"Excuse me?" Kaname asked, his voice reflecting his surprise that Yuuki would actively oppose him. He halfway expected her to hang her head, apologize and step out of the way. A month ago that was what she would have done, but now . . . that was not what happened.
"You heard me," Yuuki replied, her voice choked with emotion but her chin raised and her back straight as she glared at him in defiance. "If you want to kill them, you'll have to go through me." She knew that her voice quivered as she spoke but her determination was no lessened by her fear or sorrow at what she was doing. Her mind was made up. She would stop him.
"You do know that I can kill them even with you standing there without harming you, right?" Kaname asked, his tone harsh as he glared at his lover. While he was glad that she was showing conviction, this was not something that he would be opposed on. They would die. Painfully if he could manage it.
"Yes," she replied, swallowing heavily to clear her throat before she continued. "You could. Just know this: I will block your attacks for as long as I can manage. I will do everything that I can to stop you."
"You wouldn't even be able to block the first," Kaname snarled coldly. "If I was to unleash even a fraction of the power I possess it would rip through everything you had as though there was nothing there. You cannot stop me. And if you try . . . well I'm not sure that I can forgive you."
"You're right," Yuuki replied quietly, tears beginning to prickle her eyes that Kaname would say something so cruel to her, but rather than weaken it, his harsh words actually strengthened her resolve. "I can't stop you. Hell, I'll bet that if everyone here united against you it wouldn't do anything. You could blast through all our magics without breaking a sweat. But that doesn't matter. Even though I know it's useless, I'll still try. Even if that means that you hate me forever. I can live with that if I must. But if I don't try, I'll hate myself forever and that . . . I can't live with that.
"And know this, Kaname," Yuuki continued, her voice growing in strength and volume as she spoke. "I love you. I probably always will. But if you do this I will also hate you. I've never been comfortable with how easy it is for you to take a life. But I've always managed to convince myself that it was necessary, even the senate, but this . . . It's not necessary this time, Kaname. They have surrendered peacefully. They have lost everything. It's over."
Kaname couldn't have looked more stunned if she had slapped him. Yuuki, his Yuuki, had just said that she would hate him. Couldn't she see that this was something that he had to do? Vengeance required it. Why did she oppose him? Rather than entertain the possibility that she might be right, her words angered him. What did she know? She was little more than a child. She knew nothing about the cruelty of the world and how wrongs required retribution. Who was she to criticize him? He who had seen millennia pass?
"No, Yuuki," Kaname replied, his voice little more than a whisper. "This is not over. I can't expect you to understand why I have to do this, but I do. They have to pay for what they have done."
"Are you hearing yourself?" Yuuki demanded. "Do you have any idea just how crazy you sound? You can't just kill people!"
"Why not?" Kaname asked coldly. "You have. Or have you forgotten that your hands are not clean of blood either, Yuuki. You want to stand there and tell me that I have no right to kill people, tell me, what right did you have to take the lives you have taken?" At his words Yuuki's face crumbled.
"I haven't forgotten," Yuuki breathed. "I still remember feeling their pain as I ripped them apart and they died. But I did what I had to do to protect others. This is not the same thing, Kaname. They're no threat. There is no reason to kill them."
"So killing is only justified if you say it is?" Kaname shot.
"I never said that," Yuuki yelled. "I never said that killing is justified. If it can be avoided there is no reason a life should be lost. Just because you have the power to do it doesn't make it right, Kaname."
A sudden thought occurred to her, wafting out of her memory. A snippet of a conversation she had taken place in what seemed like a lifetime ago. A conversation that took place during Kaname and Sara's battle with Rido in limbo:
Rido shifted uncomfortably under the angry stares of the three other purebloods. "Now, now," he said, holding his hands in front of him in a placating gesture. "Don't look at me that way. It's not as if all of your hands are clean either. How many people have you killed, Kaname? Or you, Yuuki? Or even you, Sara? You all look at me as though I'm the only one here that has killed. Hell, Kaname and Yuuki both tried to kill me."
"I only tried to kill you because—"Yuuki began only to be cut off by Kaname.
"You owe him no explanation," Kaname told her abruptly. "We were both justified in our actions, unlike him."
"Dear, Kaname," Rido laughed cruelly. "So sure that you are the good guy. I will just remind you that 'good' is a subjective term."
