Luna Blood
Chapter 6: Toys of Dust
Disclaimer: None of the characters here belong to me."Warned?" Sasuke scoffed under his breath. "Fine, feed them then!" Surprisingly Sasuke did not go on another murderous rampage after Naruto's defiance towards him. To this the Kitsune was definitely proud of that. The Master turned, and was about to leave the still arena; he paused in his steps; his back facing the Kitsune. "The storm will probably go away in 2 days"
"…Fine!" Naruto spat back, feeling victorious for once in this castle. "I MIGHT leave" Sasuke left slamming the door behind him.
The Shatterball did not continue. The vampires were too stunned to even think of the game anymore, let alone who was actually winning.
"Thanks Sanji!" Naruto beamed at the bowl of ramen in front of him. It was his dinnertime. The vampires decided that this particular youth was to make all of the Kitsune's meals, for some reason it appeared that he was rather experienced in the culinary field.
"No prob" replied Sanji, combing aside his blonde hair and taking a puff from his cigarette. This made Naruto wonder how Sanji cooked so well, with a smoker tongue. "Kakashi told me that you love Ramen, especially with fresh noodles"
"Damn straight" Naruto gleefully cheered, slurping the dish under a minute. "Thanks a bunch" Sanji bowed and realized that he was thirsty himself.
"Sir… may I?" Sanji made a light gesture to his neck, and Naruto understood.
"No formalities man" Naruto snapped, tilting his head as an answer. Sanji stepped forward to receive blood. The Kitsune felt the pierce at his neck; making a little whine under his breath, but nothing more. Sanji's hands rested on his legs, gripping the fabric of his pants lightly, even occasionally rubbing at them. When Sanji withdrew, Naruto snickered. "Did it taste good? You lick more than the others"
A surprised Sanji answered, "Maybe it's the tobacco" he walked away after waving his hand lightheartedly. Taking his exit, disturbed thoughts hinted at him. Was the Kitsune getting too used to the duty that was weighed upon him?
Naruto was bored, so he too was about to leave the Dining Room when he noticed Sasuke standing by the side wall. "What do you want?" the Kitsune hissed.
"Nothing" Sasuke answered quite bluntly. "I noticed how you eat like a slob"
"Shove it" Naruto shot back. "You're one to talk, you're a vamp"
"Is that so?" Sasuke sneered. "Strange, you seem to be enjoying it" Naruto was taken aback by this last remark. No way that a guy like him could take any pleasure from this. The Kitsune himself was weirded out by the idea, feeding a bunch of men. But no, not pleasure. At least Naruto hoped that wasn't the case. Still, this time he did not lash out again. Sasuke realized his point worked, indicating this with a triumphant grin.
"Whatever" Naruto grunted, walking past the Master, his angry steps echoing around the empty Dining Hall. "This place still…" the Kitsune paused. His eyes stared the ancient floors, hollow torches, and windows hiding behind the termite eaten planks. "…creeps me out, what the hell are you guys doing here anyway? Couldn't you guys get a NORMAL house?"
"You don't need to know that!" Sasuke barked, completely offended by the inquisition. Naruto only raised his eyebrow at the strange reaction.
"Fine, I won't ask, I'll just go ahead and feed your guys" he was about to stomp out of the room. But again he stopped. "How come everyone in this castle is a guy anyway-" Naruto did not finish, Sasuke looked ready to punch him in the face, and for once Kitsune got the message and sped off.
"Master…" Shikamaru, Kakashi and Sasuke were alone in the Throne Room, though ever since Naruto's arrival, the Throne Room was even emptier than it usually was. No more did Sasuke pay evening visits, he was too concerned on the spirit washing over his men. They were relieved at another soul to finally come to their abode, but Naruto was something more. "…this one is different" Kakashi started. "I've never seen a vampire with that haze…"
"Did you receive blood from him?" Sasuke questioned, his pondering hands in a nervous clump. "Fakir's eyes told me that it tasted………" he took a moment before finishing. "…divine"
"Have you ever tasted that kind of blood?" Shikamaru wondered aloud. "I've heard such blood is more delicious than those of a virgin…that, I know how it tastes"
"…….Like…ecstasy?" Sasuke looked to Shikamaru. "I've never tasted virgin blood before" Shikamaru shuffled his feet, perhaps hesitant that he brought up such a subject.
"Yes….but obviously Fakir got something more, did you see how his fingers grasped onto Naruto's flesh?" Kakashi said this in a worried voice. "And when Naruto withdrew, he had a face of deep sorrow"
"The way you make it sound, it's almost as if they had sex" Sasuke jeered lightly.
