Kamen Rider Bloodstone, Chapter 1 – Kindred
I've touched up the first few chapters to make sure the characters of Undertale have a definite presence a little sooner. They're a very prominent part of this story, I promise you that.
A low, hoarse wind blew through the barren trees and tossed the girl's long hair up. She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath of the cool air to calm herself. The yellow sky and the leafless trees were strange, and the headstones lining the path to the main building were unsettling. But the blood-red ocean was strangely reassuring, and if nothing else, this school couldn't possibly be any worse than the two schools before this one. Here she'd be around other kids she actually had something in common with. Something big. She clenched her fist and declared to herself, she'd definitely make friends at this school.
And she kicked the ground to start her bike rolling down the steep hill where she'd stopped. Her surroundings stopped seeming so intimidating as they whizzed past, and she allowed herself to feel a little more confidence about the upcoming year. She wondered how many kids there'd be in her homeroom, what she should say when she met them or if she should let them come to her…
Perhaps her attention should have been on the path, because she suddenly rounded a bend and a boy on foot seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of her. She screamed in surprise and leaned hard away from him, crashing her bike against one of the trees and sending her tumbling into the grass. At the same time the boy tried to hurl himself out of her way, but he slipped on a patch of gravel and crashed headfirst into a cluster of tombstones, smashing one in half with his forehead. A pool of red seeped out from under his bag.
"Are you okay?!" she screamed and crawled over to take a look. She froze as she spotted the redness on the ground beside him and the enticing smell drifting from it. It was blood.
But then the boy groaned and rolled onto his back, and she could see there was none of it on him, just a dark red stain forming in one corner of his bag. He met her eyes for a second and she blushed, embarrassed at having mistaken the blood for his. Then she thought to ask if the blood wasn't his, where was it coming from? The boy sniffed once, groaned in dismay and pulled out a plastic bag with only a small pool of ruby-red liquid remaining in one corner, which had obviously been popped when he fell. "Damn it," he groaned then held the bag to his mouth and swallowed the blood still left inside. As he did she noticed how his canine teeth stuck out ever so slightly farther than most people's.
"You're a vampire too!" she exclaimed before she could stop herself.
"Isn't that something we're supposed to keep secret?" the boy asked. He muttered a curse and threw his empty blood bag into the trees, then extended his hand to her and helped her up.
"Well, yeah…," she replied sheepishly. "Just a little glad to see another one." She looked him over, noticing first of course the green blazer, tan slacks and white dress shirt that marked the uniform of the school she'd been heading for when she'd almost run him down. Despite having just smashed through solid rock with his head the only sign was few motes of dust clinging to his face and shoulders he was brushing off. His face was thin, almost feminine in its shape, and his black hair hung until it just touched the neckline of his blazer. His eyes were a rich shade of blue that she thought looked regal somehow, but as she was looking at them she realized how intently he was squinting at her.
"…don't I know you from somewhere?" he asked. "I'm sure I saw you before, except you had lighter hair."
"Oh! I'm Moka. Moka Akashiya!" she said, looking away. She wondered frantically how to try to explain that, if it might drive someone away or not, especially with them being another vampire.
He nodded thoughtfully and bowed. "Pleasure to meet you, Moka. Nigeki Hitoribo," he introduced himself. "Again, if this wasn't our first."
"The Hitoribos?" Moka asked, bright green eyes going a little wide. Hitoribo was one of the more prominent vampire clans, or so she remembered her family saying when telling her to be on her best behavior before one of their big parties. Was that where they'd seen each other before…?
"Yeah," Nigeki said but waved his hand dismissively. "Would you mind keeping it to yourself, though? My father wants me keeping a low profile at school."
"Of course!" Moka said, giving him her best smile. He smiled back and color rushed to her cheeks, but she prayed he didn't notice.
"Well then, thanks, but we'd probably better get going," Nigeki nodded and pulled her bike up for her. They walked through the lifeless forest up to the building on the other side, which looked more like an ancient gothic cathedral than what it actually was, with the dark gray stone, turrets and huge archways. A banner was hung over the main doors with huge red characters reading "WELCOME TO YOUKAI ACADEMY."
Nigeki seemed to disappear into thin air while Moka was locking up her bike. She looked around a little before realizing she had to report to her first class, and then was surprised to see him at a desk next to the windows. On the floor next to him was a brand new book bag, with no huge blood stain in the corner. That explained it. Moka slipped into the desk next to his, not quite noticing she was cutting off a girl with bright blue hair and a yellow sweater vest instead of a jacket.
