Learning the limits of her powers was exhausting.
Aidou was quick to praise her progress whenever her determination flagged, replaced by frustration. Proficiency with magic would come to her with time.
Yuuki genuinely adored the blond vampire, but his reminders that vampires normally practiced their magic from the cradle did nothing to convince her she would miraculously become a capable magic user in time for her ritual battle with Shirabuki.
The stress of her situation was crushing her, as if someone was stacking cinderblocks upon her shoulders.
She was freaking out about being a mother to twins. Her family had been torn apart over jealousy and she feared it would be the same for her children. Vampires had children so rarely. What if she had two girls or two boys, and then never managed to have more children? Would the siblings resent each other? Would they be cursed like Zero and his twin?
Nobody had answers for her. They assured Yuuki that she had nothing to worry about, but she wanted proof. She wanted to read from a diary of the last vampire to birth twins that nothing would go wrong and that her children would have a bond as close as she and Kaname had.
She also still had to keep up with her coronation planning. Regardless of who would win their decisive fight, there was going to be a coronation at the end. Yuuki had put so much effort into the researching and planning, knowing the vampire nobility would mentally castigate her for every perceived flaw, and organizing this grand affair was the one thing her brother had asked of her.
Kaname was the source of at least half her stress. She was tired of his games and half-truths and the way he still held himself at a distance. What did she have to do to prove herself?
She had forgiven him for killing her only other friend besides Yori. She stalwartly supported his plans to remove the senate and place himself in charge. The aristocrats might see another Kuran making a power play, but Kaname truly wanted to improve their society. The vampire nation was languishing, embroiled in maintaining the status quo.
Speaking of Yori, his schemes had resulted in her best friend being turned into a vampire, something she had never indicated wanting. By her own admission, Sara intended to let Yori sink to level E status before unleashing her upon Yuuki so that the Pureblood would be torn apart by the guilt for failing to protect her friend.
Her relationship with Yori was deteriorating. She didn't deliberately avoid her, like exiting a room if Yuuki entered, but stayed mostly sequestered in the room she had been provided. During the sunlight hours, it was understandable. As a new vampire, Yori had no tolerance or resistance to the sun. Like all the myths and stories depicted, her best friend rose and set with the pale glow of the moon. Whenever she did emerge, Yori was quiet and withdrawn.
Yuuki couldn't help but feel like she was to blame even though Kaname was the one responsible for including Yori in his plans.
He promised her they were in this together, but Yuuki felt as if Kaname was holding their hand close to his chest. How was she supposed to navigate her new life when she didn't know what cards she had?
Ever since her pregnancy had been revealed, Kaname had been overbearing in his drive to protect her. She wasn't made privy to his plans anymore. Instead of being his equal, her brother was treating her like just another pawn on the board.
She had silently supported him from the beginning, as Yuuki Cross who was going to be the Human Consort because that was what Kaname wanted and was later revealed to be Yuuki Kuran. It hurt to realize that she didn't matter to him as much as he did her.
Her brother was her world even before she had been made aware the true nature of their relationship. Yet, Yuuki was nothing more than another piece on the board that he could move about at his whim.
"I knew you could do it, Yuuki-sama!" She was brought out of her reverie by Aidou cheers to find the window curtains ablaze. "Not what we were aiming for, but you did magic! Now, focus. Whatever you were just thinking worked. Let's see if you can do it again."
Aidou froze the flames, and the sudden weight sent the curtains crashing to the ground. He stared at the crumpled fabric, panicked. His lord probably wasn't going to be happy with wanton destruction even if Yuuki was the responsible party. He created a layer of ice underneath, several feet in circumference, so the carpet wouldn't catch fire as well.
For her part, Yuuki frowned at the remains of the drapery. She had thought mental focus was required to perform magic, but she hadn't been thinking at all about setting the curtains on fire. In fact, she was supposed to be trying to pull a candlestick down the table towards her. It was just so hard to focus on practicing her magic when every failed attempt reminded her that she was an outsider.
She hadn't grown up a vampire. If she had, maybe she would have stood a chance against Sara. Six months simply wasn't enough time to make any sort of headway to put her on equal footing against a Pureblood that had been born into this life and playing the game for more decades than Yuuki has been alive.
She had thought Sara was supposed to be a non-issue. Kaname claimed she didn't have a leg to stand on once Yuuki's true heritage was revealed. The nobility was supposed to flock to the sibling pair like headless chickens in need of direction, after which Kaname would reveal he was the ancestral vampire reborn.
Yuuki knew her brother. He wouldn't hesitate to do whatever he deemed necessary to consolidate their power base and stack the cards in their favor.