"Well- they didn't" Shikamaru corrected. "It's just odd that Fakir looked like as if he just did"
"Orgasm and all?" A sly smile appeared through Kakashi's mask.
"Now that's enough" Shikamaru snapped with annoyance. "This is serious"
"Well……………assuming Naruto IS a virgin, maybe it's just because he's a guy, and this IS the first time the men are feeding off of a young man, especially as a fountain. I was surprised that Sasuke's spell worked." Kakashi continued.
"I saved it for a rainy day, that's all, now he's gonna come soon… I need to be left alone" At this Shikamaru and Kakashi exchanged nervous glances before leaving their Master alone in the Throne Room. Sasuke paused, waiting for their footsteps to fade away, then he knelt down on the floor, fists clenched tight and covered in sweat.
He waited
waited
waited
………………………….
"REALLY?" Duo laughed heartily. "Those city folks are the dumbest!" The vampires were back in their Lounging Area, the place where Naruto first met these people face to face. But now many sat around him, wanting to listen to Naruto's criminal tales in the city. The atmosphere was relaxed, and the Kitsune was feeling right at home with the youths who laughed at his stories.
"Yeah, I took the guy's ID and I was able to make off with 20,000 dots" Naruto joked, even as Kyo fed at his neck as silently as he could (trying desperately to smuggle the fits of laughter coming from him)
"Hmph, typical" Hiei sneered. "Those idiots never know what hit them." His head rested on Naruto's free shoulder indicating he was the next to receive blood.
"Mmff mmmff" Kyo's made muffled noises of agreement. He withdrew and licked some extra blood off of Naruto's neck, the Kitsune making some giggles at his tongue. "Those jack-asses complain about everything, so I have no problem taking their blood"
"Um….wait a minute" Naruto said thoughtfully. "If you guys had a history of getting your blood from the city, wouldn't there be more people here? I mean there should be at least one City guy I would know…."
"It's simple really" Duo reached into his pocket and pulled out a strange looking pill. "Calling it a drug would be harsh but…" The medicine capsule was very small but what startled Naruto the most was the color of its shell.
Blood red
"Um…." Naruto quivered at the sight. "What is it?"
"Every time we draw blood as food, naturally they would become a vampire as well" Hakkai explained.
"For us that would be annoying, so to stop that from happening, we use this" Duo gestured to the tiny pill on his palm. "This puts them to sleep and stops the vampire growth from happening in their blood too. Also, this is convenient because now we'd always have food, without attracting too much attention from those city morons"
"Ah, so that's why you can limit your population this way" Naruto winced at Hiei, who fed from him as they spoke. The Kitsune also took care as to cup Hiei's body to him now, just to prevent him from sliding off. "That's pretty smart of you guys! Who came up with that concept?"
No one answered.
More so that it seemed that no one wanted to answer. The vampire youths, bit their lips in silence, averted their eyes as if dodging the question itself, and the rest just winced. Hiei sighed, departed from Naruto after the kiss.
"Ummm…" Duo then tried breaking the silence with choked laughter. That failed. "Great, another game of Shatterball then?"
"We just played" whined Gourry slouching over a couch in the corner. As much as he appreciated the sport, he still got bored pretty easily. "Hmm… Why don't we train, I mean he might- OW!" he squeaked at Kyo who whacked his head at the sentence.
"Who?" Naruto started again, the tense atmosphere only reappeared at the attempt to hide it all.
"Gourry must be talking about Master Sasuke" suggested Hakkai nodding with the calmest smile in the room.
"Chh, Master this, Master that" Naruto mumbled with a roll of his tongue, at this Naruto changed the subject once more. "Why do you guys call him Master? I mean, that dickwad must have done something great to-AWK!"
An angry Gourry stalked to him and grabbed the Kitsune around the throat. Naruto was momentarily stunned at the sudden attack but to his horror noticed that no one did anything to help him at all.
"Don't call Master that!" Gourry hissed, his normally blue eyes turned an eerie red; to this, Naruto's leg swiped up to knock Gourry's head forcing him to drop him to the floor.
"WHAT THE FUCK?" Naruto shrieked, he scrambled to his feet about to strike him with a punch, when Kakashi rushed in and held him back.
"Please sir" Kakashi replied in a stolid voice, as his hands fiercely pinned him to his own body. "Just don't call Master Sasuke names, we get fairly upset that way, it's a little hard to explain-"
"-don't" Naruto shot back. He wormed his way out of Kakashi's grip, which fairly loosened. "I'LL get MASTER to explain it to me, Kitsune doesn't like secrets, not the ones he's not into anyway" These sudden occurrences were started to get irritating with him. Frankly, he'd like to get to the bottom of it, starting with the
'Master'
After making his way out of the Lounging Chamber (Naruto found another path through the passage of a bookcase) he was back in the Main Halls. Then it occurred to Naruto, that he had no clue of where Sasuke's Personal Room was. He stood in a stupid silence for awhile, darting his eyes left, right, up, down basically to any and every path available in the room. Since nothing else could be done about it, Naruto took a deep breath and yelled.