"Why'd you run away like that?" she whispered over to him. "I didn't say anything, did I?"
"No, my dad called me to check in on me and I had to run and buy a new bag before classes started," Nigeki replied. "I'm sorry, I really am. But he does this all time. He called to check in on me five times before I even got here. And if he calls me, I have to answer." As he said that he reached into his bag and flipped a switch on the side of his phone to put in on vibrate. "Well, most of the time," he corrected.
"Good morning!" exclaimed an extremely peppy voice, and Moka giggled as Nigeki actually jumped in his seat in surprise. The voice exactly matched its owner, a young blonde woman in a brown miniskirt and tiger-striped tube top, with a necklace shaped like a cat's bell around her neck and thick red glasses. "Welcome to homeroom! I'll be your teacher, Miss Nekonome, mew!"
"Mew?" a few confused voices raised at the same time.
"Now, before we begin, let me just remind everyone of this school's most important rule: you're to remain in human form at all times!" Miss Nekonome informed the class. "We want to keep things nice and friendly here, and more importantly nice and friendly out there so the humans will stay nice and friendly with you. This is going to be a very special year because not only do we have monster teens from all over the country joining us, we even have some from an underground kingdom that finally found their freedom! That's going to be part of the secret all of you are expected to keep, though."
Nigeki gazed absently out the window as Miss Nekonome continued on briefly in this vein. Moka didn't entirely blame him, she was sure he was thinking the same thing she was: they both belonged to one of the breeds of monster that was most reviled by human beings, as she'd had the chance to see firsthand. Having to avoid provoking violence from humans was nothing the two of them needed to hear, she was sure. After a few minutes, Nigeki leaned over and whispered to her. "Hey, what do you want to bet she's a bakeneko?"
"You can already tell?" Moka giggled quietly, although she'd guessed something along those lines herself.
Their discussion ended when another student next to them spoke up suddenly. "But who cares about humans?" asked a broad-shouldered boy with wiry brown hair and a sneer on his craggy face. He had two metal studs in each ear and one in his lower lip. Two other boys in the row behind him sneered right along with his comment. "They don't have strength, or speed, or anything like a monster does. They have to get all their powers from their weapons. Even the Belmonts were nothing without all that magic crap they had."
"Well, Mister…," Miss Nekonome started to reply, then had to stop and check a class roster in her hand, "…Saizou Komiya, the Belmont line is an example of exactly why it's so important not to make ourselves targets…" she answered, but Nigeki sighed and looked away again. He sat through the rest of the first period in silence and scowling slightly, like the line of questioning had touched on something uncomfortable for him. As soon as the period was over he picked up his bag and left the room as quickly as he could. Moka held out her hand but he didn't seem to notice, and she wondered worriedly about what had gotten under his skin like that.
Moka had a while to think about it, as she had whirlwind tour of her other classes to make it through. Most of them went right over her head as she tried to puzzle out what might've been on her new friend's mind, until she got to her Home Economics class.
"Hello, girls! And…also some boys, looks like," said the teacher with the brightest, friendliest smile on her face. "I'm Mrs. Dreemurr, or Toriel, if you're feeling friendly, I suppose."
She was a tall woman in a purple dress, with generous curves and a slightly plump face, lightly wrinkled around the mouth as if she'd had a habit of smiling a lot for a long time. She had waves and waves of curly white hair, but somehow it seemed implausible that it could come from age. It looked so pure, almost like fur.
"See?" one boy in front of Moka whispered to another next to him. "This teacher's a complete babe, isn't she? I told you this was a good idea."
Moka was startled to hear that kind of talk, but she studied Mrs. Dreemurr's face as she went around asking every student in her class their name and warmly welcoming them to school. She seemed even more excited to be teaching them than some of the students seemed to be to finally be away from home. And Moka had never really thought about such a thing before, but there was something about Mrs. Dreemurr that seemed inviting in more than a friendly way…
"And what do I call you, child?"
The vampiress almost fell out of her chair in surprise when she realized she'd been thinking so hard about Mrs. Dreemurr she didn't even notice the teacher was standing right in front of her. "Um…hello! My name is Moka! Akashiya. It's a pleasure to be here, miss."
