Zero couldn't get over the fact that Sacred's eyes changed color every once in a while. It was creepy. When he first saw the brunette, it was sapphire. Almost every subsequent time he looked over, it would darken to another shade, before lightening to be a different color. Generally impossible in reality.
He had yet to come to terms with him being part werewolf either. He had never heard of their existence in any country.
"They only live in the underworld."
Zero scoffed at that line that Sacred had used explain why he had never seen them. The latter was down right cold and full of himself. He had practically ordered Zero to leave with him, and for the past half hour the hunter was rather annoyed with it.
"Oi, where the hell are we going?" Zero questioned the guy who was a few feet ahead of him. Sacred didn't look back.
"No idea."
The hunter stopped, disbelieving. "You made me follow you to go nowhere?"
The brunette paused as well, half-turning to face Zero. "Anywhere would be better than your place right now. It won't be long before the next wave comes, it won't be easy to protect you."
"I don't need your protection," Zero hissed back. Who did this guy think he was? God?
Judging from his attitude and such, it was like speaking to that bastard Kuran, just on a different level.
"I didn't leave my place to go on a merry-go-round. I don't care what in the world you're fighting with, but I don't intend to-"
A girl's screaming echoed in the dead of the night. Zero immediately narrowed his gaze in the direction and sprinted. He heard Sacred call out for him to stop, but to hell with that guy. He cut a corner through an alleyway to reach the parrallel road in another street, and he searched around for any signs of figures. Another scream allowed him to reach his goal and he barged through a chipped door which led him to an abandoned apartment.
The scent of human blood hit him, and he bit back the rush of bloodlust through his veins. He couldn't let this get to him right now. The girl was in danger and he had to get to her quick.
He heard nails clawing the floor from the second floor and he pulled his gun out, darting up the stairs. The scent of blood grew stronger, and he could hear the sounds of low snickering and relishing. It made his stomach tighten with disgust. He stood beside the door way and glanced around it to see what was in the room, and his eyes widened with horror.
About five Level Es were eating the girl. They were tearing at her flesh with their fangs, licking their lips and at the blood spilling from wounds they bit through. This was the first time he had seen this happen. All the Level Es he had faced were only interested in drinking their victims dry, but not consuming them.
Zero swallowed. In any case, he would have to get rid of them. It was too late to save the girl, but he had his duty to accomplish as a hunter. Taking a deep breath, he showed himself in the doorway and fired his gun. He successfully caught two in the head and they fell to the floor, dead. The other three started screeching at the deaths of their companions and charged. The one closest to him managed to catch him off guard and flung itself at the hunter, leaving them grappling on the dusty floor.
Zero drove his knee upwards, hitting the male Level E above him in the abdomen before kicking him off with the base of his foot. He lifted his gun to catch another Level E between its eyebrows and it too, dropped to the floor dead. The other two stood at the other end of the coridor, spitting hisses at the hunter who had gotten up to his feet.
He aimed his gun at them and fired, but missed when they jumped against the wall to tackle him at the same time. Zero barely avoided the attack, and found that his back foot had no support when he retreated a step. Belatedly, he realised that he was at the top of the stairs and his left hand grabbed the wooden rail. At the same time, one of the Level Es darted past his right hand, knocking the gun out. Zero gritted his teeth in pain from where a cut was across his palm. He stabilised himself on the steps, releasing the rail and holding his injured hand.
Both Level Es were now on either side of him. He clicked his tongue in annoyance. It was rare for him to make such little mistakes, but this time it may have landed him in a big trouble. He had to get out of the small area to have an advantage. As quickly as he could, he calculated how successful he would be to get out of this apartment if he jumped over the rail to the lower flight of stairs. Without getting killed in the process, that is.
Forget the chances. It was his only was out of this. The Level Es were closing in on him, and he braced hismelf. Once they attacked, he used his left hand as a leverage to push himself over the rail, steading himself to land. What he didn't add into the equation was how old and brittle the apartment was, and the stairs beneath him gave way under his weight. In split seconds, he ended up in what was most likely the basement.
He managed to land on the soles of his feet, but his hands reached out to support his fall. Initally forgetting about his injured right, he hissed when the wound came in contact with something hard.
The smell of the dead hit him. Decaying flesh was mixed with almost diminishing scent of blood and Zero covered his mouth, feeling sick from the smell. It was unnaturally dark for him to see anything despite his good nightvision, and he struggled to walk in the darkness until he bumped into the wall. Thankfully, his hand managed to feel for something which felt like a light switch, and he jammed the thing on.
Even before a second passed, Zero's stomach gave into the naseaus feeling and he threw up. The smell of it was bad enough, and the sight of it just made it worse. If there were only corpses everywhere, it might have been a lesser blow to him. But this was worse than anything he had ever seen. Human bodies were mutilated and guts were everywhere. Even though the dim light was orange, he knew the floor was red. Hell, everything in the room was red, stained with blood.
