Immediately after the students crossed the bridge the barrier became whole once again, the thousands of pieces drifted back towards the sky and knit themselves together again effectively sealing themselves inside.
"Huh" Noruas acknowledged "weak but resilient". The road to the wall was short but made of a flat sheet of marble that despite its suspected age showed no signs of weathering; along either side were also several marble statues of fierce vampiric figures from various timelines, all snarling down onto any who crossed their path. In the black of night the overall effect was rather intimidating and Tsukune felt his shoulders his left hand and his left and right arm become simultaneously gripped by the fearful embrace of his friends. Noruas was busy probing the wall, moving his hands along marble surface the looking for an imperfection or secret entrance but after a minute or two he took a step back to admire the stonework "Amazing" he marveled "A level of craftsmanship the like I have never seen, flawless, perfect almost to the point that I'd think it was also an illusion."
"Maybe we should bash your head against it to see if it's real, seems like a fair trade off considering you tossed Tsukune into the canyon to test your theory" Mizore responded as usual keeping her icy demeanor.
"Oh come on" Noruas sighed "that was like nine minutes ago, let it goooooo."
"Hey!" Kurumu had detached herself from Tsukune and was glaring at Noruas "What is that?" she said angrily pointing at the wide dusty path off to the side of and leading up to the wall, barely noticeable in the dark. Noruas looked at the path and then back at her
"That, my somewhat dimwitted succubus, is a road. We actually drove on one before we started walking." He said as if addressing a small child and smiling, to say the least the students were less than pleased, a young female Enenra yelled from the back
"You mean we could have drove all the way here?" Noruas pinched the bridge of his nose feigning exasperation
"You're all a bit a slow aren't you? Yes we could have been driven the entire way, but why drive when you can walk, it builds character"
"Builds character?" Kurumu shrieked "It destroyed my feet!" Of course than the whole group began to argue and yell at Noruas to which he retaliated with a smart ass remark blow for blow. No one however noticed a lone member of the group break off to examine the statues, Moka was never really one for fighting and she and inner Moka were intensely curious about the figures that represented their ancestral heritage. One statue in particular stood out from the rest, it was the closest to the wall and depicted a female vampire with long hair to her waist holding a naginata planted in the pedestal she was standing on in a proud stance. Her armor was reminiscent of both feudal Japan and medieval Europe with an almost ridiculous amount of knife hilts protruding from various areas within easy reach. The face which was both arrogant and proud reminded Moka of inner Moka, in fact… Moka gasped
"she looks almost just like you Ura-chan!" inner Moka huffed
"There is some resemblance I suppose but she looks much to full of herself." Moka's resulting giggle by her inner self's suddenly defensive attitude quickly turned into a strangled cry when the statue began to move. It gripped the naginata in both of its hands and raised it slightly preparing for a horizontal sweep, the blade tip glistening in the moonlight. Despite the inner Moka yelling at her to flee Moka remained still, held in place by awe and fear, the statue brought the weapon down in a low arc putting Moka's head in the trajectory. Moka had just enough time to draw a ragged breath and close her eye's before the blade completed its path but it never made it that far. There was the explosive sound of metal on metal right next to Moka's left ear and when she opened her eye's she saw that the naginata had stopped just short of her head, so close that a small lock of hair had been cut away. A black mace had placed itself in its path about halfway up the handle being held in place by Noruas in his armor, he met the woman's eye's and shook his head. The statue was of course not a statue but a vampire; she snarled at Noruas and spun out of his reach and landing to face the group. Her eyes darted from one target to the next before she decided to use her naginata as a pole-vault to launch herself at the Enenra, the Enenra screamed and turned into smoke, dissipating before the vampire could hit her. The naginata impacted on the marble causing a small explosion striking the group with rocks and dust and leaving a large crater like hole. She retrieved her weapon with a jerk then returned to a fighting stance regarding the students with a scowl, a loud clang made her whip her head around and brought her gaze upon Noruas who had stomped to get her attention and was now motioning her towards him with two fingers oddly silent. The vampire dashed at him the blade of her naginata creating sparks as it dragged across the ground. In the meantime the students had huddled up against the wall and watched the fight, horrified,
"He… he saved me" Moka said somewhat shaken by her brush with death
"There's no way he did it out of the kindness of his heart" Mizore said with cold certainty "There must be something in it for him"
