Sorry about the delay ya'll but to put it bluntly midterms are a bitch. Thankfully they are all over. . . for now. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and can forgive me for making you wait so long.
Disclaimer: I own nothing and make no claim to.
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The purebloods stood about ten feet away from each other, glaring slightly into the silence that stretched between them. Then it was broken by Sara's sugary sweet voice saying, "I suggest that you take a few moments to say goodbye to those you care about. This may be your last chance." She examined her fingernails as though the discussions of the potential deaths of two people had no impact on her whatsoever, and it didn't. She didn't see them as people but rather as obstacles in her path to ruling the world.
Kaname scoffed in reply and said, "I hardly think that will be necessary, but I will take this time for my own purposes. I suggest you do the same." When he had finished speaking he turned to face Yuuki, his eyes flashing red briefly as he erected a sound proof barrier between them and Sara.
Yuuki felt the flash of power and looked at her lover in concern. "Kaname, you really shouldn't do that," she said almost desperately. "You know I don't know how to use my powers and—"
"You worry too much," he said gently. "I promise you that everything will be fine, I have more than enough power to handle Sara."
"Still," Yuuki said unconvinced. "What do you want me to do if you get hurt? I . . . I . . ."
"Calm down," he said gripping her shoulders and shaking her gently. "You have to stay calm. The key to fighting is to keep your head clear. Now I would have liked to give you a little better training before anything like this happened—"
"You knew something like this was going to happen?" She demanded her eyes flashing with anger.
He shrugged in reply and said, "I knew it was a possibility. As I was saying, to use your powers all you need to do is think precisely about what you want to accomplish and release the exact amount of power you need to do it."
"That sounds complicated," she replied. "How am I supposed to do all that and avoid attacks Sara sends at me?"
"In this case, focus more on what you want to do and less on the power needed to do it. It won't matter if you accidently blow a hole through her instead of just the wall behind her," Kaname replied simply. "Though it would probably be best if you let me handle her and just focus on keeping yourself safe. It will take little effort to kill her."
Yuuki shivered a little at his callousness. "You have done this before, haven't you?"
He smiled sadly and for a moment his eyes held all the age that his body refused to show, "More times than I care to remember," he replied. The fact that Kaname had faced many other purebloods and come out the victor reassured Yuuki and gave her some hope that they would be fine. "I think someone else would like to speak to you," Kaname said looking over her shoulder.
She turned and saw the worried eyes of her father looking at her. He smiled sadly and said, "I'm not going to ask you not to fight her, I will just ask that you be careful." He pulled her into a tight hug that she didn't try to fight. She did however try to fight the tears that tried to stream down her face at the thought that this may be the last time she saw him.
"Can I ask you for something, Dad?" she asked when they pulled away.
"Of course, Yuuki, what do you want?" he was surprised at her for thinking she needed to ask permission to ask.
"May I have your hair tie?" she replied with absolute seriousness.
"My hair tie?" he asked confused reaching up to untie it.
"Yes, either that or your sword. I can't fight with my hair loose with it this long," she replied. He handed her the tie and watched for a moment as she tried to contain her hair, reaching forward to assist her when it was apparent that she was going to have difficulty doing it on her own. "Thank you," she said. He kissed her on the forehead and whispered," Go on." She surveyed the crowd on final time, Zero giving her a nod of encouragement that she returned before she stepped up beside Kaname and turned with him to face Sara.
Kaname squeezed her hand gently and sent her a reassuring smile. "Just focus," he said before he dropped he barrier between them and Sara.
"So are we finally ready?" she asked rudely. "I was wondering if you were going to take all day." She had considered attacking before they agreed they were ready to proceed, but she would have no one saying that she had not done things fairly. Even if the way Kaname had disregarded her presence after he erected his little barrier was insulting.
"We are if you are," Kaname replied smoothly.
"Then let the games begin," Sara said smiling cruelly. Her eyes flashed red for a moment and Yuuki turned as she felt something pass behind her. She fought the impulse to ask what that had been since she didn't want to reveal her ignorance yet again. She glanced at Kaname hoping he would find some way to explain to her what Sara had just done.
Kaname had realized the second the magic had left Sara that it was a type of barrier spell, but it took him a moment longer to ascertain the exact nature of it. It was designed to restrict who could pass through it and designed in such a way that it prevented the passage of anyone without pureblood in their veins from entering the circle and also prevent anyone with pureblood from leaving the arena. Though he would never admit it to her, that was a nice bit of magic and he was impressed. He was trying to figure out a way to key Yuuki into the purpose of the barrier when Sara spoke.
"I figured that I would insure that this battle will truly be just between the three of us," she said. "Not that I don't trust your followers sense of self preservation would prevent them from intervening, but this just prevents them from doing something stupid."
"And insures that we all stay and finish the battle as well," Kaname added hoping that Yuuki realized that he was saying the barrier would harm her if she tried to cross it.
He needn't have worried since Sara's next words reinforced his hints. "Of course," Sara replied with a smile. "It is possible that you could survive brief contact with the barrier, but any attempt to cross it will prove fatal."