She felt a sob rise up her throat as she realized that she was having the same conversation again, only this time it was Kaname, not Rido that was using the argument that just because she had killed that made it alright. She fell to her knees as Rido's last words tumbled around in her head, twisting and changing until they were a condemnation. Kaname was bad.
"No," she sobbed. There was no way that he had been right. Rido was insane. He had proved it time and time again, but . . . he had been right. Kaname was not good. He may have been at one point but he no longer was. Even with her childhood memories intact, her human memories were still stronger. As she sorted through them she realized that most of the memories she had of Kaname interacting with someone other than her were violent. How many people had he killed for "her sake" and how many of them actually could have been spared? The question left her feeling cold and empty as the thought repeated in her mind. Rido had been right.
Kaname watched her crumble and wondered if she was alright. She seemed to be struggling with something, and he felt a strange sense of triumph in the fact that he knew she was about to allow him to do as he wished. He turned to smile maliciously at the hunters, knowing that if he had a little patience, gave her just a bit more time, Yuuki would condone his actions and he could kill them and not lose her in the process.
Kaien felt nothing akin to triumph as he watched his daughter break. He had intended to let her do this alone, show Kaname and the others that she was strong, but his resolve crumbled as she did and he felt himself going to her side and kneeling beside her. She looked up at him, her burgundy eyes filled with tears and her expression so tortured that it broke his heart.
"He was right," she sobbed grabbing his shirt and crying into his neck. "He was right." Kaien was surprised but wrapped his arms around her and tried to soothe her but she was inconsolable. She said nothing else, just kept mumbling that "he" was right.
"Yuuki, who was right?" Kaien asked.
"Rido," Yuuki sobbed clinging more tightly to him and Kaien felt himself stiffen at the name. What could that madman have said that upset Yuuki so? He had been dead for weeks. What had he said?
"Yuuki, what did Rido say?" Kaien prompted, trying to keep his voice neutral. Rather than answer his question, she shook her head before pulling back to look at Kaien, her eyes filled with such sadness that it made him want to weep as well. She was too young to be so sad.
"I have to stop him," she said. "I can't let him kill them. I . . . things can never go back to how they were, but I can't let him kill them."
"I agree," Kaien said, wondering what she meant by 'can't go back' but letting it go for now. "But what are you going to do. You can't fight him and he doesn't seem to want to be reasoned with."
"I know what I'll do," Yuuki said. "I love you." The words shocked him. What could she possibly have planned that made her feel that she needed to tell him such a thing.
"I love you too, Yuuki," Kaien replied before moving to let her have the floor once more. She stood, the only sign of her tears the lines on her face. She was glorious and Kaien was infinitely proud of her. She looked every inch her mother's daughter.
"Kaname," Yuuki said, facing her lover for what might be the last time. She knew that he would not like what she was about to say and in his present state of mind, she knew that she might not survive his ire, but it was the one thing she could think of. Where kind words and logic had failed, perhaps a harsh reality check would work.
"Kaname," she repeated her voice defeated. "While I can't let you do this, I-I know that I can't stop you. You're going to do what you're going to do and there's nothing that I can do about it. You don't want to see sense and I don't have the strength to fight you or the energy to do it any longer. I hope that you'll still choose to do the right thing, but . . . I-I won't lie to you. No matter what you choose to do . . . I-I can't . . . there's no way for us to be together. Not like we were. Not now that I see the kind of person that you truly are.
"I have tried to ignore it," Yuuki continued her eyes never leaving his face as she tried to drive home the seriousness of her words. "I've told myself that you had your reasons, that you could never kill without a direct threat, but I always knew that was a lie. The reason I put myself between you and Zero that night was because I knew. I knew from you posture and your tone that you were about to commit coldblooded murder. Still I ignored it.
"The senate should have opened my eyes," Yuuki scoffed, her tone bitter about her own blindness. "I should have seen it then. You murdered them, Kaname. All of them. I understand that some of them were corrupt, but there had to be another way. Another way than murder. And then Sara's challenge. We didn't have to accept it! And you knew that! I did a little research into pureblood family trees. Sara was no threat to us. The most she could do was posture. She didn't have the bloodline to actually pose any threat to us. But you accepted the challenge and drug me into the middle of a battle that I had no need to fight and wasn't prepared for just to—I don't even know why you did it!