Mrs. Dreemurr smiled and sighed wistfully. "I wish I was that young again," she said, and a few scattered chuckles went up. She finished greeting her students and taught them how to make maki rolls, a fairly simple dish but one she seemed proud to show off to them. As the next class was about to begin, though, she took Moka aside.
"Are you all right, child?" Mrs. Dreemurr whispered to her. "You seemed distracted and worried when you came in."
"How could you tell?" Moka asked in astonishment.
Mrs. Dreemurr smiled faintly and put a supportive hand on her shoulder. "I might be new to life around here but I'm not new to life. If you have a real problem, or you know someone who does, you shouldn't be expected to carry that weight all by yourself."
Moka looked up at the teacher and smiled. "You're right! I won't let him get so upset! I'll find out what's going on! Thank you Dreemurr-sama!"
Toriel waved and smiled faintly as Moka hurried out. "Can't help myself, can I?" she murmured to herself, hoping this child's time turned out as well as the last one's.
Whether she liked it or not, she had a feeling she'd be dealing with Moka Akashiya and that friend of hers herself, soon enough.
It wasn't until break period that Moka tracked Nigeki down again, finding him sitting on a bench in the quad sipping a can of green tea. He waved at her as he saw her coming and waiting as she bought a can of tomato juice from a vending machine nearby and sat down next to him.
"Is…everything okay?" she asked him uncertainly after a minute of uncomfortable silence. "You left in such a hurry…"
"I just don't like being reminded of what people think should be done to vampires. Or even the ones who want to be vampires," Nigeki answered her with a sigh. "I've been having these, like, really bad headaches lately when I get anxious. Nobody's really sure why. That was one of the reasons my family sent me here instead of having a private tutor like my brothers. They thought having friends and activities and stuff would help take my mind off my little…condition."
Moka looked him in the eye and said, a little shyly, "Well, I wouldn't mind having a few friends here either."
He sighed but looked up at her with a smile that seemed tired but appreciative. "Thanks, Moka," he said.
"We'd like having some nice, pretty friends like that too," said a voice with a familiar sneer, and Nigeki groaned as the boy with the piercings from homeroom seemed to appear from nowhere behind a column with the other two boys from behind him in class behind him now too. "Why's a smoking hot babe like you hanging out with a wuss like him who gets sick just from people talking about the Belmonts around him?" Saizou jeered at Nigeki.
"It's not like that," Nigeki said, clenching his teeth.
Moka stood up and interposed herself between Nigeki and Saizou. "Could you please leave us alone? We don't want any trouble."
"Neither do we," said Saizou. "Do we boys? We just want to make friends with a pretty girl, isn't that what you said you wanted?"
Nigeki grunted and got up, shooting Saizou an angry scowl. "Didn't you hear what she said? Just leave her alone, why can't you-"
Saizou's hand shot out, grabbed Nigeki around the throat and lifted him off the ground. "I heard what she said, she wants to make new friends at school. Why are you trying to make that hard for her?"
"Let him go!" Moka screamed, and Saizou froze, but it wasn't on account of what she'd said. Nigeki's eyes suddenly flashed a bright yellow almost like headlights and with a snarl he kicked Saizou in the chest, knocking him back into his two cronies.
"Don't push me," Nigeki warned. "You have no idea what you're getting into."
Moka took him by the hand and hurried away, casting a worried look over her shoulder at Saizou, who glared back angrily as the two vampires slipped away, unaware others had seen what happened.
Moka was relieved to find the roof empty and stopped to collect herself. Nigeki clutched his head for a minute but leaned against the railing and looked over at Moka with his normal dark blue eyes. "Damn it," he muttered. "I'm sorry, Moka. I haven't even been here one day and everything's going wrong."
Seeing her chances of befriending someone in this strange new place slipping away, Moka took a bold step. "Well, maybe we have something in common."
"What's that?"
She clutched a silver cross hanging from a black choker around her neck, with a red gem that looked almost like an eye in the middle. "You see this? My mother made this…it suppresses the aggressive part of me. If it came off somehow, I'd turn back into my true form."
"Why would she do that?" Nigeki asked.
Moka's face fell slightly. "I don't know. I assume it was really important, but she never told me. It's kind of like you, huh? You try to hold in your aggression, seems like. I mean…you don't seem like a violent person. Or at least, you seem like you don't want to be."
"Of course I don't want to be! What good does fighting do?" Nigeki replied, and Moka smiled with relief. "Maybe I should get your mother to make me one of those…"
"I don't know where she is," Moka replied sadly.