At those words Kaien and Zero both clenched their fists. They both realized that there was nothing they could do but watch as someone they loved could be killed in front of them. Zero's mind flashed back to the way Rido had manhandled both of them and felt his body begin to try to curl in on itself in an attempt to protect himself from the resurgence of feelings of uselessness. His breathing and heart rate began to speed in result of the feeling of being trapped. Hearing the change, Seiren moved closer to him and grabbed his hand in an attempt to comfort him, despite the other vampires present: reputation be damned.
He turned to face her and she saw such depth of fear and sorrow in his eyes that it broke her heart. "They'll be fine," she said as much to reassure herself as him. He didn't reply since he neither wanted to lie to her nor crush her hope but instead turned back to watch the fight.
Deciding that the preliminary speeches and preparations had gone on long enough, Kaname gathered his energy and sent a weak blast at Sara to test her defenses and judge how quickly this battle could be resolved. As he anticipated she blocked it easily and it passed through the barrier and into the tree behind her, cracking it.
"Is that seriously the best you can do?" She laughed and sent a return attack of her own. Kaname deflected that attack with ease but felt a moment of panic when he realized that Sara's attack had rebounded from the barrier at an angle that would bounce the deflected attack at Yuuki. He was about to teleport in front of her and block the attack or take it if he didn't have time to block it, but suddenly Yuuki's eyes glowed red and the attack stopped about two feet from her and passed over the two of them and moved toward Sara who caught the attack in one hand and tilted her head with a condescending smile.
Anger flowed through Yuuki that Sara would smile like an indulgent parent who had had a toddler throw something at them. She felt the anger sear her veins and then it erupted from her in a controlled arrow that flew right at Sara, who attempted to catch it as she had her own. Sara cried out in pain as the energy passed through her hand and cut along her cheek before destroying the tree that Kaname had damaged.
Sara's eyes widened as she took in the sight of her own blood running down her arm and her face contorted with anger. "So the kitten does have claws after all," she snarled. "Looks like it's time to step up this game." She expected to see fear in the eyes of the other pureblood princess, but was surprised to see cold determination instead.
Wondering what Sara meant, she watched and waited for the next attack. She had pulled off one successful attack but was unsure whether she could do it again. It seemed she only had the ability to work her magic when she gave in to her emotions, but Kaname had said to control her emotions. She was so confused and didn't want to accidently hurt someone other than her target just to use her powers.
Sara stood there for a second appearing to formulate a plan and Kaname took advantage of her apparent distraction to teleport behind her and launch an attack at her back. That was exactly what Sara had wanted. Much like had happened with Rido, the blood Yuuki had drawn was now being turned into a weapon against them. Sara's blood shot out behind her and wrapped around Kaname's waist and lifted him into the air. His hand turned into a claw and he attempted to slice through the blood but the fluid only flowed around the claw and forced it away from the line and into the air. The entire time this had been going on Sara had been forcing him toward the barrier. He pushed his head forward and sent another blast at Sara to try to get her to drop him. She still had her back to him so she didn't see the tell-tale sign of his eyes glowing red and dodged a second too late allowing the attack to graze her shoulder and leave a crater in the dirt in front of her.
She spun in anger, her eyes glowing with the force of her emotion. A string shot from the main branch and wrapped around Kaname's neck, simultaneously forcing his head toward the barrier and restricting his air supply. He brought his hand up in an attempt to pull the rope away from his neck and in the process his arm brushed the barrier and pain flared. He let out a hiss of pain and dropped his arm. He glanced down in an attempt to see the extent of the damage to his arm, but his clothes had remained unharmed, though his sleeve was already soaked with blood. He could also feel his blood flowing freely down his hand and watched as it defied gravity to join Sara's string and strengthen it. He looked at her in shock despite himself.
"Oh," Sara sneered, "Did you not know that I could control the blood of others as well as my own?" She narrowed her eyes and tried to force him closer to the barrier while he tried to erect a barrier around himself to prevent the barrier from touching him. The cords around him sent out tendrels anytime his magic got to close and due to the proximity of the barrier, he couldn't do it. He also couldn't teleport away because he needed to touch the ground to work that particular bit of magic. Despite what he had told Yuuki, and intervention would be a good thing now.
Though he had told her he was capable of handling it and to just protect herself, the smell of Kaname's blood in the air did something to Yuuki. She momentarily forgot the fact that she had pureblood powers and wanted to destroy the other woman who would dare harm her lover, and wanted to do it with her bare hands. Giving into that impulse, she charged across the clearing and grabbed Sara by the hair pulling her head back before punching her in the face.
Whatever retaliation Sara had been expecting, that wasn't it. In her shock she dropped Kaname a few feet and his toes touched the ground allowing him to teleport away from the boundary and break the connection with Sara's cord of blood. For a moment Sara didn't notice that she had lost the connection to Kaname since she was trying to fend off the violent physical attacks by Yuuki, but once she did, she could do nothing about it anyway. She was out of her element. She was appalled. She had been in a few pureblood battles and had never been assaulted physically, magically yes, but no one had ever resorted to fisticuffs and she had not been educated in fighting as a true pureblood princess.
