Disclaimer: I don't own any IPs that might appear in the story
The Council of Thirteen
Book Seven: The Second Lord
The Kuran Restoration
Chapter 5: The Battle of Cross Academy
Beta:
"Incoming!" Tisha-san said, as a group of unfamiliar vampires walked out towards the Day Class Dorms that the Student Council and the Night Class had surrounded.
"Friends?" Yori asked Takuma-sempai. "Or foes?"
"Foes. Most definitely foes," the blonde said as he brandished his sword before he blurred towards the incoming vampires and promptly decapitated one of them.
"Seems that settles it," Miwa-san said with a frown as she drew her sword.
"Raimeiken (雷鳴剣, Thunderclap Sword)!" The Shinmei-ryū (神鳴流, Gods' Cry School) swordswoman said as she slashed through the air in the direction of the incoming vampires and sent a bolt of lightning flying before leaping down from the roof of the dorms where they were standing.
"Protect the Day Class Dorms!" Yori shouted at the top of her lungs, it was a departure for her but it was required of her as the Vice-President of the Student Council right now and she would not let Yuki down by failing at that task. "Do not let a single one of the enemy through our lines."
Even as she made her pathetic excuse for a motivational speech, Yori surveyed the situation.
It seemed the enemy had engaged them along the whole perimeter. Night Class students and Student Councillors were engaging enemy vampires everywhere she looked. Most prominently, Aidou-sempai had created a frozen hellscape with his powers over frost and Akatsuki-sempai had set an entire side of the area around the Dorms on fire.
"Tisha-san, are all the Day Class students asleep?" Yori asked the Russian whose magic was responsible to ensure that.
"Yes, Vice-President." The Russian assured him. "They won't be getting in our way."
Yori nodded. "I trust you to keep it that way."
"You can count on me."
"Good," Yori said, offering him a smile to show that he trusted him as she finally joined the fray. "Rain of Blades."
At her incantation, hundreds of blades were conjured in the skies above the Day Class Dorms and fell to the ground in a deadly rain, impaling dozens of the enemy vampires. Not many, but that wasn't the real point of her spell. Not this time. For unlike the normal version of this spell, Yori had pumped in more magic into it this time and the swords it conjured did not fade away as they usually did but instead remained. Which worked perfectly for her follow up.
Using Shadow Step, she teleported into a particularly tight cluster of the enemy vampires and grabbed the conjured sword created by her Rain of Blades that had landed in their midst. The sword's forceful impact into the ground had killed one of their number and scattered the group a little, but they were still closely gathered enough for her purposes.
Drawing the sword out of the ground, she idly noted that it was charged with water element magic.
Not my forte, but beggars can't be choosers. Yori thought idly as she spun around, sword in hand and channeling her magic into it. In response, a whirlpool of conjured water surged out of her sword and cut the dozen or so enemy vampires around her into pieces.
Taking only a moment to make sure that she was sure they were all dead, Yori searched for the next group of targets.
Setting her sights on an aristocratic woman dressed in a gothic dress and carrying a parasol of all things as a weapon even as she fought a winning battle against Souen-sempai, Yori threw her sword at the overdressed woman.
In midair, the sword transformed into a water bolt that slammed into the unexpecting enemy vampire, sending her flying away from Souen-sempai who she had previously been looming over about to deal the killing blow.
"Souen-sempai, are you alright?" Yori asked as she used Shadow Step to teleport next to the downed toffee haired Noble.
"I'm fine," the slightly shaken higher ranked vampire said as she pushed herself to her feet. "Thank you for the save. She caught me off guard."
"I understand," Yori said, offering the older vampire a smile even as she pulled a nearby sword from her Rain of Blades that was impaled nearby out of the ground, a earth element type one this time, and dragged its tip across the ground sending a barrage of earthen bullets at the downed wannabe aristocrat, killing her. "Akatsuki-sempai, please watch Souen-sempai's back would you? At least for a while."
"Ka-"
"Of course," Akatsuki-sempai said as Souen-sempai gasped lightly in surprise having apparently missed the other Noble coming up behind her.
Yori nodded and offered them both one last smile before teleporting to her next target.
Materializing in front of a particularly burly looking vampire that was giving Miwa-san some trouble, she channeled magic into her sword, having its earth element charge to strengthen the blade and slashed at the brute.
Her move cut through his skin, something that the other swordswoman had previously been struggling with, creating an opening for the other girl as the brute staggered back from the wound.
"Zantetsusen (斬鉄閃, Iron-Cutting Flash)!" Miwa-san shouted, as she sent a spiralling ki blast that slammed into the brute's open wound, drilling through his body and finally putting him down.
"Thank you, Vice-President." Miwa-san said as she sighed in relief.
"Glad to help," Yori said with a nod as the sword in her hands shattered, the magic stored within it having reached its limits, and she grabbed the nearest sword.
"There are plenty more enemies still though," Yori said. "Shall we?"
"Ready and waiting," Miwa-san said, falling into a ready stance.
Yori nodded and with her fellow swordswoman at her side, they rejoined the fight.
"You know Uncle Rido, I've been expecting to face you since I was a child." Yuki said as she stood, Artemis held at the ready in her hands as she stood atop the roof of the detached dormitory, actually one of the many abandoned buildings left over from the Academy's earliest phases of construction, that had been handed over to Shiki Senri when he'd returned from visiting his home possessed by the spirit of his father and with said sire's regenerating body in tow. "But I never expected having to do so whilst you were being backed up by giant tentacle things. Do I want to know if you've been watching too much hentai lately?"
