Shattered Angel |Vampire Knight|

♥︎~ChapϮer Ɲɨɳεϯεεɳ~♥︎

~Ｓｔｒｏｎｇ　Ｗｉｎｄｓ~

She flashed the older man in front of her a soft smile before lifting the teacup to her lips. She listened to his tales and complaints on his other two adopted children. There was a moment where her brows knitted together as she carefully listened to the older man.

He keeps talking about them from years ago... but I don't seem to come up in his memories.

Placing the cup down, Dahlia flashed a small smile to the crying man.

"My dear children!" The headmaster cried dramatically. Although she could not pinpoint it Dahlia was sure she felt a bit sadden by each word he spoke. She wondered why...

Taking a moment, Dahlia looked away from her empty cup and looked up at the wailing adult. "Ano, Headmaster?" She called out.

The bespectacled male perked up and noticed her hesitant expression.

"How long have I been under your care?"

There was a pregnant pause until eventually the older man offered a warm smile to her. "So you found out?" She nodded.

"Yes, I heard that... I was recently taken in by you?"

"That's right, I brought you in a few weeks before you woke up."

Her eyes looked down to the black tea in the porcelain cup for a moment until looking back up to the headmaster and saying, "Do you by chance know anything about my background?"

There was a thoughtful look on the headmaster who took a sip of his tea. Coming to a resolution he looked at the brunette teen in front of him.

"You're actually adopted by another family, the Knights." He began. Dahlia took the information in carefully as he continued, "They were a family of vampire hunters, the father from the American Branch of the Hunter Association and the mother from here."

There was an obscured memory in the back of her mind with a man in the kitchen and a distant laugh and then another with a female lounged on the couch lazily. Dahlia tried to dissect the memories and dig deeper but the memory left her mind, leaving her confused. She began to question herself if whether she was remembering something or just imaging something that was not truly there.

"You were with them for the past 10 years, they took you in around the same time as Yuki came here." He spoke with a bit of an underlying emphasis in his words. "You should have both been five years old." He watched her carefully to see if her face revealed any recognition to what he mentioned to her. The confused and pensive look on her face made him curious. "They had two children, one currently unknown and the only one on record is deceased." She took a sharp intake of air and wondered if she had been there to mourn the loss of the two.

A bit hesitant, Dahlia asked: "What happened to them all?"

"There's not much reported on the children, only that the youngest died years ago due to illness and the Knights actually were murdered the day I discovered you. What has been gathered, it was an act of revenge from a vampire, Shizuka Hio, years after their collaborative work with other hunters to eliminate the vampire's loved one." He pushed up his glasses and noticed her flinch at the news.

Tears began to form as she thought about her unknown past.

The Knights... They had been my family just weeks ago and I-I haven't been able to get the chance to mourn for them because of my memory loss. I'm sorry. Her hands gripped the cup tightly.

Kaien watched the teen carefully and held back from saying more.

〜〜

She stared at the child from before, only this time there was two of them who were almost complete identical replicas of each other. Behind them was the collapsed form of another person who she could not make out.

"Dahlia-san." Her attention went to the child covered in ashes and something rust-colored that greeted her with familiarity. Confused the teenager flashed a hesitant small smile at the unknown twins and stared at the darkened area around her.

"Who are you two?" Dahlia finally asked them.

No one answered her but she saw the glowing red eyes of the quiet child that stared at her. Behind them the figure stirred and eventually she recognized herself waking up and smiling kindly at her.

More confused than ever, she watched herself get closer and sit behind the two twins in front of her. Upon closer inspection, she noticed the sickly complexion on her replica and how frail she seemed.

Was this a dream?

She flinched at the outstretched hand of the red-eyed child pointed at Dahlia.

"-- --- ---- -- --------?" The child seemed apathetic but her lips moved and Dahlia could not hear what she said. She attempted to speak but nothing came out of her throat.

Her hands touched her throat that refused to produce sound. She attempted to speak and instead felt something warm flow from her mouth and down her body. Looking down, a puddle of red was beginning to form at her feet.