Chapter 10
I snuck out to the chapel once again for alone time for myself, for peace. I seated myself in my new favourite spot. The window seat but obviously it was only a matter of time before my relaxation was shattered by a voice downstairs from the entry way.
I heard silent steps creak the stairs. I didn't have to look to see who it was.
"Go away." I spat. "Leave me alone for once, please."
But as always he was a selfish, non-listening jerk.
His shadow fell over me and I realized that he was dressed differently when I had lasted seen him, he was now in his shinigami uniform, zanpakutou at his side. No longer disguised as a regular warm blooded human. When my eyes finally found his…or should I say her face. I freaked.
"Yumi-chan?" My voice squeaked. She gave me her old sheepish smile.
Sakamoto, Yumi was leaning over me, her face barely a few inches from mine and then for some odd reason she sniffed me.
"It really is you." She whispered her voice so low I thought she might burst out in tears. Then the next thing she said totally had me glued to the window seat.
"Ryuu has been looking for you."
This time I glared at her when her innocent smile wiped off her face and her smirk revealed her pearl white viper fangs. The last time I remembered she was just a regular warm-blooded shinigami the next she was killed by Shiku-kun and now apparently he had changed her.
"Tell Ryuu I do not want to see him," I snapped at her. This time her angelic side completely washed away.
"Tell Ryuu yourself- I am not your messenger girl. No one orders me around."
"Except Ryuu." I countered.
Yumi laughed lightly then smiled, but her smile was displayed as if she wanted to destroy. I wanted to knock every tooth out of that smile.
"You're laughing?" I asked. "He murdered you, and you laugh about it?"
She laughed again in response. "Did you ever bother to ask anyone what happened to my body after? He already changed me before we acted my death scene in the cell months ago. He saved me."
It was only then I realized that she was in love with him. Shiki Ryuu out of all dead creatures! Ew. At the same time I saw that she held a kunai in her left hand. The silver was clean, sharp and deadly like the way her eyes bored into mine. I didn't even have to think of what to do next because I knew that she was going to drag me out of here even if I rejected, she'd bring me to Ryuu by force.
I hit her. I had been taught not to fight recklessly unless I was in real danger but in that minute I was simply just pissed off. I hit her hard enough to send her stumbling back with the knife flying out of her hand. Her head even snapped to the side.
She straightened with no problems, the last of her humour gone from her face.
"Careful, Hinamori." Her voice was icy, enough to send shivers down my spine, but I was too angry to notice.
"You let him use you like a puppet."
My voice shook with rage, and my hands clenched and unclenched.
"So what?" she asked quietly. Her voice had gone darker, colder and she was standing as still as stone. I could feel her irritation engulfing me. My eyes flicked to the knife between us.
"Try it." She said as if she read my mind. "Kill me."
I stepped forward and knelt slowly to pick up the kunai never taking my eyes off her, she who was watching with icy stillness with a faintly mocking expression and did nothing.
"Well Hinamori?" she prompted. "I haven't got all day, now do it. I am standing here defenceless. Kill me."
I just stood there even when she smiled I didn't move an inch.
"You can't" she finally said when I still didn't move. You can't kill me because you still think like a warm blood. Well Hinamori it's time you learned that this isn't how our world works."
She was in front of me in an instant with one hand against my throat and the other knocking the knife away. She frowned.
"Ryuu talks as if you're so strong but you're just as weak as a warm blood."
I never leaned any real hand to hand combat skills. But in nature your instincts for survival was always there, if you didn't adopt to your senses your as dead as a door nail. I adapted.
Use my legs I kicked her back as I wrenched my wrist from Yumi's grip. My wrist was broken but I felt no pain, the vampire's tolerance for pain is high because we heal quickly. Even though I didn't feel pain my head spun and I didn't see her next attack that sent me flying back against the wall and her leg shot out pinning me to the dusty wooden balcony. Before that happened though I kicked her knee cap with all my strength and with a loud snap it was broken.
She fell to the ground hissing in pain and anger. I started to push myself up but a surprise pain shot up through my arm and back. Even wounded she was able to still pin me with a hand to my throat. She had retrieved the knife.
"Remember this old friend…I think you are weak. If you challenge me again, you will lose."
She pierced the knife into my left shoulder. I gaped. It burned like fire and hurt more than anything I ever felt. Her blade was tainted with something I couldn't recognize. My head was pounding.
Yumi disappeared as I lay on the ground, riding out the pain. But once it had subsided from the blinding simply unbearable, I just laid there. The bleeding had stopped and the wound had closed leaving a scar. My skin was already so pale that the scar showed only as a faint pearl-coloured mark but I knew where it was and anyone could easily see it.
It was then that I sensed his aura in the room but I cannot see him, and he has not spoken. Come out, Ryuu. I beckoned him. Stop hiding, you coward.
I hear his laughing, taunting voice in my mind; the one I have come to hate with everything I've got and all my soul. He only says for unspoken words.
You shall die now.
Even as he laughs I can feel myself growing tired from pain, or maybe it's just the thoughts that now flood through my head. The thoughts of my friends…family…and Hitsugaya. Love is the strongest emotion one can feel even thought hate is powerful, it can not hurt yet all other emotions human's value are the only emotions that can bring pain. I don't understand why I can no longer feel myself or my senses as I find myself oh so tired.
I am focused only on thoughts, on those I cherish, and hear no one approach me. However I feel a brush of air against my face, but I see no one. Whoever is there I can not see or sense them. I can only feel the coldness of a blade against my neck. Then all I feel is moisture, someone has cut me.
I turned my head to see a bloody message on the floorboards beside me. You are either the predator or prey. No one deserves to die anymore than they deserve to live. The weak die, the strong survive. There is no mistake about that.
Darkness engulfs me.
I snap awake, instantly alert.
There is someone with me. I glance around the room, checking for Ryuu. I do not see him. Everything has changed yet I still recognize this place as the abandoned chapel. I looked around the room once again. Smiling I sit up and see a woman sitting a few feet away from me.
"Are you alright, Hinamori?"
I turned toward the voice. I recognize him as no other than my destined lover. Hitsugaya. He moves to my side on the dusty bench.
"Where are they?" I asked as I shake my head to clear my mind.
"Waiting for us," My sister's voice echoes through the night even though she sits just across from me. "Out in the night."
"Did they do this to you?" Hitsugaya gestured to the scar on my left shoulder.
"No I did it to myself," I said sarcastically. "Sakamoto Yumi is strong."
"Even so she isn't the only one you are stronger than Momo," my brother-in-law's voice came from the doorway accompanied by Rangiku-san and Kira-kun.
"They have people afraid of them because they've got people thinking they're a powerful duet but although they aren't stronger than you are, if at all."
"Oh, really?" I ask, not believing him. "Because the last time I checked I just got myself nearly killed by them."
"We don't have much time." Tomoe snapped interrupting. "They're coming."
As if they already had a plan I saw those by the door vanish and then Hitsugaya took my hand and then we disappeared together into the night.