The tall man with red-brown, shoulder length wavy hair just chuckled as he stood between the half dozen fleshy tentacles that he'd summoned, or created, and which he'd used to destroy half the building to announce his rebirth.
"I might've watched some." The man with mismatched reddish-garnet and icy blue eyes said with a grin. "Being all but dead for more than a decade left me with little things to do. Slipping into the minds of some weak willed fools here or there as they entertained themselves helped keep me sane."
"Calling yourself sane is quite a stretch, don't you think?" Yuki asked as she unleashed an overpowered Destruction Wave that disintegrated the remnants of the dorm building and the tentacles all at once.
"Now that's just hurtful, Yuki-chan." Rido said with a pout as his aura flashing as it protected him from Yuki's spell power and he blurred towards her an anti-vampire rapier in hand that he proceeded to attempt to thrust through her heart.
Yuki easily parried the thrust and the two fell into a dance of blades in defiance of gravity as they danced through the air over the ruins of the dormitory below. They moved so fast though that even to the preternatural senses of a vampire all that could be perceived were twin blurs blitzing across the night sky in mesmerising patterns.
"It seems I will not best you with a sword." Rido said with a frown as they finally decided to take a break and gracefully landed on either side of the ruins. "You were trained well."
"Sensei is the best." Yuki said proudly. "That and you're rusty as hell, uncle. I can see the traces of proper training in your moves but you like so unfamiliar with them it's like you've not practised in ages."
"Centuries," Rido admitted with a shrug as he stabbed his sword into the ground next to him. "I was forced to pick it up as a child by my parents and occasionally dabbled in it but I've no true love for it. I'd much rather gain power elsewhere."
"Like through draining the blood of other Purebloods."
"When I can get away with it," Rido confessed unrepentantly, licking his lips hungrily as he did so. "And you will be my greatest meal of all. Not only are you the youngest and thus have the most distilled blood of our line, you're also a Lord of the Thirteen. If I drink your blood, who knows what level of power I will be able to attain."
"You'll have to defeat me first," Yuki told him, tapping the ground and conjuring a wall of composite armor, the formula of which she'd gleaned from the armor used in the armor mounted on Sanctuary's mecha, in front of her.
The armor which had been designed to surpass any armor the mundanes could produce and could withstand damage even from some of the most powerful magical attacks, shattered like so much glass as Rido fired a bolt of raw power through it. It had however served its purposes of buying Yuki the second or two she'd needed to teleport away.
"You think you can trick me, Yuki-chan?" Rido said with a demented laugh as he spun around and slashed behind him with his hands, now looking more like claws.
Yuki gasped lightly as they cut deeply into her body, Artemis wholly out of place to defend against his unexpectedly swift counterattack. No blood flew from her wounds though and Rido's eyes widened just as Yuki's gasp turned into a smirk as her body glowed and she exploded.
Rido was sent flying by the violent blast and his body dug a deep furrow into the ground as he crashed back to Earth, only coming to a stop when Artemis' scythe blade slammed into his chest with such force that not only did it bleed off all his forward momentum, it forced him into the ground with such strength that it created a crater.
"Y-You sneaky brat." The older Pureblood said as he coughed out blood and his wound sizzled with the touch of the anti-vampire properties of Yuki's Mystic Code as she dropped the invisibility spell that she'd to stay hidden ever since she'd teleported out of the way out her uncle's attack.
"I was trained by the Assassin Lord," Yuki reminded him. "Using tricks like this in a fight should be expected of her disciples."
"You haven't defeated me yet, brat!" Rido roared, as acting on what Yuki surmised must've been a mental command his greatest weapon descended upon her.
Out of the woods that surrounded them, hundreds of lesser vampires that Rido had enthralled surged out and threw themselves at Yuki, their claws extended and their eyes gleaming with malicious hunger.
"Is this all?" Yuki asked, utterly unimpressed. "Grand Destruction Wave."
At her incantation, her aura flared and unleashed the improved version of her signature spell. A tsunami of raw destructive energy poured out of her body and swept over everything that surrounded her, reducing all that it touched into a fine nondescript sand. Within moments the swarm of hundreds of bloodthirsty lesser vampires were dead and her surroundings were reduced to little more than a barren wasteland that would not have looked out of place on the barren lunar surface.
"I-Impossible!" Rido gasped, either in pain or horror Yuki didn't know. Nor did she actually care.
"No," Yuki said as she pushed Artemis' blade deeper into her uncle's chest, eliciting a cry from him that was definitely pained. "It's just the power of one of the Thirteen. You were a fool to have thought you had any hope of facing such power Uncle."
Rido shot her a defiant glare and was about to speak but Yuki was tired of dealing with his ramblings.
"Be gone Uncle," she declared with finality as she channeled her power through Artemis and through her Mystic Code directly into Rido's body that it impaled.
He flared his aura, desperately trying to fight off her power as it tried to disintegrate him, transforming his body into a bonfire of dark energy. In response, Yuki simply poured more of her own energy into the struggle, causing her figure to become a pillar of brilliant white light. For a long moment, the two powerful Purebloods' struggled, their respective auras dueling as they fought with all they had against each other. Eventually though, the light prevailed and drove the darkness out of existence.
"It's done," Yuki said with disbelief as she looked down at the pile of ash that had once been her Uncle.
