"Hey this is a very serious breach of manners!" Touma says as he finishes coughing up blood. Bats become Kaname as Touma looks up at him. Touma's little girl companion goes to check on him.
"An actual direct attack to our castle is the same as a declaration of war. Or don't tell me you didn't know such an important thing? Huh, young mister 'leader of our people'?" Touma mocks Kaname even though he is injured. Kaname doesn't answer or move.
After a moment Kaname walks over to a smiling Touma. Kaname reaches a hand to Touma's chin.
"What?" Touma asked.
"They are used to everything being so easy, so they needed a taste of bitter medicine. That's why I won't do more to you than this one last hit." Kaname tells Touma.
Blood taints the floor.
~0~
"Please let me in! You need my blood!" Yuki pleads banging at the door. Even if she broke the door the barrier I made with Blue Rose will take hours before it breaks.
"No! The blood tablets are enough!" I yell trying to make my voice sound angry and not in pain.
"I'm so hungry. My throat is so dry. Zero I want your blood so much!" I plead in my mind. The pain and hunger have caused me to cry. I'm trying so hard not to sob, but it hurts so much.
"No. I don't want his blood!" I argue outloud with myself.
"It's a good thing you didn't take his blood." I open my eyes wide. I turn slowly to find Kaname in my room.
"How did you get in here?" I say omniously with a deadly glare at him.
"I'm here to give you your punishment." He says approaching the bed. I start to laugh like a mad woman.
"Trust me nothing you do will make this pain in my heart worse." I say gasping for breath. Feeling my hunger stir.
His fangs plunge into my neck before I can even realize what's going on. "So your making me even hungrier. Fitting punishment." I say as he takes in big gulps of my blood. I start to feel lightheaded, but I try to stay conscious.
"I am not going to die. No matter what. This is my punishment." I say feeling my feels so light. I can't move at all from all the blood loss. He pulls his fangs out as Yuki runs in.
"Oniisama?! What are you doing to her?!" Yuki yells.
"I'm not actually your brother." My eyes open wide in shock at Kaname's sudden confession. He lifts me up in his arms, and Yuki is left frozen.
"I don't understand." Yuki says still stunned. "Why would you say such a thing?" Yuki follows after us.
"Ever since we've grown up, Oniisama, I feel that you're always hiding some part of yourself. I feel like Alondra knew, but wouldn't tell me." I close my eyes. I couldn't stay conscious anymore.
Kaname carries Alondra down some steps with Yuki following behind him. "The world you see is different from the one I see." Kaname tells her. "And that's precisely why. . ." They make it to the room where Yuki was not allowed in. The underground mausoleum.
"What did you do to my precious girl?" The other Kaname asks as he sees the unconscious girl. Yuki hides behind Kaname and gasps as the other Kaname takes Alondra into his arms, and carries her with him into a far corner. He talks like a mad man and touches the girl's face.
"Wh-who is he? Why does he look like you?!" Yuki asks scared to even approach the other Kaname holding Alondra in his arms.
"That is your real older brother. Well whats left of him." Kaname answers as the door closes behind them.
Kaname picks up Yuki in his arms and lays her on top of the coffin. "What is this place?" Yuki asks too scared to fight or do anything else. She takes a wiff of the air around her.
"This room it feels like it really does have Oniisama's scent in it." Yuki says.
"You are right, Yuki." Kaname answers her.
"I spent forever in slumber in this underground mausoleum." Kaname touches his coffin. "I was inside this coffin all that time. All that long flow of time wishing to be finally reduced to dust, but never having that wish granted." Kaname explains to a stunned Yuki. "I thought that my long jouney had finally ended, but-" Yuki grabs Kaname's sleeve, and looks at him intently.
"The look on your face seems to say that you don't quite understand." Kaname says watching Yuki's eyes. Kaname goes down to Yuki and raises her by her shoulders.
"Here. Do you want blood?" Yuki nods her head. She adjusts herself and slowly makes her way to Kaname's neck.