"I'm sorry," Nigeki sighed, and looked away.
Moka placed a dainty hand on his shoulder. "I'm the one who brought it up."
After a minute Nigeki looked back at her and managed a smile. "Feel like getting some air? I need to get away from here for a while…I wouldn't blame you if you said no, though, I realize how creepy that must sound coming from somebody you just met," he said, his smile turning sheepish. Then he laughed a limp little laugh. "God, I'm bad at this. I'm sorry."
A warm sensation came over Moka that she'd felt a few times in the past, almost a second presence lightly guiding her actions. When she'd seen someone or something truly lost and vulnerable. It reminded her of someone extremely familiar yet whose name or likeness she could never quite place.
Gently she took his hand. "I'd really like that," she said with a smile.
The barren woods surrounding the school were less forbidding now that Moka was there with a friend. Nigeki had managed to relax in the solitude, but he hadn't said anything else about what was bothering him as Moka had hoped he might. In fact he kept surreptitiously glancing over his shoulder as they walked, obviously trying to keep her from noticing but not succeeding.
After a while Nigeki tried to break the awkward silence that was growing between them. "Hey, Moka? You seem really eager to make friends, even if it's with someone as weird as me. I don't think I get that, people would probably be lining up to make friends with a girl as pretty as you."
Moka made a sound of disgust. "If they're anything like that Saizou boy, I'll pass, thanks."
"But if they're anything like me, you'll say 'sure, let's go for a walk on the far side of the grounds where nobody knows where we are,' I guess," Nigeki pointed out.
"After you saved us from those bullies," she reminded him.
"I still shouldn't be taking you so far away from the main buildings. I really am blowing it already, aren't I?" Nigeki laughed a little mournfully. "I'm supposed to lay low, but it hasn't even been one day and I already got into a fight…HOLY SHIT!"
Suddenly Nigeki shoved Moka away and she landed in a heap, but before she could demand what he was doing she saw him hurl himself backwards just before a giant rock crashed to the ground where they'd been a second ago.
Walking up the path the pair of vampires had just taken was Saizou, with his two fellow bullies right behind, that seeming immovable sneer still on his face. "You just had to go and make it personal, didn't you, punk?" he asked.
Nigeki got his feet and held up his hand. "Look," he said with a sigh, "I'm from the Hitoribo family."
"Is that supposed to make me change my mind? You gonna call your daddy to come fight for you or some crap like that?" Saizou retorted, the others laughing.
Nigeki dug into his book bag and produced a stack of bills. "It means I can make it worth your while to leave us alone." Suddenly Saizou's friends grabbed him by the arms, and Saizou himself kneed Nigeki in the stomach. He snatched the money from Nigeki's hand and kicked him in the stomach again.
"You just made my day even better, rich boy," Saizou said before he punched Nigeki in the face. Nigeki's head jerked back and a stream of dark blood dripped down his face as he stared at Saizou with disgust in his eyes.
"Is this what you do?" Nigeki grunted. "Push people around to make you feel bigger or some garbage?"
"Just giving them what they want," Saizou said. "Humans expect me to be a monster, then I'll give them one. I've done it, rich boy. You should try it too, the perks are pretty nice…"
As this played out, Moka watched in confusion. Nigeki was a vampire just like her, one of the strongest of monsters. And unlike her, his power wasn't suppressed by anything. Surely he could easily pull himself free, but instead he took it as Saizou punched him in the face again and knocked Nigeki back into the arms of the other thugs. Saizou brought back his fist, coated with a dark layer of Nigeki's blood, to punch him again.
"NO!" Moka screamed and ran up to grab his arm. Nigeki gasped and looked at her in anger and yanked one arm free to try to push Moka away.
"You shouldn't be-" he started to say, but his palm hit the Rosario on her neck. Instantly her body went agonizingly cold, then a burst of heat seemed to explode out from the Rosario. There was a flash of light that flung all of them around the clearing.
Saizou and his friends got up, ready to teach Moka a lesson about getting in their way, but the vampire girl they saw wasn't the one who'd been there a minute ago. She looked taller, more poised, her hair ice-white now, and her eyes an angry shade of red that didn't look the slightest bit impressed by their superior numbers.
"So, you want to be a monster, huh?" she asked, her voice slightly deeper and vastly more confident. "You look like you've got a long way to go to me."