The man who had killed her parents. The man who had hunted her even from beyond the grave. A man she could not kill because he was protected by the Elders of the Senate and going against them when they were not yet ready was unwise. A man who for petty reasons like that had been like a Sword of Damocles over her life for as long as she remembered. A man that was now dead.
"It's done!" Yuki said as the truth sunk in and she laughed joyously, overcome by the sense of freedom that her Uncle's demise brought her.
She didn't know how long she just stood there laughing deliriously at her new found liberty but it must've been at least a minute or two, because it was an increasing shortness of breath from laughing too hard that slowly brought her back to her senses. And for a Pureblood vampire to feel short of breath was no easy feat.
"I still don't believe it," she said to herself as she finished taking a deep breath to steady her breathing. "He's dead. He's really dead."
Yuki was on the verge of another round of delirious celebration when a ping on her senses indicating a request for a telepathic conversation grounded her. Mentally accessing her wards to determine who was trying to contact her and seeing it was from the Headmaster, she accepted the link.
Kaien-san, what is it?
This actually works? Wow, I'm impressed Yuki-chan. Kaien-san said, sounding playful like he usually was when he wasn't being all serious. It's loads better than a radio. You've got to get me more of these telepathic radio devices!
I'll speak to Sensei about it. Maybe we can arrange something with the manufacturer in Sanctuary. Yuki said, amused by the Headmaster's antics. I take it from your mood that things went well on your end?
Oh yes it did! He informed her cheerfully. As expected, the Association decided to use the cover of Rido's attack on the Academy to launch one of their own. But between the Academy staff and myself, we dealt with them.
Yuki breathed a sigh of relief at that. It seemed helping to recruit the Academy staff from veterans of the Sanctuary militia and former Vampire Hunters was a good idea.
Though, Kaien-san continued, unaware of Yuki's relieved response. Considering that it turned out that the Association President had secretly transformed into a vampire, I'm thinking this wasn't so much the Association exploiting our weakness as just him being in league with your uncle.
Probably, Yuki agreed, blinking in surprise at this unexpected development. He was the only Pureblood that the Senate truly had any semblance of control over and that's where I presume the President got the blood he needed for his transformation.
Exactly. Though, 'was'? You've killed him I take it?
Yes, Yuki told him, inadvertently letting some of her joy at the act flow into the mental connection. Quickly styming that, she changed the topic in a bid to cover up her temporary loss of control. So what are you doing with the remaining Hunters?
Nothing much. Kaien-san replied with a mental shrug. They were pretty demoralized when they realised the President was just using them as pawns. Most of them stood down immediately after that. As for the rest, well, those who are still alive are unconscious. Though there is one of them who is still unaccounted for…
Kaien-san's tone at the end there had turned slightly ominous and Yuki was tempted to not ask why, but she had to so she bit down on her unease and did so.
Who?
Zero. Kaien-san said, his levity from earlier gone. He came with the rest of the Association. He wasn't looking normal though. I only managed to catch a brief look at him before the fighting started and I wasn't able to keep track of him during it, but he looked almost… Beastial. I wanted to do something, but by the time we managed to deal with the other Hunters, he'd disappeared.
I see. Yuki sent back, fighting a growing sense of dread. I'll go look for him.
Thank you. And if possible- I know, it might be wrong to ask this of you, especially if the situation goes south but-
But if I can, I will do my best to make sure Zero-san survives.
Thank you, Yuki-chan. Thank you.
Locating Zero-san was as easy as the last time he'd gone rogue on campus. Yuki had simply summoned a swarm of her butterfly familiars and had them scour the Academy's grounds for any sign of the boy. Sadly that was not a good thing.
"Zero!" Yuki cried out in horror as she teleported to the spare dorms where Hio-dono and her attendants had been staying and looked upon the monster that her former schoolmate had become.
Gone was any semblance of humanity. In its place was a disturbing hybrid of vampire and plant monster with thorny vines growing out of his anti-vampire weapon, the handgun Bloody Rose, that not only covered his body but merged with it. Worse still was what the now inhuman Zero-san was doing. For Yuki had caught him in the middle of messily consuming the corpse of his twin Ichiru while he kept a heartbroken and injured Kurenai-san pinned to the ground in a cage of his vines.
By the Primals! What the hell did the Hunter Association do to him to turn him into this!?
"Yuki-sama!" The Noble shouted as she caught sight of her. "Kill him! He killed Ichiru!"
Yuki nodded in acknowledgement of that tidbit of information even as she used Shadow Step to evade the wave of vines Zero-san shot her way once he finally noticed her presence. Using Fly to keep herself in the air as she rematerialized in midair a short distance from the monster, she tried to formulate a plan of attack. It reacted more quickly though and she'd barely begun to swing Artemis when its vines shot up at her.
Fortunately, the blades of disintegrating power she shot out from her Mystic Code with her swing made quick work of the closing vines even as they cut apart the floral cage imprisoning the silver-haired Noble.
"Get out of here." Yuki told the other young woman as she teleported to her side and unleashed a Destruction Wave to clear their vicinity of threats. "You shouldn't be putting yourself in danger in your condition."
To emphasize the point, she shot the other vampiress' stomach a meaningful look.
"I won't leave!" Kurenai-san shouted earnestly, tears freely flowing down her face. "Not until I see the man who killed the father of my child die for his crimes."
Yuki winced even as she was forced to use another Destruction Wave to force back another wave of Zero-san's vines that had been encroaching on where the two women stood.
I'm sorry Kaien-san. I don't think I will be able to spare him after all. The Second Lord thought grimly as she spun to face what remained of Zero-san.