From a political standpoint, she could understand why he would allow the Shirabuki Pureblood to throw her hat in the ring by calling upon one of their ancient traditions. By allowing Sara the chance to take the throne through legitimate means, Kaname was espousing himself as a fair ruler and that, despite his push for progress and peace with the human race, that he still held to and respected vampire traditions.
No doubt Sara was aware Kaname would have the final say in who won. She would know going into it that she was at a disadvantage. But it wouldn't matter if Kaname intended to declare his sister the victor if Sara handily defeated her because her opponent was green and unskilled and unpracticed.
And that was Yuuki's biggest point of contention.
She didn't stand a chance of dying in this battle. Purebloods were notoriously hard to kill. She could survive getting her head cut off, so long as it was done by anything other than an anti-vampire weapon, and Yuuki was the only vampire capable of wielding one, so she didn't have to worry about that. However, Sara was still fully capable of decimating her and ripping her to pieces.
Sure, Yuuki would survive. Kaname's blood would heal her, stitching her body back together. But if that happened, Kaname couldn't, in good spirit, name her the winner. He would have to choose Sara or lose the support of the aristocrat ranks.
That very real possibility was why she was so frustrated with her brother. He had orchestrated for this very outcome, thinking there was no way he wouldn't come out on top, that he had complete control of the board and knew when and where every piece was going to move.
He had put her and their unborn children—and she was beyond pissed that he had sat on the knowledge she was having twins and soothed her concern when she panicked about how her pregnancy didn't match the books—in danger by drugging her and delivering her like a hand wrapped present to Shirabuki so she could make the move he arranged for her to make.
How could he be so callous with their lives? Why was he willing to risk everything he had spent years orchestrating on his untrained sister emerging victorious?
And he wasn't even in the mansion. Kaname had vanished in the early hours of the morning to continuing courting the aristocracy to his side, leaving her training in Aidou's and Akatsuki's hands.
Right now, she wanted nothing more than to scream at him, to lay her emotions and insecurities and frustrations bear and see if her emotional turmoil was enough to set him ablaze like the curtains.
"Focus, please, Yuuki-sama. I know you can do this. If you keep progress like this—"
"I'm not making any progress, Aidou!" she snapped, uncaring of how he wilted in the face of her anger. "We weren't even working on creating fire. I was supposed to telekinetically move a candlestick and I messed it up! I'm going to be no match for Sara because I don't have years practice."
Yuuki would normally feel guilty for an outburst like that. It's not Aidou's fault that both Yori and Kaname are avoiding her, but she wasn't going to force herself on her best friend (if Yori even still thought of her in that manner) while she was trying to adjust to vampirism, she couldn't yell at her brother when he barely stayed long enough for them to mutually feed before vanishing to glad-hand with another noble.
Her brother was well aware of the rage and hurt she currently carried in her heart, and knew he deserved all of it and then some. He likely thought that he was giving her space to sort out her feelings and deal with the everything she had learned in the wake of her abduction, but he was only adding to the mess.
She had the right to feel used and frustrated and angry and she wasn't going to feel sorry for her emotions or apologize for the way she felt.
She really just wanted fifteen minutes where she could yell at her brother uninterrupted. They had just been forcefully separated for three weeks. It didn't matter to Yuuki that he returned every night when he slept in a separate room. It was the principle of the matter. She craved his taste, his scent, his touch, like the pregnant woman she was, and the stored thermos just weren't cutting it. If he would stop hiding behind his work like a coward and let her scream at him until her throat was hoarse, they could move past this tension and maybe she would be able to focus on her magic lessons before Sara Shirabuki beheaded her.
Yuuki blinked when the object of her attention suddenly appeared before her. Was it that late, already? Why hadn't Akatsuki forced them to break for the evening meal?
"Kaname-nii-sama? I thought you were out visiting the nobility."
"I was, until moments ago."
His lips were upturned with amusement while his wine-colored eyes radiated pride. Yuuki surmised the meeting must have gone well, although she couldn't imagine one of those stuffy lords making her brother laugh.
Aidou was faster on the uptake than her. The blond vampire began bouncing excitedly around her and Kaname and babbling rapidly. "That was astounding, Yuuki-sama. Finding your unique power so soon is a miracle, and it's incredibly useful. With your permission, my lord, we should work exclusively on this, see exactly what you can do. Shirabuki won't know what hit her."
"What are you talking about, Aidou?" Yuuki questioned, gaze returning to the chard remains of their drapes. "Setting things on fire is something most vampires can do."
