Chapter 3: Training
Yuffie, Roxas, and Namine were all in Yuffie's room at the clan's headquarters. Roxas looked around the empty, cave-like room.
"Why are we here?"
Yuffie looked around. "This is the room I'm supposed to live in, but I want to be as far away from Xemnas as possible, so I stay on the surface in a normal house. I use this room for training. The others will be here later."
"What exactly is in this training?"
"First, you need to find your blood weapon."
"Blood weapon?"
"A weapon that is created by your blood." Yuffie ran one of her claw-like nails down her left arm causing a decent amount of blood to come out. The blood floated in the air before splitting in half and forming two small handles. On both ends of each handle, a large, curved blade formed. Yuffie spun the weapons like windmills around her before letting her arms fall to her sides, still holding the weapons loosely.
"How the hell did you do that?"
"Simple, it just happens. It's a natural vampire defense system. When blood is spilled, the weapons form. This is because we can mostly assume that there is a threat to your life if you're wounded heavily enough to draw so much blood."
"So, every time you bleed heavily, those weapons appear whether you need them or not?"
"Exactly."
"And all you have to do to get them is bleed?"
"Yes. I thought I just explained that."
Roxas took his own nail and ran it down his arm drawing blood just as Yuffie had before. He watched in fascination as the blood split in two forming two key-like weapons. One was black (Oblivion) while the other was silver with touches of red (Bond of Flames I'm too lazy to be more descriptive than that). He looked down at the two weapons before staring questioningly at Yuffie. "Why do they look like keys?"
"Honestly, I have no idea. The blood weapons form to whatever shape best suits you. Your type of weapon is called a 'keyblade'. They're pretty powerful for the most part, but it really depends on the user. The weapons don't discriminate with purebloods or servants or half-bloods. You are a servant and have two powerful keyblades. Riku is a pureblood and has only one weaker keyblade. Sora is also a servant and has one stronger keyblade. The keyblades are the only weapons that you can use to judge the vampire's power. The rest of the weapons can look powerful while the vampire is weak or vice versa. With yours, the stronger the keyblades, the stronger the wielder."
"Sora is the strongest of us three than, right?"
"No, you have two keyblades. The added strength of the two is stronger than Sora's one keyblade. You're the strongest between Riku, Sora, and you while Riku is the weakest."
"Strange."
"I could beat all three of you in a fight though. Don't take it personally. I'm a descendant of the first vampire which is the only reason I'm stronger. Descendants are the only exception to the fact that lineage doesn't affect your potential power. All descendants of the first vampire are the strongest of their generations. Those turned by these descendants also tend to be stronger than other servants."
"Okay then. How do I fight with these?"
"Follow your instincts. You'll subconsciously know how to use them. For practice, you'll fight Namine since you wouldn't stand a chance against me the way you are now."
Namine sliced her arm releasing the blood which turned into what looked like a long piece of bamboo.
"…how will you fight with that?"
Yuffie disappeared from the room. Namine grabbed the weapon with both hands and looked at Roxas. "You'll see."
Roxas ran toward Namine and swung his keyblades at her several times, but all attacks were blocked by the stick. She then used the weapon to pole vault over Roxas and strike him from behind with electricity running up the length of the weapon. (I felt like giving Namine a weapon that wasn't associated with art which is what most fanfictions do. I don't like it. It's better to come up with something more original… like electric bamboo!)
Roxas grunted. "Damn… I have to be more careful."
"Yeah, you should!" Namine thrust the tip of her weapon into Roxas' back right between his shoulder blades and sent the electricity through it again causing Roxas to pass out from the shock. Namine knelt down and poked his shoulder for a few minutes before giving up and walking to the other side of the room to sit down.
Roxas woke up about a half hour later. He looked around in a panic before he remembered what happened. "I really should have been more focused."
Namine stood and leaned against the wall. "You can say that again. You lost pretty pathetically. Yuffie will be disappointed. Whether you realize it or not, you will subconsciously not wish for your master to be disappointed in you. It's one of those servant instincts. All servants want their masters to be happy no matter how badly said masters treat them."
Roxas sighed. "Great. More feelings I can't control. I'm just going to have to get used to it aren't I?"
"Yes. Now, let's get back to training."
A few hours later, Roxas was finally beginning to land blows on Namine. She still beat him every time though. "Why is this so difficult?!"
"You need to stop thinking about it and just follow your instincts."
"That doesn't make sense! How can I win a fight without thinking?!"
"Watch." Namine put on earplugs and closed her eyes before rushing towards Roxas with her weapon. In a matter of seconds, Roxas was on the ground with Namine's weapon threatening to stab his stomach.
"How did you do that?"
"Instincts. Even if you can't see the target, your instincts will automatically target any threat near you."
Namine removed both handicaps before taking on a fighting stance. Roxas also prepared to fight and cleared his mind. He just focused on Namine. "I hope this works."
About a minute later, Namine was pinned to the all by Oblivion while her weapon was being blocked by Bond of Flames. Roxas smirked before releasing her.
"Congratulations. Was that your first win?" The two turned to see Yuffie standing on the other side of the room in front of her other ten servants.
Roxas smiled nervously. "Yeah."
Yuffie laughed. "Namine, do you think he can become strong enough in time?"
