Bound By A Spell
Chapter One : Dreams
His legs burned from the stress of running for the last few hours, his eyes stung from the strain of focusing his sights in the dark, his face and ears were numb from the cold, but nothing, not the pain, not the fatigue, could deter him from his goal.
His heart was pounding loud against his chest and ringing in his ears. His blood rushed through his veins and lightened a fire within him. He was exhausted from the hunt, but he knew that his prey was close and getting closer. He had been able to injure the bloodsucking beast a few miles back and slowly, ever so slowly, the beast was starting to slow down.
He continued his pursuit and swiftly dodged the trees and the branches, as well as the roots that were no longer beneath the ground.
His sword sheathed and tucked away, but his fingers were nimble and ready to unsheathe it from its confines as soon as his prey was within sight.
It wasn't long before the trees thinned out revealing a clearing. There was small pond as well as a meadow filled with flowers of every color. His prey stood in the middle expecting his arrival and the fight that would ensue. He landed gracefully a few yards away from the Pureblood he had been pursuing. He could see it in the way the beast's red eyes gleamed in the night, he was losing control of his hunger. It was a frightening sight for any normal human being but he was a Hunter he lived to kill the light in those ruby eyes.
It only furthered his excitement, he would finally make his first pureblood kill.
Zero woke up with a start, eyes bleeding red. He wanted to kill. He felt not the exhaustion or the burn from his dream's pursuit, instead he felt nothing but an endless amount of energy and excitement, an excitement to hunt.
His dreams were recurring and were always so vivid that he could practically smell the blood. He'd been having the same dream over and over for weeks now, each time seeing a new piece of the dream come to light, but he still could not make sense of it. Today he finally saw who he had been chasing in his dreams; a Pureblood.
His immediate train of thought was to think of the only pureblood he'd ever think of hunting and that was Shizuka Hio. But for some reason that didn't seem right. In reality, if he was just honest with himself it was obvious that the Pureblood in his dreams greatly resembled Kuran's.
Despite the antagonistic relationship he had with the Pureblood at Cross Academy, he had never thought that he would ever want to hunt him down and kill him. At least not the way it was portrayed in his dreams.
Every night Zero would wake from this dream and feel a rush of energy overwhelm him as if to tell him that he now had to chase this bastard in real life and just like every night that he'd woken up that's what he did. He got up from bed changed into something a bit warmer and went outside. The night was cool and just tiny bit foggy, kind of like the scenery in his dreams. Zero humored his dreams and his excitement, he ran. He ran like he had been running in his dreams. He had no destination in mind he just wanted this adrenalin rush to stop.
He thought of the dream. Running, chasing his prey and the anticipation of having the chance to kill the pureblood. Zero's energy spiked and so did his bloodlust, his eyes flashing between their normal hue and a deep bright red. He didn't understand it, but he felt the need to kill. Every day it had been like this and everyday Zero ran out of the school grounds and found something to kill, sometimes a level E wandering around or an animal in the mountains. And this random killing seemed to satiate his bloodlust, he only hoped the feeling would not escalate.
By the time he was able to sneak back into his rooms he saw the sun was just about to peak from the mountains and he had just enough time to shower and get some breakfast.
This was getting tiring. This had become a routine in such a short amount of time; the only upside was that he was getting a hell of a work out every morning, but he was losing so much sleep. If things get worse he might just have to consult someone about this.
Zero met Yuki for class not long after and continued their day. And as class started and hours passed Zero's exhaustion was getting more noticeable. Yuki had been commenting about it recently, stating that even though he used to fall asleep in class it was always out of boredom, but now it looked like it was from sheer exhaustion.
During Crossover, Zero didn't have the patience and the girls seemed to realize it and everyone backed off of him. The gates finally opened and Zero turned his head just in time to see them all walk out. In what seemed like a timed process Zero caught the eyes of Kuran Kaname and the seemingly red gleam immediately reminded him of the eyes in the clearing of his dreams. The light in those eyes was the light he wanted to kill.
Without much thought Zero's energy spiked once again and his bloodlust suddenly came forth and in a matter of seconds all of Kurans followers blocked off Kuran and faced him. The tension was high and Zero knew it, but he couldn't stop himself. Those were the eyes in his dreams, those are the eyes he's been chasing in order to kill. His eyes started to flash again, as if he was transforming into the mindless beast that he was inevitably would become. He tried to reign all of his control.
All of the girls in the school backed off but watched with great interest, but also a little fear. They could see that this was not the usual banter. It seemed almost dangerous to stay where they were. Yuki's shock overwhelmed her for only a moment until she realized that she had to snap Zero out of it. Usually she could do it, usually she could, but even she couldn't get near him. An aura unlike anything Zero had ever produced seemed to surround him and overwhelm those near him.
The humans didn't take much notice other than the fact that there was a high tension but Yuki, Kuran and the rest of the vampires certainly did, if it wasn't for the humans around they would have already attacked Zero.
Everything happened so fast and Zero couldn't focus on anything aside from trying to control himself, but the longer he stared at Kuran's eyes the feeling just grew.
Zero had been trying to focus all of his control on reigning in his thirst to spill blood when all of the sudden he noticed the eerie silence that had not been there before. Zero let his mind wander only for a moment before realizing that the other other students were no longer there. He continued to try to keep his mind blank or to distract his thoughts away from Kuran, away from the blood red eyes in his dreams, but he took a quick note of the mumbled voices he could barely hear.
He heard them talking and trying to explain what happened, but none of them really knew.
"Zero? Can you hear me?"
The chairman was getting worried could Zero be falling to a level E so soon? Is that what was happening? Was Zero trying to fight it?
"He's probably gonna go crazy soon. We should end his misery now." Aido stated.
Maybe it was the natural animosity he felt for Aido, or perhaps focusing on their voices had worked, but Zero was conscious enough to that. Zero growled out, "I'm fine."
Kuran who had stayed silent and observing the scene play out in front of him, stepped forward to address the crazed hunter before being promptly faced with the Bloody Rose.
Yuki screamed then, "Zero! What has gotten into you?!"
"Kuran, stay back. Chairman take me to your office, I'll explain." Zero gritted out, he was right he would need help with this eventually and now seems to be the time.
Zero ran towards the office first, faster than any of them thought he was capable, but the morning practice he's been having to do and with tensions so high it was practically a slow walk.
Zero immediately calmed down as soon as he could no longer see Kuran and Zero had to laugh. "Wow he really is the reason why I'm going to go insane."
Zero reached the chairman's office and waited for the man to come see him. He definitely had some explaining to do. The problem was, he had no idea what exactly to explain.