"And this," Yuuki said gesturing around her. "Can you explain this to me, Kaname because I don't understand it either? I understand why we had to go to war, but . . . here, now. This is unnecessary. Can't you just stop this? End the bloodshed. There's no point to it. Just do the right thing. Prove Rido wrong."
Her words hit him like a bucket of ice water, dousing the flames of his anger. Not the long speech, he had heard all of that from her before or guessed as much. It was the last three words. He wasn't sure what she was talking about but the words struck a chord within him and again he heard Rido's voice in his head.
"I'll let you in on a little secret, Kaname. Deep down, you and me, we're a lot alike. Even she sees it. It wasn't your appearance she was reacting to today: It was your soul."
Even though he had argued vehemently against Rido at the time, his current actions had proved him right. The look that Yuuki gave him as she stood there, it had none of the love or adoration that he was used to seeing in her eyes. Instead there was what almost looked like a mix of hatred and pity. He felt something within him break at the sight. Slowly, he turned his head away from her and looked at the rest of the survivors. All of their eyes were the same. They all held some degree of distaste for his actions, anywhere from discomfort to outright hatred. He sank to his knees with a moan. What had he done?
ooOO88OOoo
Hey all, sorry about the LONG delay on this one. I had a bit of writer's block, couldn't figure out how on earth to end this confrontation without the two of them coming to blows or Kaname killing the rest of the hunters all while trying to avoid TOO much angst . . . I think I failed. At any rate, this is what came out. I hope it was worth the wait!
As always, thank you to everyone who read this chapter and to all of you who have added this story to your alerts or favorites.
And a special thank you to:
Anne Fatalism Dilettante: Thank you! well, it was a verbal spar, does that count? I hope that you enjoyed it!
Akira 91: So would I! and yeah . . . his idiocy in this one knows no bounds . . .
Sezza1987: Thank you so much! I'm sorry that it took so long to get out, but I do hope that it was worth the wait!
Guest: I'm sorry that I failed you. *hangs head in shame*
Yue Matsunoki: I'm glad that you liked that I gave her a spine. That is one of the biggest issues I have with most anime/manga stuff. The women are overly passive. And I'm not sure this will be anything happier than a bittersweet ending. . . the angst bug kinda bit this story.
Nini Hearts: Thank you so much! I can't believe that you reviewed nearly every chapter up to 34! I hope that I didn't lose your interest, but if I did, I would love to know why (though I suppose that if I lost it you will never see this)
Emmawalters090: Thank you!
Animelover1991:Thank you! and I'm sorry that it wasn't soon, but I do hope that it was worth the wait.
: I'm glad that you loved it! And sorry about that :/ hopefully it was worth the wait
Elliot Rose: I'm glad that I could excite you, and we'll have to see what I can do about working in a Kain/Ruka kiss for you. And I agree with you, Yuuki had it off there. Kaname wasn't doing it just to hurt her. But the poor little thing is just so overwhelmed. And I agree. At least one of the core characters had to die, though her misery before her death was very cruel of me. I thought you would like that! I tried to drop subtle hints in, but I may have been a bit too subtle. And they do. I'll cover that later but they both wanted to conceive a child, but she knew that the world needed Kaname to complete his experiment and he would never do it if he knew that he was going to have a child so she hid it from him and delayed him until it was time so that she could give him one last gift to remember her by. And she could have, if what happened next hadn't have happened. And no, Kaname would never physically hurt Yuuki. And their image . . . yeah, that's gone. And yeah . . . if they manage to stay together, they will definitely need marriage counseling. (though I do have to admit that the mental image of Kaname in anger management made me laugh. I may have to crackfic that one). And I'm sorry that it wasn't soon but do hope that it was worth the wait.
Piplup225: I'm glad that you enjoyed it! And I considered it, oh how I considered it but Yuuki would never have stood a chance. So instead we get a verbal spar! Hope it was worth it!
Kannabi888: I'm so sorry that it took so long. And I haven't been keeping up with it. I figure that I'll give it a read once it's completely done (hopefully I'll be done before then and the ending of it won't influence the ending of this overmuch though I will admit that there are similar elements at play)
Well, that's all for now folks. I hope you enjoyed it and would love to hear what you think (even if you hated it) so leave me a review if you have the time and/or feel so inclined.
Stickdonkeys.