Namine nodded. "If he trains every day, he should be skilled enough to fight Xemnas with the others in three weeks."
Yuffie looked at Roxas and smiled. "That's great. Speaking of which, you guys might want to calm yourselves, Xemnas is coming."
The moment she finished her sentence, Xemnas appeared in the room right in front of Yuffie. "How is the training coming? It seems you're being a bit cautious since you're training a new servant so severely. What's the rush?"
"Xemnas, you know as well as I do that the attack from that old slayer was a threat… a sort of warning. There will be an attack from the slayers soon. Everyone has to be prepared. With me, Cid, and Aerith all in this clan, they're likely to send their best forces. We can't be too careful."
"I thought you wanted peace with the slayers."
"I do, but they're not likely to suddenly work with us especially while you're in control."
"What does that mean?"
"That means that we wouldn't have to worry about slayers if my mother was still alive and in charge of the clan."
"Your mother would still be alive if it weren't for the slayers."
"That was an accident and you know it! They didn't want to kill her. She got in the way of their attack and died. There was nothing anyone on either side could do to protect her from the strike."
"You forget the reason why she blocked the attack."
"That vampire was from a different clan and therefore wasn't under the contract we had with the slayers. He killed many innocent people. It was his own fault he was attacked and my mother's fault that she interfered."
"And why did she interfere?"
"The vampire had changed his ways, and she forgave him for his past. They had become friends."
"And the slayers still attacked him."
"They didn't know he had changed his ways. They just knew he was a vampire who killed innocents. There was no way for them to know of his change or his friendship with my mother."
"Friendship you say?"
"You would get angry if I said affair."
As expected, Xemnas' eyes narrowed at Yuffie, and she glared back.
"It's you own fault she wanted to leave you for him, Xemnas. You changed as well, but you got worse instead of better. You became heartless and power hungry. You have no one to blame but yourself for the affair."
Xemnas growled before disappearing. Yuffie glared at the spot he previously stood while her servants stared at her wide-eyed. She had never told any of them about the entire story of her mother's death and the events leading to it. They had never asked since it was obviously a delicate subject.
Yuffie turned to face her servants before disappearing. The twelve vampires were lost and weren't sure what to do. Namine walked across the room to the others.
"Yuffie wanted us to train, so pair up and spar. I'll stay with Roxas. Start, now."
Within seconds, all the vampires were in pairs with their weapons ready preparing for battle.
Axel spun his flaming chakrams as he watched Demyx summon his sitar to begin forming his water anticipating the impending attack.
Larxene pulled out her daggers and aimed them at Marluxia as he made a swipe at the air with his scythe.
Xaldin and Xigbar examined each other carefully, meanwhile preparing for their attacks. Neither was good at defense, so it would be a battle of stamina and accuracy.
Vexen made sure he was prepared to use his magic attacks while Zexion flipped through the pages of his book trying to find the best way to attack his opponent.
Lexaeus had a weapon similar to a giant ax in his hand while Luxord was shuffling cards.
Roxas watched them all with fascination at their apparent skill level. Before he could get a chance to watch them fight, Namine made a quick swipe at him with her pole which he was barely able to dodge. He immediately returned to his fighting stance and faced his opponent.
Ten minutes later, each pair had finished round one. The winners were: Roxas, Axel, Xigbar, Zexion, and Luxord. After they had all finished the tenth round, they tallied up the scores.
Axel- 6/10Demyx- 4/10
Larxene- 3/10Marluxia- 7/10
Xaldin- 1/10Xigbar- 9/10
Vexen- 0/10Zexion- 10/10
Lexaeus- 4/10Luxord- 6/10
Roxas- 8/10Namine- 2/10
Once the scores were decided, Namine transported them back to Yuffie's house to eat lunch. (One of those nice Zelda based whistling-melodies Nocturne of Shadow)
There was no sign of Yuffie at the house, so her servants assumed she went out to eat or relax and take her mind off of… depressing things.
Yuffie sat on the top of a hill just outside of Spring Valley. Cloud and Leon were sitting in trees nearby as they watched the heiress of the most powerful vampire clan in the world, descendant of the first vampire, hang her head in deep sadness. They were sure she was thinking about her mother's death. It was the only incident that ever caused Yuffie to become depressed.
The two slayers also mourned for the death of the first vampire to ever approach slayers with good intentions, the writer of the first vampire-slayer treaty in the world leading the slayers to hope for many more treaties with similar terms of compromise.
The treaty had brought hope to all mankind who knew of the existence of vampires and the treaty. It brought hope that both species might be able to actually live in the same world without killing each other off.
The death of its creator had set off a chain of events leading them to the situation they were in at the moment: trying to prevent an all out war between the slayers and the most powerful vampire clan on earth by helping the heir to the clan overthrow the current leader.
They had gotten themselves involved in a difficult spot. Cloud and Leon both knew it was necessary for future peace though. As much as they were against working with vampires even though they didn't hate the species altogether, both knew it was their only chance at bringing back the treaty and with it the hopes of mankind.
Things were getting far too complex with the relationship between the two species for either to be comfortable with their positions. Yuffie knew all this as well, and the pressure was building up.
The fates of all vampires and slayers as well as normal humans relied on their small army of twenty-three fighters, with most of them being teenagers. She hoped they were ready for the upcoming battle. There was no room for failure.