Kaname wasted no time. The others had already gathered- their presence a beacon to his senses.
As Zero continued on to oversee their last stand, Kaname stood on the lip of an enormous crater scarring the earth. After a full century of constant war, the world was a very different place.
Kaname knew they stood somewhere in old Maya, although the humans had renamed it since Kaname had last visited. Not that the surface really mattered – Kaname hadn't seen greenery in well over a decade so countries tended to look the same. Rock here, sand there, dirt and dust everywhere. The only thing that made this spot special was the cave hidden below.
He jumped, the cool air rushing past him was almost pleasant except for the ever-present taste of chemicals and yet more dust.
Landing in an easy crouch, he nodded once in greeting towards the other three vampires who were waiting on him.
"Pushing it a bit, Kaname," Charlotte d'Aragon commented. Kaname glanced up at the stars before eyeing the formerly-Spanish pureblood.
"Plenty of time left."
"It will not take us long," Freya Lancaster interrupted, eyeing the stars herself with her one remaining eye. The other was still healing.
"Even so,"Aylin Osman whispered – her throat had been almost ripped out twice and with the amount of poison on the claws that had done it she was lucky to be speaking, "There is still some way to go."
Pragmatically, they didn't bicker or try any vying for position with the old power games when Aylin kicked the boulder and other rubble of the old temple that had hidden the cave entrance from sight into so much blasted dust. Times had changed after all, and despite the fact that all four purebloods had once belonged to separate countries and would have rather chewed their own arm off than turn their back on one another, when Aylin headed into the cave they all followed.
Blurring into motion at half-speed, they raced through ancient caverns where mineral deposits glistened on the walls like a mural, ignoring the equally ancient cave art as they sped around the great underground lake and wriggled through a tiny opening at the end of another tunnel. It was just wide enough for a thin adult to squeeze into, assuming they were willing to commit themselves to crawling through a hole that rather looked like a mouth – with two rows of very sharp fangs top and bottom.
There was no way through that didn't end in blood.
On the other side Kaname straightened, ruefully eyeing the remains of his last shirt that now hung in tatters about his waste and edged in blood even as the gashes healed.
This chamber was why they'd risked retaking territory they'd retreated from years ago. If anywhere was sacred to the Vampire, then it was here.
The cavern wasn't large or deep; it was a small spherical room. The walls, floor and ceiling were rippled and coloured with the pattern of long-cold molten lava. This area had been an air bubble once in a great flow from the centre of the earth. In the heart of the room there was a small depression where a tiny spring of purest water that looked almost silver burbled for a hand span before it returned to the earth. It didn't glow – but there was a certain luminance to it, aided by the fact that the entire chamber was studded with tiny stars of the same silver that glimmered with their own speck of light.
"This place feels strange," Freya whispered, reaching out to touch one of the silver droplets. It flared at her touch and she quickly withdrew her hand, but nothing happened to her. She wriggled her fingers, faintly suspicious. "Is that mithril?"
"Yes," Aylin whispered, but she staring at the spring not Freya. "Strange."
Then the tiny deposits of silvery substance began to glow, the previously dim chamber now cast long shadows.
"Midnight on Winternight," Kaname called it.
"Now there's an auspicious time for a vampire," Charlotte smiled, but it was a sad smile. Her expression abruptly hardened when she saw that Kaname had noticed it. "Let's begin."
She dropped her fangs, they gleamed pearly white but then Charlotte tore into her wrist with disturbing enthusiasm, turning them red as she opened every vein present. Blood spurted from the wound thick and dark, and all of the tempting offering of forbidden ambrosia splattered wetly into the well where it mixed with the spring water that was looking more and more silver and less and less like water.
The blood did not vanish into the ground water. It didn't dilute, just pooled in the pit, headier than the oldest wine, almost smoking with waves of dangerous desire, flowing thickly until the wound healed and Charlotte stepped back, her first offering complete.
She held her wrist out to Kaname, and he obligingly licked it clean, feeling the thrum of seductive power within it, but resisting easily. It was now or never. Distraction was impossible.
In the mean time, Freya had repeated the process and now the scent of blood was heavy in the confined air. It didn't help that none of them had fed enough lately and constantly battled a low level bloodlust that was never truly sated. Kaname cleaned her wrist too, the movements sensual and in another time and place would have led to him getting nothing else done for a few nights. As it was his eyes still flickered red with the memory of previous encounters.
When Aylin added her blood, the atmosphere changed.
Power hung thick in the air – the spring was definitely silver now – and the chamber's luminescence had danced from charming to eerie.
Kaname stripped naked, modesty had never been his strong suit and besides everyone here had already seen it, and knelt by the well. With the blood of three purebloods in it, the well was full and the blood ran with unseen currents, swirling by its own volition, streams of silver threading through the mahogany red.
