The Lament of an Immortal
Some people believe that memories fade away with time. As new memories are created, the old ones will slowly be replaced and forgotten. That's one of the reasons for not being able to remember details of your childhood times once you're an adult or an elder. In a sense, the theory does sound logical. That is, if the theory is applied to Humans.
For an immortal, it is an entirely different matter. Despite living for an exceptionally long time, immortals possess great memory and they can recall events from the moment they gain awareness during their childhood years up to their present, which is thousands of years later. Unless someone seals those memories against the immortal's will, the only other possibility for those memories to be lost will be due to the immortal's desire for it to be forgotten.
Kuran Kaname is one of those immortals, who are known as 'Purebloods'.
After living for thousands of years without aging, Kaname had forgotten all of his childhood memories, including his birth name. Even so, he couldn't forget about her. Perhaps, he never wanted to forget. Despite the pain and despair he was constantly reminded of by those memories, Kaname still clung on tightly to those fragments of her existence. Although she had been gone for more than a few years now, he still remembered the way she smiled, the sound of her voice, her gentle face, her strong personality, her soothing caresses and every words that she had ever said to him. Nonetheless, it was the harsh fact that there will be nothing but these dream-like memories to mark her existence in this world that intensified the constant ache in his heart.
"You're a good boy, Kaname."
The memories were so vivid that he sometimes thought that she was still around instead of being returned to the earth as ashes and shards of crystal. Occasionally, he would find himself waking up to the sound of her voice at dusk, only to realize later that it was merely an illusion made up by his mind. At other times, he would saw her standing on her favorite spot at the green field with her hand clasped behind her back and a serene smile on her face as she watched the sunset at the horizon, seemingly unaware of his presence. When he blinked his eyes or when he was about to call out to her, she would be gone in an instant, which left Kaname smiling bitterly at himself before walking away from the field.
Hence, this vicious cycle of temporary solace and grief-stricken realization had repeated itself over and over again in the following years after her death. Every time, the disappointment and pain brought on by the realization of her death was more than Kaname could handle, but he put on a strong facade in front of the Hunters. After all, he had promised her that he would protect the Humans and fulfill his task in eliminating the others of their own kind, who had aimed to enslaved humanity to their own will. In order to lead, he must force himself to be calm and rational. If not, her sacrifice would have been in vain. It was the least he could do for her now.
"Even if I'm not with you, you must work hard."
"Kirei..." he whispered softly to the gentle breeze as he stood by himself amidst the dessert with a menacing silver scythe in his right hand and a silver gun with growing vines in his other hand. Feeling the pang of agony in his heart, Kaname instinctively dropped the gun in his left hand and placed the hand over his eyes as he took in a slow but deep breath to compose himself. This was one of the few rare moments when he allowed his facade to crumble away at the thought of her. At these moments, the same thought will always be running through his mind, 'You're such a cruel woman, Kirei.'
Krak!
Snapped out of his thoughts by the sudden sound, Kaname turned his head away from his hand and his wine –colored eyes met with the chocolate brown orbs of a teenage vampire girl with long and straight auburn hair. Kaname was certain that this was the first time he had met the girl, but something about her was familiar to him, as though he was meeting a close friend who had been missing for a very long time. The girl seemed to know him as well since she was staring at him with a sympathizing and heartbroken expression, an expression that was definitely not shown to a stranger that she had met for the first time. Aside from that, she was also wearing some strange clothes that were inappropriate for the current warring time.
Another premonition of the future, I presumed,he thought to himself. This wasn't the first time he had been seeing strange people appearing out of nowhere. As a matter of fact, he started seeing them after Kirei's death. At first, Kaname thought that these encounters were a part of the hallucination in his mind that was brought about by his intense grief and guilt. However, he now believed them to be premonitions of the future since the message given to him by one of the previous encounters had happened just recently. As to why he was only able to see these premonitions now and not before Kirei's death, he still didn't understand it himself.
Dropping his hand to his side, Kaname then said the most natural thing a person would have said when encountering a stranger.