He was still in the midst of devouring his twin's corpse, both vines and hands ripping chunks of the dead man's body and shoveling into a gaping, drooling mouth, but he had angled his head so that his pair of crimson eyes looked at the two women with predatory intent.
There isn't a trace of humanity in those eyes. Yuki noted as pity welled up inside her for what the boy had been reduced to. I don't know if you're still conscious in there somewhere Zero-san, but let me free you from this torment.
With that she called in her swarm of familiars and charged forward, a small portion of her swarm stayed behind to swirl around Kurenai-san in a protective cocoon, but the most trailed around her protectively. The insects forming up around her like a living wall that deflected Zero-san's reaching vines using their sheer weight of numbers and the collected mass of their many tiny chitinous bodies.
She was still feet away from him when the bark of a gunshot echoed through the night. Without breaking stride, Yuki expertly swung Artemis to deflect the bullet he'd shot at her.
That bullet packed more of a punch than it should have. Yuki noted idly as she deflected another shot. I suppose whatever's been done to him and Bloody Rose enhanced the power of its bullets too.
Seemingly realizing that its attacks were not hitting the mark, he finally abandoned eating his twin's corpse and launched into a looping gait like a lion as he raced towards her. All the while, he kept up a relentless barrage from Bloody Rose and his vines kept lashing out.
"Closing to close combat was a mistake, Zero-san." Yuki informed the monster as she evaded a swipe by its left arm, with its fingers now deformed by the vines into a crude approximation of talons, and cut deep into his side with Artemis.
The creature that had once been Kiryu Zero howled in agony, or Yuki presumed that was what it was. Honestly with how mutated he'd become she couldn't be sure he could still even feel pain. Just how far he'd fallen was attested to by how even as the destructive magic Yuki had pumped into his body through her Mystic Code ate away at his flesh, the vines filled the gaps created and stitched him back together.
Just great. He has regeneration too. Yuki griped even as she leapt at him once more.
This time he was too distracted from his previous injury to respond in time and her scythe cut into him without resistance. Again he howled at the injury and yet again the vines healed him, replacing anything that Yuki's attack had destroyed.
I'm going to have up the ante. Yuki realised as she used her still active Fly spell to shoot up into the air to evade a wave of vines that exploded out of the ground where she'd just been standing.
"Matter Reaper!" Yuki incanted as she spun Artemis around herself, the scythe's blade becoming enshrouded in an aura of dark energy as she did and transforming into a massive version of itself made of inky blackness.
"Time to end this, Zero-san." Yuki told the boy solemnly as she tapped into her seldom used Pureblood powers and the superhuman speed that it granted.
Moving so fast that she appeared to the human eye as little more than an indistinct blur towards her opponent. He lashed out with his vines and fired Blood Rose at her, but at the speed she was moving both the tendrils and the bullets he sent at her might as well been moving in slow motion. Using the grace that came oh so naturally to her, Yuki danced around everything he threw at her, swinging her enhanced Mystic Code at every opportunity and unleashing waves of destructive magic with each swing.
It took her seconds to finish closing the distance with Zero-san's main body and swing Artemis down on his neck, decapitating him and ending his misery. And even as the detached head and the body from which it came began to disintegrate from the power of her matter disrupting magic, the same happened to the mass of vines that surrounded the whole area.
"I'm sorry it had to end this way." Yuki said as she released the magic she'd cast on Artemis and used one last Greater Destruction Wave to make sure that she hadn't missed anything.
Confident that she'd won, she turned back towards Kurenai-san even as she commanded the familiars she'd left to guard the pregnant girl to relax.
"It's over Ku-"
"Yuki-sama! Behind you!"
Yuki had spun around even before Kurenai-san had finished speaking the first syllable but even then she'd been too slow as a single massive tendril of twisted plant matter slammed into her. It was only her prodigious physical strength as a Pureblood and the potency of the wards that doubled as her armor that she wasn't crushed into a pulp by impact of the thing's blow. They were however not enough to stop it from slamming into her hard enough to be sent flying.
It hid underground! Yuki realized with a growl. Damn it! I underestimated it.
"This time you'll stay dead," Yuki declared even as righted herself thanks to a new casting of the Fly spell and gathered her magic for a second round with Zero-san even as she watched the mass of vines start to reshape itself into a humanoid shape.
"That was careless of you Yuki," the familiar voice of Niisan said as he appeared next to the still transforming mass of the plant monster and snapped his fingers.
Instantly, the abomination was engulfed in a pillar of purple flames.
"Niisan," Yuki greeted as she used Shadow Step to teleport to his side and scanned the area for any remaining signs of the monster. "Looks like that was the last of it."
"Yes, it is the last of Kiryu." Niisan confirmed, shooting her a disapproving frown. "You were careless to have turned your back on a foe before confirming it was dealt with."
"I got cocky," Yuki said sheepishly. "I won't let it happen again."
Niisan just nodded.
"You should also consider being less generous with your blood. Look at how pointless giving it to Kiryu ended up being."
"That I do not regret." Yuki said, shaking her head. "It might have proven pointless, as you put it, in the end, but I firmly believe that helping someone when you can is always the right thing to do. Even if in the end it doesn't turn out well."
Niisan just sighed in resignation, clearly knowing a lost cause when he saw one.
"So," Yuki said, smirking slightly at the win. "Did you succeed?"
"Yes," Niisan confirmed. "The corrupt Council of Elders is no more."
"That's good news." Yuki said noncommittally.