Zero wiped the back of his mouth. Having not eaten anything the entire day, all that came out was stomach acid, but it burned his throat enough. He gagged a little, almost feeling a round two make its way out.
This was horrifying. Why hadn't the hunter council been notified of this? These murders shouldn't have been hard to hide.
Zero felt something crush under his foot. He glanced down to see that he had been stepping on a lone hand –with no arm- and he grimaced, feeling a headache making itself known. He shifted his foot, then saw that the hand was in a fist, looking like it was holding something. He didn't exactly want to touch a dead man's hand, but something tugged at him to take a look. He reached down and pried the hand open, picking up a tag.
Rei Matsumoto
Junior Hunter
Realisation hit Zero dead cold. The hunters were here. They just never made it out alive. This guy should have had a partner... and was probably one of the dead bodies here.
Zero clasped the tag tightly. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the young hunter. Being a junior, he couldn't have been more than fifteen years old...
The cracking of wood caught Zero's attention. He backed against the wall, shoving the tag into his pocket. The two Level Es made their appearance at the other end of the room, coming in through a door. One of the ways in and the only way out for him.
"Be a good boy now..." The same male Level E he had kicked snickered. "Let us taste your young, delicious flesh..."
The other insane vampire was chuckling as well as he walked into the basement.
"You killed all these people?" Zero hissed.
"Killed? No... we ate them. Not only their blood... but their flesh..."
"We want the same blood!"
Zero was utterly confused. These were far from normal Level Es, if you considered them normal in the first place.
"Give us your blood!" The two shrieked and charged. The hunter braced himself. Just because he didn't have his gun didn't mean that he couldn't fight, but he had no means of killing them so what the hell was he to do?
Zero dodged the both of them, jumping to the side. The mass of body parts of the floor wasn't easy to step on without slipping, considering all the blood and round-ish structures like arms and legs. He had to be careful. A single slip and it would cost his life.
Despite knowing that fact though, he hadn't expected one of the Es to lash its leg out and trip him. He landed in the dead heap, crying out in pain when he had used his right palm to break his fall. Blood oozed out of the cut and he cringed. When he opened his eyes one of the Level Es was above him, hand raised and ready to slash across. Zero could only flinch, and raised his arms to shield himself.
A scream from the other side of the room caught both their attention. The Level E stopped his hand from descending, and Zero opened his eyes slowly, before widening.
Sacred was standing there with the back of the other Level Es head in his hand. Crimson eyes bore deep into the enemy standing in front of Zero, displaying great amounts of hatred. Without warning, he slammed the face of the Level E he was holding into the wall, and the skull was completely crushed under the force. Blood trickled down his hand, and he let go of the dead vampire.
"You have a lot of nerves showing up before me again," Sacred growled dangerously.
The lone Level E faced him, smirking. "It's you again," he laughed hesitantly, trying not to show his fear now that he was alone to face the crossbreed. "Your blood! None of these humans had your kind of blood!"
"That's because I'm not human you piece of shit. I would've thought you would be dead by now, having taken my blood," Sacred stepped forward and the Level E flinched.
It reached down and grabbed Zero by the collar, lifting him and clasped onto his neck, warning the brunette to back off. The hunter swallowed a little, feeling the nails prick into his neck.
"I want your blood... I want your flesh..." The Level E started chanting. "Give it to me!"
The nails dug deeper, and Zero winced. It wasn't as painful as fangs from memory, but it still hurt.
Sacred pulled out his dagger from the sheath by his leg and cut across his palm. The scent of the foreign blood hit Zero, and the hunter grimaced.
"Come and get it then."
The Level E let Zero go and howled as it charged. Zero stood, there, stunned by the desperation of the insane vampire. It lunged at the brunette, claws up high.
"Sacred!"
The said person narrowed his gaze at the attacker. He sidestepped the slash delivered, and did a full turn, jamming the hilt end of his dagger into the vampire's chest. It froze, registering that the blade wasn't in his body. It laughed.
"You're not going to kill me just like this."
"Really?" Sacred asked.
The Level E's jaw dropped and its body jerked when a long blade pierced through its heart. It gaped in shock, blood having filled his lungs and choking it out. It felt the blade slip out and it dropped onto the floor on its knees. Without much strength left it fell forward, and Sacred crushed the cervical spine with the heel of his boots, snapping it into two.
Zero covered his mouth. He didn't know what to say, or what to do. With the Level Es gone he couldn't say he wasn't relieved but it was cruel. The way Sacred had done it was just… inhumane.
