before she closed the pages of her book and placed it away. The vampyre then perked up and became very aware of the man who sat by her feet. Her immediate reaction to his sudden appearance was a loud (and unintended) ‘eeeeeek’, followed by fast reflexes—Seira promptly kicked the stranger’s face and slid over to the opposite end of the bench, pulling her feet up in the process. She had irritation and confusion written all over her.

The other male emerged and Seira caught a glimpse of him. His statue gave her plenty of things to worry about and even in such dim lighting she was able to make out every feature of his appearance. Unreasonably tall and muscular, he looked completely out of place. A frown crossed her face, and she desperately clung to her flask. When they could have chosen literally any other alley in this town, the girl thought to herself and resisted rolling her eyes at the irony of the situation. She noticed movement in the corner of her eye, hissed at the supposed criminal and then turned her attention back to the giant. ”Oh, I’m sorry,” she lied, ”I didn’t realize the garbagemen of Magnolia worked during such late hours. Please, have at it.”

A stifled expression of alarm could be heard from where the Fairy Tail mage was standing, and being the kind of person that he was, Houren automatically assumed the worst. The low moan that followed afterwards clearly belonged to the criminal that he had been trying to apprehend though, a development that was of great relief to the Fire Dragon Slayer as this meant that things would not escalate; he had feared that the evildoer would try and take an innocent bystander as a hostage in an attempt to negotiate an escape. It probably would have worked too, since Houren, provided he was still in the realm of logical reasoning, was the sort of person to prioritize the well being of others. Still, he was surprised, not necessarily unpleasantly, that there was someone out there who would instinctively hit a villain who was thrown at their feet.  It went without saying that the likely reaction was to run away, or just ignore the bloodied mess altogether.

In any case, after being hit again, it was safe to say that the criminal really would be out of commission this time. At the rate things were going for him tonight, he'd be just as likely to spend the night in a hospital ward as a jail cell. It wasn't as though he was some sort of great scourge for the country either, rather, it was more appropriate to call him a minor inconvenience, so concussing and whacking him until he was black and blue before arresting him was probably a precaution that his reputation did not warrant. The Fire Dragon Slayer was even starting to feel a little bit sorry for him, since he seemed to be getting battered around the place all night. "Garbage doesn't rest, so why should garbage men?" he approached the bench at a casual pace, stopping only when he reached the criminal's beaten body.

"You look like an elephant that's just seen a mouse," it probably wasn't his place to say something that could be easily interpreted as being incredibly rude, but the woman's current sitting position invoked heavy images of that very old, very widespread urban legend; that is, the sight of mice was capable of sending a great creature like an elephant into a fearful frenzy. The Fairy Tail mage grabbed the criminal by the ankle, fully prepared to drag him to the local gaol as is. "Shouldn't you be heading home? Magnolia's not as safe as it used to be," he murmured.

"Oh shit, One Piece is on! I shan't miss that," the alarm in his watch that was set to go off ten minutes before his favourite show suddenly began to vibrate uncontrollably. It had been set to vibrate mode so that regardless of the situation Houren was in, be it in the middle of espionage reconnaissance or otherwise, no unnecessary noises would give his location away. In any case, he hadn't expected that he would need to waste so much time with such a low level criminal, so this alarm was more or less just insurance. In this case, it paid off though. The villain was more or less down for the count already, so it was really a case of of how long it would take Houren to drag this guy all the way across town to the nearest jail and leave him there overnight, and then make it back to his house before the episode started. Even if he was the fastest man in existence though, it would have been a close call. As such, the Fire Dragon Slayer decided that he'd just keep the ruffian in his tool shed until the episode was over, and he'd head over to the jail immediately afterwards. It went without saying that the local jail was manned twenty fours a year, of course. He apologetically waved to the girl on the bench as he dragged the criminal away, wondering in his head what kind of insane exploits Luffy or Zoro would show him tonight.