Miyu, Larva and related story elements are owned by a most excellent manga-ka, Kakinouchi Narumi, and Hirano Toshihiro, her husband, who helped produce the OAVs and the series of short novels. It is distributed by Antarctic Press (manga) and Animeigo (OAVs) here in the US. Everything else is mine, all mine! Mwahahahaha!

This is a side story explaining certain background elements (see Author's notes at end for more detailed explanation) for an ongoing fanfiction, Ari, where Miyu and Larva are observers.

I am Larva and I am bound to Miyu, the one chosen by the ancients to keep the way between the darkness and this world sealed.

Before this tale, my mask came off quite easily. I could smile at Miyu and talk to her as I willed. But the death of Remlas cast a dark shadow over all of this. My eyes never left her, even as Remlas passed away into the darkness in pain and suffering. I had given myself to her, and nothing else mattered. If only . . . No. 'If Onlys' can't change what happened, and they won't bring back what was.

The clan's retribution for Remlas and my original crime took a long time to happen, but was sure and by their standards, just, when it finally did. Time has little meaning for shinma, but the day came when I awoke to find my brothers around me and the Dark Portal waiting. I tried to get away, but I couldn't use my full strength for fear of hurting them. I cried out, begging them to let me go, but they only looked away, sadness in their eyes, as they dragged me, chained and Sealed, to the Portal.

As they pushed me through, I felt myself pulled away, back to the place I had left long ago with better intentions. I blinked my eyes to clear the tears as I emerged into the brilliantly lit room. My parents and old friends moved to surround me as I stood before the assembled clan. I had never felt such fear or certainty in this place of judgment.

The elders whispered softly of my sin, my arrogance and my suicide. They spoke of Remlas. Their voices dropped lower in fear, and they spoke of Her. At long last, they rendered judgment. Placing their masks of duty upon their faces, they rose to stand before me. "Larva, never-was, unborn, enemy." That I had expected, but they continued. "Masked and silent forever, her freedom is yours."

I collapsed to my knees on the cold floor as the words sank in. My name removed from the clan and all records of my existence destroyed. The erasure of the memory of all who had ever known me. The bond of mother and child to be severed, my mother to never again know my face. To be known only as a sworn enemy of the people, to be destroyed on sight. These I had expected and had thought bearable, despite their severity. I had been a fool to think that way, but at the time I had felt it was true.

But the last two were unexpected and horrifying. The mask of duty was not assumed lightly, and while it increased its wearer's abilities in many ways, it stifled the soul and made everything dim and detached. And in all the hundreds of years of clan history, only one other had been silenced, and he took his own life shortly thereafter, unable to cope, to survive. These two I might have been able to bear, somehow, but the last destroyed all hope. I could only stare numbly ahead, my eyes unseeing.

And then Elena appeared before me, holding my mask in her hands. I tried to leap to my feet and flee, but my father and brothers held me in place, pulling my arms back and pinning my legs to the ground. I could only howl my defiance as she pressed the mask against my face, and my outcry became a scream of agony as my very essence burned as it meshed with the substance of my imprisonment. With one final burst of pain my voice was silenced, and only a faint echo was left to linger a second longer in the cold room.

Elena, she who had once been my betrothed, leaned close and whispered in my ear. She was as beautiful as the day I first met her. And as cold.

"There's one other way to be free, Beloved." She smiled and pulled away enough to take my face into her hands, gently stroking the emotionless white mask that hid it. She stared into my eyes and once again I saw the sickness in their depths, the desire to maim and kill others. That mad lust of hers had destroyed what feelings I had for her, and had led me to take one mission after another in an attempt to keep as far away as possible. She shivered and her eyes widened slightly as her breath became ragged.

"Kill Her." Her eyes held mine for a moment longer and then she began to laugh in that terrible, insane fashion. She rose to her feet in one graceful motion and spun around to disappear back into the crowd. Her laughter echoed in my head long after she had gone.

Slowly, one by one, those standing around me left. When the room had emptied of all but what had once been my family, my brothers and father released me and left as well. Only my mother remained. She stared at the ground for a long time without moving, then with one, last quick glance, fled. I thought I heard her choke back a sob, but perhaps it was just my fevered imagination.

I could bear it no longer, and in the insanity of the ensuing moments tried repeatedly to smash the mask on the stone floor. My ears began to ring and I tasted blood in my mouth, but the mask remained unbroken. The pain finally restored me to myself, and I lay on the ground and stared at the ceiling far above, lost in thought.

