This fanfiction has been published but not completed a first time in 2008, then edited and finished in 2015 and 2016.
It's freely inspired by Vampire Knight, which belongs, just like its characters, to its mangaka, Master Matsuri Hino. This fic follows exactly the plot of the manga up until chapter 47, with Yuuki's transformation and her leaving the Academy with Kaname. The story then breaks away from the original series to offer a whole other setting. Yet you may find many references and homages to the original work, as the objective is to give the fans a new spin on the series.
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Yet the story aims to respect the original manga. The Vampire Knight universe will be more developed and yet will try to follow the spirit of the original series, as well as the pairings. Thus, there won't be any more yaoi than there is in Matsuri Hino's work.
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The T rating may change with the publication of chapters 15 to 25.
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We hope you'll have as much pleasure reading the first act of Bloody Cross Chronicle that we had writing and translating it.
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Elenthya
Web publication assistant
Vanamonde
Web translation assistant
Prelude
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The Hunter and the Writer
Seven years.
Seven years since she left this study after a fit of anger. Seven years since she deserted this great, book-filled room, filled with memories and history, as disorderly as her thoughts back then. As her feelings.
It had been seven years. Already...
Eyes dry but heavy-hearted, she stared thoughtfully at the book before her. Hesitantly, she lifted the great bound cover, surprised by its weight. A smell of old vellum and ink suddenly surrounded her; familiar, strangely welcoming and soothing. Her fingers stroked the paper that she once chose for its quality, so thin, so peculiar. Like her thoughts, like her uncountable memories, it had not aged a day, waiting for her. Patiently. Religiously.
Perusing through the pages, lost in thoughts, she suddenly stopped on a familiar word in the middle of the story. Her heart leapt in her chest, and a veil fell over her eyes.
"Yuuki"
She put her hands to her face, and drew a deep breath. She didn't want to cry. Not anymore. She had cried enough all these years. It was time to move forward...
Or was it time to get back to it? After all, she had made a promise: to tell their story. In her mind, she saw again the brunette clad in her uniform, her short dishevelled hair, her candid smile. Her gleeful and caring voice became almost too real as she grabbed her hand and led her through the Academy corridors.
"Yori-chan…!"
She abruptly closed the heavy volume. Cut short, the memory disappeared into the void. The sound rumbled in the disordered room, echoing on the book-filled shelves before fading away into a deep silence. Breathing erratically, she kept her hand on the dark red cover, devoid of title or decoration. She closed her eyes and, for a while, tried to control the frantic pounding of her heart.
She couldn't, shouldn't fall into the same traps than seven years ago. She couldn't allow it.
It would be the death of her...
But how to do it? The dreams, the memories, both her own and the ones given onto her, all these images were clustered in her mind, flinging themselves to her in a senseless symphony. For her, this great, proliferating universe, filled with feelings and sentiments, had a meaning. But for everyone else? For the paper onto which she had tried to confess for so long?
She stared at the heavy tome sadly, and glanced at the others, piled up in a corner of her room, as many evidences of her numerous failures, thrown there in a fit of frustrated rage. At last she dared to admit it: it wasn't the right medium. She had always loved to write, to illuminate, draw ink arabesques, sketches and tailpieces: it had been her living for a long time now. She loved to hold against her the tomes, patiently and dutifully filled during her sleepless nights, like a tangible expression of what was playing inside her head. But a book, with its bound, set pages, couldn't decently gather all that she wanted to write, just like she was unable to write chronologically the stories that had been haunting her dreams and burning her lips for years.
Resigned, she pushed away the heavy book to a corner of her desk. Then, vaguely doubtful, looked a some printing paper that was laying nearby. She usually used it for first drafts. She grabbed a few sheets, a pen, and took a deep breath.
And the great question emerged, as always when she started a new project: where to start?
Rather than frantically search for a catchline, as she had been taught in lit class, she closed her eyes, exhaled slowly, visualizing the emptiness of the page rather than staring at it.
Another familiar face appeared then, blurry and ever-changing because of the multiple sources she had. In a dizzying succession of images, sounds and perceptions, he looked defiant, teasing and even, for one split second, affectionate. This man always had numerous sides, and not many people knew them all.
This time he appeared serious and inquisitive, and she finally recognized him as he always acted toward her. Distant but friendly, respectful. Sometimes even protective.
"Yori."
Around him, an austere setting appeared. A silver gun appeared emerged from the nothingness. A tattoo. Pensive amethyst-coloured irises.
She opened her eyes, making hers the calmness of this distant voice. And, in a trance, she began to write.