"SASUKE! GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE YOU DICKWAD!"
He heaved a sigh after that, proud at his own loud and rash voice. Patiently, he waited a few minutes. Nothing. Facefaulting, he took another puff and this time he belted out
"GOURRY ALMOST WRUNG MY NECK DRY!"
Then he sat down and waited. No answer still.
"HOW COME YOUR GUYS ACT WEIRD?"
This time he didn't even wait the few minutes he went right on to.
"I KNOW YOUR GUYS ARE HIDING SOMETHING HERE!"
Naruto paused once more, but he did not hear anything at all. By this time, his patience was wearing paper thin, so he got up and decided to randomly look in different rooms. Most of them looked average, many of them resembled a medieval hotel room. Compromising of a simple bed, a small dresser and a closet. By the sheer number of these average rooms, Naruto figured that it belonged to the other vampires, but why did they prefer to sleep in the same chamber, instead of individual rooms?
"What are YOU doing?" questioned a familiar voice leaning on Naruto as he looked in another one of the average rooms.
"Nothing-" Naruto replied absent mindedly, before doing a double take at Sasuke who breathed down on his neck, wings fully spread as he lightly hovered above ground, his chin resting on his shoulder. "GAH"
"What are you doing in these rooms?" Sasuke repeated, this time in a stinging tongue, that the Kitsune was already used to.
"Looking around" Naruto answered defensively. "I can do that can't I?"
"Not in-HEY!" Sasuke barked at the Kitsune who darted into the room after seeing a trunk by the bed. Since Naruto had a history of being a thief, it was only natural that he was keenly attracted to anything that would be 's considered treasure. Including trunks. Whether it contained money or not, did not really matter, as long as he was able to open it would Naruto be a victor in any hunt. Sasuke went inside after him, taking a brief look at the doorframe, to see who the chamber belonged to.
"Let's see what's in here" Naruto sang in an unnaturally cheery voice that Sasuke paused at, he never heard the Kitsune sing before and for some reason he momentarily forgot that he was plundering his own men's rooms for…something. To Naruto's dismay, the dusty, brown thing was locked. A few curses crept from his breath, and Sasuke sighed with relief. Good thing all of his men locked their personal belongings in these trunks, he thought with a smug smile to Naruto.
"It's locked, now lets get-" He was cut off; Sasuke froze at a click from the box. Without a word, his head swirved round to see Naruto with an opened pad lock and what looked like a hair pin in his hand.
"Shit" Sasuke muttered at the Kitsune's foxy grin. "Why you son of a-"
"I'd come prepared, what do you think?" Naruto snapped back defiantly again. "Locked trunks would have the best stuff you know" Sasuke only bit his lip at the cocky statement as Naruto lifted the lid off from the box. But at the contents the Kitsune only made a loud "HUH?"
Filled to the brim, were toys, basically the kind you would give to a little boy. Airplanes, blocks, bouncy balls, dinosaurs, soldiers, boats, tops and any other silly darling that would make a funny noise, or gleam of colorful designs. All were dusty but had that glimmer of an old charm, something that you would have treasured in the past. They were piled upon each other in a crammed state, and (even Naruto considered this to be a stupid idea) they looked really uncomfortable.
There was an eerie pause at the find, and Naruto was debating whether to be freaked out or amazed at the discovery, though it would be the safe to say he felt an awkward mix of both. Sasuke also stared at the trunk, but only expectantly, he knew that all of the vampires had a trunk filled with similar things. He never thought they would actually listen to his personal command to bring all of the toys with them.
"Wow, um whose room is this?" Naruto questioned out of awe at the playthings.
"If you really want to know, this is Hiei's room" Sasuke said hesitantly. "Now close it up, I'm getting sick"
"But they're nice" Naruto said again in the attractive voice that kept drawing Sasuke to him. He picked up an airplane and made a 'Shhhhhhuuuuuu' type of noise. "I always wanted toys like this, I had them at one point, but-" His eyes saw how Sasuke seemed to be interested, leaning in, focused, no longer the dark tunnels that he hated, but now filled with curiosity.
"Go on" Sasuke said expectantly face faulting at how Naruto paused in his reflection.
"I won't" Naruto snapped out of his past and stuffed the toy plane back into the trunk. "You guys won't tell me anything so why should I tell you my past story?"