She was never on board about this part of the plan. She might have agreed that the Senate needed to be removed, but that didn't necessarily mean they needed to die. But Niisan had been adamant, arguing that if they spared them they would undermine any regime they put in place to replace them. She couldn't exactly contradict that and so played along.
"It is," Niisan insisted. "But we can discuss your reservations about it another time. For now, we must escort Kurenai-san somewhere safe before the next wave of attackers arrive."
Yuki frowned but nodded. Even if Rido and his allies in the Hunter Association had been dealt with, they were not safe. The attack had left them vulnerable and their other enemies, whether that be the other Purebloods or the Outsiders, would surely use the opportunity to strike.
"Kurenai-san," Yuki said as comfortingly as she could whilst turning to face the distraught Noble who was even now doing her best to gather the half-devoured remains of her lover. "Let me help with that."
At her command, her swarm descended on the scattered body parts and gathered together in front of the sobbing mother-to-be.
"T-Thank you, Y-Yuki-sama." The other girl said through her tears as she scooped up the remains heedless of the mess of her clothes it made. "I-I'm ready. Let's go."
Yuki nodded and turned to Niisan.
"The Day Class dorms?"
He just nodded.
"Head inside Kurenai-san," Yuki told the pregnant girl with a reassuring smile. "Leave everything else to us."
"Y-Yes, Yuki-sama." The girl said stutteringly through her tears as she walked into the Day Class dorms.
Yuki turned away from the other girl to shoot a look at Tisha-san who stood to one side of the dorm entry hall, sending him an unspoken message to look after the distraught Noble. He nodded in understanding before moving to follow the silver haired vampire.
"Yuki, you need to come out." Niisan said in an uncharacteristically raised voice. "We have guests."
They really did not give us any time to breathe did they? The Second Lord thought with a sigh as she stepped back out of the Day Class dorm building.
Looking at the dozens of Purebloods that were now standing across from them, she could see what had Niisan so alarmed. If they were here to fight… It wouldn't be an easy fight. Whilst Yuki was confident she and Niisan were the most powerful of their kind, fighting so many of their peers was a fight that she wasn't certain they could win even with the help of the Night Class and the Student Council. Something that their subordinates knew too if the tense way they held themselves was anything to go by, even Yori looked unsettled as she stepped into position at Yuki's side.
"Toma Shizuku-dono," Yuki greeted the child-like Pureblood that was the clear leader of the new arrivals. "What brings you and everyone else here?"
"Don't play coy, Kuran Yuki." The boy dressed in an extravagant outfit that consisted of a white puffy shirt and a dark blue tie around the collar of the shirt, black dress pants and a black top hat said. "We're here to put down your little coup. We refuse to accept the restoration of you Kurans as monarchs of our kind."
"We have no intention to do th-"
"Do you take us for fools!?" Toma-dono spat, pointing a finger accusingly at Yuki. "Your brother massacred the Senate! What else is that but a prelude to an attempted takeover!?"
I knew that would cause problems. Yuki though, barely suppressing the urge to shoot her brother a glare.
"We are attempting no such thing." Niisan said, stepping forward to take charge of the situation. "I eliminated them because they were in league with Rido, who as I'm sure you know just attacked us. It was an act of self-defense."
"And you'd have us believe that eliminating the greatest check on your authority is just an unexpected bonus?" Toma-dono scoffed even as his allies began muttering uncertainly behind him. "You say they were aligned with your uncle but what proof do you have of that?"
"The Senate's leader, Ichijo Asato, has been harboring Rido," Hio-dono said as she materialized to stand next to Yuki. She wasn't alone however as she had been accompanied by Isaya Shoto-dono as well as the Hanadagi family and a number of other Purebloods that she'd set out to gather in preparation of this battle.
This must be the largest concentration of Purebloods of our kind that has ever been in one place before. Yuki thought idly as the two sides stared at each other challengingly though it seemed Toma-dono's allies were wavering slightly if the uneasy glances some of them were shooting at each other was any indication. Though, I do wonder if Hio-dono timed their arrival for dramatic effect? Or did things just turn out that conveniently.
"And besides," Isaya-dono said, picking up where Hio-dono had left off. "The elimination of the Council of Elders doesn't just benefit the Kurans. With them gone, all of us Purebloods now collectively hold governing authority over our kind. This is a perfect chance for us to build a new government, one that is less corrupt."
"One led by the Kurans you mean," Toma-dono shot back defiantly. "Or do you think me a fool, you Kuran lover!"
"This is getting us nowhere," the Hanadagi lord growled. "You lot just want to kill the Kurans, don't you? Well, you'll have to go through my dead body. Yuki-dono saved the lives of me and my family, I owe them for that. I will not stand idly by and do nothing whilst others seek to destroy them."
"So be it," Toma-dono said, his eyes narrowed. "If you want to die with the Kurans then I'm happy to oblige!"
With that he lunged at Yuki, his right arm enshrouded in raw power and poised to impale her.
The Second Lord almost rolled her eyes. Yes, the Pureblood boy was fast, perhaps even by the standards of their kind, but she was a Lord of the Thirteen and had been trained by no less than the infamous Thirteenth Lord herself. This was nothing. So in one smooth motion she spun out of the way of the attack, pushing Yori aside in the same motion, and summoned Artemis into her hand ready to counterattack.