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Distractingly, the man turned the old TV on. A scrambled image appeared, cleared up in a muffled buzzing, before showing blurred forms and pale colours. The sound, however, remained bad, constantly scattered by spluttering and white noise. Sitting on a table which, along with a chair and an unmade bed, was the only furniture in the room, the man seemingly paid no attention to what the old television set was broadcasting. His inscrutable eyes were fixed upon the blade of the sabre he was patiently polishing, with a pensive meticulousness only habit can bring.
In a corner of the small, off-white impersonal room, a travelling bag awaited, barely open and still full. The man had to be able to leave as quickly as possible, and thus had only unpacked the bare minimum.
Between his callous, skilled fingers, the whetstone slid with a slight whistling sound. The steel, little by little, became shiny again. On the table, several tools awaited, stashed in a leather strip. A vial with foreign instructions written on it and a red-stained rag completed the man's equipment.
The TV then emitted a high-pitched music announcing a news flash. The newsreader, a well-dressed man in his forties, started to recite his informations in a monotonous tone. They were without a doubt extremely important since they "briefly interrupted the current program". The man did not even frown, until a very precise word fell into his attentive ears.
"This academy, also called the Cross Academy, from the name of its now-missing headmaster..."
The whistle of the whetstone stopped. Imperturbable, the man glanced at the television. On screen was a great building of Victorian style. The boarded-up windows added a sinister look to its imposing appearance. While the newsreader continued his speech, the camera panned on alleys bordered by untrimmed trees, flowerbeds full of weeds. A swan-shaped fountain appeared briefly; from the moss and the weeds, it had dried out a long time ago. At first glance, it was clear that the place had been abandoned for years.
"...was not very well-known because of its remote location. The case, which never made more than a paragraph in the papers back then, takes today a whole new meaning with the testimony of several former students, who came by themselves in our studios to testify..."
The ivy-covered run down walls disappeared from the screen to make way for a human silhouette, sitting comfortably in an armchair. Despite the mosaic on her face and her transformed voice, one could guess that she was a young woman in her twenties.
"One day, we were all gathered with no explanations. We were led to the basement to take shelter from a "threat". Even the teachers looked like they had no idea what was going on, but they all looked worried. At first we thought it was an earthquake alert or something like that. Then, we were locked up in the reception hall of the school, and we stayed there all evening and all night. The headmaster had all the doors and the windows blocked up, but we heard very disturbing noises outside..."
The young woman, until then quite talkative suddenly quieted, hesitant. Her invisible interviewer immediately rekindled her testimony:
"What kind of noises?"
"...Screams, mostly. It was as if...as if people were fighting outside. There was also something like an earthquake, but we learnt later that it was a whole building that had crumbled down. And, then, there was...scrapping against the shutters...as if someone was scratching with their fingernails. As if they wanted to come inside. It was...it was very distressing."
"Did you lose somebody that day?"
"Y-yes...unfortunately. Two of my classmates disobeyed the teachers and sneaked outside. We...we never saw them again."
Another person around the same age, anonymized too, appeared on the screen. This time, it was a man.
"What happened then?" asked the interviewer. He probably asked the same questions to each witness.
"The teachers allowed us to get back to the dorms. Part of the school was destroyed, as if there had been a war..."
"You mean there were bodies?"
"No, not at all! No blood either...but the furnitures were smashed, the windows broken...as if there had been a fight. A fight to the death. I didn't pay attention at first, but a friend of mine noticed something odd..."
"What was it?"
"Sand...or dust, maybe? We didn't really know. But it was everywhere, even in rooms with no broken windows. A friend who had an interest in geology tried to collect some, to analyse it, but all his samples were confiscated on the Headmaster's orders."
A third woman was interrogated the same way, anonymous behind her pixel veil.
"Do you have an idea of what had happened then?"
"Honestly, I still don't know to this day. The atmosphere was really weird after that, almost...electric. And at the same time, it was very calm. Like after a storm, you know? You could feel something happened, but you didn't know how it ended. The school was really messed up. No one ever told us what happened."
"Can you think of any culprit? Even a vague idea?"
The transformed voice almost fell into a whisper. The woman was hesitating, as if she knew the risks of such a declaration.
"Honestly?...Maybe it had nothing to do with it, but half of the Night Class was missing after this. The most popular ones were gone. Caused quite a ruckus."
"Could you tell us a bit more about this Night Class?"
"Well...it was an odd pack...they all had their lessons at night or on the evening. We weren't supposed to mingle with them. And their dorms were separated from ours, outside the campus."
"They had different uniforms and teachers", tried out another former student, less sure of herself. "I think I remember they were all from big aristocratic families..."
"The jewel of society..."
"From very good families, I'd say..."
"Spoiled brats, you know. And quite sexy, believe me!"