Unceremoniously, Kaname dipped in a finger and began painting his own skin in symbols that crackled with power. Some formed reluctantly, taking the strength of his other hand to complete the glyph, others swum across his skin, so gleeful to exist that the blood moved on its own, curling around his skin before imprinting into place. Some were as small as his fingernail, but one took his entire chest to exist. He worked as quickly as possible but it was a delicate balance between care and speed.
The blood dried very quickly, looking almost black like the symbols had been branded into his skin with a poker. One that caused Kaname's fangs to ache groaned into corporeality on his left thigh. If a human had tried it – they'd be lucky to have both eyes remaining by the final brush of blood.
Some things just weren't for mortal eyes.
Kaname moved quickly, practiced and in a hurry though he was careful in their construction and double-checked them all but too soon it was done. Head to toe, he was covered in symbols of power that were deeply uncomfortable to look at, jarring the three ladies senses with the sixth and seventh sense that something was very very wrong.
"Are you sure those are right?" Aylin asked, checking him over but having to look away every other second.
"It feels like it shouldn't exist," Freya frowned. "I really want to attack you right now."
"It's not supposed to exist," Kaname sighed, "So yes, if you think it's wrong then it's right."
"You must have been out of your mind to invent this," Charlotte mused. She was having no problems examining his body for any misalignment, not that she was paying attention to the runes. It was much easier to look at them and really think about what they meant and if they'd work when she only used the corner of her eyes.
Screams.
Kaname whipped around, claws already out, why hadn't he heard anything – but the sound was coming from above them.
"It's begun," Aylin murmured, her voice wretched even without the scarring. Kaname agreed with sentiment echoed in Freya's tears and Charlotte's white knuckled grip. The glyphs must have taken longer than expected, or the enemy had been faster. Either way, his people were dying.
Sure, everyone above had volunteered on this last gamble, but they were still men and women, vampire and human, that Kaname had spent the last century protecting and fighting side by side with, some of them since the very beginning.
It was incredibly difficult hearing them die.
"Don't waste it," Freya snarled in Kaname's face, eyes wild and a mouth full of fangs. She wasn't referring to just their battered army.
Kaname pressed his forehead against hers and breathed in the quiet sense of trust he had with the last remaining purebloods as Aylin gripped his hand, carefully not smudging the blood work, and tilting his head back to rest on Charlotte's shoulder as she pressed herself gently against his back.
"I won't," he swore quietly, relishing their closeness. "My oath, I won't."
Their numbers had always been low; purebloods lived for millennia, rarely having children, frequently dying to childbirth and each other – but to be reduced to just four?
The three women stepped back at some silent signal. The screams above meshed with the sound of battle, machine guns firing specialised bullets in endless rounds, inhuman roaring from the enemy and over all of it was the screams of the dying ally and enemy alike, although Kaname could tell that it was too much of one and too few of the other.
Freya, Aylin and Charlotte stood around the well, holding each other's hands in a circle whilst Kaname kept out of their way.
Then they spoke the Words Kaname had patiently coached them in during whatever spare time had been snatched in-between battles.
Words of Power fell from their lips, crafted in perfect harmony, hissing with energy and causing Kaname to flinch as the inherent power of each symbol jarred his senses, screaming into his mind like nails down a blackboard, making his joints ache with an unknown resonance even as they seared his eyes.
The Words dripped, tangoed and writhed into the well.
Kaname shivered as he felt something looking back from the pool of blood. It was incomprehensibly ancient – even for Kaname who often inspired that reaction in others – and so, so very familiar and missed.
The Earth was waking.
Sweating visibly, eyes fully red and pupils blown wide with ecstasy and agony, Aylin dropped to her knees first, the other two following, swaying with exhaustion.
She spoke one last Word – a sharp howl that wasn't quite metal ripped apart and wasn't quite the howl of a wolf – which flared into existence in green smoke before dropping into the well which now spat with power.
Barely conscious, Aylin transformed her left hand into a full set of claws and scrambled at her own chest, the claws were razor sharp and she was as strong as any pureblood. Her hand sunk into her stomach with a wet squelch, her aura flickering wildly, blood and internal juices sweeping down her stomach like a waterfall – all of it somehow directed into the well, skipping staining her clothes to give all of itself to the well.
Her arm flexed as she pushed her hand up under her ribcage, forcing it to bend, flexing again as something was gripped with a preternaturally strong grasp. Kaname refused to look away as with a howl of agony, Aylin ripped her heart from her chest. It still beat desperately in her hand as she threw it into the well with a scream that sounded like an asteroid hitting the earth.
Her heart bobbed on the surface of the blood, still beating as the whirlpool spun faster and faster. Her second sacrifice.
Aylin panted, tears pooling in her eyes.
Then it was Freya's turn.