As Toma-dono pivoted to close with her again and she began moulding her magic for said counterattack however their fight, and the larger one that was on the verge of breaking out, was interrupted when a rain of energy bullets and razor sharp feathers rained down on the entire area. Reacting with a speed that drew gasps from many, including her fellow Purebloods, Yuki spun away from Toma-dono to look skyward and sent her gathered magic into a Greater Destruction Wave that disintegrated the bulk of the incoming barrage.
"Yuki! The Outsiders' servants!" Yori shouted even as the others evaded the much reduced bombardment, pointing at the Gun Witch and the Sparrow who were now hovering in the sky above them and looking down with predatory gleams in their eyes.
"Disintegration Bullet." Yuki cast, sending a barrage of bullets of her destructive magic at the two extradimensional invaders.
Smirking, the Gun Witch returned precise interception fire that completely negated Yuki's attack. At the same time, the Sparrow transformed into her harpy form and her arms grew massive, so large in fact that it blotted out the moon that had illuminated the night.
"F̷e̶a̶t̸h̸e̴r̴ ̶M̵e̸t̵e̶o̵r̸!" The Sparrow shouted, sending a barrage of flaming feathers shooting out of her enlarged wings that shot down towards the earth like fiery lances.
"Evade it!" Yuki shouted, as she leapt out of the way of the three projectiles that had zeroed in on her position. The attack was flying too fast for her to even consider intercepting it.
Most of her allies heeded her, avoiding getting skewered and set alight. However, Toma-dono's faction weren't so lucky. Many of them, perhaps shocked by the sudden appearance of the Outsiders' servants, reacted too slowly and the flaming feathers targeting them hit their mark.
"W-What is going on!?" Toma-dono shouted in confusion, just barely managing to avoid one of the Sparrow's projectiles and joining the dozens of their fellow Purebloods in burning to death.
"A̷ ̸m̶a̸s̵s̸a̵c̸r̶e̵." The Gun Witch informed him as she materialized directly behind the panicked child-like head of the Toma clan and pressed her gun to his head. "D̷e̷a̴t̵h̷ ̸G̶u̵n̷."
Her gun barked and a beam of dark energy vaporized the Pureblood's head.
"Stop!" Yuki growled as she blurred towards the gunslinger, only to be intercepted by the Sparrow crashing into the ground, missing being impaled by her taloned feet simply because the Second Lord managed to jump back at the last instant.
The Sparrow wasn't done though and spinning, she sent a fan of flaming feathers flying at Yuki.
"Impenetrable." Yuki cast as she spun Artemis in front of her like a makeshift shield, the spell enhancing the Mystic Code's durability a great deal and allowing it to deflect the attack.
Even as she did that, she had channeled a portion of her magic into the ground and had a pike of superhard material normally only found in the cores of planets to attempt to impale the Sparrow. The damned harpy however managed to leap into the air just in time to avoid being skewered.
Despite her annoyance, Yuki had expected that the Sparrow would succeed in evading her hasty counterattack and had a follow up ready. Using Shadow Step, she teleported behind the airborne harpy.
"Matter Reaper!" Yuki cast, enhancing Artemis with her destructive magic even as she swung it into the Sparrow's back.
The harpy moved at an inhuman speed and brought her wings in front of her in a block, but the dark energy enshrouded scythe cut through the feathered limbs like a hot knife through butter, pulling an agonized scream from the extradimensional creature. That did not satisfy her though, far from it. So even as the Sparrow recoiled in pain at having her arms amputated, Yuki hit her with a spell to add to her misery.
"Disintegration Lance." She cast, firing a lance of her magic that blasted straight through the harpy's body.
"A̶k̸a̸n̷e̷!" The Sparrow screamed out as her body began to distort, its shape deforming and losing any semblance of its human shape, becoming a twisted avian shape that hurt the eyes just to look at even as it began to fade from existence.
I did it! Yuki crowed in victory. I severed her connection to the world.
"A̷v̷e̸n̷g̸e̴ ̷m̶e̴!" The harpy shouted as her twisted form finished fading from their world.
"M̴i̷k̷a̵!" The Gun Witch shouted, looking distraught even as she fended off the combined assault from Yori and Niisan with a hail of energy bullets from her gun.
Ignoring the nigh incomprehensible byplay between the invaders, Yuki took a second to survey how the battle had proceeded while she had been focused on the Sparrow and grimaced. Her fight with the harpy had been brief, yet in that short span of time the Gun Witch had somehow managed to reap a deadly tool on their side. The monster had killed dozens of Purebloods, likely making this the single bloodiest day in their kind's history! And that wasn't even factoring the lesser Vampires and Student Councillors that she'd killed.
Yuki would've tried to come up with a more precise casualty count but before she could, the Gun Witch had teleported straight out of her engagement with Niisan and Yori to stand right in front of her.
"D̷i̶e̵!" The gunslinger snarled as she fired her gun point blank into Yuki's face.
Only a hasty use of Shadow Step allowed her to get out of the way of the black energy that would have consumed her. She did not get a reprieve though as the Gun Witch followed her, a beam already charging up in her gun's barrel as they both rematerialized.
Realizing that she likely wouldn't be able to shake the other woman through teleporting, Yuki chose instead to duck under the beam, lashing out with Artemis as she did. This forced the Gun Witch to teleport away to avoid having her legs cut out from under her, but the alien refused to give Yuki a reprieve and almost instantly rematerialized to the Second Lord's side.
Knowing what was to come, Yuki rolled out of the way of the deadly beam that the invader shot in her direction. Desperately, she had diamond spikes shoot out of the earth in a bid to trap the Gun Witch but as she'd feared the alien teleported away seconds before they struck home, in the process also avoiding the hail of other attacks sent her way by the Second Lord's allies in a bid to aid her.