The interviewer's voice asked a new question to all the witnesses:
"When the Academy closed, did you keep in touch with members of the Night Class?"
Their answers then were all very similar.
"No, I lost contact with all of them."
"No...they weren't very sociable, you know..."
"No idea what happened to them...not that I didn't try to contact one of them..."
"Were they not foreigners? I think they were. Maybe that's why they disappeared, they were from another country..."
"They were weird", one witness concluded. "I never trusted them."
The newsreader reappeared on screen.
"And so, the mystery surrounding the Cross Academy keeps thickening. I must remind you that half of its students are still reported missing, as well as the most part of the administrative files regarding said Night Class. Our local reporters questioned the population about the more than suspicious habits of this school..."
Turning away from the TV, the man began to polish his sabre again. From the open window, a spring breeze was blowing on the small country city. Everything still looked the same. But the man smiled bitterly.
"Well, Kurosu Kaien...no matter what you do to hide it, blood remains. And ends up revealing the past."
He got up and sheathed his sabre. After a small hesitation, he checked the other channels received by the old television. All of them were talking about the Cross case, which was about to gain an international repute.
"I'd rather lay low..."
He gathered his gear in less than a minute, and threw the red-stained cloth into the wood-burner. It let off an acrid smell as it burned. The man put the sabre into his travelling bag – yet still within easy reach –, and put on his long black coat. He quickly tied his grey hair into a ponytail, and readjusted the turtle-neck covering his tattooed throat. His bag on his shoulder, he left the room without looking back, his strange amethyst-coloured eyes already turned towards another future.
That very evening, he had left the country. He had only been back for a few hours.
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She stopped, her pen still in the air, and inspired shakily. Out of her trance, she rubbed her eyes. How long had she been writing on that piece of paper? Pieces of paper, she corrected when she saw the number of pages she had covered with her hurried writing. With a frozen hand – it was always like this when she sat down this long – she massaged her sore neck and closed her eyes.
She whispered to herself:
"Did I do you justice, Zero-kun?"
A too-rapid succession of memories seemed to answer her – or was she just imagining his reply? – But she caught a glimpse of him, turning his back to her, hands in pockets and shrugging, as if to say that it did not matter much. She chuckled.
He disappeared, and another silhouette took his place, smaller, more feminine, familiar despite her obvious physical change and her lack of uniform.
"Yori-chan…?"
A strange spleen struck her, and the writer lost her smile, torn between frustration, sadness and the joy of feeling her presence again. Absent-mindedly, she pushed away the ink-covered pages, and grabbed a new one.
Before plunging into the memory, she was struck by an intuition. With a light movement of her hand, something she usually reserved to her sketches and illuminations, she drew what she immediately knew to be the title of this grandiose, crazy project.
The first initial – a wonderful, aerial B – unfolded on the paper. She let the ink flow, sketching out the rest of the word with her best writing. Blood, everlasting; its power and the life it symbolized. Its curse, too. A silver weapon, one man's symbol, the coat of arms of a profession. She already saw the word written on a vellum paper of the finest quality, embellished with a shiny, imperial red ink. "Bloody."
The second initial followed, all in curves and lightness. A symbol, but also an academy close to all their hearts, destroyed long ago but never forgotten. And the former name of her closest friend. "Cross."
The final initial, identical and yet different in its outline, its finish. The slenderness of the letters completed the title, giving the whole ensemble its entire dimension. Because her multiple failures taught her that there could not be just one story, one tale, one narrator, one hero. That a multitude of fates would cross each other into an enormous but coherent thread.
"Chronicles."
She stared at the three outlined words, dumbstruck, and finally frowned. What was the point in imagining a hooking title, a well-designed cover? She wasn't writing one of those novels which earned her fame. No one but her would lay their eyes upon what she was about to begin again. No one...
She hesitated, then shook her head and pushed away the sketch, telling herself she would go back to it later – or destroy it. – She grabbed a new page hurriedly. Once again, her pen froze in mid-air, unsure. Where to start? The story was far too complex to have but one starting point...
She blinked, and a snowy landscape appeared in her thoughts. A northern, remote city. A stormy night. He, a lonely hunter finishing a mission in this desolated region. She, who had appeared without a warning with the most stunning of requests...
Yes. Come to think of it, their reunion had been the starting point. At least, that was how she saw it. She, Sayori "Yori" Wakaba, mere story-teller of events she never actually lived. She threw herself with abandon into that memory, which happened five years after Yuuki left the Academy. Only a few months after what had been coldly called the Revelation, this dark and chaotic chapter of History where, for the first time, humankind had realized that vampires were real.
Her pen flew on the paper. As a perfect illustration of its spontaneity, her chapter took a natural, obvious title.
"Suddenly".