Okay, this all takes place after the 26 episode of the anime series. I haven't yet had the pleasure to read the magna series, but it's next on my to-do list, and I have read like, the first two chapters on . So, like I said, after the 2nd season, but everyone stayed at the academy instead of leaving. NOBODY LEFT THE ACADEMY!! Oh, and Zero didn't promise to kill Yuuki, but other than that it's the same.
Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Knight nor any of the characters or events devised by the creators of said Vampire Knight. I do, however, own Tora, so please leave her alone, because she is mine!
One more teensy weensy little note. underlined italics means the persons conscious/voice. italics means it's the characters thoughts. "Quotation Marks" means someone's talking. Kapeish?
I ran as fast as I could. My lungs screamed for air, burning like fire despite the rain showering down on me through the trees above. My limbs protested, demanding rest for their oxygen starved muscles. But I couldn't stop. I had no choice but to run, if I wanted to live.
I hadn't had time to even put my shoes on before the attack, and my feet were raw and cut, the thin house socks not giving them much protection against the harsh forest floor.
Tree branches whipped past me, scratching my face. I glanced over my shoulder for a split second, dreading what I might see, and stumbled, falling to my knees, bloodying them. My hands scraped against mud and rocks and my wrist protested sharply. I felt something snap and muffled a scream by biting the inside of my cheek, tasting the metallic taste of blood.
The demon following me would be able to scent my blood, but I didn't plan on making it any easier for him by making noise.
I pushed myself to my feet, panting. I could see faint gray light filtering through the trees ahead of me. Good. I was almost -
Something tackled me from behind, shoving me back down to the ground. He was on top of me, snarling and angry. I still couldn't believe that my own father, a hunter, had sunk to Level E vampire and killed my mother. Oh well. It's not like I had ever loved him really loved him, anyways. He was very… strict, in his disciplinary methods, and I couldn't count the number of times she had gone to bed hungry or even had to be attended to by a doctor. Or the scars, both mental and physical.
No, I had not loved him, but he was my father, my own flesh and blood relative, and I had thought that would mean something to him, of all people, who was obsessed with bloodlines and their heritage. The Hissatsu family was, admittedly, a very old, very powerful family, but still, it was no reason to get obsessed.
Father's clawed hands pierced the skin of my shoulders and his face twisted with tortured hunger, his eyes a burning red, fangs elongating as he pushed my face into the dirt, yanking my hair roughly out of the way to reveal my pale neck, my pulse throbbing in my veins.
I tried to scream as his fangs sliced through my skin, grinding through the arteries and skin and nerves and muscle, but before long he clapped his hand over my mouth, his talons pricking into my cheek as pain lanced up my neck. He lapped at my blood greedily and I nearly passed out with the sudden, shocking realization that he was going to drink me dry. Well, the loss of blood certainly didn't help me in my attempts to stay conscious, but still.
A loud gunshot shocked me from the black, blissful oblivion of death and my eyes flew open, rolling wildly as I tried to locate the source of the shot. The Level E was gone from me, and I saw him slam into a tree before he bounded up, his eyes wild with hunger. He charged a tall boy with pale silvery violet eyes who pulled out a gun - a Bloody Rose. Vines were curled around him, coming from the Rose itself. The boy laughed maniacally.
If I hadn't been so scared, the adrenaline pumping like quicksilver through my collapsing veins, I might have thought it was a hallucination or a mirage.
Another report, louder than before, broke the silence of the misty forest and I whimpered, watching in some sort of horrified trance as my father exploded into a cloud of dust. I covered my ears and curled into a ball on my side, shivering, feeling the dizziness and lethargy and nausea of blood loss come back in full force.
Someone touched my shoulder and I flinched, a frightened shriek escaping my lips as his fingers slipped on the bloodied flesh of my shoulder.
"Who are you?" asked a voice. It was smooth and even, but clipped, hiding an inner pain.
I pressed my face into the dirt, fear and pain and the weight of the strange boys pain making me want to die right then and there.
The boy nudged me with his booted foot. "Answer my question."
"Tora," I whispered, wincing as the boot hit a tender spot in my back. It still hadn't healed from the baseball bat incident last week…
As I remembered, pain welled up inside my body, from my neck and everywhere else. But mostly my neck. Black mist swam in front of my eyes, tinted with red, the color of blood, and I closed my eyes, feeling like I was falling, falling, falling…
Zero stared down at the girl on the ground at his feet. Tora. Her hair was a strange mixture of reddish orange, sort of a warm ruby gold, but that wasn't what was strange about it. What was strange was that there was black stripes, jaggedly streaking their way from her scalp to her waist, the length of her hair.
He thought for a moment. Tora… tiger. Her namesake. Her eyes, for the time he had seen them, were a honey gold with rings of darker and lighter gold surrounding them.
Zero shook himself roughly, trying to clear his head of such thoughts. That was probably the longest time he had ever spent on a girl's appearance. Ever.
But… she really did look like a tiger…
Enough!
You need to take her back to the Academy, a voice whispered to him.
No, I don't, he corrected the voice. Since when did he even have a voice, anyways?
Yes, you do.
No, I don't.
Yes, you do.
No, I don't.
Yes, you do. Now shut up and quit arguing with me! That girl is lying in the middle of the forest in the rain and has just had her blood drank by a Level E. She's traumatized and injured. Besides, the voice told him, now very smug, Chairman Kaien will hear about it, and you know how disappointed he'll be. He'll never shut up about it.
Zero sighed, defeated. Fine, he thought crossly at the voice. But if she turns out to be trouble, I'm blaming you.
He bent down and scooped the girl into his arms, suddenly alarmed at how weak and erratic her heartbeat was. He choked suddenly as the scent of her blood came to him. It slammed into his body like a wrecking ball. There was no image violent enough to describe the way that scent made him feel. In that instant, any thought of how attractive this girl may have been, how delicate or fragile she may be, vanished. He moaned with desire at the scent coming from her skin, her hair, her blood - oh, God, her blood - and felt his fangs prick his lips sharply.
The pain cleared his head for a second, but a second was all he needed. He dropped Tora and stumbled away, gasping. Zero fumbled in his pocket for the pill container of blood supplements and downed four of them, dry.
He pressed his back against one of the numerous trees and slid to the ground, breathing heavily. He felt his thirst slowly, ever so slowly, fade to a more manageable level.
Zero cursed, hating himself. He hated himself for losing control, he hated himself for not being human, he hated himself for not even being a real vampire, and, most of all, he hated himself for losing everyone he had ever loved.
Finally, after slowly dragging himself from his deep pit of self-loathing, Zero staggered to his feet, and, holding his breath, picked Tora up in his arms before turning and running back to the Cross Academy before she really did exsanguinate to death.