((I really need a beta reader...i wrote this story after reading the first three novels, and when i was just getting into the story. for that, names may be wrong. please bare with me and tell my when that is such and i will take notice. be kind and review. constructive critisims is appreshiated but flames are not. i will likely ignore them. My spelling stinks and grammer is worse. enjoy
p.s i do not own Vampire Knight. i only Own Arashi))
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire, Robert Frost
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Chapter 3
With Yuki fast asleep, it became Zero's job to escort his sister to her room. Her control was slipping and her aura was seeping out into her surroundings again, but, strangely enough, it didn't bother Zero in the least, even at such close range with such a high intensity. In fact, the feeling was comforting and familiar, like a long lost friend, or twin sister perhaps.
What was he thinking? Perhaps? From the moment he'd laid eyes upon Arashi, there'd been no doubt in his mind that she was his sister, despite his outward suspicion. Something about the immediate closeness he'd felt with her, although the fact that she looked so much like him didn't hurt. She was almost a silver-haired, gray-eyed, slightly taller version of Yuki, but she was unmistakably related to Zero.
"What did they do to you?" Zero asked bluntly. He'd just "happened" to be passing by the door of the headmaster's office during Arashi's interrogation and had "accidentally" heard everything.
Sighing resignedly, Arashi supposed she owed her twin at least a little more of the truth than anyone else. "The people who trained me? Well, they wanted me to be the ultimate vampire killer, so they made me into the perfect assassin: a monster worse than those she hunted. I suppose, in the end, you can't kill without becoming more despicable than your prey." Her voice did not change and her body did not tremble with anger or fear, but Zero could feel her absolute fury blaze through her aura.
Finding some irony in their situation, the boy allowed a grim smile to appear. "Funny, isn't it, that the last members of a family of vampire hunters are a traitor, a monster, and even a real vampire?"
She had felt the vampiric bloodlust in him from the start, but it still stung to know that her little brother regarded himself as an abomination, not unlike her own feelings toward herself. "Not tonight, but soon, we will talk more about your 'conversion,'" She steeled her expression against the look she knew Zero must have been giving her. "I cannot make you human again, but I may be able to eliminate the risk of your becoming a Level E vampire."
A mixed look of disbelief and a little hope crossed Zero's face before he feel back behind his usual grim mask. "Another time, then." They had reached Arashi's new room. For one awkward moment, Zero wondered how he ought to bid his sister good night. After a second of indecision, he settled upon a light embrace and a quickly whispered, "Night."
With his back quickly disappearing down the dark hallway, Arashi released a deep sigh of relief. Although she'd been begging for sleep, in actuality, her fatigue came from restraining her power in an environment full of vampires. Whenever it perceived a threat to itself, or her since she was it, it attempted to break out and take care of whatever was wrong.
Sleep wouldn't help now. What Arashi needed was something she had used many times before- a distraction to keep her power busy until it could tell that the vampires here posed no threat, yet.
She opened the door.
The change in temperature was immediately noticeable. Her breath was visible in the air of her small dorm room. Suddenly, ice swept through the small area covering everything, including Arashi's feet. She knew who it was, of course. Besides the fact that she just knew many things, one can't poke around someone else's soul without recognizing that person later.
"As entertaining as this is, Aido, I am in severe need of sleep." Her shoulders slumped with an invisible weight, presumably from exhaustion, and her eyelids drooped dangerously low over her dimmed gaze. "How did you find me anyway? I was only just assigned this room."
A bright smile lit Aido's face as he replied, "The same way you knew it was me, but…" Abruptly, the smile fled and was replaced with a dangerous scowl. "I am not happy. Whatever you did to me, it won't stop. I can't think about anything else but that feeling of having you reach into my heart, like a burning sensation. But I want more."
This was not good. This was part of why Arashi was such a dangerous killer. The power in her, it acted like a lantern that would attract bugs out for a night stroll. The bugs would see the light and know that it would kill them, but it was so alluring. They still had to fly straight into it, and then they died. In her case, vampires were the night bugs. Just sending out her aura alone would be enough to draw many in, but for someone who had been directly hit, he would need a tremendous amount of self-control to break her power's hold on him.
Aido had first seemed so happy and a little, well, dim, but the Aido slowly inching towards Arashi at this moment acted like a completely different person. Where he had been cheerful and flirtatious, he was now cold and demanding. This foolishness needed to end soon. She just needed a second to ensure another week or so of relative safety for everyone else. But Aido showed no signs of slowing his advance.
"You won't pierce me again, will you?" Aido slurred into her ear. Even his breath held the frigid lack of warmth he had spread throughout the room. "Well…" His bright smile returned on cue, much as the headmaster's had not long before. "That's okay. I don't really want it that much anyway. It kind of hurt." Arashi was about to release a very large pent-up breath when Aido changed right back into a cold-hearted, hungry vampire. "However," he continued, sliding his mouth down the girl's neck, "I do want a taste."