Something inside had broken, something I hadn't realized I had until I met Miyu. My heart. Miyu. The only one left who knew my real name. The only one left who cared whether I existed or not. My limbs had begun to ache terribly from the cold. Finding strength in the thought of Miyu needing me, I dragged myself over to the portal. I lost my balance as I stood to step through and fell forward out of control. I arrived on the other side in a heap on the ground, dazed and past caring what happened next. I lay in the darkness for a long time before Miyu found me.

Even now, I feel the urge to echo Elena's insane laugh as I continue to realize the full weight of that terrible punishment.

Miyu didn't understood at first. She tried to pull the mask off repeatedly. When she realized that it was now a permanent part of me, her eyes filled with tears and she turned away. I had only seen her this disturbed once before, when she had found Kaoru's double and had been forced to kill him. I was to blame for this pain. My love had brought nothing but grief to her young life. All I had to do was seal her as a child as I had been commanded to do, and none of this would have happened. But every time I tried, I would look into her eyes and lose myself all over again, and forget everything but her.

When she discovered that I no longer spoke to her, she ran away. It took me several agonizing weeks to find her. She was in a junior high school, as usual, pretending to be a normal girl, laughing with her new friends. She continued that pretense for a month, ignoring my presence until she could stand her loneliness no longer. She turned and stared at me for the longest time, then gave a small cry and fled into my arms to bury her face against my chest. She couldn't cry on the outside, but I could feel her tears soaking through my shirt. She didn't speak at first, and just held on to me fiercely as her whole being trembled.

I tried, Oh, God, how I tried to say something to soothe away her pain. At first she thought that I was silent because I was angry with her. She begged my forgiveness and pleaded for just a word or two. Then she grew angry and demanded that I forgive her. Finally, furious at my continued silence, she tried to use her power over me to force me to talk. I tried. She put her hand against my throat and felt the muscles straining to move as I lay on the ground in convulsions as two unbearable forces shredded my soul between them. She frantically commanded me to stop, then, to never speak to her again if it would cause me such pain.

I . . . I couldn't tell her! I tried everything! Attempts at writing came out as utter nonsense on paper. I tried signing, but my fingers would spasm and twist as the muscles knotted up. I cried behind my mask, but she couldn't see the tears, only the bloody stains upon my mask which she did not understand.

Sometimes, when the pain becomes to great to bear, I have to be away from her for a while. But I always return. She's my only joy, my fate, my doom, the girl-woman I gave all I held dear for. I love her and I cannot permit her to go with me into the darkness forever. And she would try to go with me if she knew. Her freedom is my final punishment, for I cannot stop our meshed destiny, nor turn back the hands of time.

Don't cry for me, for I am what I am. The dark calls. I feel its gentle caress as it sighs my name and I know that I am doomed to wander in it for all eternity. Be happy that I have had one brief moment of joy, that I was able to experience true love once in my miserable existence.

Soon they will have all been sent back, and then I too will join with them, my brothers and sisters, my mother and father.

For it is Miyu's destiny is to return all the wandering shinma to the dark. And I . . . am a shinma.

Fin

Author's notes:

Kaoru was a boy Miyu grew up with when she was human and she fell in love with him right before she discovered she was a vampire. His fate I do not know, but in a later story, she finds a boy that looks just like him. A shinma gets him and she is forced to kill the shinma. When a shinma takes someone over, they are dead, for their soul cannot be restored to their body as far as I can tell. Miyu still feels like she is killing the person. On another note, I've never understood exactly how Larva was suppose to "seal" Miyu, but I have a feeling it involved Miyu dying, so Larva's falling in love with her made him unable to do so.

After comparing the manga to the OAVs for Vampire Princess Miyu, it dawned upon me that I had based my Larva upon the one in the OAVs. The Larva in the manga is a very different sort of person, able to talk and remove his mask whenever he wishes. Striving to reconcile these two very different people, I found myself writing another side story. The events of my story do run counter to events in the novels, so this is definitely an alternative universe to the actual VPMiyu written by Kakinouchi Narumi.

Finally, for those who have honored me by actually reading this far - my writing is full of angst, but I hate angst and sad endings, I want, no, need happy endings. I will finish the main story. I will solve the problems. I will fix and repair and heal and restore. In my universe, no matter how bad things get, the prince slays the evil dragon and kisses the beautiful princess awake. Yup, I was raised on Sleeping Beauty, and I listened to the LP again and again. Of course, the road there can be terrifying and terrible, so consider yourself warned. ^ ^