Yuki though did not bother to wait to see any of this, having transited from her roll directly into a teleport that took her back to the ruined building where she'd fought Zero-san. Enough people had died at the hands of the Gun Witch. If she could protect them by luring her away and behind some hastily cast wards to keep others out, Yuki would gladly do so even if it meant fighting a battle she had a feeling she wasn't able to win.
"Impenetrable." Yuki cast, enhancing Artemis once more just as she used it to deflect the Gun Witch's beam as the other woman teleported in.
Though if the Second Lord hadn't known it beforehand, she'd have been hard pressed to identify the extradimensional creature as female now. For as she rematerialized, it revealed a form that had become as twisted and otherworldly as the Sparrow's had before she'd been driven from the world.
The Gun Witch retained a vaguely humanoid shape but she'd gained at least a foot or more in height, her limbs had lengthened disproportionately so that her arms especially now seemed to almost drag along the ground. An effect made all the more prominent by the way that they both now ended in gunbarrels, the creature's eponymous weapon seemingly having fused with her arms. Her body also seemed odd, almost but not quite as if she now looked 2D somehow. The only thing that did not change about her appearance was her face which was still entirely human, a fact that considering her other changes made her seem all the more disturbing.
Raising both her cannon arms at Yuki, the creature cast a spell. "D̴e̶a̴t̵h̶ ̴C̴a̸n̷n̵o̴n̸!"
Predictably, a pair of beams of jet black energy shot from the twin barrels obliterating everything in their path. Surveying the wasteland they created in their wake from her vantage point in the sky where she'd teleported to evade the attack, Yuki gulped. It had literally glassed the earth for as far as her Pureblood eyes could see!
If I get caught in one of those, I'm dead.
"Y̸o̸u̷'̸r̵e̸ ̴n̶o̴t̸ ̶g̷e̶t̴t̷i̴n̴g̶ ̵a̵w̵a̵y̷!" The alien shouted as she materialized behind Yuki.
"Matter Cutter!" Yuki shouted, sending a blade of deatomizing energy at the monster even as she teleported away.
She rematerialized to see her spell cut through the twin beams of death that the Gun Witch shot at where she'd been and score a direct hit on the abomination. It created a deep gash in her torso but if she was affected by it, she did not show it as she spun around sending her beams sweeping across the sky.
Ducking below the beam, Yuki fired off another dozen Matter Cutters at the Gun Witch who did not so much as flinch even as her body became riddled with cuts from the spells.
Doesn't she feel pain!? The Second Lord thought incredulously as she flew around the alien's sweeping beams.
Whilst the extrademensional might seem impervious to pain, she apparently was not immune to frustration if the annoyance she radiated at Yuki's continued evasion of her attacks was any indication. Thus, it was no surprise that she switched tactics and abandoning her beams, she raised her arms above her head and began gathering together a single concentrated orb of dark energy.
I can't let her finish that spell! Yuki concluded as she fired off a Disintegration Lance at the Gun Witch, hoping to repeat what she'd achieved using it on the Sparrow. Sadly, it seemed the gunslinger had learned from earlier and seconds before impact, the lance slammed into a previously invisible bubble shaped barrier of dark energy around the alien.
"D̴e̴a̵t̷h̶ ̵B̵u̴l̵l̴e̷t̵ ̷H̶e̸l̵l̷!" The invader incanted as the sphere of energy she'd been gathering violently exploded, sending bullets of energy flying in chaotic patterns that seemed to fill the entire area.
"Impenetrable." Yuki cast on Artemis as she used her Mystic Code to deflect what bullets she could even as she jinxed and dodged through the air using Fly in a desperate attempt to evade the storm of projectiles.
It was futile though. There were simply too many bullets in the air and their patterns too erratic for her to find an opening. First one, then two, then dozens of the bullets slipped through her guard, slamming into her. Her armor-like wards held for perhaps the first dozen or so before shattering and the remainder found purchase in her fragile flesh, eliciting a pained scream from her.
"Void Shell! Heal!" Yuki heard someone cast even as a pure black dome surrounded her and the familiar figure of Sensei appeared kneeling over her and examining her worriedly. "Yuki, are you- Right, stupid quesiton."
Even through her pain - Sensei's skill healing at best was subpar at best and despite her spell and her own regeneration, Yuki's injuries were healing slowly. - Yuki smiled. Sensei was here. Everything would be alright now.
Though I must really look terrible for Sensei to be so rattled.
"You stay here and heal," she ordered as she stood. "I'll deal with that ali-"
"No," Yuki said as she pushed herself back to her feet. "We'll do it together."
"Yuki, you're-"
"Together!" Yuki insisted.
The Gun Witch had been targeting her people. She was on a rampage now because Yuki had defeated her partner. The least she could do was assist in her defeat. No. It was her duty to do so. As a leader of the Kuranians. As the Second Lord of the Council of Thirteen. And she would not shirk her responsibilities.
Sensei did not look like she agreed but Yuki did not give her a chance to argue as she teleported out of the Void Shell barrier.
She rematerialized directly above where the Gun Witch had been only to find that she'd moved to hover over the dome of void energy and was blasting ineffectually away at it. The sight almost made Yuki jealous. She'd struggled to keep up with the extrademensional's attacks but Sensei's spell was giving her a challenge? Just how much stronger than her was Sensei?
