A New Journey, A Second Chance
Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario + Vampire storyline, background, characters and similar media. Nor do I have had a hand in the creation of either it's graphic or animated incarnation.
It was but another day upon the desolate, dead Earth. The familiar green flora and lush wildlife fauna now gone and extinct, the only remnant of their existence fossilized in stone. The blue waters that once covered the planet and gave it the moniker of the Blue Planet in days of antiquity were all but evaporated from the surface. The land parched, crumbled, and eroded to the faint winds. Even the ever familiar yellow star had the tint of orange and red that slowly grew prominent over the millennia as it developed and entered the red giant stage in its stellar evolution. It was a world that none would expect life to survive, not anymore.
However, there was one sign of life. One that has seen the planet die of old age and witnessed the former inhabitancy to venture out across the galaxy and find new homes and new futures to forge. The last remaining remnant of her family as she approached the graves of her loved ones like all the times she had done these past countless centuries. Yet only their grave markers gave proof that they had existed, that they had died and were buried and mourned. Their flesh and bones long since turned to dust and become one with the earth itself.
Despite these facts, the sole inheritor of the planet visited these graves to honor their memory. Kept the chiseled stone clear, clean and visible to all. As pristine as the day they were laid when those that bore the name were entombed within the ground. Though she had survived all these millennia due to her heritage, she must adapt to the ever changing and ultimately dying world. When the world was green and blue, all she needed were flowers. Now she must don an environmentally sealed suit so that she may breath oxygen, a gas that was in preciously low supply in the thin atmosphere. A gas that must be mined and boiled away from the soil to which she now stood upon. She cleaned the dirt and grime that lodged themselves into the letter work of the gravestones of not only her parents, but of her aunts and siblings as well.
She remembered the more joyful times, back when the Earth was not only the most pleasant place to raise a family with its shining blues and greens, but was the only home they had ever known. She could still see the smiling faces of her parents, her aunts, her brothers and sisters. Yet she also remembered how her parents sacrificed their lives so that she and her siblings could have a bright future that would have otherwise been denied by those who sought chaos and destruction, a revival of the natural order as it were. She remembered how her aunts tried to keep the family together after the loss of their most precious friend and barely succeeded. How her brothers and sisters graduated high school and college, fell in love and had families all their own. Now they were but dust in the wind.
It was then that she noticed that the sunlight had darkened just a bit. She shielded her eyes as she looked up to see a solar eclipse. Yet unlike such eclipses in the past, the moon did not cover the entire solar disk, only the center was blocked out as it made a kind of solar ring in the sky. She could barely remember the last time she witnessed a total solar eclipse, the millenia had begun to blur as her life span numbered in millions of years.
Of course, she could have went with the others to the stars that comprise the now elliptical galaxy, to seek a new home and allow life to continue. But why should she? Before her was an eternity of loneliness while the graves of her family deteriorate from the unjust hand of time. Where the humanity and monsters that she grew up with would no longer exist as she remembered over the generations and leave her but a living relic of an age long considered antiquity. She had decided that when the day came when the earth was to die in fire and brimstone, she would be there with what remained of her family and to join them in the next life.
Soon enough, she sojourned back to the encampment, her final home where she carefully grew and harvested crops that allowed her to survive until the great burn would begin. Where all of the mementos and treasures that she carefully saved of that past life were stored. It was a daily routine for her to venture out into the wasteland to visit the graves and return to eat and slumber, count the time until her life would soon end.
However, today was not the same as yesterday. When she arrived at the encampment, she was greeted by a mass of light and energy. She knew not of what to make of this being when it spoke. "Yuuki, are you satisfied with this life?"
She was confused with the question given to her, so it asked again. "Are you satisfied with how you will end your eternity? How you count the centuries before it comes?"
It took Yuuki a while to speak. Too long since she needed to use her voice to converse with anything. "Either an eternity of loneliness with life everlasting out there or a firy death here, I have little choice in the matter."
"Would you like to see your family again? Your mother and father, sisters and brothers, your aunts?" Yuuki now wondered what this being was if it knew that much about her. "What if I said that I could give you just that?"