"Who are you?"
A moment of silence ensued. The girl continued staring at him with the same expression. As she realized that he was looking at her direction, she looked behind her and then back at him with confused eyes. It took another few seconds time before she comprehended that Kaname was asking her instead of someone else.
"M-Me?" she asked frantically while pointing to herself." Why? You can see me?"
This is certainly a premonition,Kaname thought. With the same indifferent look on his face, he simply replied, "I can."
For a moment, the strange girl looked as anxious as though her world had come to an end now that he could saw her. However, Kaname noticed that something caught her eyes that caused her to forget her worries in an instant. Following her gaze, he saw that she was actually staring at the silver scythe in his right hand, which gleamed under the light of the full moon.
"Artemis..." That was the only word she uttered in recognition and clarity.
"Artemis? Ah, yes... The goddess of the hunt, chastity and the moon," said Kaname as he then looked at the moon. "It is certainly a worthy name for this thing."
"Even though we live for a longer time, have incredible powers and our wounds always healed faster, we still feel pain and emotions as much as the Humans do. As long as we still have these feelings, we aren't like them. We aren't monsters, Kaname."
"I...can hardly feel emotions anymore," said Kaname to no one in particular. Gripping the handle of his scythe harder, he then added, "Just like these weapons, all I could feel is the urge to eliminate all of those fools who believed they can't die."
With that said, there was a moment of silence between them, in which Kaname kneeled down to pick up the gun he had dropped on the ground earlier. A pained look crossed his eyes as he looked at the gun in his hand.
"Those weapons are essentially that person's-"
"Weapons are merely weapons," Kaname interjected before the girl could finish her words. He knew what she was trying to say as he himself was constantly reminded of it whenever he wielded those two weapons in battle. The last thing he ever wanted was to be reminded about it by someone else. "They are not objects that will transform into her. They never will be..."
"Then... are you going to substitute her for someone else?" asked the young girl with an honest but anxious look, as if his answer meant the whole world to her.
Kaname was taken aback by the unexpected question, but he managed to regain his composure on time. The idea of substituting Kirei for another person did cross his mind during the most depressed and loneliest hours of his life. However, the act would only be sullying the memories of her existence and the mutual familiarity that they once shared with one another. It will be a totally unforgivable act and thus, he quickly dismissed the thought to the deepest recesses of his mind.
Instead of being offended by the young girl's question, a faint and melancholy smile graced Kaname's features as he replied, "Quit saying such empty things, young vampire miss."
Looking down at a pile of sand that was a few paces ahead of him, he then continued in a much solemn tone, "No one can be a replacement for another person. That's why…" The scene of the last time he was together with Kirei flashed through Kaname's mind, causing the man to close his eyes in response to the painful memory. "Farewells are always ... difficult."
As soon as he finished his words, Kaname felt that the vampire girl's presence had vanished. This was completely similar to the outcomes of his encounters with the other premonitions, in which they always vanished without a trace in the end. The only difference of this encounter was that, for some unknown reasons, this girl's departure had made him felt the same sense of loss as the one that he had felt when he saw Kirei's limp body on the stone altar. Why did he felt that way about the girl? Who is she? What exactly is her purpose for meeting him? As always, he had no answers to those questions and he doubted that he will be getting them anytime soon. In the end, the strange vampire girl was just another one of the mysteries that he couldn't understand about these premonitions.
"Farewell, vampire miss," he said with his eyes still closed.
"Kaname-san!" Kaname opened his eyes and turned to see a human woman running towards him, bearing grim news by the anxious look on her sweat-covered face. "The other side has already converged. It seems like it's going to be an even worse situation this time."
"I see," was all Kaname said as he started striding towards the direction the human woman had come from, towards the place where all the other Hunters are gathered in preparation for the upcoming battle against the vampire foes. As always, he whispered in his mind the three words he had failed to say to his lost love before he once again put on his facade of an invincible leader and buried his emotions deep within him.
Kirei...I love you.