Disclaimer: I do not own Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles or any of the characters associated with it.
Prolouge
Oh god oh god oh god oh god
No
don't TOUCH me please don't TOUCH me –
Something thin and silver glints from the tangle of his long fingers. I can't raise my head far enough to discern whether it is a dagger or a razor. For a brief second, the weapon's flat edge catches one of the yellow lights in the corner of the room
and it throws me back into Yuui and Celes, as I see my magic shatter thick ice in the golden glimmer of an arctic sunrise
before it descends deeply into my upturned palm
millions and millions of shards wink at the frozen sun and scatter across the snow like raw diamonds
but I'm not screaming
No, not diamonds, but tiny deadly swords.
Even as it plunges into my other palm, and I stay silent because at least it isn't him touching me.
It's fine everything is fine because only that icy metal is touching me and this wouldn't be the first time that ice has caused me to bleed.
He has a blunt, stocky face – the face of a brute. The only thing (that I can see from this horizontal vantage) that differentiates him from a beast is his hard, hard slate eyes that promise both intelligence and cruelty.
He wrenches out the blade
And the blood hisses magic as it hits the table
With a quick jerk. His lips bunch like rope in the upper corner of his mouth in what I assume is a smile and he watches as
No no NO!
My skin
Why why why why why?
This isn't supposed to happen anymore –
Weaves itself back together again.
"So you still have the blood?"
Words like heart attacks.
I would smile my most indulgent smile, I would lightly laugh and tell him, 'No, sir you're mistaken ~ it's just the magic!" I would lie better than I ever lied to Kurogane - better than I ever lied to myself – and grin prettily and maybe leave unchanged. But there is a rough cloth tied tightly around my greatest weapon and the only sounds I can manage are pathetic.
His top lip jerks upward
I can see his teeth, his pointy blood-sucking canines
in what must be his most indulgent smile and his black eyes
like the earliest sunrise ghosting across mirrors of ice
flash gold.
Two thunderous movements, and he is straddling my immobile form, still bearing his
Fangs
Teeth. I try to think of anything
The restraints on my wrists bite like good metal
Besides his looming face
The ceiling is quite an ornate puzzle, with white wooden carvings and rich fabrics that billow like an afternoon storm
And the fact that
He is touching me ME and it feels worse that lightning, worse than magic, worse than having an eye ripped out…
One of his hands is hovering above my chest, lightly outlining right where I'm sure my heart is pounding like salty waves on crumbing limestone pillars. He lets his fingers grow long and sharp, and slices the gag off my face, catching one of my cheeks and causing it to leak a tiny ribbon of
How long has that stone pillar stood against the sea? Does it feel that with each ripping wave a little bit of itself is torn away until it is but a skeleton of its former self?
I could scream and scream and yell for help but no one would hear. Silencing me wasn't really the reason for the gag in the first place, I'm sure. It was simply effective in causing fear and black helplessness.
With each cold, wet, measured drag some of its essence is dragged away and scattered across millions and millions of tons of water.
His eyes sink into a permanent gold
Oh God isn't there anyone that can stop this madness -
And I suddenly know exactly what he is going to do. He slowly dips his head down
Slowly like a continental slab drifting across glowing pure lava
And smashes his teeth into my neck.
A familiar pain, something that has coursed through my veins before – this poison is not new. My body may be writhing and I may be gasping for air, but this can't make me scream. This is much too ordinary.
This is a fairly inelegant way to spread the virus that is vampirism. It is much more bestial than simple blood drinking –
but it would be a lie to say that we aren't beasts
- But I suppose it might be more effective.
My veins sting and my eyes fill with tears as they streak gold for the first time since I was given a left eye. I must be thrashing a little, but not too entirely much because there isn't much left to change. Perhaps this is all, and this is over now and someone will come to let me go home and
NO.
How long until that limestone pillar comes down crashing into the sea?
I am SCREAMING this time as his long sharp fingers dig into my chest
out of the five holes little blood streams flow
and clamp around my
thump-thump-thump—thump-thump-THUMPTHUMPTHUMP
heart.
and become fast moving crimson rivers that merge into a delta at the base of his palm.
He tugs at the convulsing organ
THUMPTHUMPTHUMPthump
SCREAM
Thumpthump_
And then rips it free from my chest
The delta becomes a wide wide sea across my chest
It sputters and dies in his hand, but I am still alive and attentively watching him through a thick curtain of tears and heavy screams. Already my body is rebuilding me a heart, but this one will be different.
It will be the heart of a pure-blood vampire. There will be no rescue from this transformation.
My body needs proteins and fiber to build a new heart, so it begins to tear at the little fat that I have, and then the muscle, and it steals my blood and bone tissue in its assembly process. I can only shriek and thrash and scream and cry while my body is tearing itself apart, just to recreate a black pounding monster in my chest.
The crimson tide begins to roll off my torso. If Kurogane were here, I would tell him to look at the strange view of the thick red sea.
But Kurogane isn't here.
And I've never seen the sea.