Akatsuki strode down the corridor after Ruka, racking his mind for something useful to say. Hanabusa and Takuma followed Akatsuki from behind, hearts pounding. The air was almost quivering with tension.
"Ruka, wait, please!"
"Wait? For what? To tell me more about how your parents sent those hunters to murder mine?!" Ruka exploded, red-faced with fury.
"How long have you been listening outside?"
"Long enough to hear you confess that your parents were the ones responsible for my parents' death, you idiot! All this while, you knew this?! How could you betray me like that?!" Ruka roared.
"You haven't heard the full story, then. Ruka, please, just let me explain…"
Ruka slapped Akatsuki across the face, hard. A red mark immediately sprung up across his suddenly pale skin. Behind, Takuma and Hanabusa gasped with shock, their mouths hanging open. It was the first time either of them had seen Ruka in a temper.
Slowly, all expression bled away from Akatsuki's face. He made no attempt to strike back or even cover the scarlet mark on his visage. He simply stood there like a statue, cold and still.
"You don't deserve to be my guard or friend any longer!" Ruka hissed. "I curse the day I accepted your offer and let myself become a victim of this accursed feud, and I curse the day I even met you! Leave me alone! Don't bother running after me with your damned explanations!" With that, Ruka flipped round and ran off, leaving Akatsuki where he was.
"Now that was unexpected," Hanabusa breathed, trying to say something to relieve the tension.
Akatsuki rounded on him furiously, arm raised, and his cousin hastily stepped back, seeing the naked fury and hurt in Akatsuki's eyes. Trying to take control, Takuma strode forward at once, pushing Hanabusa back and grabbing Akatsuki's wrist.
"Calm down, both of you," he said firmly. "Hanabusa, kindly keep your mouth shut for a while, won't you?"
"S-sorry, Akatsuki," Hanabusa stammered, pale with shock.
Akatsuki glowered at him for a moment, before wrenching his wrist away from Takuma's hand, turning his back on them. In a strange, hollow voice, he muttered, "I should have told Ruka a long time ago. At least she wouldn't have believed herself to be betrayed by me."
"You're holding back something, Akatsuki," Takuma observed.
Akatsuki sighed miserably, smacking his forehead with his hand. "We'll speak outside in the garden. I'm not going to blabber everything out here where anyone passing can hear us. Come on, you two. No-one will be out there at this time of the day."
Outside, the trio positioned themselves behind a broad, tall tree, Takuma and Hanabusa leaning against it. Akatsuki would not keep still, but kept pacing back and forth, as though he had lost his mind.
"You were going to tell us something," Takuma said.
"It was not coincidence that I was there to save Ruka from the hunters, all those years ago."
"It was not?" Takuma exclaimed.
"It was not?" Hanabusa echoed. "You mean, you planned to be there?"
"Mmm. Even as a child, I understood a little of the conflict between the Kain, Shiga and Souen clans. I was privy to certain secrets and information now and then without my seniors knowing about it. I didn't quite understand then how ugly and deep the conflict was, but I understood enough to know innocent blood had been shed numerous times." Akatsuki paused to wipe his face, before continuing.
"After Ruka's parents murdered Akemi's parents, I secretly discovered that the Kains and Shigas were plotting a terrible and bloody revenge on the Souens. Their first step was to hunt down Ruka's parents and exterminate their whole family, before launching another massacre on the Souen clan. It was fortunate many of the Souens lived in hiding, not wanting to be involved in anymore bloodshed. Somehow, my parents were able to find out exactly where and when Ruka and her parents would be on the day they were hunted."
"How?" Takuma asked.
Akatsuki ignored the question. "I know that my parents contacted the hunters and gave them the necessary information to hunt down Ruka's family. When I discovered this, I immediately ran out alone to try and stop them. I was young, but I wanted nothing more than for the feud to end. But I was too late. By the time I had got there, Ruka's parents were both dead. Ruka was the only one I managed to save that terrible day." Akatsuki's deep voice shrunk to a whisper.
"That was most…heroic," Hanabusa commented. "And not to mention, most impulsive. Why didn't you take someone with you?"
"Who?" Akatsuki demanded coldly. "You think anyone in my family would have actually tried to save the ones who had murdered Hitoshi-sama and Kazuko-sama? I know what I did might have been foolish, but what else was I supposed to do? I had found out that a young, innocent child, namely Ruka, was to be murdered for her parents' crime alone with them, whether or not she was involved. You'd rather I had sat back and allowed it to happen?"
"No, no," Hanabusa hastily replied. "Not at all. But why didn't you tell Ruka? At least she would have understood you tried to do something noble for her and her family."
Akatsuki gave a bark of bitter laughter. "That was precisely what I wanted to tell Ruka just now."
"Then we'll tell her for you," Takuma offered.
"No!" Akatsuki snapped sharply. "No-one's telling her that. She'll only think I'm some weak fool and coward trying to win back her favor by getting my friends to tell her things. If she's to know, I'll tell her myself. But that would be impossible at this point."
"Not if you seek her out determinedly."
"I've already broken her heart; I'm not going to show my face to her again. You saw how she responded to me. She hates me more than anything else now."
Takuma shrewdly changed the subject smoothly. "What you just told us does leave us with another question. How could your parents have known so precisely where and when Ruka's family would be out?" he enquired, repeating the question that Akatsuki had ignored earlier.