Her protector gawked at her. "You don't realize what you did?"
Yuuki furrowed her brows, thoroughly confused. Had she spaced out so spectacularly that she couldn't remember performing a second act of magic? She discretely eyed the drawing room they were using for these training sessions. Aside from the curtain disaster, everything else was unchanged.
"You summoned my lord! You were glaring at me so furiously that I thought you would set me on fire next and then he appeared out of thin air."
"Don't be ridiculous, Aidou. I can't even move a candlestick at will, let alone yank my brother home."
"Well, I wouldn't use the word yank."
Yuuki turned her frown upon her brother, unable to believe that he was playing along with Aidou. Jokes were not Kaname's forte, nor was he prone to humoring Aidou's dramatics. Not to his face, at least.
Kaname swept her into his embrace, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. "Teleportation is quite a useful ability. Although, pleased as I am that you desired my presence so desperately as to unlock your unique magical ability, I do need you to send me back before Isaya believes I have spurned him."
Spurned? That raised all sorts of red flags in Yuuki's mind. "Isaya?"
"An old friend of your father. He woke from his slumber recently."
"Another Pureblood. Just how many of them are sleeping?" Yuuki had thought Sara, her brother, and herself were all that remained. Or, so Kaname had led her to believe.
"The exact number is unknown. Purebloods guard their coffins with extreme measures to prevent being slaughtered while the years pass. Until they awake and rejoin society, it's impossible to know which families have truly died out."
Yuuki accepted his explanation. Her brother wasn't one to count chickens before they hatched, which is exactly what he would have been doing if he wanted to search out carefully hidden to sway to his cause. No, it was more practical to deal with the current thorns in his side and not needless search out more Purebloods to throw in the mix.
Still. "Teleportation? Truly?"
"I believe so, my love. One moment I was conversing with Isaya, and the next I was standing before you."
"Would have been really handy to have unlocked that three weeks ago," grumbled Yuuki, thinking back to the day Shirabuki stopped provided her with fresh blood and the Kuran princess had panicked for her unborn children.
"Indeed," her brother chuckled. "Perhaps that ordeal is why you manifested an ability to teleport. I've always believed that Purebloods' unique powers were too personal to be a whim of fate. Regardless of its origin, teleportation will serve you well when it comes time to face Sara."
The stress of her situation came crashing down upon her once more. "If I can figure out how to make it work. I don't even know how I managed it the first time."
"That's what practice is for, dear Yuuki. Why don't you try sending me back? I'll send a bat to inform Isaya what happened and to expect me to appear in his home unexpectedly."
"But I don't know where you were," Yuuki frowned.
Kaname shrugged elegantly. "That did not prevent you from bringing me to your side."
"But that's different!" she protested. He raised a slender brow in response. "Isn't it?" she posed, now uncertain.
"It's no matter if you cannot. I'll simply inform Isaya I'll call upon him again tomorrow."
At those words, the fury that had been quashed beneath her confusion and excitement—she had read a few comic books and teleportation was a pretty awesome ability—crested. Kaname didn't believe she could do it a second time? He wanted to vanish into the bowels of the mansion after such an amazing discovery? He couldn't be bothered to help her and Aidou figure out how to control her power?
She may have disrupted his day, but it was unintentional and ultimately for a good reason. Why couldn't he take the time to be with her and celebrate her accomplishment?
Ever optimistic, Yuuki hadn't believed she stood a chance against Sara until just now and Kaname wanted to act like this moment wasn't important because discovering her special power was expected of her.
Why had she so anxiously wanted him to return home? Now Yuuki had a million more things she wanted to drag him over the coals for and she just couldn't handle that right now in the wake of how much work she was in for learning to control her ability.
If he wanted to be gone so badly, why hadn't he already left?
Aidou's loud whooping broke through her red haze. Kaname was gone. Only she and Aidou were in the room. "You did it, Yuuki-sama! I knew you could."
She smiled wryly. "At least someone did."
He blinked, perplexed by the rejoinder. "Now we have to replicate it, but perhaps not with my lord, this time. I don't think he would appreciate a second interruption."
No, he wouldn't, Yuuki agreed bitterly to herself. "That might be a problem, Aidou. It seems to only work when I'm angry at him."
The blond vampire was rather blasé about that revelation. "We'll work on that. First outburst usually are emotional, but we'll have you teleporting on command in no time, my lady."
Yuuki allowed herself a smile, once again grateful that Aidou had taken to her so readily. If Aidou believed she could, Yuuki would practice until teleporting things was natural.
Not to mention, it would be fun to take some of her brother's coveted control and yank him around for a change.