It was an old, petty feeling though and Yuki tossed it aside with the ease of long practice. Instead, she swung Artemis in the direction of the slow to react Gun Witch as she fired off a brace of Matter Cutters at her. They slammed into the abomination's protective barrier, cutting grooves into its surface but failing to penetrate even as its owner raised her twin cannons in Yuki's direction.
She didn't get a chance to use them however before Sensei reminded her that she wasn't fighting a single Lord of the Thirteen anymore.
"Void Cannon!" The Thirteenth Lord shouted from inside her barrier as a massive beam of void energy shot out of it and consumed the Gun Witch.
Immediately the extradimensional's barrier started to crack and realizing the danger, she abandoned her own attack and turned her cannons downwards in the direction of Sensei, she poured the magic she'd gathered in them into maintaining her barrier instead, and the cracks it created sealed themselves. Capitalizing on this, Yuki began firing away at her with more Matter Cutters and the occasional Disintegration Lance. The Gun Witch glared in her direction as her spells cut deeper and deeper into her barrier but did not redirect her magic, wisely realizing just who posed the bigger threat.
As Yuki's attacks were finally about to break through the barrier, the Gun Witch decided to risk a teleport. Teleporting when being under attack by void energy was tricky business. The volatile energy didn't just affect one plane of a reality and even though it showed little visible sign of it also affected the nearest upper and lower planes through which teleportation travelled. It took skill, or natural affinity with void energy, to do so safely.
Fortunately, at least for the Lords of the Thirteen who were her opponents, unlike Yuki who had been trained to do so or Sensei who as a void user had the required affinity, the Gun Witch had neither. Thus as she rematerialized a short distance away from Yuki, probably intending to launch a surprise attack, she did so looking disorientated and literally trailing unnatural, dark smoke from her body.
If either Lord of the Thirteen were feeling honorable they might have given their opponent a breather to recover. But one was the infamous Assassin Lord and the other was one of her apprentices, honour had no meaning to them in the midst of a fight. Thus without a second of hesitation, they both went on the offensive.
Yuki charged at the Gun Witch, Artemis empowered by Matter Reaper as she swung at the alien in a furious and deadly assault that still somehow retained enough grace to almost appear as a dance. Not to be outdone, Sensei supported her from afar with targeted bolts of void energy that slipped past her body everytime she disengaged for a second or two to reposition for the next swing.
Despite the furious assault and her disorientation, the extradimensional put up a spirited defense. Using the gun barrels that her arms had become as shields, she parried or deflected Yuki's swings and blocked as many of Sensei's projectiles as she could. It was however not enough. Still reeling from the aftereffects of her botched teleport, she simply could not fully keep up and it wasn't long before Yuki found an opening.
Got you. The Second Lord though with a smirk as the Gun Witch fell for one of her feints, the alien swinging her right arm high to block a downward swing only for Yuki to spin her scythe in her hand so the blade was poised to hook the extended arm at the armpit. The invader tried to move her left arm in to block Artemis but a shot from Sensei knocked it out of position, allowing Yuki to catch its right counterpart and with a tug amputate it from its owner.
To her credit, the Gun Witch just grunted in pain at the loss of her arm and tried to recover by moving her remaining arm to attempt to shoot Yuki. The Second Lord just pirouetted out of the way to allow one of Sensei's void bullets to shoot down the alien's gunbarrel. The resulting blast shattered the weapon and sent its owner flying back right into Artemis' blade.
"Good riddance," Yuki declared with finality as her Mystic Code decapitated the Gun Witch, dealing enough of a blow to the abomination that at long last that her connection to the world was severed and her body started to fade away.
Sensei did not seem to be taking any chances however as even she had a pillar of void energy consume the rapidly fading corpse just in case.
"Sorry for being late," she told Yuki as she teleported to her side, both of them floating in midair thanks to the Fly spell and watched the place where the Gun Witch had faded warily. "They waylaid me with a horde of lesser monsters."
"I was wondering how they'd slipped past you Sensei." Yuki told her with a smile. "But better late than never. Thanks for the assist."
"You're welcome." Sensei said, pulling Yuki into a one armed hug. "I'll always be there to help my children. Always."
Done.
Hope you guys like this long chapter. It's mostly, if I counted correctly, fights so I am certain the fight junkies did. Well, if I did them well anyways. Do let me know if I did or did not.
On the topic of fights, it might seem forced to have so many squished together like this but keep in mind this is how battles work. It's a series of fights that happen one after another in quick succession, sometimes with little to no break in between. That was what I was trying to portray in this chapter.
Now I'm sure some Zero fans must be seething now about how I just killed him off like this and my general treatment of him in this story. Well… It's a fair criticism. To be honest, he just didn't fit well with what I had planned for Yuki. He was at best a fourth wheel in the relationship department. Kaname being the third wheel in her relationship with Yori. And basically completely irrelevant to her plans for her people or being a Lord of the Thirteen. So I decided to instead phase him out of the story and since my version of canon!Vampire Knight's events allowed me to explore the worst case scenario for him, I decided why not do so. If that upsets you, I'm sorry but I did what I did to preserve my vision of this story. If you prefer something else, please do write it yourself or seek it elsewhere. Do not whine to me about it and demand I change it to suit your needs.
Okay, with that out of the way, that's really about it for this chapter. Just an epilogue for this 'book' left and then we're off to focusing on another Lord of the Thirteen. So till said epilogue s̶a̸y̶o̵n̸a̶r̶a̶!