"Spies, of course. What else? The real question is, who is the spy? I'm more than sure it's the same spy who's been spying on me and Ruka all this while."
"Any suspects?" Hanabusa pressed.
"I'm not mentioning names yet," Akatsuki replied heavily. "Too many innocents have been dragged into something beyond their understanding. I will not suspect nor accuse anyone yet until we have definite proof. I'll be conducting plenty of research, of course."
"Wise enough decision," Takuma said, with a nod. "Akatsuki, I'm sorry for all of this. I never realized myself how deep and ugly things have been. If only someone was bold enough to so something sufficiently drastic to end this evil feud. How can we talk about forming peace between human and vampires when even we vampires are facing so much bloodshed and conflict amongst ourselves? It's a sheer embarrassment to us."
"I'll do it," Akatsuki replied.
"What?"
"I said I'll do it," Akatsuki replied, more loudly. "If no-one's going to take the first step towards peace, then I will. I am not going to stand back and let more innocents perish. No matter what it takes, I'm finding a way to bring an end to this nonsense once and for all."
"And Ruka?"
"I'll arrange with Seiren to guard her, and find someone else to guard Kaname-sama in her place. Now, I think we've had more than enough discussions about this topic for today. I'll speak to Seiren later about Ruka. Hanabusa, Ichijou-sama, thank you for all your help."
Takuma nodded. "No problem, Akatsuki. Now, let's get out of this place."
From behind another tree, Ruka listened to everything with an open mouth, a hand pressed to her chest. Akatsuki had known she and her family were due to be murdered that horrific day. It was not coincidence he had been there to save her. He had known. And he had come rushing to save them alone, despite knowing what her parents had done to Akemi's.
Oh, this was becoming unbearable! Everything that Ruka had become so familiar with was breaking, shattering to pieces like glass. Akatsuki was not her enemy; he never had been. He had simply tried to protect her from a feud of which she knew nothing about. Even his parents were not her enemies. Their only true enemy was the bloody, wicked feud that had claimed so many lives. Had she bothered to listen to Akatsuki earlier, when he had tried to explain something, she might have understood and known about it before leaping to conclusions.
But more shocking was the revelation that her own mother and father had murdered their fellow vampires. So loving, so kind, so protective…could they really have murdered Hitoshi and Kazuko? Their names were not unknown even to Ruka. Their charity and kindness were known to the entire human and vampire world. What could have possessed her parents to murder them? Akatsuki had not been lying; Ruka knew that for a fact. Just before her parents had died, Ruka had heard the hunters saying, loud and clear, This is the revenge of the Kain and Shiga families for the murder of Hitoshi-sama and Kazuko-sama at your hands! It hadn't made sense to Ruka at that time, of course. Now it did.
A few drops of cold, clear liquid wet her face. It was not rain; the sky was clear and cloudless. Was she crying? Detachedly, she raised a hand to her cheek and wiped the drops away, tasting salt in them as another stream of liquid descended, making contact with her lips.
Ruka wept. She wept as she had never wept before, huge, convulsive sobs that racked her entire frame and soaked her clothes until they looked as if they had been flung into a pond. She curled her knees up to herself and buried her face in her hands, and still she wept. So many tears were shed until she was at last obliged to stop, for there were no more left to shed. She could not even breathe; her nose was completely clogged up and her heaving chest was painful and constricted. If she was bound to die from suffocation, she couldn't have cared less. She had hurt Akatsuki beyond measure, and in doing so, she had hurt herself without even realizing it.
But there were still reasons to live, cruelly. Akatsuki had protected her from something she was unaware of, a murderous and evil something that had destroyed so many lives and so much happiness and peace. He was never the one she should have hated, as she had initially thought, and neither were his parents. Only the feud was to truly be hated. As long as it existed, she must live on, to play her part. Akatsuki would not be able to bring an end to it alone. No, she, Ruka Souen, would do whatever she could to break the cycle of hatred once and for all. Then maybe she could be at peace with herself, knowing she had done something for someone else aside from her selfish, cruel self. If Akatsuki could still not forgive her for her terrible words after that, she would let it be so. She did not deserve his love or forgiveness, after what she had said.
"Akatsuki?" Ruka rose to her feet, unsteadily. Somehow, in this moment of terrible grief and brokenness, she still believed foolishly he might be around to comfort her, as he had done so many times, though this time, her pain was of her own doing. "Akatsuki, can you hear me?"
There was no reply, save for the rustling of the trees and bushes in the mild breeze that suddenly danced across the gardens.
"Akatsuki, I'm sorry!!!" Ruka screamed at the top of her lungs, collapsing to her knees. "Forgive me!!!" Burdened with unbearable misery, exhaustion and self-loathing, Ruka's head hit the ground, and she willingly surrendered to the darkness.
Yeah, I know. This chapter came out to be much longer than I thought. Sorry if it's boring, I just needed to mention certain things here before getting on to the next chapter. I'll try and type it out ASAP. Please continue reviewing, dear readers. Thank you!
Good news, I've got less than 5 chapters to type!!! Story's nearing the end now! Yeah! Please be patient; I'm typing as fast as I can manage.
In relation to how fast I've been updating as several people have noted, no, I don't type out all the chapters before I put them up. I'm really just typing them out as I go along. Since I have nothing else to do for the moment, I usually try to type 2-3 chapters a day. Tee hee! Now you know why all the chapters are so unpolished!