"What- what are they doing..." she whimpered. "Yuki?" Verona's voice came with static tint. "What's happening!" She yelled, slowly getting angrier. It went quiet for a moment afterword when soft crying came in through the static. "I couldn't see their faces...why were they chanting like that? Why did it have to be me?"
The recording stopped, Verona slowly looking at Zero. "She's talking about the same night isn't she? We already know." Zero grunted. Verona looked at the recorder in his hands. "This is a start. However, even if it sounds the same...it is not," Verona replied solemnly, looking at Zero. "Her last words on the recording were 'why did it have to be me'. She doesn't believe it was a random sacrifice." Verona hypothesized. Zero frowned. Suddenly they heard the sound of the church's large wooden doors creaking open and hitting the walls with a bang. Verona and Zero came out to see who it was. Takuma approached with his two colleagues up the aisle.
"Father Verona, this is Kaien Cross and Kaname Kuran. Yuki's foster father and brother." Takuma introduced, while walking up the aisle. Verona stared both men down. "I see." he said sternly. "I apologize, vampires must baptize themselves before entering the sanctuary." Verona said staring down Kaname and Takuma. They exchanged glances before seeing Verona walk toward the back, the two doing as told. Kaien followed them into the sanctuary. Zero stood angry and overcome with envy. They didn't even care about Yuki...and they wanted to help her? Kuran left her to play killing spree and Kaien is back to being a hunter who can barely care for his own foster daughter anymore.
He was the only one that truly cared...because he fell in love with her all over again, regardless of her status. It was her madness...her beautiful madness. He joined them in the sanctuary soon enough to hear Verona explaining to them the whole story about Yuki in the last couple years. Kaname was standing from his seat, face overcome with anger at the two words of "sexual assault", Kaien with a hand over his mouth grief-stricken but accepting his fear had come true. Verona rubbed his nose where his glasses sat upon his bridge, as he played back the recorder for Takuma, Kaname, and Kaien. Once it ended he repeated his theory, then started a new explanation. "Tell me, have you seen her lighter before? The square golden one with the rabbit on it?" he questioned. They all nodded.
Verona looked to the ceiling. "I gave it to her several months ago. It's purpose is the same as creating a monster repellent spray out of perfume for children. I gave her the lighter so that she may place any negative thoughts or auras into it and so she may try and focus on the positive. She might have tried to convince you all she was possessed or she could see entities and talk to them. Yes?" "So you're trying to tell us it's a simple representation of herself trying to talk to us through her hysteria? She's trying to tell us something?" Kaien asked.
"Let me finish. She is in fact tormented by those on the other side. She has a gift that is so powerful and rare it could destroy the supernatural walls that were built to keep humanity safe. It is actually common in the occult world, but that's another story for another time. The point is...she is becoming a looking glass for other spirits; she's been harvesting too much negative energy from possible post traumatic stress and depression. That lighter is what's holding her up." Verona said. The looks on their faces said that it explained a lot, but they also said 'this is our fault...and we don't know how to fix it'. Verona held up her lighter from his pocket. "How did you get it?" Zero asked.
"I suspended it for a time. I wanted her to try and see how she does without it for the mean time." Kaname took the lighter, holding it in his palm for a few seconds. "You had to have smuggled this away from her, she never lets go of it. So you know where she is." Kaname purred. "She's been coming back for confessions. But I am not to give you her whereabouts." Verona said. Kaname slammed the lighter on the desk. "We have a limited time it seems, Father Verona. We can't just wait another few days for her to come by. And this lighter...is just a failed plan. You say she places her negativity into it...one day it will all explode, she will suffer, and it will be rendered useless." Kaien snapped, stabbing his dagger straight into the lighter as if he were trying to kill it.
They all jumped at the sound of a woman's painful scream from somewhere in the church, like she were dying. Verona hurried from the room, all of them following. Verona sped up the stairs to the second sanctuary. He stopped in the doorway. Yuki lie on the floor by the bed she fallen from (judging by the blood streak that led off the bed). She groaned and stirred in extreme discomfort. They didn't listen as the four men burst in after the Father. Yuki's dark grey long sleeve was growing soaked with blood, as she started choking and coughing up blood. Verona knelt beside her removing his greca. "Again?" he said softly to her. Her wound stopped bleeding as she looked at him like he was trying to provoke her.
She finished coughing up the blood as she stood up, using the walls for support. She panted heavily as some blood fell from her chin down her chest. She was a wreck...her hair's ends were wet with blood and the shadows under her eyes turned a sickly olive on her fair skin. Not to mention she looked weak and breakable. Verona still pressed on her stomach, getting the blood flow to stop. The four other men's hearts skipped a beat when Verona froze taking a step back. Yuki looked up like nothing happened, wiping her mouth and smirked. "Thank you." she said in a whisper, almost that of a male. The air thickened and the light inside the sanctuary flickered.