He had a point, and at this Sasuke made an annoyed scowl. "Well…" nothing came to him. Still, he wouldn't want anyone listening. Besides telling Naruto anything might pose his men in more danger than they already are. He walked over to the trunk and closed it (to Naruto's dismay)he even locked it back up. "I'm sure Hiei would be upset if he learned we looked in his trunk"
"Well we know another side of him now" Naruto grinned mischievously.
"No- well" this time it was Sasuke stuttering at Naruto who got up from the floor.
"I wonder what the other trunks would have? Does everyone have a trunk like this?" Naruto continued to yap on about how he would like to look at everyone else's treasure boxes until one of Sasuke's wings lashed out stopping the blonde in his eager talk.
"Naruto, don't bother looking in any more of these rooms" Sasuke warned, this time in a calmer voice, knowing that yelling at the Kitsune only results in him yelling back.
"But they're fun" Naruto said in a drawled tongue.
Sasuke knew he was going to regret saying this but he then said "They all have toys in it anyway!"
There was only a short pause, until Naruto only said. "Oh that's weird," And then "but how come they make you-"
To this Sasuke was tired of the question so he sprang onto Naruto and pinned him down to the bed. The Kitsune only made a frightened squeal, but no attempt to wriggle out of his grasp. "You don't NEED to know…understand?" He said this in an eldritch hiss and the glowing RED eyes again.
"Well as long as I'm supplying blood to you guys, I'll keep on asking" Naruto replied playfully after a stunned silence. "Besides they're only toys-"
"Like I said, you don't NEED to understand" Sasuke shot back. "The others must never know that you looked in a treasure box, or they'll go ballistic, and prodding anymore will get you in bigger trouble, especially with me!"
All of this shouting was getting to his head. But his curiousity of this strange new group he found just grew to new heights. Why would each vampire have a trunk of toys in his room, with exception of a few like Mokuba, they were way too old for these playthings. Why did Sasuke get uptight whenever Naruto asked a seemingly normal question?
The two just laid there in stupid silence; rather Sasuke was on his hands and knees over the Kitsune in bed. Both pairs of eyes were locked in an unmerciful staring contest with each other. Sasuke silently fumed at the big headed attitude that Naruto was throwing at him and Naruto cursed to himself that he was never going to get answers from anyone, including this particularly nasty vampire who always found a way to make him uncomfortable.
But the real question still bothered him more than the others. He decided to be blunt, so he went straight to asking, "How the hell did a jerkwad like you become Master of the Castle?"
"…" Sasuke made another displeased face. He didn't answer.
"Well…?" Naruto said expectantly. It was at this moment when Sasuke's eyes broke off and started to wander down the thief's body. His velvet shirt and denim pants were also black, like everyone else in the castle, personally made for him by Ayame, the castle's clothes designer. He briefly skimmed his vision over the Kitsune's body, his fit form could still be made out through the fabric and to this Sasuke narrowed his eyes; perhaps in jealousy or closer admiration.
"Too good looking" he thought displeasingly to himself. "This Kitsune guy is definitely something else…something different" Then he thought of how natural Naruto seemed to act with him, even whenever Sasuke threatened him or any of the other men around the castle. Was it because of this behavior that the Master felt strange, completely off balance with this self proclaimed Kitsune?
Naruto, in turn wondered why Sasuke seemed to stare at him like that. "God, this guy's too weird" the Kitsune scrunched his face in confusion. "He's staring at me as if I'm dinner on a silver platter"
The static still was beginning to prod deeper into both of their minds. It was Naruto who decided (again) that he was to break the silence himself. "Stop staring at me like that! It's creeping me out!" Sasuke's gaze never broke off; even at his words.
"But why?" Sasuke made the mistake of saying this thought out loud. Additionally, the mistakes piled unto each other in a mess. Sasuke covered his mouth in a gasp and in a rare moment of shy clumsiness, his arms and legs gave way, sending him crashing down onto Naruto who made another startled squeak.
"Get off!" Naruto screamed with a red face, flailing his limbs in a scrambled panic. Sasuke didn't get off, nor did he make an attempt to. Finally at least something was clear to Sasuke. Naruto did feel good.
"Do you ever shut up?" the vampire sneered at Naruto's complaints. It seemed as if Naruto didn't even hear the question, he just continued to yap on in some kind of native tongue that Sasuke didn't really understand.
How cute. Stupid, but cute.
"I'll just have to shut you up myself then" Sasuke said in a malicious grin; poor Naruto was already caught off guard. Before the Kitsune had time to react, Sasuke already settled his lips onto his.
"?"