Chapter Two - Unravel
Disbelief.
Absolute Disbelief.
What did he say?
Could it truly be words of long-awaited hope?
This day was fatefully fantasized over and over again… for a thousand years.
Perhaps this was a momentary dream, an alternate reality torturing Yuuki for the sins she's committed during this lifetime.
This was too good to be a reality.
Reality had always seemed so dark and unrewarding to the vampires – a curse, it always seemed to her.
It was an everlasting punishment by God for being a life devouring beast of the night, feasting on the essence of other living things.
Unable to snap herself out of the sudden shock, Yuuki's eyes were still wide as she lost herself to another reality of her mind.
It made both Ai and Ren uncomfortable, as the seconds ticked on.
They both eyed each other.
It was the moment of hearing the words spoken by the new chairman that made time feel like another hundred years had passed.
It only happened because of all the dreams and hopes Yuuki ever had during the experience of living without Kaname came back in a rush and practically slapped her in the face.
Her throbbing pulse caused an ache in her eyesight.
Everything came in as a slight blur as she noticed the concern of the others around her.
The woman was now being slightly incoherent.
The sounding off in Ai's voice brought Yuuki back from yet another lifetime passing in the blink of an eye with the words, "Mother".
Kuran Yuuki blinked and suddenly came back from the paradox.
The faces around the table of all board members held concern and confusion as she gasped in almost a pained, raspy voice, "Are you certain"?
Yuuki couldn't take a cruel joke.
She couldn't take emotional torture.
Shinra Toga confirmed with an exact "yes".
He was unmoving.
Because of the seriousness about him, Yuuki accepted the answer as total truth.
She wasn't sure why, but she felt a strange comfort in the coldness of his words.
It was so familiar to what she recalled of Kaname.
She smiled at the dream like memory of him.
In another snap of the moment, tight angst passed from the room.
Both Ren and Ai were still a bit ruffled from the news as they themselves weren't sure what to expect to come of it.
What exactly was there to expect?
The long-lost man recurrent that was always part of their memory would suddenly be thrown into the mix as someone who was actually alive.
They knew a bit of his story, but the didn't know who he truly was as a person since they never met him.
What would his presence even do to the vampire society if he was as powerful as the stories said?
Ai feared something that it put her stomach into a knot.
The off-putting feeling had originated from the knowledge of the conspiracies that quietly burned in the undertones of the vampire society for a long time.
She knew they were still smoking their way through the cracks of the foundation they'd set for structure of the dark society they ruled.
During the rebellious years of her life, Ai had mingled in places she didn't belong, much like Yuuki did in her youth when she believed she needed to do something she thought was right.
The young child flooded her way silently in the background of the black places in various areas after the ridicule her younger brother experienced during their youth.
This was truly the first time shame was brought to Ai, being a vampire.
She didn't like prejudice, especially directed at her favourite person in the world.
Because Ren was mixed with something other than purity and came from Yuuki, he was looked at by some as an abomination and felt the discrimination from many, unintentionally, and intentionally.
Because of this, Ai would go and seek out the source of the disease plaguing her people.
It was then that Ai was exposed to what her mother and other father were trying to shield her from for so long, and that was the nature of humanity and vampirism both.
Through the experiences and witnessing, Ai's eyes were opened to all of it.
She believed those people would try to coil themselves about her father for his power the moment they could.
Yuuki knew about some of these darknesses, too.
This was something not even their mother ever talked about, though.
Ai thought Yuuki might not even care since Kaname would be back.
Truthfully, would it even be possible to control the God like King?
Everyone was extremely aware of the dire craving Yuuki had of him and that she'd dreamed of this awakening for years… but still.
Her blood told them intimate things they'd never wanted to know.
The darkness of her desires had brought Ren to sickness before at a time. They were extremely realistic and moving in wicked ways.
It was clear that the Queen of the Vampires loved what she had now, but she'd destroy it all at the chance of being with that creature again.
Ren had come to an uncomfortable stance with the idea of this man walking the ground again with a pulse.
This was not his father, and in fact at a point, could have killed him, making his existence moot.
The risk of that reality brought him to feel as if he were green.
Ai, on the other hand, seemed a bit more curious.
Many, many times has she looked upon the man in the ice coffin.
Only positive things would exit her birth giver's mouth about what lay inside in a world where time was skewed.
A smile suddenly appeared on Yuuki's face.
"What are we waiting for"? Yuuki asked in a raw tone.
She herself couldn't convey what it is she was feeling. There was both bitterness and excitement in her soul.
"It's scheduled for tomorrow", a board member explained, "it'll be at the strike of noon".
"Thank you. Is this what the meeting was for"?
"Yes, Kuran. It's been anonymous across our board. With your incredible cooperation with us over the past eon, we thought it'd be pivotal to let you know, and our privilege to include you with the news", the chairman explained.
Not much more had happened in the board room.
It was excused shortly after it gathered, and the three living Kurans took their leave as well.
They had what seemed to be a long car ride home.
Yuuki for the first time in a long time was excited.
She began to truly take in her surrounds of the world.
The rocks, the trees, the dirt path, and the ruins – they decored the sides of the roads for a long time, and Yuuki had seen them countless times before but never truly had seen them.
It'd been a long time.
She realized she'd locked her soul inside an ice coffin too.
She hadn't felt anything, truly, had she? Over the span of her existence since she hadn't had her beloved.
Just thinking about tomorrow and feeling the body of what truly was her soul, moved her in a way that made her feel alive again.
What she'd been doing wasn't living, but simply existing…