"Um… guy's?" Mizore and Moka turned to see the whole group staring up at the wall and when they followed their gaze they saw what had caught their attention. Well over a hundred silver haired figures had gathered on the wall and were watching the fight murmuring among themselves, seemingly unaware of the group of students. They were obviously vampires due to their extreme beauty and fluid grace in whatever small movement they made but their clothing ranged from casually human to the most eccentric of costumes. The sounds of battle brought the groups attentions back to the fight were Noruas was for lack of a better term, getting his ass handed to him. The vampire's movements were a complement to her race, her attacks flowing from one form to the next and deftly turning aside her opponent's clumsy blows as often as she bodily weaved under or around them. Noruas however was her contrast; his blows were mostly of the vertical or horizontal manner, his form revolving around the whole body moving one body part resulting in a ridiculous wind up delay for each attack. At least by vampire standards he was slow and lumbering but to Tsukune they were both a blur, Noruas was just a more easy blur to follow. Despite the varying degrees of skill neither opponent was gaining any ground, Noruas was proving to be unable to get past his opponents guard, while the vampire was able to land many blows against Noruas all of them skittered off of his plates in a rain of sparks that lit the night. The vampire it seemed was not willing to put up with the stalemate any longer, she leapt high into the air intending to end the competition with a single overhead strike. Noruas prepared his block, placing himself on his one knee, granting a stable position and he held his mace by either end in a horizontal stance, waiting to catch the brunt of the attack. His preparations proved ineffectual as she split his mace in two and planted the blade into the top of his head. She continued to hold the position until his arms fell loose at his sides and his mace returned to being a staff and clattered to the ground in separate pieces, scattered applause could be heard on the wall and even within the group from youkai academy. The vampire let out a short sigh of relief and tried to free her weapon from her enemy's skull but found that it was stuck fast, a sudden pain in her side brought her out of her attempts. She looked down and saw a black gauntleted fist with a blade protruding from its wrist and said blade up to its hilt in her flesh, her armor proven useless. A voice rang hollow from inside the black armor
"That was my favorite jacket" With that the armor began to split down the middle starting from where the naginata was embedded and moving down to his torso until finally it fell from him, turning back into the black hoodie he was always seen with and revealing Noruas in his true form. The vampire staggered back in surprise pulling the knife from her body even as the wound closed. Noruas stood holding the naginata that had supposedly ended his life but in truth had not caused him any real harm. His usual black hair was now a bright orange and red still laying flat on his head, but without his jacket he looked entirely different. In reality he was slender with no real muscle to speak of, that coupled with his six foot stature made him look like a gangly fourteeen year-old. A leathery many thonged whip lay coiled from his left shoulder to his right hip and he wore the hilt of a sword through a loop on his jeans. His skin was flawless without blemishes besides a single bite mark like scar that looked so recent that it was still red and two long bruises on his back. His usually scarred milky white eyes were replaced by two orbs of fire with the vertical pupils of a predator. When he smiled at the startled looks he was receiving his mouth stretched nearly from ear to ear revealing a row of pointed, obsidian black teeth, that looked out of place next to his elfin features and now prominently pointed ears. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his legs "It's been a while since I've fought out of my armor, should be entertaining" The female vampire unexpectedly screeched
"Demon!" and drew two long knives from both of her elbow guards while the vampires on the wall began to yell in outrage and shock. A single male vampire in similar armor to the female detached from the crowd and prepared to jump down onto the opposite side, the female vampire caught the movement and yelled at him "Damn you Jared! You promised!" He turned and smiled sympathetically
"Sorry Beatrice, but Balrogs were never mentioned in our agreement" he jumped over the side of the wall and out of sight. The now newly dubbed Beatrice screamed in frustration,
"So Beatrice is it?" Noruas said smugly she turned snarling towards Noruas "Beatrice Arnauld? Selene's daughter? Ha! You certainly didn't inherit her strength; I barely felt that last one." he said casting aside the Naginata. She hissed and charged but stopped short when he uncoiled the whip from his body and snapped it against the ground causing it to burst into flame, the multiple thongs crackling against the ground. Noruas went on the offensive whirling the whip around again and again forcing Beatrice to dance away from its fiery sting and sustaining multiple burns across her forearms and face. "Now to get inside your head, hmmm…" Noruas said while still forcing her away with the whip "Well since you're a vampire and a female vampire at that I think It would be safe to assume you're a feminist, so let's start with that." The whip finally caught her two knifes and they were yanked from her hands and landed in his and with a solid CLANK he bit the blade ends off both of them and dropped the hilts. He closed his eye's chewing thoughtfully until finally he swallowed and his eyes flew open in triumph "I've got one!" Beatrice pulled two more knifes from her shoulder plates and they both resumed their attack "A man runs over his wife with the car whose fault is it?" Noruas asked suddenly. Beatrice paid no attention, still trying to catch the end of the whip "Oh come on at least give it a try." Noruas pouted. Beatrice grunted with effort as she avoided his but she sighed and said extremely irritated