"Why don't you take another look?" Saizou grinned and his body started to bloat, shredding out of his uniform. In a few seconds he was eight feet tall, his head stooped forward slightly from the weight of his massive arms that hung nearly to his knees. Rows of bony spikes had grown from his shoulders, chest and elbows and covered his fingers like gloves, ending in clawed tips on his fingers. His two friends had undergone identical transformations behind him. Moka had no trouble recognizing them for orcs, strong monsters but almost to a one stupid, arrogant and always looking for a fight.
Then Saiziou rushed at Moka, thick saliva spraying from the three-foot tongue swinging out of his mouth. Moka grimaced as some landed on her uniform, but as soon as Saizou came close enough she threw a high sweeping kick that connected to the side of his head and knocked him down. Immediately he was back up and grabbed at her leg but she easily backflipped out of his reach, rebounded off a tree and performed a vicious scissor kick that connected with his chin and knocked him flat on his back.
"Pitiful." Saizou roared and charged her with his gigantic arms outstretched but Moka turned and caught his hands against her own. Impossibly, she dug in her heels and held the huge orc in a stalemate, not budging from her place.
The other two orcs exchanged glances and were about to help Saizou when from behind them Nigeki snarled. His eyes were burning yellow now, and his movements were stiff as he got to his feet.
"I tried to avoid this," he muttered. "I tried…but…you…HEN…SHIN!"
A black belt with a buckle made of tarnished silver appeared out of nowhere around his waist. In the center of the buckle was a large circular gem, mostly a dark red but with veins of black that seemed to shift and throb inside it as the two orcs watched.
But then the gem blazed for a second, and a strange red clay-like matter started forming on Nigeki's body on top of his uniform. The clots quickly grew together into a thick red armor around his body, running through with black lines like veins that pulsed just like the ones in the gem. Black boots and gauntlets with curved, slender blades running up to his elbows formed on him, and a white orb appeared behind him, opened outward into a pyramid shape behind him and then closed around his face, forming into a skull-like mask. The burning yellow of Nigeki's eyes still shined through the holes.
Then he suddenly dashed at them and slashed them both across the chests with the blades on his gauntlets. Blood oozed from the wounds and the orcs looked down at them in disbelief, then over at Nigeki as he stared them down and waited for them to make the next move.
They did, splitting apart and rushing him head-on. Both orcs smashed a fist into his chest that he took without budging, then grabbed them by their shoulders and flipped them over his head with a crash.
Meanwhile Moka broke her deadlock with Saizou when she suddenly jumped and slammed her knee into his chin with a crack that seemed to echo throughout the clearing for a second. He staggered away for a few steps and Moka knocked him down with a spinning jump kick of terrifying grace.
"Know your place," she said as disdainfully as she could then took her attention off her opponent for the moment to look at how the rest of the fight was going. Nigeki, or whatever he'd become, fought with a style that was strong but crude, relying entirely on his superior force as he walked straight into the orcs' punches before knocking them flying with astonishingly powerful punches of his own.
"I'll get you for that, you miserable bitch!" Saizou bellowed behind her and charged, but with the most flawless calm Moka somersaulted over his head then slammed her foot right between his shoulders to knock him toward Nigeki, who grabbed the orc, hoisted him above his head and bodyslammed him into the other two.
Suddenly the yellow light from Nigeki's eyes burned twice as brightly. He held his arms out at his side and growled as the redness covering his body started to shimmer slightly. From where she was Moka could feel an incredible power gathering in him. Then, he unleashed it.
"Blood Riser!" a gravelly demonic voice spoke from his belt, and Nigeki roared and smashed his fists down on the ground in front of him. A crack appeared and stretched across the ground to where the orcs lay, and suddenly a geyser of dark red liquid erupted from underneath them and sent the three thugs spinning out of sight above the trees.
The skeletal mask segmented apart and pulled back away from Nigeki's head before disappearing along with his belt. The red armor covering the rest of his body seemed to burst, spraying crimson droplets everywhere that sank into the ground.
He looked Moka in the eyes, his teeth clenched and a tear of frustration slipping out his eye and down one cheek. Then before she could stop him he'd run off into the trees.
Well, haven't done a work like this in a while, but here it is, and hopefully not too bad.
Don't know how well I made it clear, but I was trying to indicate that when Moka's Rosario was unlocked it had more to do with the opposing power of that and Nigeki's belt, which will be explored more down the road.
But yeah, I'm trying something a little different, both for myself and the story of Rosario x Vampire. Hope you all enjoy.