"You have seen bits of it before, Yuki. I'm sure Alondra's seen it through you as well. My memories you both saw some of them, even if back then you didn't know yet what was going on. The only one who knew a little more was Alondra. The only reason she never told you was because I cast a spell on her preventing her from ever speaking of this." Kaname explains as Yuki grips Kaname's shoulders.
"Oniisama isn't Oniisama. How could I be the only one who did not know something like this?" I hear Yuki question as the shadows of unconsciousness push me out of it's reaches. I see Oniisama before me. I'm too weak to do anything so I let him hold me.
"This man. I had failed at understanding everything about him." I see images of Yuki from the time we were human. Kaname is finally going to show Yuki the truth, but because Yuki and I are twins our minds are connected so I will see and hear what she sees and hears.
"Yes, I have no progress whatsoever since those times." The horrifying images come as Yuki goes on speaking in her own mind. "The memories are flowing in." I see the Oniisama who has me in his arms when he was just a baby. I see that Rido is bleeding out that poor baby. I feel tears pool my eyes, but the memories of Kaname continue to flow.
"It's such irony that this baby was named 'Kaname' like you. That's what got me started thinking this." Rido says with an evil smile as he continues to let the baby bleed. "Rather than just devour this little baby in a haste and that's it. I thought it would be far better to bring you back to life so that I could devour you instead and earn far more power this way. Isn't it a far better idea? What do you say of it, oh ancestor of my Kuran clan?" The madness fills Rido's eyes as he looks down at the ancestor still in his coffin.
"Here it is. Take it, not just the blood, have even its soft flesh too. Kuran blood, the thickest of all that exist." Rido states evilly as he bleeds the baby over the ancestor. The ancestor rises and instantly grips Rido's neck.
Rido starts to laugh as the ancestor tries to claw his neck, but each time Rido heals. The ancestor Kaname's flesh begins to heal and become normal again. "Don't go forgetting who it was that opened the lid of that coffin and brought your filthy carcass back to life. It was me! I'm your owner now, so be an obedient boy while I go and devour your lif-" The ancestor lunges at Rido. He feeds off of Rido as his flesh begins to mend and become whole again, but not completely.
"Can you see them well?" Kaname asks through the memories.
Before baby is sacrificed:
"Good boy, good boy, Kaname." Juri Kuran says affectionately cradling Kaname in her arms. "He's such a good boy, isn't he? Ah!" Juri fawns over her little baby boy. Haruka Kuran looks on at the baby as well. He touches the little baby.
"No way, he made such a weird face just now! It's a waste of his good looks." Haruka jokingly mentions.
"How funny, isn't it?" Juri says.
Rido looks on at the happy couple and their child. "Maybe it is a good thing after all to give birth to a new life, with all the hidden promises and the unknown factor that comes with it." Rido says finally speaking. Juri turns towards him.
"Would you like to hold him in your arms? Huh, Rido-ojisan?" Juri says jokingly to her Oniisama.
Rido does so and picks up baby Kaname in his arm. The baby accidentally urinates. Juri blushes ashamed. "Ah! I'm so sorry! I thought it would still be fine, but-"
"It's because you are bad at changing diapers. I'm very good at it because I have experience taking care of my little brother and little sister." Rido says taking Kaname closer into his arms.
"Let me see. I'll go and get you all cleaned up, Kaname. And I'll also get changed out of my shirt which you got all wet." Rido talks with baby Kaname as he walks out of the living room.
"Brother, I'll take care of. . . Brother?" Haruka calls out as he goes after Rido. When Haruka makes it out Rido is nowhere in sight.
Yuki continues to drink Kaname's blood. "The memories come flowing in." I hear Yuki in my head as I see the memory of the room we are in now.
"Brother! Kaname!" Haruka Kuran calls out. The newly resurected ancestor turns to the closed door as he hears Haruka's voice.
"It would have been better for you to have obediently let me devour you! The baby's life and my blood are nowhere near enough for your body to be fully restored to life." Rido mocks as he laughs at the disfigured ancestor.