His fangs were showing, and they were about ready to puncture her skin and release the flow of blood that lay beneath. Arashi couldn't speak. Everything in her was fighting against herself. She wanted to shout at Aido to run for his life before she lost it, but she couldn't spare the slightest bit of her mind in this struggle.
Finally, she lost. Well, not entirely, but the surge of power, which was by this time running on full blast thanks to the threat of having her blood sucked, enveloped Arashi's body in the flames that normally ran through her blood in a form of energy. Aido was thrown back against the far wall, which wasn't very far away considering the small size of an average dorm room. Somehow, she had managed to make sure that she didn't kill him. Every inch of ice melted away into steam before quickly disappearing.
In the midst of all this madness, Arashi reached for the small silver dagger always hidden in her right boot. Aido had pulled the last straw when he leaned in to bite her. There were no restraints left and something had to be done.
So, she stabbed herself. Plunging that little dagger right through her heart, she watched her flames rush to prevent any blood from touching the floor. They stopped the intense bleeding coming from her chest, and within moments, Arashi was able to stand and pull her dagger out of her torso without feeling any real pain. It was only the first stroke that hurt in this semi-normal routine, and her fire would be too busy healing her back to full strength for the next week to respond so violently to the nearby vampires. With any luck, it would have accepted them as peaceful by the time she was well and another "distraction" wouldn't be necessary for it.
Still tightly clutching her weapon, Arashi stepped over to where Aido lay unconscious. All of a sudden, she stumbled and fell to her knees beside his motionless form. Carelessness. Although she was practically impossible to kill, even her body had to hit limits of some kind after being stabbed in the heart.
Using the dagger as a makeshift smelling salt, Arashi held it under the vampire's nose and watched his eyes slowly flutter open as he inhaled the scent of blood.
Aido looked so innocent and confused. "What happened?" he murmured, groaning in his efforts to sit up and finding many new bruises. His gaze fell upon the silver metal still resting in the hand of the girl kneeling beside him. "Are you going to finish that?"
Suppressing a look of disgust, Arashi simply stated, "Help yourself." The vampire snatched the dagger away and without a second thought, began to lick it clean. "You idiot, I could've killed you. And that last burst of power will probably lead every vampire in the area right to me," she reprimanded.
But Aido's mind was far too focused on the blood he was licking to hear a word she said. Its taste was everything her aura had suggested and more: it held the energy of the fire she was a part of, but at the same time, it was intoxicatingly rich and calming. Nothing Aido had ever had to drink before came even close to paralleling this flavor, much less surpassing it. What was more, despite the miniscule amount on the stained knife, he found himself completely full and his bloodlust gone by the time it was clean.
Finally taking his eyes off his snack and glancing up at his prey-turned-rescuer, Aido saw an impossible depth of weariness and sorrow covering her face. Placing the dagger on the ground, he tentatively inquired, "Are you all right?"
"I'll be fine." Aido looked entirely unconvinced, so Arashi attempted a small smile. It looked as forced and pained as she felt.
Acting on a sudden, irresistible impulse, Aido wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a strong embrace where he was seated on the floor. Like any good hunter, she recoiled against the unwanted contact with the enemy, but he held her fast.
Forcing her trained instincts down, Arashi silently willed her limbs to relax. The added muscle tension wasn't helping her injured body at all. Calming the large parts of her mind that wanted to kill this vampire on the spot, she leaned a little closer into the front of his uniform.
Aido was still busy trying to figure out why in the night he'd grabbed Arashi. He'd just met her, she was Zero Kiryu's sister (and the vampire-hating school guardian would probably kill him when he found out about this), and she had just survived stabbing herself in the heart. The wound had been painfully visible. He might have even glimpsed one of her ribs through the hole. This situation, a vampire trying to comfort a vampire hunter, made no sense at all, but it was happening.
Maybe it had something to do with drinking her blood. Perhaps there was something in it that acted like a drug, reducing his common sense to a whisper in the back of his mind. If that was true, and he had only tasted a few drops, Aido could only imagine what a long drink from Arashi's neck would have done.
Then, Aido was sitting on the floor of his bedroom, surrounded by a small circle of fire, and grasping at thin air. Reverting to his serious persona, he muttered with a slightly evil glint in his eyes, "Well, who knew? It looks like the girl can teleport with fire. No wonder she didn't fight me… she was just building up enough concentration to send me away. No fair." A small chuckle escaped him and woke his cousin from a very light slumber.
"Aido, where've you been?" Kain yawned.
Plastering a happy smile on, he replied, "Is Kaname-sama still mad about that tree thing?" Aido was obviously dodging the question, but Kain let it slide and shrugged in response.
Getting up and walking around a bit, Aido was instantly struck with inspiration. Books of all colors and sizes lay scattered on one of the two simple, wooden desks pushed against the wall. Aido sifted through all the research journals until he came upon a buried volume of vampire legends and lore. Carelessly flipping through the pages, he nonchalantly called across to his cousin, who was still lying on his bed, "Kain, what do you remember about elementals?"