"I don't know but you're probably going to say it's the woman's fault for some reason." Noruas giggled gleefully, delighted that someone had taken up his verbal bait
"Not at all, it's definitely the mans fault, he shouldn't have been driving in the kitchen" This caused her to pause for a second insulted and angered which also caused her to receive a particularly nasty burn across the cheek. A vampire on the wall shouted "Don't let him know he's getting to you! Help's on the way!" Noruas was giggling madly now "it's much too late for that now! When does a woman have more than one brain cell?" Beatrice tried to ignore him but she was getting noticeably more aggressive and reckless in her attacks. "When she's pregnant!" Noruas said howling with laughter. Both his mental and physical assault continued until Beatrice was practically throwing herself at him in abandon causing more wounds than she could heal. "How many men does it take to open a beer? None, it should be open when she brings it to him. A man is sitting and watching TV, his wife comes out of the kitchen and starts yelling at him. What did the man do wrong? He made the chain too long." At this point most of the female members of the crowd were getting a bit red in the face and hissing curses and dark threats towards Noruas while cheering on Beatrice, however some of the males, despite themselves, couldn't help but chuckle. Noruas halted his assault and gave a grand bow towards the students and the spectators on the wall while Beatrice was catching her breath but a loud rumbling noise above him drew his attention to the sky. Dark clouds had begun to gather within the barrier, bolts of lightning streaked across the sky and rain dropped from the clouds in big fat drops. Noruas's smile faltered as he watched the drops touch his skin, sizzle than evaporate in clouds of steam from the heat of his body, eventually all that could be seen of Noruas was a cloud of steam. He whirled his whip in an arc, clearing the air but he was breathing heavily as if the rain was sapping his strength. Beatrice chose this moment to attack, lunging at Noruas who tried to fend her off with a flick of his whip but she caught the thongs wincing from the heat
"Ha! Got you now!" she said triumphantly.
"No" Noruas panted "Got you" The thongs of the whips turned into little fiery snakes, biting into her hand and wrist refusing to let go. Noruas began to spin entwining both Beatrice and him together front to back with Noruas at the back. Beatrice used her free hand to stab blindly at Noruas but to no avail as the knife became notched and useless against his skin, she continued to pull knife after knife from her armor and stabbing at him trying to find a weak spot but Noruas paid no attention. With his teeth he stripped her shoulder of all armor revealing the pale flesh beneath; Beatrice felt his hot breath on her bare skin and fearing the worst stabbed faster but Noruas seemed not to treasure such carnal delights, at least not the ones she was thinking of. He ran his hand across her skin "Ah, the other white meat" then with a sound like biting into an apple, he opened his mouth wide and bit into her shoulder. She screamed in agony as he pulled away with his prize, meeting little resistance from the tendons and muscle, he tilted his head back and let the meat slide down his throat before biting down again and again and again. With each bite Beatrice's screams became louder and her attacks became slowly weaker as Noruas ate her alive, but either by happy chance or fate, her last knife stabbed into one of his bruises and while it did not penetrate the skin it obviously caused great pain. Noruas raised his head to the sky and yelled in pain letting Beatrice go and retreating backwards with his whip, rubbing his shoulder blade tenderly. Beatrice was much worse off, her shoulder was completely decimated and her arm barely held on by a thread while her body tried feebly to reattach it, her blood making crimson flowers on the wet ground. Noruas groaned then straightened up and smiled at Beatrice coiling the now extinguished whip back around his body "Wow, your mother went so far as to far as to tamper with the barrier to buy her time to save you." He said smugly indicating the sky "She must really baby you" Beatrice chuckled weakly in the face of her death if not from Noruas than from blood loss. Noruas shrugged "doesn't matter now" he put his hand on his sword hilt and began to approach Beatrice but a woman jumped from the wall and landed right in front of him Noruas looked shocked for a second but regained his composure giving her his signature smile. "Ah, Selene it's been a whi" The woman struck out with her fist catching Noruas straight on the jaw knocking it back through the barrier into the forest. Noruas stood for a few seconds his eye's widening, his tongue lolling. He gurgled weakly clutching at the empty air that was his jaw, the woman winded up and kicked him in the stomach raising him three feet of the ground with a sound like popping balloons. The woman stood over his convulsing retching body, crimson eye's glowing
"Shut up"
Authors note:
First of all sorry if Tsukune and CO didn't get much screen time in this one, I wanted to get a few things out of the way first, Noruas being the main one and the introduction of Selene Beatrice and Jared three very important characters being the secondary objective. I promise the next chapter will give lots of screen time to the gang as Noruas will be… otherwise engaged. Thanks for reading and reviewing I couldn't have continued without you guys and please tell me if you spot any mistakes.