The ancestor walks over to the injured Rido. "What are you going to do? There are more members of your kin just over there, will you take their lives as sacrifices? The hunger that accumulated for thousands and thousands of years must be about to slam into you soon. I can't even wrap my mind around how harsh that must be." Rido starts to laugh at the silent ancestor.
The ancestor turns to face the coffin he was just in. He sees the bloody baby blanket. He falls down. "Brother." Haruka calls out as he enters the room.
"It was as that man had said. I was awakened with my body in a much too incomplete of a state." I hear Kaname also invading our thoughts.
Haruka stares with sadness at the scene before him. He sees his unconscious brother. He sees the bloody blanket. He goes to it, and nears it to his face covering his eyes.
"My body, all the way down to its cells, was far too dessicated to be able to reconstruct by itself and the bloodlust was quickly swallowing my mind." My tears don't stop. The awful sight of seeing a baby killed was too much for me. I wanted out, but I couldn't.
Haruka finds the baby, and picks it up. The baby is alive once more. Only this time ancestor Kaname is the one possessing his body. Haruka lifts up the naked baby and presses him close to his body.
"At that moment, the only way for me to completely stabilize myself despite the thirst was for me to make my body regress all the way to that of a baby. So I handed over my life and fate to the two of them, put my own memories to sleep so that that wouldn't get in the way." Kaname explains to us as I see father carrying the baby over to mother.
Kaname looks down at his newborn baby sisters. They looked so similar, but Yuki's hair was a lighter brown and so were her eyes, while Alondra's hair was almost the same color's as Haruka's hair, and her eyes almost looked red instead of brown. Baby Yuki reaches her tiny dimpled hand to Kaname and squeezes his bigger finger. Alondra innocently puts her mouth on Yuki's cheek. Although both baby girls have no idea what they are doing. Now he sees the twins when they were a little older always reaching out their hands to him. Showing him their expressions of love, before one of the twins discovered the truth and distanced herself from him.
Yuki has seen enough and stops drinking Kaname's blood. I'm now face to face with the real Oniisama looking at me with worried eyes. He wipes away my tears. I still feel awful seeing how he was killed, and now this Kaname is using his body. I wanted to reach out to Oniisama, but I didn't have the strength.
"So you were someone who was asleep inside this coffin, Oniisama?" Yuki asks Kaname as she sits on top of him.
"Yes." Is his simple answer.
"May I ask you who you were?" Yuki mentions nearing her face to Kaname's.
"I want to know you better. There's so many things I must ask you." I hear Yuki question in her mind, but out loud she says, "You never said anything about this until now. So why now? Why were you sleeping in here?" Yuki starts to cry, and wipes at her eyes.
"The only Kaname for me is you, Kaname. So please don't worry. It's okay, let it all out tell me everything." Yuki pleads with him. I manage to sit up with the help of Oniisama.
Kaname pushes Yuki off of him so he can sit up. "Oniisama?" She questions him.
"Ask my blood." Kaname tells her. Yuki stares, and then looks over at me.
"Alondra, you need blood now. Please do this for me." Yuki tells me. I stare and want to shake my head, but the look in her eyes is keeping me from doing so. I look away not moving or answering.
"May she, Kaname?" Yuki asks him.
"I was hoping for it." Kaname answers. Yuki comes over to me, and pulls me up. She leads me over to Kaname.
I hesitate to wrap my arms around him, and then I slowly plunge my fangs into his neck.
The snowy night of that winter eleven years ago goes by. "Wait here for a little bit. I have to take out the enemies pursuing us." Kaname carries the unconscious girls in the snowy field. "Don't worry. I'll be back soon to take you to a place where you two will be warm again." Kaname promises the little girls as he lays them near each other in the snow. "The next time you girls open your eyes, you'll look at me with the eyes of someone seeing a stranger, won't you? Girls." Kaname says looking at the sleeping girls.
Yuki and I sit up in that snowy field. "Are you lost, little girls?" We hear the voice of that evil vampire from so long ago. We look behind us. "May I drink your blood?" I quickly go to cover Yuki. I don't seem to think too much of it that we are in our former human bodies as teenagers.