"You could?" Yuuki's eye widen in hope, the first in such a long time.
"I cannot bring the dead back to life, they will not allow me." The being spoke. "And I cannot take you back to the past, that is not within my realm of responsibility. However, I can grant you the ability to transverse The Bulk and the multi-verses that comprise it. With it, you may enter or leave any universe that you wish, any reality that suits your desire. You can relive the time with your family again and again. But be forewarned, you have but an eternity before you, and to witness their death through age alone over and over again will weight heavily upon your psyche. Do you accept?"
Yuuki did not hesitate. "Yes! I want it! Damn the consequences! I want to see them again!"
"Then prepare yourself. Gather what you can and ready yourself for this departure." Like a child, Yuuki rushed into the encampment and quickly but carefully packed all of her belongings for this new adventure. The mementos that she had of an earlier age were all that she cared about. She then returned to the being.
"I am ready!" Yuuki declared.
"Then ready yourself to traverse one universe to another, transcend time and space as if they were but specks in the wind." But then the being added. "However, this power is new to your limited mindscape. It will take you time before you can willfully and reliably appear in the universe and timeframe that you desire most."
"I have eternity to refine my skills." Yuuki dared. Then she was engulfed in light as her existence winked out of that of the desolate Earth, never to be seen in this continuum again.
In days long gone, it was spoken in myths and legends, it was said that Dhampirs were perfect vampire hunters for their ability to identify vampires no matter the magic that hid their true form. That they hated their vampire parents for their lot in life. However, Yuuki felt nothing but love for her parents. The parents that she will soon see after nearly five billion years of solitude and emptiness.
It was yet another day at Yokai Academy, the sky above was ever cloudy, the trees ever bare of green leaves, and Tsukune was in the center of another argument between his so-called harem. It was almost a daily routine where the female friends he had accumulated over his stay at the academy and openly declared their affection towards him and equally openly aggressive for his affection towards them. An argument would almost always occur from a simple gesture of a greeting in the morning. Occasionally, these arguments turn physical and ended quickly through the abilities of one of the girls that have fallen for him. He knew that he would have to choose between them eventually, yet in truth he couldn't have had it any other way. It was something familiar, the closest thing to normal upon the lands that the academy occupied and owned.
However today was not the typical routine as a light from above drew the group's attention upwards. A strange quagmire of matter and energy, time and space opened up and entered a strange individual who wore what one would consider a costume for a cheap science fiction film. As suddenly as this individual had appeared, the individual unceremoniously fell onto the ground and likely knocked them out into unconsciousness. Beside the individual was a bag whose contents were unknown.
"Are you okay?" Tsukune gently shook the shoulder in an effort to rise the individual into consciousness. Several moments past before a response was performed.
Yuuki awoke with what could be best described as the mother of all headaches. Her senses all blurred and she couldn't tell which was up and which was left. She tasted sound, heard light, and felt aromas before her mind could make sense of the information after her first trip through the multi-verse. The atmosphere enveloped within the suit tasted stale and dry, lifeless and she resolved to release the helmet and to actually taste natural air. When she removed the helmet, she felt the coolness of the breeze and the gentle warmness of the sun, the first in a very long time. However her senses were not clear enough for her to perceive the world clearly. An echo called out to her as she struggled upright and formless blobs gathered around her.
"Miss, are you alright?" She turned towards the voice, one that she had not heard in too long of a time. Then her vision cleared and she saw the same, familiar brown locks and eyes. The being was right, she was in her desired universe and she could not feel anything other then joy as tears formed in her eyes.
"Dad!" Yuuki exclaimed as she leaped forward and embraced Tsukune. To say that the other girls within Tsukune Aono's "harem" were shocked and surprise was the same as to say that the sun was hot.
This story, so far, is a simple one-shot story. That is to say I currently have no plans to expand this story into multiple chapters that chronicle any further adventures of Yuuki and the Rosario gang. However, that isn't to say that I may not return to this story in the future once my muse inspires more creativity with this tale and that there is enough interest in them by that time.
As always, no flames nor brutally honest reviews.