Rock Bottom
Rated: T
Author: XZeePoisonousOneX
Oneshot/ Drabble.
I do not own any blood+ characters, including the delightful haji, nor am I affiliated with its creators and am certainly not making money from this :D
The darkness pressed in against him, his skin was raw and sensitive to the rough, grating rocks about him. His lungs felt hardened and clogged with ash, cement and plaster and the limbs that were left were heavy and weak with exhaustion. It felt as if he had been asleep for years, and it was possible he had been; a fight such as the one he had won before the collapse of the foundations about him was something he was not used to. Years of refusing to allow his true power unfold and then the sudden release of them had left him fragile and giddy... Yes, he supposed he had been asleep for quite some time.
He inhaled, the faint tang of ash and flesh was vague in the pocket of air about him and in that he supposed it had been at least a year, maybe two. He wondered what had awakened him.
He could remember the terrible crash of the earth falling in on itself as the metal capsules had collided with the building, could remember the immense pain and release as the claw had been ripped from his body and then, inevitably, the draining sensation as his own blood pooled about him. He could remember ash and the rubble about him slowly become compact as it crumbled in on itself. And then there was nothing.
And what now? He kept his eyes closed against the rubble but listened intently and it was then that he could hear it, the clanging of metal on metal, human shouts, footsteps, a general cacophony of humanity. His brow twitched a frown as he calculated it as being directly above him. There was a shift in the earth, more crashing. Were the humans digging up the site? He felt a hope spark in his chest and a twinge of happiness at being reunited with his mistress, and his only family. But he panicked, surely if the humans found him alive they would become curious again? Surely the madness they had endeavoured to halt would return and Saya would be immersed in the bleakness of war again?
He tested his limbs, they were too weak to move properly, he was too weak to attempt breaking through the earth before they found him. He decided to wait, maybe he was buried too deeply. Maybe they'd simply build on top of him? Then again that idea didn't exactly strike him with hope.
He continued to listen blindly, content in the rhythm of humanity drumming above him, unfaltering; that at least was comforting, something to look forward too once he was free from the rubble- humanity, life and vitality, perhaps something to eat. He was hungry.
His brow twitched with a frown again. Really hungry. His teeth ached he was so hungry, his everything ached.
Something crawled near him, scrabbling through the gaps in the rubble and slabs of concrete around him; as he tuned his ear to it he counted several pairs of paws. They treated him like the concrete around them, he didn't smell like food at all, not dead enough to eat, not alive enough to be afraid of. One brushed past his fingers and he focused all his attention to his the one remaining hand, the other still missing as his body fought to regenerate it. (But, if it had indeed been years and his blood deposits had been so empty for so long, would there be any chance of him being able to heal at all? His brow twitched once more. He could learn to fight with one arm….)
Fur paused near his fingers and he caught it just barely, gripping it as hard as he could as he forced all the strength he could muster into his arm to bring it to his aching jaws.
He let the empty, furry vessel drop from his hands before relaxing a bit. The other creatures of the underground continued around him busily, apparently not noticing the new danger he posed. The rhythm began to slow down, he supposed it had been hours already. The small amount of blood helped him, but he needed more. He smiled to himself --"Haji, pest-control of New York." New York.
His smile faded as he realised how far he had to go. Once free of the rubble, he would have to somehow muster the energy to travel to Okinawa, to his family. And, once there, would they welcome him back, or was he now a ghost of their painful past, too bothersome to house? Would Saya be asleep by now?
He imagined the little café, Omoro, sitting between the bland buildings, the court just across the way and the little family of misfits playing in the street, or talking at the bar, or having a party at the beach. Lulu and Kai playing catch in the sand, Saya watching over the infants beneath a parasol, the infants burbling away happily. He wondered what they had been named. He found it interesting to note how that image seemed to spur him on. The image kept replaying in his mind as he began the arduous task of feeding off the creatures about him.
He tried to place himself in that scene, but it was almost as difficult as capturing prey whilst being wedged between rubble and concrete. Perhaps he was now an outcast, they probably all thought him dead, long gone. And perhaps Saya would be better without him serving as reminder of all her pain… he could never bring that smile to her face anyway…
But the optimist in him argued against these painful notions. The only way was up.
A/N: Haji will always be one of my favourite characters, I hope I did him justice! Thans for reading, reviews if you please!