Yuuki conversely had the advantage here, she knew about hand-to-hand and tripped Sara before sitting on her chest and punching her with her right hand while holding her head in place with a fistful of hair in her left. "See," Yuuki called over her shoulder to Kaname, "this is why I wanted to pin my hair up. It provides too much of a . . . Kaname!" She abruptly released Sara, who hit her head on the ground as Yuuki sprinted to Kaname's side.
He was lying on the ground using everything he could think of to get the cord from around his neck in vain. When he had teleported away from the main cord he had assumed that the others would just release, but the opposite had happened. Without the main cord to give them direction, the last command they got was the one they were still following. He felt a small surge of panic. Nothing he tried worked against the cords. He could only think of one thing that would work against them and that was out of his reach at the moment and would be dangerous to use in the current situation. One other thing might work, but with Yuuki so close to Sara and them fighting as they were, he was afraid to attack Sara for fear that Yuuki would get in the path of the attack.
Yuuki dropped to her knees beside Kaname and tried to reach under the ropes, though the marks from his own fingernails on his neck showed her that it would be useless. She needed something that would cut through the blood ropes, but she had no idea what it was, and since he couldn't breathe she couldn't just ask Kaname. She grabbed two handfuls of her own hair and pulled it in frustration as she closed her eyes and tried to think.
"Is that really all you can do you animal?" Sara snarled from behind her.
"Relase him." Yuuki begged turning to face Sara. Feeling a bit of smug satisfaction when she saw the bruise that was blooming momentarially around Sara's eye.
"Now why would I ever do that?" Sara asked. "In case you forgot, my goal is to kill you both. After he's gone, which shouldn't be long, I will eliminate you."
Fear and desperation rose in Yuuki's heart, making her feel sick to her stomach and freezing her veins. Freezing, that was it. She had seen Aidou-senpai use ice before, there should be no reason she couldn't do the same. If she froze the blood then she should be able to break it. She concentrated for a second on the fear and felt a stream of ice flow from her fingers and touch the blood and freeze it. She reached down and tried to break it but couldn't do it. Damn it,she thought. I can't let him die, I need something that can cut this.in the back of her mind she felt a tingling, almost electric presence and realized that like every other morning she had gotten up and strapped Artemis to her thigh. Maybe the electricity means that I can use it, she thought, reaching under the edge of her skirt for the weapon only to withdraw her hand as it shocked her.
Sara laughed as Yuuki pulled her hand back and Yuuki turned to face her with murder flashing through her crimson eyes. "You honestly thought—" Sara began only to be cut off by Yuuki.
"Shut the hell up!" Yuuki yelled at her. "What kind of sadistic bitch are you? He's dying and you stand there laughing and smirking. You truly are evil." With the anger now racing though her veins she reached back under her skirt and grabbed Artemis despite the electricity coursing through her hand and willed it to help her. Please, she begged. Help me help him. Artemis apparently understood her plea because the electricity stopped and it transformed into a sickle. "What the hell am I going to do with that?" She asked aloud and Artemis transformed into a knife. "Better," she said rolling her eyes and leaning down to cut the string of blood. She felt a sting of remorse when she nicked Kaname in the process but it soon disappeared and was replaced by relief as he drew breath and started coughing.
Sara and the witnesses were shocked. The pureblood princess was using an anti-vampire weapon. There was very little precedence for this, the Kurans were known to have done that in the past but it hadn't happened in generations. Even Zero, who had been restraining Seiren since Kaname had begun choking but had stopped fighting him now, was shocked. He had never heard of a vampire being able to use anti-vampire weapons, other than firearms of course.
Kaname was the only one not even a little astounded by this turn of events, having used Artemis himself in the past. He only wished she had discovered this a little earlier. That had been too close for comfort. He had underestimated Sara, but now it was time to end this. He stood slowly, still panting a little and faced her.
Sara was still focused on Yuuki with a look of utter confusion on her face as Yuuki turned Artemis back into a rod and put it back in its holster. However she felt Kaname begin to collect a massive amount of his power to attack her and quickly drew blood which she sent out in an abrupt attack and pulled Yuuki back against her chest.
"Now, now, Kaname," Sara taunted hiding behind Yuuki's small frame, "You don't want to risk hurting your sister by unleashing that attack, do you?" Yuuki tried to hit her, but Sara sent out more ribbons of blood that wrapped around Yuuki at regular intervals and prevented her from moving. "None of that now," Sara whispered in Yuuki's ear.
Seeing that there was no way to kill Sara without hurting Yuuki, Kaname let the power dissipate. "If you teleport, I will kill her," Sara said coldly.
"Then it seems we are at a bit of an impasse," Kaname replied while his brain searched for ways kill Sara without her killing Yuuki. He didn't see how they could both get out of this alive. He only could think of one way, and there was no way he was going to do that. There were no two ways about it. They were screwed.
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Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Please tell me what you thought, I don't do fight scenes often. And thank you for reading.
~Stickdonkeys