Duty to his people and respect for their sacrifice was what kept Kaname watching as his friends and lovers mutilated themselves to power the working. It was just like how Eve had used her heart to help him create Hunter weapons… and that was the last thing he needed to be thinking about right now.
Words of Power hung heavy in the air. They formed a silvery fog above the well. If he focused, Kaname could pick out the individual glyphs, but he tried not to. It would only give him a headache or accidently blind himself if he were particularly unlucky.
When Freya's heart was sacrificed, her last Word the roar of the sea and the scent of moonlight, the well turned completely silver, the fog of glyphs vanishing into it and the whirlpool spun faster, somehow managing to march deosil and waltz widdershins at the same time.
With Charlotte's sacrifice, the power in the well burst bright gold as her Word burned from her lips.
Without a whimper, Aylin, Freya and Charlotte crumbled into dust and Kaname was alone. It was their third and final sacrifice. Kaname stared at the remains – beings of infinite life and beauty and worth reduced to a handful of crystalline ash so easily. It wasn't fair, but it wouldn't be a sacrifice if it were fair. The Last of his kind as he had been the First he thought grimly as he stepped briskly up to the well, the stone floor hot under his bare feet.
The screams above were faltering. Kaname knew it was no sign of victory.
Gently, he used his fangs to slice the translucent skin on either wrist, tilting them downwards so the blood didn't smudge his work. His blood trickled into the pool of gold slowly, almost reluctant however graceful.
With a groan that sounded as if it came deep from the Earth herself, a great schism coalesced. The golden pool became a golden vortex, blistering with the sheer power of Time as a schism in the fabric of reality was wrenched open beneath him.
To the naked eye the well was now a psychedelic vortex of colours and cascading arrays of light, all of it lit with gold. Kaname stared into the chasm that had opened before him – mesmerised. Lightning arced from side to side down the tunnel- A tunnel that seemed to go on for eternity where there had only been stone.
All he had to do was fall.
It was going to hurt. That was inevitable. Kaname forced his body to relax to accept the pain as his thoughts focused with an unrelenting precision. The glyphs would protect his body and mind for as long as they held out, but after that it was down to him. The longer he could endure, the further back he would go. Willpower would keep him alive once he'd taken the plunge.
Kaname took a deep breath, breathing in the hot enclosed air that still carried the memory of Freya, Aylin and Charlotte. He was a keenly honed blade of determination. He was resolute. His will would be done this night.
Kaname would save them and fix this abysmal mess. As long as his mind was obsessed with the need to protect his family, his Court and his people, then he could endure anything. Even this.
As far as he'd puzzled out – hindered by the fog lying over his memories from that time – whatever had gone wrong with him and the world had started during his second childhood. That would be his target.
Lowbloods should never have been able to attack Kuran manor. That place had been hearth and home to their family for thousands of years and every member had added some form of blood magic protection to it during their long lives. It was a fortress like no other.
Haruka and Juuri shouldn't have died. They couldn't have within those walls.
Yuki should never have had her memories erased. He could only wish that he knew what they'd been thinking. Yuki had had what, ten years? Before the seal had weakened irreversibly. She'd been driven mad – her vampire instincts and power that had been so thoroughly suppressed had actually formed an entirely separate personality. They hadn't protected Yuki at all – they'd driven her mad.
Yuki had had a human side, and a vampire side. They didn't get along – conflicting morals was the least of it. She'd needed blood and actually hated herself for it, which was too bizarre to Kaname for him to understand. Who hated themselves for eating food? Yuki could discipline her servants and then think herself a monster for giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed. She killed the assassin sent for her head and cried over it. It had taken years for Kaname to parse out that her mind couldn't have actually matured since she'd been sealed. She had been a five year old in the body of a teenager.
After that her suicide made sense.
It had begun with Yuki – but events had continued to go wrong long after her death. All of his inner court – his friends – had died in a single decade, one after the other. Takuma had been killed by his own grandfather in a bid to weaken Kaname, Akatsuki had laid down his life to give Kaname the time to escape, Ruka had taken a mortal blow meant for Kaname from an unknown assassin, Shiki had visited his home one day and had never returned – Kaname had always suspected the uncle who had tried to groom Shiki to be Rido's puppet but he hadn't had the time to investigate and that family had been wiped out a few months later anyway. Rima had committed suicide, just curling up on her cot and dying. As for Hanabusa…well, some things just didn't bear thinking about. Soon it would all be erased. Undone.
Kaname breathed out – and then felt a cold hand grip his heart, as a blood bond unravelled and he knew that Zero was dead. He gritted his fangs and forced the sensation away. He'd grieve later. Erased. Undone.
There was no more time for Kaname to strengthen his determination. Zero would have been one of the last to fall – if he was dead then so was everyone else.
Eyes burning, Kaname bowed his head and fell.