"This is our memory?" We mentally question. I grab Artemis out of nowhere and destroy the bad vampire.
"To drink one's blood is like taking in the person as well. At times, that means you also take in fragments of their memories." We turn to the familiar sound of Shizuka's voice.
"Shizuka?" We both question holding on to each other's hands.
"Juri." We jump startled as Rido traps us in his arms. More vampires appear before us.
"Blood. Give us your bloods." Rido is gone and all these vampires come after us. Their arms trap us and sink us. Yuki and I scream in terror as we are being seperated. We manage to lock fingers for a bit, but suddenly our grip slips, and we sink further into the pit of vampires. Now I fall alone in a dark abyss.
"I forgot my own name because it's been such a long, long time since anyone has called me."
"In that case I'll have your name be 'Kaname' spoken and spelled like the name of my hometown." I open my eyes as I fall.
"I hear people talking." I reach my hand up at the voices. I see glass shards falling with me. Those glass shards have fragments of memories.
"The human population dropped colossally with the climate change. If you want to stay here by yourself do it. I am on a travel to search for others like us, 'people who can't die'." A cloaked man says walking on.
"There must be more somewhere. Farewell, Kaname." The cloaked man says and turns away.
"It doesn't matter if you forget that name too. It's not like you have use for a name anyway, isn't it?"
The clear image falls near me as I watch it.
"Climate? When are those memories from?" I question to no one in particular.
"There was a large scale climate change more than ten thousand years ago. It was at that moment that the founders of our race, who had until then existed scattered on their own all over the world, finally came to realize that there were more people like them."
I recall Aido having had taught us that a while back.
"The time of ancestors. Kaname?" I notice a fragment of memory with him.
"My lord, my lord! Look at this! The harvest this year is so huge! It's thanks to the help of your knowledge, my lord!" A little boy exclaims happily pushing a wagon with the help of an older and bigger man.
Another man is busy checking up on a bed ridden woman. Blood is taken out of the woman with a needle.
"My lord! Are the rumors true? Is it true that night after night, you take little bits of blood from us villagers as we're asleep? Aside from that, you almost never go out in the sun, my lord. You've been giving us your own blood in the place of medicine, and your looks have not changed at all since the generation of my father." Kaname stays silent staring at the villagers he helped, but also stole from.
"There are people saying things of you. Calling you 'monster', and 'unnatural'" The villagers raise their pitchforks, and farming tools.
"You beast!"
"Give back the blood you took from us!"
"You'll pay us back with your own blood!"
"Dirty freak!"
"Pour out your medicine blood for us!" Villagers scream out coming closer with their farm tools turned into weapons.
"Kaname." Someone calls out to him as he managed to run away. "It's only natural that the humans would fear powerful beings so different from them. Our people must live away from them. It's for their own good as well. There's a place with people like us, come on." The cloaked figure stretches a hand out towards Kaname.
"Those people are the beginning of what has become the entire vampire race we have nowadays.This is so far in the past that just looking at it makes me feel tired." I rub at my tired eyes as I continue to fall.
"When I see the lonely figure of Kaname standing still all by himself in those memories of the past. Zero and him are alike." Even a fragment of Zero falls by me. The fragments show a bunch of cloaked figures.
"I'm worried, you know? There's people who have been creating more and more servants for fun. Even though we don't need to turn that many to live. And it's not like the turned servants survive off of thin air either." A cloaked figure says to Kaname and another cloaked figure.
"I have a terribly bad feeling about this. They say they're helping each other and that things are going well, but-"
"Kaname. Wake up. That was the first time ever that I've seen one of us passed out on the ground. This happens to you because you continually refuse to go find yourself some volunteers willing to be turned into servants." A cloaked figure explains. They pull their sleeve back, and reveal their wrist.
"Drink. And don't you go and say you forgot how to use your fangs or something like that. I'll have you repay this favor right away. Lend me your power." The cloaked figure says.
I watch and continue to fall in the endless abyss along with the falling fragments of memories.