The brunette kept his blade and walked over to the hunter. He reached out to grab Zero's hand, but the latter pulled back. Sacred didn't look offended. Instead, he pulled out Bloody Rose from his waist band where he had tucked the gun he found earlier.
"It's yours, isn't it?" He asked as he held out the gun.
Zero slowly nodded and was going to receive it with his right hand when he remembered his wound. He immediately swapped hands and took back his gun, keeping it in the holster.
"Let's get out of here."
As he watched the silhouette of the crossbreed leave, Zero couldn't help but think about what Sacred has been doing in the past. Even in a room of massacre, the latter had absolutely no response. There wasn't a single hint of discomfort emitting from the brunette, and from the past two times he had seen him fight, killing seemed almost like a second nature. There was no hesitance, there were hardly any words – just what a perfect killer did.
Zero reached into his pocket and tightened his grip on the tag of the fallen hunter. He had to report this to headquarters. Even though no proper burial can be placed, it was better that the efforts of the two hunters were recognised in death.
With three words 'rest in peace', he left the basement, praying that he would not see something like this happen again.
When he exited the run down apartment, he found Sacred waiting by the roadside patiently, staring off into the distance. He gave a quick glance in that direction, and found nothing special. When he tried to walk past the brunette, he jumped when the other spoke.
"Is your hand alright?"
"…It's fine. What about yours?" Having to inflict pain on yourself was hard, after all. He was going to add.
"It's not a big deal," Sacred replied. He glanced over his shoulder at the hunter who was avoiding his gaze. "Are you alright?"
"I said my hand was fi-"
Sacred reaching over and brushing the back of his fingers against his cheek surprised the hunter. The contact was cold, and Zero's eyes widened.
He never realised that he was crying.
"I'm not asking about your hand."
Embarrassed to have been seen, he slapped away Sacred's hand, wiping away the stray droplets he was sure shouldn't be there.
"If you want to cry, do it."
"I'm not crying you asshole."
"I see."
(A/N in jap, Sacred would be saying 'sou', which kinda means like 'oh really' w/o the question mark. It's hard to explain -.-;; Gah its hard to translate from jap to english.)
Zero took a deep breath, calming himself. He stole a glance over at the brunette who was still looking into the distance, not a single emotion showing.
Ever since he had met him, Sacred had always been calm. Whether he was attacking or getting attacked, he had never let a single emotion slip. It came down to the question of what in the world the crossbreed has been doing his entire life.
"The deaths of those people in there are probably my fault," Sacred suddenly said, which got Zero puzzled. "Those vampires got me when I was unaware. They managed to get to my blood, and that's what happened to them."
"What are you talking about?"
This time, sunset orange eyes gazed into lilac ones. "Werewolf blood is toxic to vampires. Like any old tell tale, a bite from a werewolf turns a human into one. It's almost the same concept. Consumption of werewolf blood can turn humans as well."
"Then their sudden taste for flesh?"
Sacred nodded. "A typical werewolf trait. That's why the all the werewolves in your realm are annihilated. The only ones which exists are those that are sane, but in Hell."
"Was that why you thought those vampires would be dead?"
Sacred gave another nod. "That's why I didn't pursue them. I didn't expect this to happen."
Zero's gaze softened. The crossbreed was feeling guilty. Maybe he wasn't that emotionless after all. He had definitely killed without remorse, but he still had feelings although it was hidden deep inside.
"They used to be human," the hunter said before looking away. "Maybe that's why they didn't die."
Sacred gave no reply.
The scent of blood reminded Zero of the cut the brunette had delivered on himself. He didn't think the crossbreed would have the same healing capabilities. In fact, the cut on his own hand had closed, only leaving stains.
"Dagger," Zero said softly. Sacred looked over in question. "Dagger," he repeated.
Sacred handed him one of his weapon and Zero took it, slashing the end of his coat. He held the dagger in his mouth and ripped off a strip before non-too gently taking Sacred's injured hand, and wrapping it. He carefully tied a knot and handed the dagger back to its owner.
Zero walked ahead, not caring if it was the right direction or not.
Sacred only blinked at the act, rather surprised. He heard the hunter mumble something which sounded like 'thanks for saving me'. He glanced down at his hand with the cloth, and clenched it.
…At least he was able to save one.
-rubs eyes- oh my goodness. I was soooo surprised when i got so many reviews! I didn't expect it to be this liked! I was happy-stricken(word does not exist in real dictionary)! And so many people liked Sacred! I'm so happy!
Sacred: ......
He's like that. Anywho. I was so happy that so many people liked it that I decided to update early XD tehe. Don't bet that the next one would be so soon tho -.- I have to run for my bus ah shitz. I love you guys! Sacred I love you!
Sacred: ......
... you're such a jerk.
